Justice, a View of Society

This is an essay I worte for one of my classes. In a world where the justice system is taken for granted everyday, this paper considers important issues that have come to be. All references are to "Essays from Contemporary Culture" by Katherin

 

Society provides the foundation of beliefs for which our justice system stands on. We live in a society where one must be proven guilty by a court of law. This is a very fair right that is given to all people inside the United States. It prevents unnecessary use of power that can be seen in third world countries around the world. However, it revolves around a court hearing that can easily be related to a circus show. I would prefer to focus on the basics of justice here. Not necessarily what happens inside a court room, but based on the thinking habits and beliefs of a society. This is what really matters after all. Our styles of thinking, choice of words, and ethical standards change everyday. To examine these topics and better understand the simple foundation of justice, we will discuss and overview of the concepts that justice is a man made idea and dwell into what the answer to right and wrong is.

                Justice is a device created by man to satisfy our intentions for a cruel revenge. Life is based on finding a medial balance between two forces. Everything from gravity contradicting centrifugal force in planetary movement, to sodium ion and potassium channels in nerve cells relies on finding a balance. As a consequence, life has developed and allowed us to experience many wonderful things. Lets face it, without having this balance of homeostasis, we would be nothing more than the elements that make up a rock. In a natural order of life, we as people have taken a step towards allowing an ordered balance to take place.

                Justice has evolved from an early form considered to be cruel and painful. Nandrea summarizes that in 456 B.C. Greek dramatist Aeschylus created a story which shows a transition from archaic models f justice to a court system in which we can recognize our own. Specifically, the plays imagine the movement from the principles Zeus's Justice, might makes right, and vengeance, life for a life. (Pg. 26) Before we as society decided to rely on reason, logic, and fairness to decide the fates of people, it was common to return the injustice to the wrong-doer. This form of 'returning to balance' is by far inferior and a root of many crimes to this day. However, it is a clear display of the cruel intentions that we as people have for revenge. This is the first key to proving that the justice system is man made. We as people are cruel. I have never met what television and books consider good people. Nor have I met the seemingly vastly opposite of bad people. I have however met many people that were extremely capable of performing horrible and great things at the same time. Abe Lincoln was lying when we said he could not tell a lie. We are the only animal on the planet that will go out of our way to hurt another because they hurt us first or might hurt us later. We used to say eye for an eye. Now we say ten-to-twenty for an eye. Either way, we place a form of revenge on the ones we feel do us wrong. 

                In today's system, we walk a thin line from deciding if the system is flawed. We don't ever want to admit it because our laws of life are based on the system, but yes it is flawed along with everything else man made. However, this isn't to say that it does not work, because for everything we can say against the system, we can rarely say that it is as fair as it gets. 

                Take for example, a moral problem my old psychology teacher presented to me once. A man has a wife who is dying. The doctors say she has a year to live and there is nothing they can do. Then the man discovers that a company can make one pill that will cure her. His problem now is knowing that he does not have enough money to pay for the treatment. The husband goes to the company and tells them that he is willing to make payments, and that he can deliver a down payment for his wife. Unfortunately he is told no and turned away to go home to his dying wife. Taking matters into his own hands, he breaks into the companies building and steals the medication. His wife is cured and he is put infront of the court. 

                The real question here is what is the man supposed to do. Stand by idly watching is wife die while an easy solution was just around the corner. Thats what the law says to do. She'd die and he is free to enjoy the rest of your life knowing he did nothing wrong, isn't he? People can almost give him a pat-on-the-back as if he had just won a spelling bee. However, this scenario was altered dramatically with one simple variable. That variable is a single act of stealing a pill. It doesn't matter if it is only a pill or a whole package of them. He saved his wifes life and I'm confident that his family and friends will consider him a hero for this. Either way, and the court says he is wrong and there won't be any back patting on his way to jail. Flaw or fair, I ask. This is a very simple analogy to how tricky the business of justice can become. 

                We know that the system is as fair as it can be. It compromises for every law-biding it citizens well being at once. Yet, in the example above, it is clear that finding true justice is a difficult task. Does years of school, some law experience, and popular vote make one a better arbiter for dictating laws? We, as the general population must put an extreme amount of faith and trust into our law officials because we give them the authority to decide what justice is and isn't. In the example I provided, the husband did not believe he was wrong. If anything the company should be held accountable for not treating someone in need without making a profit. Yet, the law states that because he went against the system he is to be held accountable for his actions. This leads me to my next important question when examining the justice system. What is right and what is wrong?

                We have established that we as people of this society give the authority to law officials to make these important decisions, and that what is right may not always be correct. Knowing what we do, we can now dwell into the sociological view of justice. Take for example, you are a ten year old on the playground. Your group of friends spot another child wearing clothes that belong in the circus. This kid, who's parents I can only assume are rodeo clowns, will be made fun of almost immediately. These insults will continue until that child fights back or the teachers break it up. Now consider when someone takes another persons life. That is a big jump from the playground, but there are similarities. To kill in our society, as it is in most, is wrong. Before I take the next step I'd like you to take a moment and consider why it is wrong. Of course the obvious of stripping somebody from their life is not considered correct, but we squish bugs and run over possums all the time without regard. You can't say one life is better than the other. Using this computer to type is using natural resources to power it, killing fish and birds. If I chose to write by hand, it would be killing tree's and forest creatures. Either way, it seems that I can not live one day of my life without killing something. Doesn't bother me a bit, since I figure it comes with being human. Aside from that, many would argue that killing is wrong because religion say's it is. Aside from anyone's personal beliefs, that also seems like a legitimate reason. It is well defined after thousands of conflicts, wars, and murders that revolve around religion to make the point of living in peace. According to Darwin, if something can not keep it's existence going on this planet, then it probably better off for an evolutionary stand point to die in the first place. The reason I am picking away from our mores on killing, is because it is the most violent act one can commit and impacts the most people while at the same time, we have no real legitimate reason to stop it. People die at one point or another. Either car crash, murder, old age, or hunting accident. How this connects to something as innocent as picking on that child in the playground is that the majority of people agree thats what should be done. Majority of people think that it would be bad if somebody killed off their in-laws. That doesn't mean everybody thinks that though. I'm sure someone out there really would like to see it happen. The point I am trying to make is that what makes something correct and just, is that we as people agree on it. In many subgroups and other cultures, killing is held with some regard. There is nothing we can say about it with out them criticizing our way of life either. 

                Along with Lady justice being blind and susceptible to popular decision, she is also horrible at telling time. We could not travel along a time line of US history and see the same laws and ways of thinking being used in the Justice system today. Even though the crimes and beliefs are no different two hundred years later, doesn't make them wrong at that time. Justice is something that evolves with us as time moves along. It was perfectly fine and acceptable for a husband to beat his wife as long as he didn't use a stick bigger than his thumb. Of course now days, that would be an instant sentence for counseling, divorce, and possibly jail time. My mother used a wooden spoon on me as a child. Similar to the “Rule of Thumb” that may not be as accepted today as a proper way to punish a child. It doesn't mean that my mother doesn't have a shred of morals or ethics in her. It was simply the way she grew up and in turn raised me. This ties into other areas of justice as well. We have mainly focused on retributive justice in different scenarios. To take another point of view, consider the field of distributive justice as it evolved in the Soviet Union. Distributing wealth and goods for the greater cause of the communist theory was considered the premier method for leading a country. For the majority of the century it worked too. However, it does not match up with our way of thinking in America. We believe in getting what we deserve. If you refuse to work for a job, you'll end up broke and homeless. If you can develop a winning idea, or work your way up the corporate ladder, you'll find yourself with the large home and kids that play soccer on Saturday. The key to take away from this is that people are different from different times and different places. As the people change, the foundation of justice that we sit on changes with us.  

                In conclusion, many aspects of the justice system that we hold close to heart are actually

 

plastic ideas that we have agreed to hold true to. These ideas are fluid like as time and societies change. There is nothing wrong with that, and is something that should probably be embraced more often. Some may ask why things seem so bad sometimes, or why it feels unfair certain laws are placed on the countries citizens. The answer, my friends, is perfectly summed up by Martin Luther King Jr. when he stated, “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

Author's Note

I have a bad habit of never putting down a paper. I always end up finding a better way to say it. For this one I am going through it to shorten some of the paragraphs I've written. As a reader, I hate reading them, and as a writer I tend to produce them! I am curious how the essays arguement came across and if the concepts flowed well enough that they could be understood.

Reviews

[Rain]

This was a very interesting write. In the case of the husband and wife, a jury of his peers would make it highly unlikely his punishment would be severe. However, what if no pill existed , and she was in excruciating pain, and his love for her he could not bare to see her suffer, and ended up taking her life. Would that be as understandable as stealing a pill ? It is good that you think and write. These things can be very complicated. Terrific, and thought provoking. Rain..

[.matt_]

very good essay. It makes one think that there isnt much of a universal belief in what is right and wrong. Its based on specific interpretations of societies. I find that many people think that the acts defined as wrong will always be wrong, as well as acts defined as right. I like how you developed that story of the husband and wife. I never really took much thought into it until reading this essay. You've expressed a great deal of troubling philosophy that we are troubled with all the time. Great essay!