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How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:21 pm
by I.P. Daly
I've been in law school for a while and I can't really define the word "justice." The other day, a judge asked me how I defined "justice." I muttered something about fairness and compliance with the law.
Can anyone provide a more learned and erudite definition of "justice?"
Re: How to defined the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:29 pm
by evilxs
Fix your post title. I can't even make it past that.
Re: How to defined the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:33 pm
by ran12
Justice is like the reasonable, prudent man. It is something that cannot be achieved in reality. Btw DAs and other prosecutors know less about what justice means than any other lawyer.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:38 pm
by I.P. Daly
evilxs wrote:Fix your post title. I can't even make it past that.
Sorry, brotherman.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:41 pm
by MrPapagiorgio
Philosophers have been debating and attempting to define the topic of justice for centuries and cannot come to a consensus on what constitutes "justice." Nobody on TLS will be able to give the type of comprehensive answer you are looking for.
Re: How to defined the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:42 pm
by Always Credited
ran12 wrote:Justice is like the reasonable, prudent man. It is something that cannot be achieved in reality. Btw DAs and other prosecutors know less about what justice means than any other lawyer.
1.) lol
2.) relevance... there isn't any
3.) LOL
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:42 pm
by paratactical
Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that, in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. -Portia
I'd go read Merchant of Venice if you want a good answer to that question that's your own, but I'm a loser who does things like read old plays with outdated humor for fun.
I hope everyone is proud of me for not taking one of the LOLshylock jokes in that courtroom scene.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:59 pm
by I.P. Daly
paratactical wrote:Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that, in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. -Portia
I'd go read Merchant of Venice if you want a good answer to that question that's your own, but I'm a loser who does things like read old plays with outdated humor for fun.
I hope everyone is proud of me for not taking one of the LOLshylock jokes in that courtroom scene.
I'll have to check it out.
I might also dust off my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee probably nailed it.
My law dictionary defines justice as "synonymous with judge." Maybe I'll just go with "justice is whatever a judge decides."
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:10 am
by tennisking88
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 12:54 am
by spleenworship
Srsly?
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:20 am
by I.P. Daly
spleenworship wrote:Srsly?
Fo' realsies.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:03 am
by MachineLemon
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:44 am
by LSATNightmares
I had a really good Civ Pro professor last semester who said the word justice and fairness are meaningless. If you want to talk about "justice" to a judge, it's much better to talk about something more concrete. Some examples: finality, autonomy, efficiency. Judges want something practical that they can actually recognize. They don't want abstract ideas from philosophy.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:27 am
by BeautifulSW
About the closest I've ever been able to come is that justice includes predictability of results. Morality certainly has nothing to do with it.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:36 am
by homestyle28
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:43 am
by Campagnolo
"What is justice" is the ostensible subject of Plato's Republic. Forgetting for a moment the deeper purposes of the work, justice turns out to be something like this: that each individual is bound to do the duty to which he is called as a part of the city. Aristotle makes a distinction here, and says that each individual deserves the right which he ought to enjoy in a society based on proportionate equality.
Eventually, Locke comes in with the idea that putting work into something makes it yours irrevocably. Justice, then, is that each has what he has made.
It goes on and on. I rather like the Greeks.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:44 am
by NotMyRealName09
The title to this post sounds like a beauty pageant question.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:55 am
by Unagi
The best definition I had in class was by Aristotle: justice consists of treating equals equally and unequals unequally
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 6:56 pm
by spleenworship
I.P. Daly wrote:spleenworship wrote:Srsly?
Fo' realsies.
You make me cry.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 8:44 pm
by JoeFish
It's what you get when you ignore liquidwater and gaseouswater.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA get it? My god I'm so fucking funny
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 9:07 pm
by I.P. Daly
spleenworship wrote:
You make me cry.
The injustice!
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:12 pm
by BeenDidThat
"Justice" is a concept about which people have argued since people could argue about abstract concepts. Different people give the word different meaning.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:28 pm
by LawMan20
Give the nichomachean ethics' section on justice a read. Aristotle defines it in one place as complete virtue in relation to another. Complete virtue would then need defining, which is done in earlier sections of the book.
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 5:58 pm
by Borhas
Re: How to define the word "justice"
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 6:07 pm
by beach_terror
Rawls got it right. Aristotle got it horribly wrong. Proportional justice just rewards people who are born with the desirable natural endowments at the time. Maybe because old school philosophers thought god played a big role in who we are, but it's a crock of shit now.
"Our government, in the pursuit of its role in administering justice, should not favor those who win the natural lottery at the expense of those who do not. Instead, justice should require men to 'agree to share one another’s fate' because any result in the natural lottery 'could have been us.'"
/idealism