Justice has different meanings according to context. What specifically do people mean when they say, “We want justice!”? Careful definition of words amidst disagreement might calm tensions.
In societies without law or restraint, justice means blood lust and blood feuds — you harm me or mine; we will kill you and yours. The natural state is the survival of the fittest, and law of the jungle red tooth and claw. Lex talionis was an ancient restraining law — “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” — only that much, no more, not blood feud.
Le talionis requires rule of law and balance scales to determine justice in individual cases. Every society develops some legal system by which justice is determined. The more complex and developed a social system becomes the more important precise law must be in order to deal with each case.
Significant legal differences exist in definition of crime and permitted punishment stretching all the way from death to pardon. Many would agree that less harsh, indiscriminate, destructive and more restrained laws encourage a more thriving community, if trusted, balanced and commensurate with the crime.
Justice is not an individual opinion, so a society establishes laws and bans vigilantes. Social basis for law is the reason why prosecution of criminal cases is not by an individual, a family, or an identity group, but by the state. It is “the state vs…” That stipulation is often ignored by media when a family or group jumps in quickly to be judge, jury and executioner, well before details are revealed and adjudicated in court.
A parallel legal pathway is reciprocal justice by which compensation is awarded, sometimes in civil courts, based on adjudication of the extent or value of the loss involved. That often leads to debate about what equality, equity, just, fair and reparation mean and how those might be facilitated. Little agreement exists regarding reciprocal justice.
Laws develop and evolve based on the philosophical and moral principles that shape the legal and moral foundations under which citizens “live and move and have their being.” Principals from the Enlightenment and from Judeo-Christian ethics were prominent in the founding of the United States. The slogan from the French Revolution — “freedom, equality and fraternity” — developed from the Enlightenment. Like a prophet of old, Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed, ‘Let justice role down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’ (Amos 5:24). The Hebrew words for justice and righteousness have the same basic root syllable and are united within a covenant community.
The Sermon on the Mount is a religious injunction: “You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you … ’turn the other cheek’” (Matthew 5:37-38). That requirement goes beyond what any law requires. Nevertheless, no society or legal system can long survive without some moral norms enabling a majority of citizens to live above the law.
Perfect justice and righteousness are above the law, and the best we must do is engage in serious reflection and orderly civic discourse to determine what justice means based on our limited knowledge and our imperfect moral commitments. In the meantime, we can carefully define what we and others mean by hot button terms — justice, equity, equality, reparation, radical, restorative, patriot — and engage in civil discourse to determine where we can agree and make progress toward justice and righteousness. We might come closer to Joseph Kitagawa’s goal of ‘a realistic equilibrium of a tripartite scheme — namely, piety in religion, morality in political life, and knowledge-rationality in culture.’ United, these form a strong, straight backbone for our civic life.
Raymond B. Williams, Crawfordsville, LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emeritus, contributed this guest column.
