What is Justice?

Naya wrote: I have one word that I use to define justice... Karma.

Yes! Good answer!

In a way, I like the eye-for-an-eye concept. I know that's not very Jedi of me, but in certain cases it seems...appropriate. But Naya's right. The universe takes care of justice on its own.

Proper justice, by no definition other than my own, would be identifying a wrong doing and taking the necessary steps to rectify that wrong doing to everyone's benefit. This goes hand in hand with the idea that although we cannot undo wrongs we do not have to respond to them with more wrongs i.e. You killed so to show everyone that killing is wrong we're going to kill you.

yes, some of your guys answer are good but you are seen it only within the "Box" instead of "outside the box". Yes Justice is defined as a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, equity and fairness, but it can be seen beyond that such as Vengeance which is a form of Personal Justice. Taking the right to execute "Justice" either for someone or onto another person is a way of Justice.

In theory,Justice is the legal attempt to hold people accountable for there actions. Actions which are deemed illegal through the majority.

In application, this is still the attempt, but people are fallible on many levels and that effects the final outcome.

There is also the fact that the majority doesnt speak for all, and many cant, or wont, accept that.

Billions of people....hard to please everyone. Hard to keep in mind that some peoples jobs deal with such numbers or hundreds, or thousands) in the process of there decisions.

Unless your under a dictatorship, in which case, justice is defined as whatever they feel like.

Slightly off topic, but posted here as it relates to Lorian's video post;

I'm just under 5 minutes in, and was considering the killing of the 5 people or the one, in the case of the car with brake failure.

In this case I was wondering about the morality of taking no action, thus accidentally killing the 5 workers, as opposed to taking action and choosing to kill the one worker.

Any thoughts?

MagnusD wrote: Slightly off topic, but posted here as it relates to Lorian's video post;

I'm just under 5 minutes in, and was considering the killing of the 5 people or the one, in the case of the car with brake failure.

In this case I was wondering about the morality of taking no action, thus accidentally killing the 5 workers, as opposed to taking action and choosing to kill the one worker.

Any thoughts?

wu-wei is the headache you're looking for.

Justice = Just Us

MagnusD wrote: Slightly off topic, but posted here as it relates to Lorian's video post;

I'm just under 5 minutes in, and was considering the killing of the 5 people or the one, in the case of the car with brake failure.

In this case I was wondering about the morality of taking no action, thus accidentally killing the 5 workers, as opposed to taking action and choosing to kill the one worker.

Any thoughts?

That is a moral dilemma. It has nothing to do with justice since justice by definition is the enterprice of judging and punishing (more so than reward anyway) people in accordance with their deeds. Granted, one is making this evaluations as soon as the potential vicitms are introduced to be friends or relatives, yet the dilemma remains a question of what is the lesser or more bearable evil and ultimately does not come down to appropriate judgement and punishment of the subjects. So yea, justice has little to nothing to do with it.

Gisteron wrote:

MagnusD wrote: Slightly off topic, but posted here as it relates to Lorian's video post;

I'm just under 5 minutes in, and was considering the killing of the 5 people or the one, in the case of the car with brake failure.

In this case I was wondering about the morality of taking no action, thus accidentally killing the 5 workers, as opposed to taking action and choosing to kill the one worker.

Any thoughts?

That is a moral dilemma. It has nothing to do with justice since justice by definition is the enterprice of judging and punishing (more so than reward anyway) people in accordance with their deeds. Granted, one is making this evaluations as soon as the potential vicitms are introduced to be friends or relatives, yet the dilemma remains a question of what is the lesser or more bearable evil and ultimately does not come down to appropriate judgement and punishment of the subjects. So yea, justice has little to nothing to do with it.

Actually, no -- 'Justice' is not concerned with judgements, retributions or punishment. The confusion is with a state's exercise of 'Jurisprudence' which is not but a distant cousin of 'Justice'. It is a common mistake - legal practice is called 'justice' yet it is only concerned with the enforcement of laws in vigour.

One could think of the difference in this way : Jurisprudence is the application of a particular culture's ethic. Morality is more personal. Ergo, the morality expressed by a collective becomes the ethical paradigm. As the difference between dream and myth were described by Campbell as "Dreams are private myths ; myths are public dreams", likewise 'morals are private ethics ; ethics are public morals'. Thus, any discussion of 'justice' is incomplete without an examination of 'morality'.

Justice is the opposite of wronging a right...
Responsibility (ability to respond with right action)