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This holds that the only way for justice to be satisfied is for a wrongdoer to suffer in proportion to the way he's made others suffer. This is your good, old-fashioned Biblical eye-for-an-eye justice. And in this view, punishment is supposed to hurt.
Other times, justice has been understood in a more utilitarian way, where a just society is one that tries to increase the overall quality of life for its citizens. And for a political libertarian, a just society is simply one that allows its citizens to be maximally free.
Justice is one of those things that people talk about all the time without really being specific about what they mean. Activists talk about economic justice, police and lawyers talk about criminal justice, parents, teachers, and students talk about justice a lot too, though they may never use that word. When there's a fight on the playground ...
Finally, there's the very simple-sounding approach advanced by 20th century American political philosopher John Rawls. He argued that justice is fairness. Any inequalities that exist in a social system, Rawls said, should favor the least well-off because this levels the playing field of society.
There are many forms of justice, with the lowest forms being physical, the next being logical, the next being ethical, and the highest being moral (roughly speaking; see types of laws and categories of understanding) and then with each category there also is ranks.
Or, in general terms, justice is fairness. Or, in complex terms, true justice is the highest form of justice (the one that encapsulates all; the arete of justice), and temperance, balance, moderation, fairness, and other such terms are part of the same fabric. [1]
Justice is the mixing of wisdom (intellect and experience) and temperance (moderation) to strive toward the ideals of balance and moderation (toward true justice). To do this takes courage.
Justice isn’t a law ; it is the true spirit of fair laws. Fairness isn’t what is fair for me; it is what is fairer for the most. What is fairest for the most people is an absolute principle. It is only the first principle from which other principles follow.
Justice and fairness are that which is balanced. Whether we are talking about a state, our soul, a relationship, a class system, or a court case, it is the seeking of temperance and moderation to balance other virtues like liberty, equality, honor, etc.
Sometimes boiled down to a first principle called “the greatest happiness theory” (AKA utilitarianism) which says (minus the books of qualifiers) “ justice is that which makes the most people happiest and causes the least pain .”. If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device. Full screen is unavailable.
Let us think about this line of reasoning, “if you break the law, you go to court, and you could end up in jail or forced to pay a large amount of wealth as a penalty.” That may seem normal to you, but question it for a second. Every concept we listed is metaphysical: law, a court, jailed and fined for breaking a rule? These are all accepted by society to such a degree that they speak to our very Constitution, the most cherished document of our Civil Religion.