Previously we were talking about the amorality of justice, once we accept the formalistic definition of justice as “obeying the law.” Laws can be good or bad, and their indiscriminate enforcement, or blind obedience to them, makes the issue of morality and virtue irrelevant to the subject of justice. This is however unfair to the concept of justice as a pursuit of the ideal, which is “moral” justice, and therefore, being “just” has become a synonym of righteousness.
Justice as the embodiment of all human virtues is the idea promoted by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher-poet Theognis, much admired by Schopenhauer. “Every virtue is included in the idea of justice," he says, "and every just man is good.” The Bible is of the same opinion, equating the just man with the virtuous man, as is clear from these words of Jesus, in Luke 15:7: “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” (Now, let us be fully aware here that the last sentence contains two profound ideas: one, that sincere repentance is by far rarer, and therefore by far more valuable, than ordinary righteousness, and the other, of principal interest to us, that just persons need no repentance.)
This concluding entry of the Justice series deals with probably the most important aspect of ideal justice, so far left undiscussed, which happens to be the heart and soul of the concept of International Justice, sine qua non.
Ironically, the most perfect clue to this elusive concept is found in a rather unexpected place, but first, let us look at several key formulations of justice, in addition to those that we have already quoted and discussed.
The idea of justice as suum cuique is also attributed to the Greeks, although its most succinct formulation belongs to Cicero: “Justice is giving everyone his due. Justicia suum cuique distribuit.” The same meaning is conveyed by the Institutes of Justinian: “Justice is the earnest and constant will to render to every man his due.
Epicurus says that “Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men from harming or being harmed.” Hobbes rephrases this as “Justice [consists] in taking from no man what is his.”
In St. Thomas Aquinas’ formulation, justice sounds very much like Kantian categorical imperative: “Justice is a certain rectitude of the mind, whereby a man does what he ought to do, in the circumstances confronting him.”
There are many other formulations of justice that are less specific, such as, say, “Justice is the end [meaning the purpose!] of government,” but I am not going to mention them here, because they lack specificity. But, as I promised up front in this entry, here is the formulation, which has impressed me the most, and which is, in my opinion, the most useful of all, in its application to the concept of International Justice. It comes from a rather unexpected source, namely, from the great French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and here it is in my abbreviated version:
“Justice is… respect… for human dignity.”
(I will now give the full passage here for the record, although I am tempted to quote it again and again in the superb abbreviated form above: “Justice is spontaneous respect, mutually guaranteed, for human dignity, in whatever person it may be compromised and under whatever circumstances, and to whatever risk its defense may expose us.”)
It looks like in our day and age, respect is the commodity in shortest supply. No wonder that our world is so menacingly besieged with all those seemingly insurmountable problems… (Come to think of it, however, we must not discriminate against our day and age by singling it out. Apparently, M. Proudhon had become an anarchist, in the first place, exactly because the state of justice in his day and age didn’t exactly correspond to his own ideal of justice.
…But anyway, I shall leave it to the reader now to marvel, as I do, at the sheer beauty of that last expression of ideal justice, originating with Proudhon, and at its immense implications for the critically important, albeit so terribly elusive, concept of International Justice.
Justice as the embodiment of all human virtues is the idea promoted by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher-poet Theognis, much admired by Schopenhauer. “Every virtue is included in the idea of justice," he says, "and every just man is good.” The Bible is of the same opinion, equating the just man with the virtuous man, as is clear from these words of Jesus, in Luke 15:7: “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” (Now, let us be fully aware here that the last sentence contains two profound ideas: one, that sincere repentance is by far rarer, and therefore by far more valuable, than ordinary righteousness, and the other, of principal interest to us, that just persons need no repentance.)
This concluding entry of the Justice series deals with probably the most important aspect of ideal justice, so far left undiscussed, which happens to be the heart and soul of the concept of International Justice, sine qua non.
Ironically, the most perfect clue to this elusive concept is found in a rather unexpected place, but first, let us look at several key formulations of justice, in addition to those that we have already quoted and discussed.
The idea of justice as suum cuique is also attributed to the Greeks, although its most succinct formulation belongs to Cicero: “Justice is giving everyone his due. Justicia suum cuique distribuit.” The same meaning is conveyed by the Institutes of Justinian: “Justice is the earnest and constant will to render to every man his due.
Epicurus says that “Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men from harming or being harmed.” Hobbes rephrases this as “Justice [consists] in taking from no man what is his.”
In St. Thomas Aquinas’ formulation, justice sounds very much like Kantian categorical imperative: “Justice is a certain rectitude of the mind, whereby a man does what he ought to do, in the circumstances confronting him.”
There are many other formulations of justice that are less specific, such as, say, “Justice is the end [meaning the purpose!] of government,” but I am not going to mention them here, because they lack specificity. But, as I promised up front in this entry, here is the formulation, which has impressed me the most, and which is, in my opinion, the most useful of all, in its application to the concept of International Justice. It comes from a rather unexpected source, namely, from the great French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and here it is in my abbreviated version:
“Justice is… respect… for human dignity.”
(I will now give the full passage here for the record, although I am tempted to quote it again and again in the superb abbreviated form above: “Justice is spontaneous respect, mutually guaranteed, for human dignity, in whatever person it may be compromised and under whatever circumstances, and to whatever risk its defense may expose us.”)
It looks like in our day and age, respect is the commodity in shortest supply. No wonder that our world is so menacingly besieged with all those seemingly insurmountable problems… (Come to think of it, however, we must not discriminate against our day and age by singling it out. Apparently, M. Proudhon had become an anarchist, in the first place, exactly because the state of justice in his day and age didn’t exactly correspond to his own ideal of justice.
…But anyway, I shall leave it to the reader now to marvel, as I do, at the sheer beauty of that last expression of ideal justice, originating with Proudhon, and at its immense implications for the critically important, albeit so terribly elusive, concept of International Justice.
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