Justice based on the Soul based on Influence

As it seems that most folks are posting about Justice (and I’ll end up there, too) I’m going to post about an aspect that strays a bit from topic, but is still incredibly relevant: the soul.

Taking two philosophy classes in one semester is kinda a bonus, it seems. Here, we're reading Plato and in my Ethics class, we're reading Aristotle, who we know was Plato's student. It's interesting to see how Plato presented Socrate's ideas and how Aristotle expanded them over his years.

Concerning Justice, and the Good, and the Right, I think it's necessary to take in both Philosophers (which we will). They both speak to the tripartite soul. They explain how the appetite and spirit MUST be governed by the rational aspect (psyche) in order for us to (a) function as a society (b) maintain a virtuous and just life, and (c) distinguish ourselves from animals.

As we’ve talked about in class, (a) and (b) are cyclical cause and effect elements. They are chicken-and-egg, which came first, the just man or the just state. But what we often neglect is (c), that without reason (and willpower, which I’ll briefly speak to), we wouldn’t be doing much outside the realm of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The fact that we have this notion of Justice, of Right and wrong, of Good, is an amazing distinction we have that (we assume) animals do not, this conscience is an interesting thing. But what goes along with this is: how natural is it for us to be moral? How natural is it for us to sit still, sit quietly in class for 50 minutes without interrupting the professor, eating while she’s talking, or sleeping in the middle of class? Without this conscience, this rationality, we probably wouldn’t even show up to class.

Therein lies the affects of sociology and culture. Since none of us grows up in a vacuum, every society places its own value on certain acts. Therefore, what is Just is relative, isn’t it? The definition of Justice itself is an ideal; there is no way to determine it, no way to achieve it, no way to secure it. This is why individual nations must dictate their own laws, make their own rulings, and govern their people the way they see works for their people. Humans are social creatures, but can we just reflect for a moment on how we got here? I mean, as countries, as nations, as individuals attending Rhodes. What cultural, regional, religious moralities have influenced our definitions of justice and how we in turn have affected the global population?

Ideals, Justice, and the Good

     As humans, we often use an idealized version of things to determine what we should do, or how we should act. Among these important ideals are the ideals of justice and “the good”, as discussed in class today, and a major problem with these terms is that they can mean different things to each individual. For example, one person could define "good" as being what furthers the self, what causes the least harm, or what helps others the most (possibly even at the expense of the self). In class today, it was argued that Plato believes all unjust actions to stem from an imbalance in the psyche between the three classes, reason, passion, and appetites, where the person does not seek “the good” rationally, but is that a sound argument? I do not think so, because each person’s “the good” is different. Is it, for example, good or just to live in contented happiness by causing pain or to suffer unhappiness and destruction that others may be happy? Both are equally valid interpretations of what “good” is, and neither one is necessarily more right than the other. Thus, this is an excellent example of how justice based on the good can be contradictory. Another, more concrete example is whether it is just for a member of the guardian class to suffer the weight of the city’s rule, especially by putting their own individual good beneath the good of the whole.

     Defining justice as being a quality that is always present when the three elements of the psyche are in balance and harmony seeking the good is thus seen to be problematic when the good of an individual and of a larger group are in conflict. However, the more important question is whether this is still could be a valid ideal for us to compare with real world scenarios, or is this line of inquiry unprofitable and should be abandoned? In order for it to meet my own ideal standards for an ideal, it need only fix the subjectivity of the good, for justice, I believe, will follow from the good. As to the ideal of good, for it to be useful, it should be perfect, and thus unobtainable, and should be as concrete and definite as possible. The questions that still need to be answered are whether the individual good is subject to the good of the many and whether the choice of the individual affects what is good (such as would we say that one person forced to suffer for the majority is just? Or unjust?). What are some of your thoughts?

As Justice Creates Injustice

            In class we have defined justice in many different ways. Initially as a class we defined it by some high sense of urgency. With this sense of urgency as the foundation there would be a building of fairness that was comprised of impartiality to access to the judicial system that would result in proportional consequence to the action. As the class went on we looked at authors such as Plato who looked into the definition of justice at a much greater level. At one point of his exploration, the definition of justice was presented as the advantage of the stronger. In those cases ‘the stronger’ was seen as the head of some sort of governing body. Unfortunately we cannot all live in Plato’s republic, and in some cases ‘the stronger’ uses the American justice system to create large social injustices.

            The death penalty has seemed to find its way to an agenda of pressing topics of social injustice in the American justice system. One major failure in the realm of the death penalty is the large amount of minorities placed on death row. Less than ten years ago it was reported that in the jurisdiction of the US Military that eighty six percent of its death row was comprised of minorities. In the jurisdiction of the US Government the percent of death row that was comprised of minorities was seventy seven percent.

            If we have a justice system built on the fact that everyman has the right to be considered equal to the other and that they have the right to some sort of fair trial, why is it the fact that “while white victims account for approximately one-half of all murder victims, 80% of all Capital cases involve white victims.” The advantage of the stronger has played into a prejudice that has unfairly taken the lives of minorities that might have not been taken if they were white. To go along with the statistics on percentage of death rows comprised of minorities “as of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.”

            When Plato explored the idea that justice is the advantage of the stronger he assumed that the advantage played into the needs of the people that the stronger was governing. Unfortunately in the, nowhere near utopian, American justice system this advantage has been used as a sick form of minority population control. Is it fair to assume that the gap between minorities and whites sentenced to death row experienced a fair trial where the consequences were proportional in the two sets of cases? Justice is based on a clear level of consistency in the law, and this is another instance on where the American justice system has failed to realize that even they can create some of the greatest injustices in the country.

http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/race-and-death-penalty

           

Justice, Injustice, and Voter ID laws

For the past two thousand years philosophers have strived to define the word “justice.” Some tried hard to prove Plato’s definition of justice that says that a just man is a man who is where he is supposed to be. Still, after all this time, Plato’s definition is not considered complete. No one has really come up with a concrete definition of justice. Many of the definitions that we discussed in class contained subjective words like “fairness.” To use the word “fair” one needs a definition of “fair.” But who determines fairness? In any situation there might be many fair actions that one can take but which action is the fairest action? So using the word fair, doesn’t really help us define the world “justice.”

I believe that in order to find a more concrete definition of justice, we have to look at its counterpart: injustice. If we can better understand injustice, then the definition of justice will be clearer.  So, what really is injustice? Is it sex trafficking of young girls? Is it tyranny? Is it racism? Is it child labor? In my mind, these are all not only unfair but also injustices; this is because I believe that in all of these instances the strong are taking advantage of the weak. So, I would define injustice as the strong taking advantage of the weak. Therefore I could say that Justice can be defined as equal opportunities for all. In a just society the strong will not infringe upon the rights of the weak.

In class we discussed the Voter ID laws and if they are just. If we do define injustice as the strong taking advantage of the weak then I would say the Voter ID laws are quite unjust. Voter ID laws can be considered poll taxes (which we banned decades ago). Some people are not able to get state IDs because they either don’t have the financial means or they don’t have an address. The people who can’t get IDs are the poor and if we expand that further we can say that the poor probably consist of mostly African Americans, college students, and other minorities like immigrants. Which make up the bulk of the Democratic Party. So, these Voter ID laws are made to suppress a group of people; even the congressman who came up with the law, said that this law will make Mitt Romney win the election. So why is this unjust? When the strong (politicians and rich people who have influence over the politicians) take away such a right from the poor then I would consider the strong to be unjust. If this kind of law passes then the strong will get people that they support into the government. This would be quite a slippery slope because as more and more politicians who support the strong get power, the weak will cease to have a voice. I believe that in order to live in a just America, we need to get rid of these Voter ID laws or offer free ways to get State issued IDs. This way everyone can have a voice.

Link to Jon Stewart video on the Voter ID laws.

Justice for All

In the previous classes we have started our discussion of justice by focusing on its definition or idea. Based on these discussions I believe we can define justice as, a non-discriminatory, rational system that is consistent and appropriately assigns punishments to crimes. Moreover, that justice should disregard social and economical status and be applicable to all citizens. If this definition holds true there are still gray areas and loop holes that can be argued.

Our discussions of Socrates should affect our outlook on justice and fill some of these gaps. Thrasymachus raises a fine argument that unjust people are more profitable than the just, because they will take advantage of the just people and that’s the way the world works. Socrates agrees that there are some unjust individuals in the world, but he denotes the idea of an entire community practicing unjust behaviors. Without community wide justice then they would always quarrel with each other due to lack of trust, instead of accomplishing their goals. Yet, he neglects to mention how one person’s unjust act could affect the community. So to continue this analysis of the term I would like to raise the question of “Is there a cut off point for justice due to individual crimes or to what existent should it be applied?”

 For example, should incarcerated individuals be allowed to practice the same basic freedoms as free citizens, such as the first Amendment? John Walker Lindh is currently severing a 20 year sentence in a special unit in a federal prison for aiding the Taliban. John Walker Lindh was born in California, but was converted to the Muslim faith before his departure to Afghanistan and meeting with Taliban leaders. He was arrested in Afghanistan but due to special requests by his parents John was able to finish his term in the United States. However, he is currently filing a lawsuit against the warden and the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana to restore his rights to pray five times a day against. The prison’s freedom of group pray was restricted by the warden in 2007 due to safety reasons. Even though this prison unit is already under special circumstances, such as restricted communication to any party, is it just for the warden to disregard the Religious Freedom Restoration Act? Does a man who committed terrorism against the United States still have right to practice religious freedom while incarcerated in the United States?

For more information about the case

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/27/us/indiana-lindh-prayer/index.html?hpt=ju_t4

Earlier this summer, a bill (Senate Bill 1172) was passed in California that bans the use of what is commonly referred to as ‘conversion therapy’ on LGBTQ minors in the state. Any mental health provider who attempts to convert the sexual orientation of a minor in California- regardless of their parents’ wishes- faces the charge of “unprofessional conduct” as stated in the bill. Even while backed by entities such as the American School Counselor Association, who are quoted in the legislation as stating, “sexual orientation is not an illness and does not require treatment,” this bill clearly raises questions of whether or not it is just legislation.

After discussing the rights of minors in class the other day, this is especially interesting because while protecting the rights of minors in California the state is also limiting the role and extent of how parents are allowed to raise their children. As we discussed earlier, people will always have their biases, but we did come to a conclusion that discrimination is not just under any circumstances.

I would argue that this is a just act due to the already limited rights of minors up until the age of eighteen in the United States as well as the discriminatory practices in place against this minority in our nation. The tricky part of this is that while adding to the rights of the youth, it is also taking away that of the parents. What tips the argument over the edge, however, is that while parents should have the ending say in how to raise their children, their child’s sexual orientation is not a matter of parenting.

the bill:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB1172

 Mary Harrell

The Good, the Bad and the... Wait, which is which?

                Caution: The following blog is full of possibly the following: erroneous comments, irrational sentiment, ignorance, and contrite reasoning. It may also resemble: knowledge, thought provoking matter and ideas that make you question your own conclusions.

                Thrasymachus postulated, “… Injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice.” Socrates felt that he had to disapprove this statement. As was deciphered in class something cannot be both just and unjust.

                The problem I have with being objective and stating whether something is just or unjust, good or bad, moral or immoral, is that we as individuals have to decide what is what. My goal in this blog is to try to set up a situation where we have to question, “Is injustice profitable?”

                Imagine a certain situation in which there is a man. This man is no less human or any more human than you or I. This man is a reasonable person, always trying to keep his appetites and ambitions under a type of control. He is a worker within a certain state, who does not receive neither too much nor too little work. The state in which the man lives comes under a drought. Food production dwindles and naturally a famine rises in the country. The state rations out food to all equally including the rulers and all tenants of the state. The state also makes a law, to be enforced by all citizens, that if any individual is caught stealing food, than they shall be put to death as a penalty.  The portion is enough to feed everyone in the man’s family, all but one. The youngest child, who has been sick, must have more food than what is rationed, or he will perish. The problem that the man is faced with is that if he takes food away from any other individual within his family, than they too will perish. The man steals and is then put to death, but his child continues to live because of the food which was stolen.

                Some questions now arise from this particular situation. Questions that pop into my head include some of the following: Was the man just/unjust? Was the law just/ unjust? If the man was unjust, did his injustice pay off? Was his psyche in disorder, causing him to make his decisions? Was the state in disorder?

Works Cited

Westphal, Jonathon, ed. Justice. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996. Print. Hackett Readings in Philosophy.

     At the end of class on wednesday we left off with how it would be "profitable" for an unjust student to disobey the honor code at Rhodes.  I personally think that a student would only be doing an injustice to themselves if they were to bend the rules for momentary gratification.
     We all have those little thoughts that come into our head when we think "I could go home and cheat on this exam" or "I bet I could steal a bag of chips from the lair." Although those things may appear to be a more convenient way of doing handling yourself overtime the existential angst that we may develop from realizing what we have done in the past far outweighs the relief someone could get out of taking the easy way out.  Perhaps a Rhodes student went around stealing laptops and clothes from his fellow classmates after signing the honor code.  What enjoyment would a reasonable person get from not only harming their peers but also themselves because of the torment they put their conscience through.  Students cheating on their schoolwork could be one of the biggest dishonesties they could do to themselves.  Not only would there be a heavy weight looming over there head they also would be destroying the chance to feel self accomplishment and growth of completing something justly.
    Since Philosophy is literally the "love" of "wisdom" it would be totally unreasonable for any right minded philosophy student to ensue corruption in there school work because they would merely be cheating themselves out of knowledge.  How valuable could a diploma if you didn't even work for it?  Furthermore if a student does decide to cheat he is harming his other classmates who are working, most of the time very hard,  out of a good curve grade or average.
    Im not going to say that Rhodes is anywhere close to the utopian society that Plato looks to create but for the most part I would consider one of the more honorable colleges around.  I think it is also a testament to Rhodes judicial system that it is run by the students showing how much of the student body is to be considered just.  So in conclusion if the majority of Rhodes students where liars and cheaters they most likely would not have made it here.

Defining Justice

On Monday, after reading The Lottery in Babylon, we attempted to attach a definition to the concept of justice.  We brainstormed and came up with words like 'fairness' and 'impartiality' in an attempt to capture the philosophical ideal of justice.

Unfortunately, most of the words we used to describe justice were somewhat vague or ambiguous in meaning.  So I did a little digging around the internet to find a comprehensive definition of justice.  In my search, I stumbled upon a few websites that made some important distinctions between different types of justice.  The authors of these articles categorized justice into four types (distributive, procedural, retributive, and restorative).

Retributive justice will probably be the most familiar to us.  When a criminal is sentenced to jail for a crime, retributive justice is in effect.  From the Maiese article: "It is a retroactive approach that justifies punishment as a response to past injustice or wrongdoing. The central idea is that the offender has gained unfair advantages through his or her behavior, and that punishment will set this imbalance straight."  Retributive justice focuses on the fair punishment of offenders.

In contrast, restorative justice focuses on reparations and the healing of the victim's wounds.  A good example is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed to repair the damage caused by years of apartheid.

Procedural justice emphasizes fair processes in the juridical process.  Similar cases must be treated in like fashion, and the arbiter of procedural justice should be neutral and impartial.  This type of justice is evident in concepts like common law and legal precedence.

Distributive justice concerns the fair apportioning of resources to all members of society.  Dr. Shahnaz Khan describes it as "fair distribution of rewards (e.g. jobs, wealth, property) and burdens (e.g. military service, dangerous or undesirable jobs)."  To many, this may not be considered just at all.  The fair allowance of the opportunity for these things is a much more reasonable expectation, I believe.

All four forms of justice emphasize the fairness of their respective outcomes. Is fairness, then, the most important criterion for what is considered just?  I think so.  Fairness is a very relative concept, though.  Does that make justice as flexible and ambiguous as fairness, then?  Or is our concept of justice anchored by the laws shaping our society? 

In the end, justice usually supersedes the law (as far as morality is concerned). Our conceptualization of justice, however, is shaped by the laws and regulations of our society.

In an excerpt from Plato’s The Republic, Plato describes a heated conversation between Socrates and Thrasymachus over the problematic topic of justice.  Both philosophers are attempting to dig through the fluff and nonsensical arguments and pinpoint the exact meaning of that elusive term.  Our Social and Political Philosophy class experienced a similar predicament this past Monday.  We tried to understand the multiple interpretations of justice that each of our classmates presented. It is a useful and relevant debate, since defining this term justice is essential in the creation of respectful, productive and law-abiding human beings.

So this discussion begs the question, what is justice exactly?  Is there an accepted definition or is the term more abstract? In Book One of The Republic, Thrasymachus gives defining “justice” a shot.  His retort to Socrates' question is that "justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger" (Westphal 39).  Thrasymachus implies that justice is simply rules created by the rulers, to benefit themselves.  

Dr. Johnson asked our class on Wednesday if Thrasymachus' assertion was plausible. There were many hands raised agreeing that it was.  Many of us, I assume, were thinking initially of the legislation and statues our federal and state governments impose on us, such as the tax codes, voter registration laws, and “legitimate rape”.  These laws and assertions by politicians, it seems, were created by the powerful to exploit the weak and benefit the lawmakers based on a system created on the premise of justice.

But this is not always the case. Thrasmychus' definition of justice doesn’t hold up when you consider the Affordable Health Care Reform Bill recently passed by Congress and upheld by the United States Supreme Court.  Under the Affordable Health Care Act, fifty four million Americans who couldn’t afford preventative healthcare will now be able to receive these preventative services without any additional costs ("A More Secure Future").  Another fifty thousand citizens with pre-existing conditions who were blocked out of the system can now get insurance ("A More Secure Future"). (Along with these statistics, there is a great video that explains how this Act benefits the weaker people in the U.S. http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform.)

I could go into the technicalities of Healthcare Reform, but that would be missing the point of my argument, and ultimately the point Plato was trying to make in The Republic.  Thrasymachus wasn’t necessarily wrong. Legislation often seems designed to benefit those who have the most influence on lawmakers. But the Affordable Healthcare Act contradicts that assumption. It can also be argued that Healthcare Reform is unjust because it’s a disincentive to those who don’t work and better themselves.

Justice isn’t always black or white. Sometimes justice isn’t obvious, but requires a digging through the fluff and nonsensical arguments just as Thrasymachus and Socrates attempted to do. It can be relative and entirely gray as it applies to different groups and situations in our society.  There is no clear answer to Socrates' question, only endless examples that at times contradict one another.  As philosophy students, we must accept the fact that our discipline is one that deals with an array of gray areas, and that opinions will differ, but the validity of each is dependent on perspective.

Works Cited

"A More Secure Future." Health Reform in Action. The White House, n.d. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform>.

Westphal, Jonathan. "Plato, "Justice," from the Republic, Book I." Justice. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 1996. N. pag. Print.

Justice and the social structure are inherently intertwined because of the nature of man’s existence. We cannot exist outside of society, yet we cannot perfectly align our reality with any other individuals. Thus, the conflict between the individual and society, often played out as the state, is a constant thread of civilization, and the quest for justice. Plato tries to amend this using a number of techniques. First of all, he labels groups according to their usefulness to society and their supposed intrinsic nature. Although this may be convenient, it is have serious implications for social structure. Although imposing a structure on others can result in a shaping of society to the preconceived notions of the reality, it is still a structure that will not perfectly match reality, resulting in, over time a source of conflict for certain individuals. Plato then uses a noble lie to subdue said conflicts. Although there is nothing necessarily wrong with a society built upon a lie, there are some problems with the construct he creates in the first place. Plato uses assumptions made about the individual’s nature and transposes them onto society.  Such a tendency is a gross miscalculation of both the human system, and social interactions, but also is inherently dehumanizing. It seems unlikely that the nature of man can truly be discovered separate from the nature of an individual to be himself.

When we developed our own definitions of justice, I chose to focus on the role of society in defining justice.  Too often justice becomes an idea instead of a reality. When Thrasymachus says that justice is the advantage of the stronger, he is trying to enforce a realistic understanding of the implications of the idea of justice.  Although he may have an overly simple conclusion, it is important to understand that justice is inherently a social reality, not an individual problem, as it always involves the interaction of members of society.  Thus, in order for our ideas about justice to become reality, they must be a part of how we interact with others.  Rightness, equality and fairness all relate to our understandings of the realities of others to varying degrees. A man without a capacity to sympathize or empathize with others will fail to understand the injustice of a situation, while he who seeks to see both sides of an injustice will reach an equilibrium, or a rightness, with more precision.

Job Discrimination

Recently, a hospital in Texas said that they would not hire anyone over a certain Body Mass Index. One might think that this would be to promote a healthier looking hospital, but there is no minimum Body Mass Index so the hospital would only discriminate against people who weigh more. Obviously weight has no relation to ones ability to perform a nursing job and this can even exclude great candidates from getting a job.

            As we talked about in class, it is impossible for people to not be prejudice, many people aren’t hired based on their weight and unlike the hospital in Texas, and weight isn’t a requirement for the job. Michigan is the only state that has a law saying that you can’t not hire someone based on their weight. Women are also more likely to not get the job based on their weight rather than men.

            According to a study from the University of Texas, ugly people are also facing discrimination when it comes to jobs. (There is a funny clip from The Daily Show about this)

            This is a growing problem and clearly something that is unjust. The problem with this type of discrimination is that a large part of it isn’t intentional. 


- Hallie Brown