Justice

Most individuals have an ‘intuitive’ sense of some situation or action being just or un-just i.e. as right or wrong. This intuitive sense; however, is never fully developed, and it is easily corrupted by bad ideas. The purpose of this post will be to provide some real case studies and analyze them for Justice, define Justice, and to discuss Justice in the world right now.

Before proceeding further, I offer my standard disclaimer and these words: I will utilize some definitions and quotes by Rand and Peikoff to help bolster this post; however, the examples and total discussion are mine and based off of my own direct experiences or observations or stories from trusted sources; additionally, the examples I use are based off of real individuals and real experiences I have had or heard of, but I am keeping them purposely vague for both privacy and length considerations. Thank you

When one thinks of Justice, one typically thinks of a bad person getting caught and punished i.e. a criminal getting sent to jail for the crime(s) committed by them. This is an aspect of Justice; however, it is only part of what Justice entails. After all, does it make sense that Justice is concerned only with what happens to the bad individuals or should Justice also apply to good individuals? Why should one want to both be Just in one’s own life and have Justice be a cardinal principle in the society in which one lives? The answer is the same in every case: because it is in one’s own long-term rational self-interest to want to be Just in one’s personal dealings and to have Justice be properly exercised in the society in which one lives.

Now, let us turn to a couple of situations and determine where Justice is or is not present in them.

First consider this example:

An individual embarks on the beginnings of what they believe to be a career full of promise, fun, and continual growth and challenge. In their first year of the career, they excel at their job. They inspire others to do better. Along the way, that individual begins to recognize a stark difference between how they conduct themselves and do their job and how those around them do the same. The individual is idealistic, driven, and hungry for change; the others are the opposite. They continuously appeal to tradition and rules and status-quo and the like as rationalizations for how they approach the job. One day, while helping someone, this individual loses everything due to the fact that this person takes their job seriously and chose to trade with others outside the job. No appeal to investigate the total context or find the truth, just a summary judgment and dismissal along with veiled threats of further harm & harassment. What did this person do wrong? Nothing except do their best at their job and have a passion for it that extended beyond the doors of the job. The response that person got: hatred, abandonment, threats, loss of career and a general despair about life. Is Justice present here? No, of course not. This person acted as a moral person should: using Reason, being Productive, entering trader relationships [win-win], and seeking to always do better. That moral person was met with vicious hatred and threats for no other reason than the fact that they are what they are. This is not Justice, but it is the response of a corrupt society in response to individuals who are moral and Just.

Consider a different example involving a different individual:

This individual had a job working at one branch of a company but they had to transfer to a different branch of that company for school and living considerations.

After being away from the original branch for a few months, this individual made inquiries to return and they were promised, by the manager of the branch store via verbal agreement, that they would receive an increase in pay and/or a leadership position within a few months of that individual’s return. This individual returned, while still living far away for school; however, when time came for promotions and raises to be handed out, this individual was passed up even though this individual had exemplary work ethic and good attendance. Is this Justice? No. This individual was promised and had earned, by objective standards, a raise/promotion, but they were denied for no reason that I/they are aware of.

Consider a 3rd example involving yet another individual.

An individual creates a product that enables increased productivity and increased free time for the lives of a large number of individuals. This person founds a company and begins to market and sell this product for a low price, and they gain a very healthy profit from these sales. Then, a government thug berates this individual to bribe them or face criminal punishment. This individual refuses, so they are punished and their company is sued, taken over by parasitic thugs, and further innovation is stymied. As a result of this, this individual retires from the company, refusing to work under such conditions and suffering from severe dejection, and spends the rest of their time doing various hobbies. Is this Justice? Is this individual getting what they deserve? is the fact that they produced such valuable technological products cause for their company, their very livelihood to be stolen from them by some thugs and parasites? No, that cannot be Justice.

A final example that I just witnessed recently [as of 5–15–19]:

This individual had to go to a hospital for heart issues {among other things}, and they were discharged to their home a couple days after admission. Some legal rule, regulation, law requires them to be visited by a social worker to check that they are following discharge orders and are doing ‘okay’ (I checked, and this social worker, and all such visits, are not employed by a hospital or doctor as part of a complex treatment protocol or discharge procedure; rather, they are contact by the hospital and they check on the patient). This individual doesn’t care about such things because they know and accept that their end is rapidly approaching; however, the social worker doesn’t care about such things. To the worker, it is their moral duty {yes, I was present for one of these visits so I inferred these statements from watching and listening to them interact with the individual whom I am talking about in this example} to help this individual get better (that moral duty is backed up by the government’s power through its regulations governing the medical realm) irrespective of the fact that this individual does NOT care about such things. This social worker puts their ‘duty’ above the interests/desires of the individual in question. Is this Just? How can it be justice for one individual to use the threat of force {via the government} to force their wishes on another individual? It cannot.

Throughout these examples, I have endeavored to show 4 different individuals in drastically different situations and how Justice was or was not present in each example. Keep in mind that Justice is an individual affair and that it deals both with one’s internal mental processes and judgments of the facts of Reality and it deals with one’s interactions and judgments with other individuals based on their actions and ideas. Rand and Peikoff offer unique and powerful insights into the nature of Justice:

[John Galt’s Speech] “Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification — that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero — that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions — that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement — that to place any other concern higher that justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit — and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.” (Atlas Shrugged)

{Rand writing about concept formation and validation} “…what fact of reality gave rise to the concept ‘justice’? The fact that man must draw conclusions about the things, people and events around him, i.e., must judge and evaluate them. Is his judgment automatically right? No. What causes his judgment to be wrong? The lack of sufficient evidence, or his evasion of the evidence, or his inclusion of considerations other than the facts of the case. How, then, is he to arrive at the right judgment? By basing it exclusively on the factual evidence and by considering all the relevant evidence available. But isn’t this a description of ‘objectivity’? Yes, ‘objective judgment’ is one of the wider categories to which the concept ‘justice’ belongs. What distinguishes ‘justice’ from other instances of objective judgment? When one evaluates the nature or actions of inanimate objects, the criterion of judgment is determined by the particular purpose for which one evaluates them. But how does one determine ac criterion for evaluating the character and actions of men, in view of the fact that men possess the faculty of volition? what science can provide an objective criterion of evaluation in regard to volitional matters? Ethics. Now, do I need a concept to designate the act of judging a man’s character and/or actions exclusively on the basis of all the factual evidence available, and of evaluating it by means of an objective moral criterion? Yes. That concept is ‘justice’. (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology pg. 51)

{Peikoff writing on the virtue of Justice} “In every process of justice, one must begin as a juror struggling to grasp the facts. Is the accused a murderer, the juror must ask, or is he the victim of an error or frame-up? Similarly, does your friend, as someone has suggested, malign you behind your back, or is the charge mistaken or itself malicious? Did you child’s teacher punish him for no reason, as your child claims, or was there a reason? Of the employees of yours competing for a promotion, which one is the most reliable, honest, productive? In short, what are a man’s attributes or actions? To be just, such is the question one must work to answer first, taking into account all the available evidence. Injustice in this connection would be any indulgence in emotionalism, any form of being influenced in one’s factual conclusions by something other than fact (by prejudice, say, or favoritism). The blindfolded statue symbolizing justice is not blind to the facts of reality. What the blindfold shuts out is any feeling detached from facts, whether the feeling be desire or fear, pity or hope, hatred or love. What it shuts out is the subjective and the arbitrary, leaving the individual free to engage in a purely rational process of cognition.” (Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand pg. 279)

Now we must integrate the above examples and discussions of Justice [or its lack] into a new mental framework that one can use to make one’s thinking more clear and actions more consistent.

Have you ever felt a sense of frustration or despair or anguish or anger at the state of the world around you, both on a micro and macro level? Have you done all the things you were told to do and, yet, you have not achieved the material/spiritual rewards you thought you would? Do you look out at the world and its inhabitants and ponder why most individuals remain stagnant in their life? Do you see the rising strife between various individuals and groups and other individuals and groups and wonder what the cause is? Do you see the wealthy and powerful amassing more and more money and power while most struggle to just make ends meet and get by in life? Do you wonder why things seem so wrong? Ask yourself this: Where is Justice now? and What is the Just approach to improve one’s own situation? Does your answer involve violating the rights of others? Is that Just i.e. is it right for you to claim it is right or Just to violate someone else’s rights to make your life better? Restoring Justice to the world around you can be done, but it requires the hardest action anyone can do: one must use one’s mind to objectively determine the facts of reality and act in accordance with those facts to achieve the values that make one’s life worth living the entire course of one’s life. When an individual begins to do this, then they will begin to see Justice re-appear in both the micro and, to a lesser extent, macro level in the world around them.

Thank you for reading this, I hope you found some value in what I have said.

As always,

Choices=Reality

Related posts:

If what you have been looking for all along was a tool that could get all your employees’ or customers’ names organized into two different categories. There is an API we recommend and encourage you —…

In this Post We Will Explain About is How to Send Push notification using FCM using php With Example and Demo. Welcome on Pakainfo.com — Examples, The best For Learn web development Tutorials,Demo…

Discover the unique benefits that come with serviced offices in Hong Kong and how serviced office helps elevate your day to day working environment.