How can we define justice, maybe by working backward, identifying injustice, and going back to justice like Aristotle?
But where does justice come from? Is justice a divine law, a command from above? Or is it a natural law, which would derive from the fact that an action has to be naturally compensated by an equal and opposite reaction? Or is it a total human creation? A complete state creation? Or a mutual agreement on what is fair and unfair?
According to Plato, Socrate thought that the good is a universal entity that exists and can only be reached through self-knowledge. Since justice is good, everyone can find what justice is. He described justice as a virtue, a trait of character.
Socrate was right, justice should not be searched in something above or natural law, but deeply inside ourselves. Theoretically, everyone should be able to find what justice is since many modern studies on primates have shown that the sense of fairness and justice is deeply wired into our human primate brain. Even 5 years old babies can make the difference between bad and good according to many studies! So we are moral animals and the human desire for fairness is a result of our evolution, our deepest inner nature. There are always some brain-damaged people but that’s a completely different story.
Justice has many aims but one of his ambitions is the investigation of truth, the reality of what happened in order to determine if a just or unjust act has been committed
Justice cannot be reached without the truth but once the truth is established, according to this logic anyone should be able to determine what justice is in any situation. But why are some cases the complete opposite of justice? Why some situations are the total antithesis of all this and deny justice at so many levels?
In fact, the existence of an inner sense of justice does not mean everyone is going to be just. It requires self-knowledge and involves the will to be true to oneself.
Justice has consequences and these repercussions can be in direct conflict with this inner sense of justice, thus, sometimes, justice is not chosen for its own sake but for its aftermath.
The image of this apparent justice is then based on the consequences that an act can have, and people have often good reasons to prefer an apparent justice that has good outcomes for themselves: For example, a stepfather having molested his son when he was a child, learned much later in life that his son has died in mysterious circumstances, but no further investigation is encouraged because of the possible consequences in the stepfather’s life such an investigation could have. True justice is denied and instead, we are served an apparent justice based on the fact that the stepfather had just sent the son letters of apology as an attempt to reconnect.
It goes further, the son who had a horrible childhood because of his stepfather, developed an alcohol and drug addiction as self-medication to his problems. This eventually led him to hook up with a person who also had a drug addiction. But, at the moment the son was, at last, recovering from his demons and trying to get another life away from this person, his life was cut short.
At three times justice was not served: no punishment for the action of the stepfather over his young son, no punishment over the fact that he was the cause of his son’s life of addiction, no punishment for the action of the person who is probably involved in the son’s death, because of the consequences this could have on the two previous points.
‘Nothing is to be preferred before justice’ as Socrates said, but what justice? Since its perception can be changed according to its outcome.
Justice is portrayed as a blindfolded woman, so that she cannot be corrupted by what she sees, carrying in one hand a set of scales, so that she can weigh up both sides fairly, and carrying in the other hand a sword so that has made her judgment she can act. This is the only true portray of justice, the epitome of truth, and the exercise of fairness.
True justice is necessary for happiness, the just lives better than the unjust. As a real virtue, searching for justice is the ultimate way to be true to oneself.