THE IDEA OF JUSTICE

IDEA OF JUSTICE

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought."^[3] Justice can be thought of as distinct from and more fundamental than benevolence, charity, mercy, generosity, or compassion. Justice has traditionally been associated with concepts of fate, reincarnation or Divine Providence, i.e. with a life in accordance with the cosmic plan. The association of justice with fairness has thus been historically and culturally rare and is perhaps chiefly a modern innovation. Variations of justice are Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, where punishment is forward-looking. Justified by the ability to achieve future social benefits resulting in crime reduction, the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. Retributive justice regulates proportionate response to crime proven by lawful evidence, so that punishment is justly imposed and considered as morally correct and fully deserved. The law of retaliation (lex talionis) is a military theory of retributive justice, which says that reciprocity should be equal to the wrong suffered; "life for life, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Restorative justice is concerned not so much with retribution and punishment as with (a) making the victim whole and (b) reintegrating the offender into society. This approach frequently brings an offender and a victim together, so that the offender can better understand the effect his/her offense had on the victim. Distributive justice is directed at the proper allocation of things—wealth, power, reward, respect—among different people. Understandings of justice differ in every culture, as cultures are usually dependent upon a shared history, mythology and/or religion. Each culture's ethics create values which influence the notion of justice. Although there can be found some justice principles that are one and the same in all or most of the cultures, these are insufficient to create a unitary justice apprehension. definition of justice is that justice is the having and doing of what is one's own. A just man is a man in just the right place, doing his best and giving the precise equivalent of what he has received. This applies both at the individual level and at the universal level. A person's soul has three parts – reason, spirit and desire. Similarly, a city has three parts – Socrates uses the parable of the chariot to illustrate his point: a chariot works as a whole because the two horses’ power is directed by the charioteer. Lovers of wisdom – philosophers, in one sense of the term – should rule because only they understand what is good. If one is ill, one goes to a doctor rather than a psychologist, because the doctor is expert in the subject of health. Similarly, one should trust one's city to an expert in the subject of the good, not to a mere politician who tries to gain power by giving people what they want. justice requires according individuals or groups what they actually deserve, merit, or are entitled to. Justice, on this account, is a universal and absolute concept: laws, principles, religions, etc., are merely attempts to codify that concept, sometimes with results that entirely contradict the true nature of justice.

In a world where people are interconnected but they disagree, institutions are required to instantiate ideals of justice. These institutions may be justified by their approximate instantiation of justice, or they may be deeply unjust when compared with ideal standards — consider the institution of slavery. Justice is an ideal the world fails to live up to, sometimes despite good intentions, sometimes disastrously. The question of institutive justice raises issues of legitimacy, procedure, codification and interpretation, which are considered by legal theorists and by philosophers of law.

RELIGION VALUE VS SOSIAL VALUE VS CULTURAL VALUE

In the United States pollsters and scholars have found evidence that the vast majority of Americans continue to believe in supernatural forces, identify themselves in religious terms, and hunger for a spiritually enhanced life. Regarding the later, there is clear evidence that many Americans participate regularly in religious and spiritual small groups and form a large market for religious/spiritual books, tapes, music, and paraphernalia. Religion is a significant factor in voting patterns, ideology about public policy, and political careers. But pervasive evidence also exists for changes that many observers see as religious decline: declining membership, particularly among liberal/mainline Protestant denominations, and declining participation in religious services and traditional forms of piety like prayer and Bible reading. Tolerance of "other religions" grows along with declines in specific confessional and denominational loyaltiesIn the United States pollsters and scholars have found evidence that the vast majority of Americans continue to believe in supernatural forces, identify themselves in religious terms, and hunger for a spiritually enhanced life. Regarding the later, there is clear evidence that many Americans participate regularly in religious and spiritual small groups and form a large market for religious/spiritual books, tapes, music, and paraphernalia. Religion is a significant factor in voting patterns, ideology about public policy, and political careers. But pervasive evidence also exists for changes that many observers see as religious decline: declining membership, particularly among liberal/mainline Protestant denominations, and declining participation in religious services and traditional forms of piety like prayer and Bible reading. Tolerance of "other religions" grows along with declines in specific confessional and denominational loyalties.

Culture can be considered as the entire social heritage of man; specifically, it is the tradition of a particular human group, a way of living learned from, and shared by, the members of that group. Understanding the concept of culture is key to understanding human behavior.

Religion, like culture itself, consists of systematic patterns of beliefs, values, and behavior, acquired by people as a member of their society. These patterns are systematic because their manifestations are regular in occurrence and expression: they are shared by member of a group. Within all religions, however, there is not homogeneity; there are differences of interpretation of principles and meanings.

What becomes important is to recognize what is implied by the nature of the "sacred." For some this means that when you enter a church sanctuary or temple you adjust your attitude toward the sacredness of the place and the reason that you have went there for. To others in different cultures, sacredness takes on the importance of life itself.

Culture has been defined as the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning (this definition is from a University of Manitoba web page, selected for its brevity). 

Religion has been defined as a system of beliefs based on humanity's attempt to explain the universe and natural phenomena, often involving one or more deities or other supernatural forces and also requiring or binding adherents to follow prescribed religious obligations. Two identifying features of religions are they to some extent (a) require faith and (b) seek to organize and influence the thoughts and actions of their adherents. Because of this, some contend that all religions are to some degree both unempirical and dogmatic and are therefore to be distrusted. 

I have always been interested in why the world is the way it is: the origins of our religions and the structure of our universe (both scientifically and socially). I have found that the reality of the world and its history can be different than I was taught. These interests lead to the investigation of " what is life " and " who am I " from a personal and religious perspective.

GOVERNMENT DUTY

A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area. If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws.

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his. The source of the government’s authority is “the consent of the governed.” This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose.
Modern governments perform three classes of services:

• Aggregating funds to be spent on common needs
• Holding and disbursing funds for social insurance services
• Creating and adjudicating rules for interactions between people and institutions

Recent arguments about the proper roles of government have mixed these together and clouded the issue. Let's take them one at a time. The first service class includes items like national military support, public health and the operation of the government itself. It is possible to eliminate these common services. For example, there are many countries in the world where defense is handled on a regional or clan basis. Health services are provided by charities or private care institutions. It is generally believed that this is not a good model for modern industrialized states, however.

The second service class includes old age pensions, unemployment support and some health services. The government collects fees from the populace, puts it into an insurance fund and then pays it out when a service is required. The guiding principal is that the risk is spread over the covered populace and thus the cost per person is moderate. By having the government administer the insurance programs it is hoped that the costs will be kept low, since there is no profit to be paid to the insurance company owners. Furthermore since the government can't "go broke" the insurance funds are safer than those of a private fund and less susceptible to fraud or graft. In the US, at this time, we have a mixed model with some insurance provided by the government and some by private sources. In many other developed countries the government funds play a much bigger role and the insurance extends to other types of hazards.

The third service is provided by the legal mandate given to government. It is supposed to create and administer laws which are fair and equitable. Imagine any team sport without rules or referees. Experience has shown that neither the teams nor the fans find this acceptable. Without an independent referee disputes in a game could not be resolved. Most fans and teams are willing to put up with the occasional bad call rather than no calls at all. The same thing applies in government. Lately there has been a great deal of discussion about the power of the free market to regulate itself or the "invisible hand" to sort things out. Hundreds of years of experience has shown this not to work. Time and again markets have become unstable, either with bubbles such as the famous tulip mania or the "South Sea Island" bubble, or have become overly concentrated such as the standard oil trust. This leads inefficiency, since prices are distorted and resources are diverted from innovation and expansion of socially useful tasks. Without a referee the situation eventually fails anyway, but later and with more social damage than a well regulated society would provide.