Justice

[black monster]

punishment of a person who wronged one to demand justice

that is the definition of justice.

but what really is justice?
is it executing a criminal?
is it even tangible or is it a state of mind?
does it even exist?

i was watching a police show the other day, and at the end when they caught the killer and he is sentenced to 25 to life, the policeman says ' justice was served'
and i thought that is not justice, its making society safer, but not justice .

your thoughts?
ps this has nothing to do with sentencing, its about the concept of justice, if i hadnt made that clear

[EXEs]

Justice, in my opinion, is the amount of punishment that an individual should recieve for commiting an offense. I support the capital punishment, if an individual killed someone else, because no amount of years can make up for a life. Giving 25 years- life in prison is not a punishment, in my eyes. You are providing free shelter, food, and care to an individual who doesn't have to work (They make you do some work in prisons amirite?) with money on their mind. Locking away a person is, as you said, making society safer, but does it punish the person? No, because rather, he is given a priviledge. Punishment should be equal to what he did. But my ideal is rather flawed, in the instance if he tortured a person, should justice be inflicting the same amount of pain back to him? It seems quite barbaric.

[Fome]

Originally Posted by EXEs

Justice, in my opinion, is the amount of punishment that an individual should recieve for commiting an offense. I support the capital punishment, if an individual killed someone else, because no amount of years can make up for a life. Giving 25 years- life in prison is not a punishment, in my eyes. You are providing free shelter, food, and care to an individual who doesn't have to work (They make you do some work in prisons amirite?) with money on their mind. Locking away a person is, as you said, making society safer, but does it punish the person? No, because rather, he is given a priviledge. Punishment should be equal to what he did. But my ideal is rather flawed, in the instance if he tortured a person, should justice be inflicting the same amount of pain back to him? It seems quite barbaric.

Locking people up is not really about punishment. As said, it's about sequestering dangerous individuals from society. A judge doesn't have childish notions of righteousness, that "bad people ought to be made to feel bad." About capital punishment, there have been many cases of individuals sent to death row mistakenly, with their innocence only uncovered after their demise. With jailing people, you still have the chance to pull them out if an error is made.

[KholdStare]

I'm for capital punishment but don't think that it is the best way to handle punishments. The reason is capital punishment is not enough. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to give capital punishment, but since capital punishment is closest to what most people want to be done to the criminal as retribution, I feel indifferent about it.

So what exactly is justice? There is no justice, but there is only attempts to justify all means. It's how close these attempts get to justice without resorting to cruel and unusual punishments that defines the justice we have today.

What you people should think about is the punishment that is imprisonment. I personally think that it is a wonderful punishment. At first glance, they get free food, okay. However, I value entertainment and happiness to be one of the main reasons to be alive. I would rather work 8 hours a day and spend time enjoying life with my family, friends, and most importantly, with anime. In jail, you get free food without having to work for it. Then you get to sit on your ass in your cell doing nothing. Sure there's TV...so? You have no freedom, and that's, in my view, is one of the most painful punishments.

Of course that's from my perspective, which is, a normal person. For someone who has nothing left in life, they've had so many things in their record that they will be rejected for just about every job, they have no contact with their families, their friends includes gang members and fellow criminals, then yes, maybe they might not mind prison life. This really makes you think, doesn't it? Here's a thought. Why do criminals run to avoid being captured? Is it because, maybe they don't want to go to prison? Maybe we don't know the reason, but the fact is, prison still restricts their freedom, and once again, it is one of the most painful punishments.

But coming back to justice, according to my definition, is imprisonment the closest you can get to justice without resorting to cruel and unusual punishment? Let's say they only robbed a bank. They shouldn't die for that, right? Since there is really nothing between imprisonment and capital punishment for normal crimes, then imprisonment is the best possible punishment. Since there is nothing between capital punishment (assuming that it is painless) and torture to death for larger crimes, then capital punishment (or lesser punishments depending on your view; I'm not trying to support capital punishment here, so don't stray from the subject) is indeed the closest you can come to justice. Just like how the sine of x approaches x as x approaches 0, the closer you come to justice, the closer you can find justice, but you can never achieve justice.

[Slice of Life]

Justice means righting wrongs. Civil law typically deals with something like that, with questions like "Who's actually the owner of X" or "With how much money can damage Y be compensated".

The goals of criminal procedures and the following punishment are (or should be) 1. deterrence, 2. 'educating' the criminal, 3. keeping him away from society (in extreme cases). That means their goal is to reduce crime.

A penalty can only be just or unjust in the light of the above not in itself. It must weight the rights of the offender against the rights of people to live in a society as crime-free as possible. In so far it can be unjustly hard or soft. A penalty is not about answering suffering with suffering. It doesn't make anything right that was wrong. That's revenge, not justice.

[Mueti]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

A penalty is not about answering suffering with suffering. It doesn't make anything right that was wrong. That's revenge, not justice.

What I was gonna say. Strange notions around here - why are some of you thinking "punishment" when reading "justice"? Those two are fundamentally different.

Also, I think ideal justice is impossible to achieve since most wrongs can never entirely be made up for. And, of course, there would have to be a consensus of what is wrong in the first place as a basis as well - also impossible. What's left is the nearest approximation of the current notion of what constitutes justice within the given system of laws. Which sometimes also can result in revenge - but that'll never really solve any problems.

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by Mueti

What I was gonna say. Strange notions around here - why are some of you thinking "punishment" when reading "justice"? Those two are fundamentally different.

Also, I think ideal justice is impossible to achieve since most wrongs can never entirely be made up for. And, of course, there would have to be a consensus of what is wrong in the first place as a basis as well - also impossible. What's left is the nearest approximation of the current notion of what constitutes justice within the given system of laws. Which sometimes also can result in revenge - but that'll never really solve any problems.

That's because I used punishment to argue that justice can never be achieved.

[black monster]

The meaning of justice can change from one day to the next. the only meaning that i always use is this " giving something to the people equally ( each one takes the same amount of that thing)."

[Reckoner]

Justice is perhaps one of the most overused terms used in justifying actions by people. It also perhaps usually the stupidest term to ever be used as a justification. The longevity of this myth of what is correct or not in life is quite appalling. Justice can be interpreted as righting these wrong actions, but this delves into other things.

What is the definition of right?

1. Morally good, justified, acceptable.

Definition of moral?

1. Concerned with the principles of right or wrong behavior, the goodness and badness of human character

Definition of good?

1. That which is morally right

So wait, I think we just hit a loop in the definitions. So how do we determine what is right? If we can't determine that we cannot use justice as our justification! Being right, is of course, relative. Take terrorists for example, they truly think they're right. It's justice to fly a plane and kill thousands of people in a building.

Usually there are some rights that can be universally considered to be right, but right to some in certain areas is not right to others.

For example, I personally see nothing wrong with nudity in movies or even in real life, other conservative people may consider it to be morally wrong. This is where justice is going to start getting skewed. Is it right to kill criminals who killed others? Is it right to keep people who did such crimes in jail for the rest of their lives? What really is morally correct?

The topic of justice can best be surmised as one of emotional weight, those who seek justice are those who feel emotionally attached to the issue. When something is determined by pure emotions, it is already worthless. We only keep people in jail so that society is safer, to attribute this to justice is foolhardy.

[Tiberium Wolf]

Justice is whatever those in power makes of it. Those in power impose their justice. It has always been like that.

[black monster]

A professional soldier never brings justice into the mission. Politics are fickle, they change with the times. So long as we remain loyal to our countries, soldiers like us need nothing to believe in.

[Amray]

The problem with justice is that so many people have many different views on it and what they would deem as "justice" that the correct way of encountering an event is not always the right one. This is of course assuming there is actually a right choice in the matter.

Nevertheless justice can be carried out if the lives of many people are in danger, but the occurance is prevented. That would be justice through the eyes of many beholders as society would be able to continue to exist naturally. Of course there will always be the few individuals that detest the way in which the Earth has progressed and if this were the case then obviously they would not see this as Justice, nonetheless the majority of citizens that survived this unspecified impact would.

Let us say that a very happy family man were to have his entire family murdered by a mysterious killer, which he did not deserve, and then the family man, the victim of the aftermath of this slaughter that left him with nothing, found the killer, and then killed him. Some would deem this as justice, including the misfortunate family man as he has just left his family to rest as their killer was silenced. This murderer could also have been capable of murdering more people in the future so it is a good thing that he was killed. Yet this depressed family man is also a murderer, making his actions the same to that of the murderer himself, especially if this murderer also had a family in which case his children would be missing a father. A lot of people clearly state that murder is never a good thing no matter what the reason, yet on the inside some people think differently. Some will be praising this man that had taken the life of a murderer, yet some would look at him as being no better than the other murderer. Hence justice is, yet at the same time is not, served.

Justice is seen through the eyes of the beholder.

[Kusa-San]

I think it's important to make the difference between personnal justice and society justice. The first one is what we think about being right or being wrong. It's our personal view on justice and it's different for each individual. But personnal justice must not prevail over society justice. Society justice is composed of law and it's these law which defined our society. It's these law which made our society herself. If you respect your sence of justice but not the society justice then you're in infraction. It's important because if there is no society justice then there is no rules and then it's the chaos since everyone will do what they think it will be right. That's why personal justice must not prevail over society justice.

[Kafriel]

Society has established laws and constitutions so as to represent what's "best for everyone". It may not be perfect, but it's what makes a country move forward-without justice, there is chaos.Personal justice varies by person (duh:P) but if you think that public justice consists of many personal justices merged together, they often overlap on most parts.
About the OP's question: it depends on what that person did; if he killed someone or hurt others in ways they won't forget, then that is what is best for everyone (the offender included, because hopefully by then he will have repented for his actions and be able to live on normally, while a lesser penalty might have left him indifferent and he'd commit another crime, and a higher one would take away his chance at life).

[Spectacular_Insanity]

There can exist no crime for which there is no punishment. If there's no punishment for it, then under the law it is not a crime because crimes are punished.

But what is proper punishment? That's where most people diverge in their opinions. is it an "eye for an eye", or do we take a rehabilitative approach? This is part of the core debate of many countries' criminal justice system.

For instance, would one catagorize revenge as justice? I can see both arguments as to why it would be and why it wouldn't be. It is supposedly righting a wrong, but often causes more pain in general, and thus ceases to be "right" in many people's minds.

This is an extremely hard question that doesn't have a universal answer that I can think of, unfortunately.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Kusa-San

I think it's important to make the difference between personnal justice and society justice. The first one is what we think about being right or being wrong. It's our personal view on justice and it's different for each individual. But personnal justice must not prevail over society justice. Society justice is composed of law and it's these law which defined our society. It's these law which made our society herself. If you respect your sence of justice but not the society justice then you're in infraction. It's important because if there is no society justice then there is no rules and then it's the chaos since everyone will do what they think it will be right. That's why personal justice must not prevail over society justice.

I would tend to say that in general it is necessary for society's justice to previal in order to maintain order, but I'd never say this as an absolute, because there are quite a few cases I've seen where society's justice (AKA the law) has clearly been in the wrong. Actually, I'd go as far as to say that the law by definition can never be fully just, it's just too rigid. As a anime board, we're actually home to a really good example of this: most of us would probably consider some form of copyright law necessary, yet get most of our anime via fansubs which violate international copyrights, and many of us think the anime industry benefits from those subs.

@Spectacular Insanity:
Personally, I think punishment should be based on the criterea of deterrence, not revenge (personal or societal). But that runs into some tricky issues, particularly as to whether the deterrent actually works. A lot of crime is committed by people who clearly didn't think about the consequences of their actions, so how would making the consequences worse have prevented anything?

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Actually, I'd go as far as to say that the law by definition can never be fully just, it's just too rigid.

How can this make sense, unless justice is arbitrary? Isn't it theoretically possible to write extremely detailed and complicated laws that cover all of our intuitions about justice? That is if justice exists at all. The only way justice could not be theoretically described by some kind of laws is if its always changing, based not on the circumstances of the case, but based on the person deciding what is just. Which means that its inherently biased and not objective at all.

Are you a moral relativist? Your judgment of some things as "clearly wrong" suggests you aren't, but...

Edit: Oh yeah, justice, haha. We can distinguish between "forward looking" and "backward looking" justice.

On one hand we have the pragmatic side of things, which is to make sure that it doesn't happen again. This can be done in several ways, but the important thing is generally to get the criminal off the streets, either temporarily or permanently. Deterrence is also important (scare off potential criminals with threat of punishment). Importantly for this kind of justice is the idea that the law must be infallible (or have self-correcting components within itself). Revenge or mitigating circumstances are almost irrelevant, because the whole point is to stabilize. Everyone "taking the law into their own hands" is bad for society. In fact, guilt is almost irrelevant. Punishing an innocent for someone else's crime is almost as good, if you can control the media well enough.

On the other hand we have the idea that someone is a bad person and deserves bad things, however those come about. The law is merely a way of ensuring those bad things will come. Well, that's pretty simple. Incidentally, this is completely useless for society, and as they always say "it won't bring your loved ones back." This is the emotional side of things.

Most societies use something between these two extremes.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Clarste

How can this make sense, unless justice is arbitrary? Isn't it theoretically possible to write extremely detailed and complicated laws that cover all of our intuitions about justice? That is if justice exists at all. The only way justice could not be theoretically described by some kind of laws is if its always changing, based not on the circumstances of the case, but based on the person deciding what is just. Which means that its inherently biased and not objective at all.

Are you a moral relativist? Your judgment of some things as "clearly wrong" suggests you aren't, but...

Well, in theory you could write a law so detailed that it covers everything, but practically it's not possible. In practice, law is kind of a "best guess" at what will produce just outcomes most of the time, there's always going to be some examples of cases where following the letter of the law isn't good for anyone involved.

I don't think I'd qualify as a relativist because while I believe that morals have to be flexible to accommodate situations, I still have underlying principles I believe should be adhered to in all situations.

In the cases where I say that I think the law is clearly wrong (I see the overall result of drug prohibition as causing more harm than good, for example), I do admit that there's other opinions out there. However, while I know this probably makes me sound a bit high and mighty, but I have no problem with the idea that other people are wrong about an issue, even if I won't say it to their face.

[ClockWorkAngel]

That why there cna be no logic until we create several logic engines to interept a situation!

But in all seriousness justice is something that comes eventually. Like Karma it has a way to deliver itself, even if some cases it requires a magical vigilante to save the "day". It isn't always delivered and may fail to impress.

@Fox I have to agree with the drug prohibition, it allowed a great black market to erupt. Drugs like cigarettes should be monitored and controlled, but like cigarettes kids are still going to get them, so why fuss and waste billions of dollars into law enforcement and why not just let private industry go screw themselves over with all the money they'll get. Hey it's more taxes in and less taxes out and I'm pretty sure that the people who are going to get high would have still done so, but has 1. Paid some sales tax 2. Bought it legally 3. Isn't buying a fake and injecting cement into their veins.

Law can only do so much and laws must have been made by someone and as such atleast 1 person in the world will find something subjectively wrong with it, because they are afterall a different person.

[Kusa-San]

It's true that law don't covers everything but that's why there is judge for interpreting the different possible case. And that's why the case law is very important because it allows to the judge to be coherent in their decision.

And by the way it make me think that there is something that i don't like at all about USA justice : crimnial court don't hold civil court ! In the end you can be innoncent with the criminal court but not with the civil court ! O_o (that and the fact that everyone now bring suit for absolutely nothing ...).
And sorry for my bad english