Nonexistent Justice

Originally posted by LemonJello
Speaking for myself, I'm afraid your restatement didn't help.

You stated that "in a sense, [I] touched on an element of the idea". Perhaps it would help me if you develop that a bit further.

Referring to the often-used scenario of the suffering infant, what does his situation say about justice: that it's all a matter of luck? If it's all just luck--- you have either good or bad--- what does this ultimately say about justice itself? That it doesn't really exist, that it's just an idea/fantasy conjured up by man?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Referring to the often-used scenario of the suffering infant, what does his situation say about justice: that it's all a matter of luck? If it's all just luck--- you have either good or bad--- what does this ultimately say about justice itself? That it doesn't really exist, that it's just an idea/fantasy conjured up by man?

I don't really see how your conclusion follows.
If you are asking "does justice prevail perfectly everywhere?" then of course the single infant suffering unjustly suffices to prove an answer in the negative.
But I don't see what connection this has to the question of whether or not an act can be just or not.
If anything the example itself assumes that a lack of justice can exist and so the concept of justice is assumed to exist.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't really see how your conclusion follows.
If you are asking "does justice prevail perfectly everywhere?" then of course the single infant suffering unjustly suffices to prove an answer in the negative.
But I don't see what connection this has to the question of whether or not an act can be just or not.
If anything the example itself assumes that a lack of justice can exist and so the concept of justice is assumed to exist.

The question has already been asked and answered, relative to the prevailing nature of justice. The question is, in light of the non-prevailing nature of justice, can it then be said that truly, there is no such thing as justice--- instead, merely good and bad luck? If justice does exist, upon what is it based?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The question has already been asked and answered, relative to the prevailing nature of justice. The question is, in light of the non-prevailing nature of justice, can it then be said that truly, there is no such thing as justice--- instead, merely good and bad luck? If justice does exist, upon what is it based?

I clearly do not understand what you mean by 'justice' as I really cannot see what it has to do with good an bad luck. I fail to see how they are alternatives.
Are we using 'justice' in the sense of 'life isn't fair'? If so, then life can be both unjust and include good and bad luck. But that is not equivalent to saying there is no such thing as justice. We can deliberately try to make life more fair, or more just - and I believe we can in some way achieve that goal.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Referring to the often-used scenario of the suffering infant, what does his situation say about justice: that it's all a matter of luck? If it's all just luck--- you have either good or bad--- what does this ultimately say about justice itself? That it doesn't really exist, that it's just an idea/fantasy conjured up by man?

Huh? Perhaps you should just try to make a case for whatever point it is you want to make.

If it's all just luck--- you have either good or bad--- what does this ultimately say about justice itself? That it doesn't really exist, that it's just an idea/fantasy conjured up by man?

Again: huh? If the supposition is that you have some infant suffering with some medical condition that is just simply an unfortunate outcome of some natural lottery; I would think that in itself says basically nothing about the subject of justice.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I clearly do not understand what you mean by 'justice' as I really cannot see what it has to do with good an bad luck. I fail to see how they are alternatives.
Are we using 'justice' in the sense of 'life isn't fair'? If so, then life can be both unjust and include good and bad luck. But that is not equivalent to saying there is no such thing as justice. ...[text shortened]... o make life more fair, or more just - and I believe we can in some way achieve that goal.

I clearly do not understand what you mean by 'justice' as I really cannot see what it has to do with good an bad luck. I fail to see how they are alternatives.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-bad-luck/

We can deliberately try to make life more fair, or more just - and I believe we can in some way achieve that goal.
Perhaps the 'more' aspect of what you are saying can be illuminating. Does this 'more' refer to a totally balanced ideal or standard that is not presently realized?

Originally posted by LemonJello
Huh? Perhaps you should just try to make a case for whatever point it is you want to make.

[b]If it's all just luck--- you have either good or bad--- what does this ultimately say about justice itself? That it doesn't really exist, that it's just an idea/fantasy conjured up by man?

Again: huh? If the supposition is that you have some infant ...[text shortened]... al lottery; I would think that in itself says basically nothing about the subject of justice.[/b]

I think it says an awful lot about justice, really. If a pain-inducing medical condition can be seen as simply an 'unfortunate outcome' those without such a condition are the 'fortunate' recipients of said natural lottery. Either side of this coin demands a blind randomness from the impetus, which in this scenario, is presumably nature.

That being the case, it can be therefore assumed that nature (and thus, the universe or known physical creation) is not just. True?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-bad-luck

I might get round to reading that one day. Looks interesting.

Perhaps the 'more' aspect of what you are saying can be illuminating. Does this 'more' refer to a totally balanced ideal or standard that is not presently realized?
Not necessarily. I don't think an ideal standard comes into it.
I think there can be instances of justice (which are not necessarily perfect justice), without perfect justice prevailing everywhere.

I must also add that the whole premise that good or bad luck exists is changed if an omniscient, omnipotent God exists as one could then ask whether it is truly good or bad luck or rather the result of a decision by God - even if that decision was not to interfere with luck.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I might get round to reading that one day. Looks interesting.

[b]Perhaps the 'more' aspect of what you are saying can be illuminating. Does this 'more' refer to a totally balanced ideal or standard that is not presently realized?
Not necessarily. I don't think an ideal standard comes into it.
I think there can be instances of justice (which are ...[text shortened]... her the result of a decision by God - even if that decision was not to interfere with luck.[/b]

I might get round to reading that one day. Looks interesting.
I thought of twittering it, but ran out of character space.

I think there can be instances of justice...
Real-life example?

I must also add that the whole premise that good or bad luck exists is changed if an omniscient, omnipotent God exists as one could then ask whether it is truly good or bad luck or rather the result of a decision by God - even if that decision was not to interfere with luck.
Agreed.

However, we haven't come to that (consideration of God) point yet. This is simply an examination of whether or not the universe is just (clearly not) and whether or not justice actually exists--- in light of the seemingly default position of universal suffering.

Since suffering on any number of levels is the norm, where does man get this silly notion of any form of justice?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I think it says an awful lot about justice, really. If a pain-inducing medical condition can be seen as simply an 'unfortunate outcome' those without such a condition are the 'fortunate' recipients of said natural lottery. Either side of this coin demands a blind randomness from the impetus, which in this scenario, is presumably nature.

That being the ...[text shortened]... assumed that nature (and thus, the universe or known physical creation) is not just. True?

Well, I don't think it says anything about justice, really. You haven't explained at all why or how such a case relates even indirectly to the subject of justice. One need not maintain that such an entity as nature or the universe broadly construed has anything to do with talk of justice per se; or, one could maintain that it does not make sense to talk about predicating something like 'just' to such an entity as the universe itself, even if it makes sense to predicate it to certain aspects or things themselves within the universe itself. I do think justice generally has something to do with equitable distribution of goods and bads, but this is within the context of a social or communal framework. It has nothing to do with "blind randomness" of some cosmic lottery. An instance of some infant suffering from some medical condition that is supposed to be the outcome of some lottery in itself says nothing about justice.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]I clearly do not understand what you mean by 'justice' as I really cannot see what it has to do with good an bad luck. I fail to see how they are alternatives.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-bad-luck/

We can deliberately try to make life more fair, or more just - and I believe we can in some way achieve that goal.
Perhaps the ...[text shortened]... this 'more' refer to a totally balanced ideal or standard that is not presently realized?[/b]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-bad-luck/

That indeed is quite an interesting article. I'm afraid, however, that I don't see how it has much to do with your position here as I understand it. Your position as I understand it (perhaps I need a lot more clarification on it) is that the existence of luck should make us doubt the very existence of justice. However, most of the views discussed in that article would deny that: rather, they would just say that considerations regarding luck should factor in and temper our understanding of justice. There may be some exceptions in there where luck, it is claimed, is particularly pernicious -- for instance, what the article refers to as the "regression principle regarding luck" and its implications. Is this regression something like what you are driving at? Perhaps, as I said before, you should just present your case and the reasons underlying it. Failing that, I am having trouble following you. When you say things like because there exist instances of blind luck (such as the case of the infant), "it can be therefore assumed that nature is not just"; that just sounds like really poor and disjointed reasoning to me.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Well, I don't think it says anything about justice, really. You haven't explained at all why or how such a case relates even indirectly to the subject of justice. One need not maintain that such an entity as nature or the universe broadly construed has anything to do with talk of justice per se; or, one could maintain that it does not make sense to talk ...[text shortened]... n that is supposed to be the outcome of some lottery in itself says nothing about justice.

Well, I don't think it says anything about justice, really.
You're right: the suffering infant doesn't say anything about justice. Why? Because there is no justice in life, in the universe: it just is (ha-ha). We consider some situations fortunate and others unfortunate, and place no blame on any one or thing for the seemingly uncaused unfortunate situations. We may distribute our means and energies toward situations we consider unfortunate to alleviate suffering or to shore up deficiencies in the lottery, and this may be considered nothing more than compassion--- sans any sense of justice whatsoever.

We may reserve our considerations of justice strictly and exclusively for the assessment of the actions of man. However, by doing so, we are indirectly acknowledging that justice does not exist in the realm of anything outside of an ideal in man's head: we do not have a template in nature.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Well, I don't think it says anything about justice, really.
You're right: the suffering infant doesn't say anything about justice. Why? Because there is no justice in life, in the universe: it just is (ha-ha). We consider some situations fortunate and others unfortunate, and place no blame on any one or thing for the seemingly uncaused unfortuna ...[text shortened]... he realm of anything outside of an ideal in man's head: we do not have a template in nature.[/b]

I assume you know you are just rehashing a typical Socratic dialogue as presented by Plato and playing around with the problem of "universals." Justice is a universal. Another easy example of a universal is the word "dog" and the problem arises because there are many individual dogs but it is not clear that "dogs" exist apart from those countless individuals examples. Philosophers have continued to argue about the status of universals and a jolly interesting discussion it is too.

But what matters to me is that, by exploiting the inherent logical problems of universals you are able to confuse and to play word games indefinitely with your poor victims. It can only sow confusion.

Socrates, of course, finally got up the noses of the Athenians to such a degree that he was publicly tried and sentenced to death. That penalty is not one I advocate or condone, but there was a great deal of sense in his trial and conviction for undermining Athenian values. He was a friend of the Tyrants and no friend to democracy and he was systematically mocking democratic values. Plato was no less opposed to the values of democracy and sympathetic to dictatorship, like his philosophical heirs.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Well, I don't think it says anything about justice, really.
You're right: the suffering infant doesn't say anything about justice. Why? Because there is no justice in life, in the universe: it just is (ha-ha). We consider some situations fortunate and others unfortunate, and place no blame on any one or thing for the seemingly uncaused unfortuna ...[text shortened]... he realm of anything outside of an ideal in man's head: we do not have a template in nature.[/b]

I’m wondering if it makes any sense to talk about nature (the universe, the Tao) being just or unjust. We might define (according to some criteria) certain outcomes as just or fair (e.g., lightning strikes a person dead whom we consider to be sufficiently bad to deserve death), but that would not mean that the universe was acting “justly”—or acting “unjustly” in the counter-case.

Some people, without being theists, might posit some mechanism (e.g., karma) that acts (e.g., in the context of reincarnation) to ensure some just chain of outcomes. I don’t.

Taking another point of view—the aesthetic, rather than the ethical—we might describe pleasing events as “beautiful”, and displeasing ones as “ugly”. But that does not mean that such designations as “beautiful” or “ugly” are inherent in nature—except, of course, as nature includes us with those aesthetic viewpoints.

As we are natural beings with aesthetic and ethical senses, to that extent one might say that aesthetics and ethics obtain in nature—but only to that extent. If by nature we mean all of the natural cosmos that is not us (or other beings like us in those regards), then no.

Does any of that mean that something is somehow missing, that the universe is somehow deficient? Because we might prefer that the cosmos were perfectly pleasing to our sensibilities in all regards? Because we might decide that “it ought to be so”, it then must be so—there must be some mechanism, or gods, to make it so? No.

Originally posted by finnegan
I assume you know you are just rehashing a typical Socratic dialogue as presented by Plato and playing around with the problem of "universals." Justice is a universal. Another easy example of a universal is the word "dog" and the problem arises because there are many individual dogs but it is not clear that "dogs" exist apart from those countless individua ...[text shortened]... to the values of democracy and sympathetic to dictatorship, like his philosophical heirs.

I assume you know you are just rehashing a typical Socratic dialogue as presented by Plato and playing around with the problem of "universals."
Only informed by SpongeBob Squarepants.

Justice is a universal.
I think so, too. Only I come to the conclusion based on something other than dogs.

It can only sow confusion.
That's more the soil than the farmer, really.

He was a friend of the Tyrants and no friend to democracy and he was systematically mocking democratic values.
I don't see it that way. I see him as desirous of finding first things, even at the expense of social underpinnings.