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.
You propose an interesting scenario. I think Socrates would point out that the society you've described is unjust to allow its citizens to starve.
ReplyDeleteThe man's psyche was controlled by his hunger, or perhaps by his concern for the health of his family (one of the passions). Using this part of his psyche to make the decision, the man is not being orderly and thus is not being just.
In this way, I think the state being unjust caused the man to also act unjustly. I think someone who has been denied basic necessities can't reasonably be expected to act justly. That's interesting, because we likely wouldn't blame the man for his injustice, so that may beg the question, as your title may also, as to whether what is unjust is necessarily bad. Perhaps it was a bad action in a bad society?
The society proposed was not starving all of its citizens. The only reason that the child was starving was because it had been sick previoulsy and required more nurishment than what was being provided. I tried to make the state error less and in some senses just in that they were providing for the entirety of the civilians in the state. I struggled in making this as "ideal" as possible in hopes of rocking the boat a bit. You make perfect sense in what you say! I have a question for you, did you like my caution?
Deletei feel like the state is both just and fair. It is set up so that everyone will survive and no one will be left out, therefor treating everyone equally. So in my opinion the state cannot be blamed for the situation that has occurred.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand i feel that the man cannot be called unjust either. He is thinking rationally and his psyche is not in disorder, because he is thinking rationally and he makes the decision to break a law in order to save his son.
I feel that both the state and the man must be considered just, an unforseeable situation has occurred which forces the actions of a man, there is no way the state could have acted to prevent the situation.
It is interesting if it's a situation that the state can't very well avoid, such as famine or natural disasters. In that case, I think the state may still be just, but the man's psyche, I would argue, is out of order. He is ruled by his desire to keep his child alive, which is by all means the right motivation, but it means he also breaks the laws of the society. He has been put into a situation where being unjust (stealing bread and having his life taken as punishment) seems better to him than following the laws.
ReplyDeleteIn your situation, I feel that the man's actions will necessarily cause harm to others. With such a severe food shortage, the man is likely causing a tragedy in a family other than his own. By doing this, I feel that he is unjust. That being said, his alternate options aren't great. Would it be just to allow his son to die? I feel like the man's most just course of action would have been to give the son his own food. This way, he provides for his son without causing harm to other families. My response raises a bit of a question, though: would it be just for the man to bring harm to himself?
ReplyDelete