I care about being a just person. I’m sure you do, too.
People disagree about what justice is exactly. For instance, some people equate justice merely with obeying the law of the land.
However, that can’t be what justice is because sometimes the laws of the land are evil, for instance in cases of slavery or genocide or denying people’s freedom of religion.
Or, as another example, American colonists broke the law in the Tea Party Rebellion in which they refused to pay an unjust tea tax that Britain leveled against them.
So, justice may in fact require that we break the law sometimes, if the law is unjust.
Martin Luther King, Jr. writes about this kind of situation in his Letter Birmingham Jail, which I recommend everyone read.
King wrote this letter after he was imprisoned for helping his black brothers and sisters peacefully protest segregation.
You can find Letter from Birmingham Jail at your local library or bookseller or at Amazon. This picture of MLK is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The idea that justice sometimes requires that we break the law suggests that justice works for good, rightness, and fairness, and it does this this for everyone.
Thus, when a law harms people, such as depriving them of their rights or human dignity, we often believe it is right to disobey the law.
Justice pertains to aiming for goodness for everyone in society.
Unfortunately, many people misunderstand what justice is.
For instance, a story from Plato’s Republic clearly illustrates this misunderstanding.
In the Republic, Socrates discusses what exactly justice is with some of his friends.
Polemarchus, one of his friends, suggests that justice is doing good to your friends and harming your enemies (Republic 332b and 334c).
To be honest, I think a lot of us believe that this is what justice is, especially in our current political climate.
We want to help people in our political party and harm people in the other one.
And because we believe this, we are very concerned with whether political leaders are being unjust to us and to our friends.
But we don’t care if political leaders harm our enemies.
As another example of this, if we believe justice is doing good to our friends and harming our enemies, we care very much if people violate our rights.
But we don’t care if people violate the rights of our enemies, especially our political enemies.
But in the Republic, Socrates points out that this the wrong way to think about justice, and here is why.
When we are unjust to people, we harm them. For instance, think of slavery or genocide or religious oppression.
All these evil and unjust practices traumatize people and destroy their wholeness as people.
Official medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society, picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Socrates points out that, “Men who are hurt necessarily become more unjust” (335e).
A real life example illustrates this well. Consider parents who properly discipline their children and set appropriate boundaries.
That’s justice, and it brings goodness into their children’s lives.
In fact, such justice helps children become whole by teaching them how to control themselves and behave well with others.
On the other hand, consider parents who abuse their children and lash out at them in the name of discipline. These parents act unjustly.
They harm their children, not help them.
And in fact, the trauma they inflict upon their children makes their children more unjust and makes it harder for them to discipline themselves and relate well to others.
And that’s the point.
Justice is goodness. It’s a virtue–one we especially care about in the public square.
Depiction of Faith, Hope, and Love, by Julius Schnorr, courtesy of Unsplash.
When we practice virtue towards others, we bring good to them and make them whole.
Thus, Socrates says that justice cannot be helping your friends and harming your enemies, as Polemarchus suggests.
That’s because true justice brings goodness to everyone.
And I think Socrates’ point applies very well to our modern political condition.
Right now, we are so polarized in politics that we often think justice is about helping our friends (the people in our political party) and harming our enemies (the people in the other political party).
But true justice aims at bringing goodness to everyone.
So, if you want to be truly just, and I know I do, here is an important question:
Do you and I care that our enemies be treated justly like we do our friends?
If so, we are headed in a just direction. If not, we (like Polemarchus and a lot of folks) may have some work to do.
True justice aims at the good of everyone, including people we don’t like. Christ makes a similar point when he tells us to love our enemies. Justice is love in the public square.
In the modern world, this means we care about our rights, but we also care about the rights of people in other political parties. (You might like this post: The Tricky Thing about Rights.)
Justice isn’t about whether we like people or not. It’s about loving goodness and rightness and wanting everyone to have more of it in their lives.
By the way, one of the reasons I am writing this is because the president has recently issues a string of executive orders that many experts worry are unjust. You can read more about this here and here.
If we care about justice, we should certain care about such actions, as well as the actions of the next president, democratic or republican.
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