wesmorris:
Which is ultimately how things really are, don't you think? Seriously? Does "justice" in and of itself protect society? Is that how the problem of stablity should be approached? To me, it seems that in terms of the systems involved, the past is the past. Certainly it sucks that whatever badness happened did, but at the point at which it is part of the past it cannot be changed. There is no means to recitify past events.
Whilst we can surely not erase the past - and indeed, in such a way is justice impotent - we can attempt to rectify conditions to such an extent as past violations are mitigated in the harm they continue to inflict upon the present. For instance, were someone to burn down my house, never would I be able to live in said house again, but by being given a new and better house, I'd have at least the satisfaction of having the harm mitigated and, ontop of that, the suffering and inconveinence dealt with by upgrading my position, specifically if it is made to be given to me by the person who wronged me.
Now, as to whether justice protects society? My answer to this is a resounding: YES. As Machiavelli would agree, rule by fear is a rule with strength. By provoking fear in the hearts of those who may be more prone to criminal behaviour, we inspire within them a resistance which otherwise would be lacking in a state of nature. Naturally, this does not always work, but it works far better than doing nothing whatsoever, specifically as if there were no consequences for any act whatsoever, none would be protected and society, again, would be impossible to keep up. The only situation in which there can exist no law and which there can exist peace is ultimately in a position of MAD and even then, there are cases where MAD can fail to prevent things, as it could have had ten thousand times over in the Cold War.
I think it does well to consider punishment as the negative analogue to the profit motive. The profit motive is extremely effective as it seeks to impart benefit upon the individual for doing such an action, increasing the chances that he shall choose to do so. However, it is not only benefit, but a lack of harm that we also seek, and thus to threaten punishment similarly speaks to the self-interest of man, specifically if said punishment is horrific enough. There were no major slave rebellions once Spartacus and his cohorts were used to light the Appian Way at night, their charred and rotting corpses then allowed to be picked upon by carrion-feeding birds for months on end until the skeletons themselves fell off the crosses.
IMO, when a person commits a crime like assault, robbery, whatever.. he is kept away from society in jail, not for "justice" but in order to make people safe. We "improve our game" by locking the bastard up. To me, this is not "justice" but simply prudent manuevering. I'm not bitching about laws. I'm exploring the idea that perhaps the notion of justice is fundmentally flawed in the sense that it attempts retro-action on a uni-directional timeline.
Perhaps you are misconstruing justice in and of itself? It does not truly right the past, but rather, is a useful tool for mitigating the past's effect on the future in such a way as a rational person is generally better off. No act of justice can change what happened in the past, but it does the next best thing in making one better off in the present, and in that way, the "wrong has been righted". Were one to be robbed of 100 dollars, then one were to receive 110 in direct relation to the act, one in general would consider the case rectified in a suitable manner.
Maybe it's just my idea of justice that's screwed up... but to me it's almost synonomous with revenge, which while a very human notion... is not the highest of notions. IMO, the focus of the legal system shouldn't be tied into the potentially poisonous notion of revenge. Deterrence is fine, but IMO... justice itself, as a concept isn't directly correlated to deterrence. It's foundations seem to me to be related to "righting wrongs". In some sense, though potentially satisfying, a wrong can't really be righted. You can't travel back in time and undo stuff.
Why do you think revenge is so bad? Should we simply allow people to roll over us?
This and moral relativism beat the snot out of justice, IMCO. (current opinion). I was going to start a thread on moral relativism too and haven't gotten around to it. It's been a while since a good debate on that topic.
Morality may be relative - or it may not - but this does not mean we cannot speak of societal laws, which ultimately are really more fruitful to speak of when speaking of any matter of "right" and "wrong". As morality is ultimately a social phenomena, speaking of morality outside of that can, in general, be a bit fruitless, specifically as there is often no objective foundation nor practical reason. On a societal level, however, one has a great practical reason to simply obide by most of the laws: IF you don't, you'll go to jail or be executed.
LOL... I hadn't read this part yet when I wrote the above. Funny. IMO, there is nothing civilized about revenge. What do you think?
I'm Aristotlean in my notion that it is only a base man who allows another to take advantage of him. Revenge, in order to assert one's unwillingness to be harmed, is fundementally healthy in that sense. It is slavish to tolerate beyond the point of toleration.
Well I don't diagree with the principles put forth, but think "justice" quite a misnomer.
We often tend to surround concepts - such as justice - with a sort of supernatural aura that, once stripped away, makes for the reality to be all the more disappointing. We speak of justice as a grand thing, revenge as a horrible thing, yet is this truly logical? It would seem to connect back to the Christian concept of no revenge, a concept which has ultimately poisoned our minds against anything but fake "justice". Of course, one might also speak of justice as being detached from self-centric notions, but according to my theory of Selfishness, I would say this is merely misunderstanding the Self-focused nature of all things.
I think we enjoy thinking of it as "justice" because it gratifies our emotional need/ego, when in fact.. there is no such thing (as justice). I also think that thinking of it that way is a misleading approach to comprehending human interaction.
So you would say there is only such a thing as revenge?
If you think of it as "improving your game" IMO, it's a much more mature, realistic model of what's really happening. If you think of it as "civilized revenge", the focus of the ever-changing system of laws we call "the justice system" will be far less effective because it's guided by emotion rather than cool headed management.
Not necessarily. One can, in general, determine what ought to be done in a society to keep it structured without making recourse simply to emotion. Of course, this also requires self-control in the situations themselves. This is not always possible, but generally speaking, one need not make recourse, overally, to emotion, when framing societal needs and the like.
