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What is wrong with Justice must be served idea? Although your suggestion might work in criminal law, in contract law it is not so much as a question of punishm

by Ardit20 16y ago

What is wrong with Justice must be served idea? Although your suggestion might work in criminal law, in contract law it is not so much as a question of punishment as it is a question of putting a right wrong, so too in much civil law. So, the notion of justice is very much fundamental to law. Even in criminal law, what is just is the basis upon which any authority can legitimately imposed. It is for example not just to punish someone who was provoked to kill at the same rate as someone who intended, with full and clear mind, to kill. Also, even assuming that individuals do not have any free will at all, a murderer still should be punished, regardless of any notion of moral responsibility. This for example we do with the insane who it can not be said are morally responsible, yet are locked away so as to not harm others. Thus, in a fundamental way, it is not so much as to what is evil that the law is guided by primarley, but practical matters, what is desirable, fair and very much just.

Jach 16y ago
You don't need to invoke this sacred "justice" to accomplish any of this, though. Your latter example of putting the insane away so as not to harm others, falls under my first category of "preventing repeated offenses" and keeps them from causing further harm. (On a side-note, I think more attempts should be made at rehabilitation, but the stigmas around mental health aren't that much better today than decades ago.) Again, with contracts, we have already decided that contracts are good and breaking them is bad. (But not in all cases!) By punishing, or putting a wrong right, is done to encourage this assumption of contracts being good and useful. If we standardize on usefulness and in fuzzier cases "goodness", I think that's a step forward from this notion of Justice. I suspect we may have a simple disagreement over the meaning of the word, and less so on the actual details, but that's all the more reason to go away from it. My usage of justice can be invoked to justify sentencing a murderer 50 years after the fact to death, and I don't see how that's useful or good at all given he's just a normal guy by then.

by Ardit20 16y ago

Jach 16y ago

You don't need to invoke this sacred "justice" to accomplish any of this, though. Your latter example of putting the insane away so as not to harm others, falls under my first category of "preventing repeated offenses" and keeps them from causing further harm. (On a side-note, I think more attempts should be made at rehabilitation, but the stigmas around mental health aren't that much better today than decades ago.) Again, with contracts, we have already decided that contracts are good and breaking them is bad. (But not in all cases!) By punishing, or putting a wrong right, is done to encourage this assumption of contracts being good and useful. If we standardize on usefulness and in fuzzier cases "goodness", I think that's a step forward from this notion of Justice. I suspect we may have a simple disagreement over the meaning of the word, and less so on the actual details, but that's all the more reason to go away from it. My usage of justice can be invoked to justify sentencing a murderer 50 years after the fact to death, and I don't see how that's useful or good at all given he's just a normal guy by then.