Justice--Have I asked this one before?
Disclaimer: There are assumptions in here that I do not explicitly state as such. If any of my assertions are incorrect, please let me know.
I've heard the term "justice" used in conjunction with the current financial situation quite a bit lately, especially with the recent revelation of the AIG bonuses. It's been along the lines that people want to make sure that "justice is served" and that the people who created this mess are "brought to justice."
I was about to write, "that's a noble sentiment, but..." but I'm not sure that I actually feel that way; I'm not sure I can even get that far without tripping myself up on my own point that I want to make here. It seems to me that people are being careless with a very important word, and I always get upset when that happens. Justice is one of our dearest tenets; it's so important to us that we have dedicated one of our government's three branches to it.
Or perhaps I misunderstand the word. I thought that justice was, by definition, relevant to law. If the law is broken, justice is served by attempting to undo, minimize, or repair the effects of the transgression. Those who break the law are brought to justice by being forced to contribute, often heavily, to that reparation. Sometimes they are also incarcerated, to protect the general populace from them until it can be ascertained whether they present any further threat to their fellow humans. At least that's how I understand it is ideally supposed to work. My understanding is that the contracts granting the bonuses were all done on the up and up, completely within the boundaries of the relevant laws; no law has been broken by giving these people these bonuses. To say that they must be brought to justice for receiving their rightful bonuses is grossly unfair, for they have broken no laws and therefore committed no injustice and yet it as much as calls them criminals.
... or perhaps things are more deeply broken than I originally suspected. Perhaps justice means something else to most people these days. What that something else is, I am not sure. The best thing I can think of is that it means the fulfillment of their own moral expectations. But this is treacherous ground to tread. One of the reasons we have the legal system that we have is because of that tremendous range of moral expectations. It's supposed to provide something that, while it does not completely satisfy anyone's moral expectations, neither does it completely ignore anyone's moral expectations; a massive compromise. It seems, however, that more and more people are looking to the Executive and Legislative branches for justice than they are looking to the Judicial branch, and that worries me. I say that it is treacherous ground, and that it worries me, because it seems to me that it is a departure from the principles on which this country was intended to be run. We seem to be making this change blindly, without consideration of the consequences. Perhaps the current system is not working. Perhaps this is the best thing to do in the long run. But I cannot believe that it will lead to a more healthy or fulfilled country if we do it in a headlong rush.
Bah. I was all set to try to make some grand point about how, if you want to see people brought to justice, you have to change the laws so that they actually match up with your idea of what justice would look like, but then I got all sidetracked. Much like if you want a computer program to perform a certain operation for you then you must make sure that it is designed to correctly perform that operation, if you want to see justice served then you must have in place a legal system and laws that are capable of producing your idea of justice.
Divided, we are falling. Now, I think, it is a matter of whether we fall together... or fall apart.
I've heard the term "justice" used in conjunction with the current financial situation quite a bit lately, especially with the recent revelation of the AIG bonuses. It's been along the lines that people want to make sure that "justice is served" and that the people who created this mess are "brought to justice."
I was about to write, "that's a noble sentiment, but..." but I'm not sure that I actually feel that way; I'm not sure I can even get that far without tripping myself up on my own point that I want to make here. It seems to me that people are being careless with a very important word, and I always get upset when that happens. Justice is one of our dearest tenets; it's so important to us that we have dedicated one of our government's three branches to it.
Or perhaps I misunderstand the word. I thought that justice was, by definition, relevant to law. If the law is broken, justice is served by attempting to undo, minimize, or repair the effects of the transgression. Those who break the law are brought to justice by being forced to contribute, often heavily, to that reparation. Sometimes they are also incarcerated, to protect the general populace from them until it can be ascertained whether they present any further threat to their fellow humans. At least that's how I understand it is ideally supposed to work. My understanding is that the contracts granting the bonuses were all done on the up and up, completely within the boundaries of the relevant laws; no law has been broken by giving these people these bonuses. To say that they must be brought to justice for receiving their rightful bonuses is grossly unfair, for they have broken no laws and therefore committed no injustice and yet it as much as calls them criminals.
... or perhaps things are more deeply broken than I originally suspected. Perhaps justice means something else to most people these days. What that something else is, I am not sure. The best thing I can think of is that it means the fulfillment of their own moral expectations. But this is treacherous ground to tread. One of the reasons we have the legal system that we have is because of that tremendous range of moral expectations. It's supposed to provide something that, while it does not completely satisfy anyone's moral expectations, neither does it completely ignore anyone's moral expectations; a massive compromise. It seems, however, that more and more people are looking to the Executive and Legislative branches for justice than they are looking to the Judicial branch, and that worries me. I say that it is treacherous ground, and that it worries me, because it seems to me that it is a departure from the principles on which this country was intended to be run. We seem to be making this change blindly, without consideration of the consequences. Perhaps the current system is not working. Perhaps this is the best thing to do in the long run. But I cannot believe that it will lead to a more healthy or fulfilled country if we do it in a headlong rush.
Bah. I was all set to try to make some grand point about how, if you want to see people brought to justice, you have to change the laws so that they actually match up with your idea of what justice would look like, but then I got all sidetracked. Much like if you want a computer program to perform a certain operation for you then you must make sure that it is designed to correctly perform that operation, if you want to see justice served then you must have in place a legal system and laws that are capable of producing your idea of justice.
Divided, we are falling. Now, I think, it is a matter of whether we fall together... or fall apart.