What is Justice?
That's my paltry contribution to the topic so far:
What is Justice?
After all, when we define Justice, we define it in exemplary terms, such as
Captain Canada's example,
"I was hit for no reason - this is unjust."
In the aftermath of WTO-Seattle (11/99), the news media found people weren't sympathetic to damage estimates in the low millions of dollars, and quickly inflated that number by including the injustice of "lost revenues": in other words, potential sales discouraged by the protests.
I'm of the notion that certain groups of people should not go on strike: police officers, nurses, &c. The reason for this is best illustrated by a simple example: a friend of mine had to work on Labor Day, an American holiday where all the nine-to-fiver white-collars take the day off: Banks close, the Post Office closes; my employer--an insurance company--gave us the day off. It was unfortunate that my friend could not take the day off, but unlike the poor baristas who have to come to work to serve lattes, and the retailers who have to come to work to sell their wares to the holiday crowd, my friend needed to work because she works at a hospital. People should be able to live without their lattes for a day, imho, but the difference 'twixt Starbucks and a hospital is vital. People don't stop getting sick, hurt, or otherwise needing medical attention; the doctors and nurses have to work, but they can't do it without their support staff. In that sense, we see a person undertaking an occupation for money that involves a certain sense of commitment not present in my own job--accommodating the needs and comforts of underwriters. For a similar reason, I don't think vital personnel in the community should strike. Yet almost cyclically, over periods of several years, nurses end up threatening strikes when the HMO employers choose to not meet the financial needs of their employees. The HMO's rely on public sentiment that nurses shouldn't strike, and offer bad contracts during negotiations, knowing that the public backlash against striking nurses will be strong--they rely on public sentiment to back their assumed right to underpay their employees. When the nurses threaten to strike, very little focus is given to the contract itself, and much sentiment is devoted to whether or not the nurses should strike. I, personally consider this maneuver by HMO's unjust, but again, I'm providing examples of what is or isn't just and proper, instead of defining justice itself.
jus·tice (jsts)
n.
1. The quality of being just; fairness.
2. a) The principle of moral rightness; equity.
b)Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.
3. a) The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
b) Law. The administration and procedure of law.
4. Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason: The overcharged customer was angry, and with justice.
This is pulled from dictionary.com, and abridged to disregard definitions irrelevant to the present discussion. These definitions seem somewhat subjective, and this subjectivity seems to bring about a sense that Montesquieu (1) referred to when he wrote
our judgements are made with reference covertly to ourselves. We deem something just largely as it relates to ourselves. When we cry for justice on another's behalf, we generally are empathizing or sympathizing with the person and the conditions. We might say that sexual abuse of prisoners is unjust because we would not wish for that to happen to ourselves or to our loved ones, not because we care a great deal about the abstract individual we've never met. Consider the volatile Drumcree tradition of marching Protestants through Catholic neighborhoods and rioting; the whole purpose of the parades seemed to be to tear up the neighborhoods of people who aren't of the same religion, and for years this parade was given British government protection in the form of armed troops who restrained Catholics from defending their homes and other property. This we might say is unjust, but why? It's unfair, in accord with definition 1 above? What constitutes
fair? We might say it's immoral, applying definition 2 above? What constitutes
morality? In accordance with the law, applying definition 3? Well, the defending government bodies were operating according to the law. There is no sound fact or reason in such religious fights, so definition 4 is generally out.
So we look at definitions 1 and 2 especially. In terms of fair, such equity is a matter of convention; after all, looking at Western economies,
fair necessitates a poor labor class that has difficulty surviving and participating in the full benefits of society. Moral? Moral, as well, is a convention, as a host of Sciforums' religious debates reminds us: Inquisitors saw doctrinal dissention as immoral, and torture and murder as moral. Such conventional ideas are active, living ideas.
I will agree with the assertion that
Justice is a human invention allowing to live in a society (
Hermann, topic post). I hold a similar regard toward morality. Thus, we must look to the purpose of society itself to figure out what, exactly, justice is.
In the case of nurses, as given above, I think the injustice comes to the nurses in question, and also to their patients. Society, it seems, exists to protect humanity from the wilderness. We flourish when we camp in and devise a common interest to protect and pursue. As I see it, the underpaid nurses can certainly find work elsewhere, but the result being that less-skilled nurses will replace the underpaid nurses; the logic being that the less-skilled nurses are being passed over for jobs in favor of higher-skilled nurses. If the contract offer is too low, and the higher-skilled nurses go elsewhere, the lesser-skilled nurses will replace them for the lower compensation. In addition to the injustice to nurses that comes with underpaying these vital jobs, there is an injustice to the patients, many of whom are committed to this or that facility by the HMO they receive through their work. Change your health coverage? What if one cannot for lack of offered options and lack of funds to cover the increased expense of a medical industry that seeks profit before health? It is unfair according to definitions 1 and 3 above to underpay nurses in the labor market; their compensation is not equal, thus they are being paid less for doing the same work, and this isn't fair. And it further is unfair according to the idea of
due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
But dictionaries and examples do little to define the broader perception of Justice, and that's a place to start. I would propose, for the benefit of this bright topic, that we should find a working definition of Justice to apply before determining its necessity.
I'll work on proposing a composite definition later; anyone have ideas?
thanx much,
Tiassa
Note 1: I have drawn the Montesquieu quote from a topic in the Religious Debate forum, where the source citation can be found:
http://www.sciforums.com/t3505/sc6d158353fb92517945feff205f7a3ef/thread.html
