Concepts and definitions of justice

Justice

What Is Justice

It's tough to answer the question, "what justice means to me (exclusively or "in my own words)" because I've already been exposed to a source that has had a searing impact on how I define justice. To ignore it, or to pretend it didn't happen, would be the equivalent of trying to forget Shakespeare after one has just read Hamlet.

What I'm attempting to articulate is that I define justice much in the same way Harvard Professor Michael Sandal defined justice in an interview with Charlie Rose back in 2009. When asked the question, "what is justice?" Professor Sandal responded by invoking the great Aristotle, he said, "how a society should distribute honor and recognition is at the heart of justice."

Professor Sandal (via Aristotle) is precisely right. Justice is how a society figures out who deserves what. However, I would unpack that concept a little more and suggest that justice involves two essential components. The first is the mechanism that adjudicates who deserves what and the second component is the system that ensures whatever it is one is due (honor, recognition, etc.) he/she gets it.

Moreover, I would add that Justice involves not only rewarding individuals with honor and recognition, but also punishing those who've behaved badly and/or committed a crime.

So to recap, Justice is rendered after a community-generated apparatus determines the reward/punishment one is due and that reward/punishment is carried out by a community-generated system.

To make that definition a little less abstract; perhaps, it would be helpful to point to the justice system in the United States. The apparatus that adjudicates who deserves what, in the context of those facing criminal charges, is the U.S. court system and the system that delivers the punishment is the legal system and, by extension, the prison system.

As for how one is receives honor and recognition in modern society, this is a little less clear. In academic settings, one receives diplomas and awards etc. But in a capitalistic society, honor and recognition are often bestowed on, arguably, the wrong people. That is to say, a society that values money and commerce over integrity and honesty has a sense of justice that is skewed to favor the healthy over the sick, the rich over the poor, and the haves over the have-nots.

We see this today in America where we live by the golden rule: those who have the gold make the rules. If one has money he/she can buy all the honor and recognition he/she wants.

It was the King in Hamlet who said, "In the corrupted currents of this world / Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, / And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself / Buys out the law" (Act III, Scene III).