The Concept Of Justice

Over time, I've come to realise that there's so much injustice in this life that you can easily fall to the belief that there's no such thing as justice, and you won't be blamed for that line of thought.

Your idea of injustice depends on a lot of things, taking into consideration the fact that justice, like every other moral value is quite a subjective topic. What qualifies as justice to me, might not even come close to been just from your point of view.

To the street tout or violent, justice means taking the laws into their own hands, to the one raised in a well regimented society, justice means letting the constitutes authority decide what justice is( I know how that sounds), while for the one who grew up in a very religious home and background, justice is of God to decide.

For someone caught stealing, to the market people, justice means burning the person alive, to the educated and sophisticated, it means letting the law and authorities decide, to the military man, it means inhumane treatment, then a shot in the back, again it's subjective.

The whole idea of justice is a result of the formation of social behavior amongst men. The desire to give up some right to enjoy certain benefits such as security resulted in the establishment of certain society codes. These observance of these codes is associated to living right and about what is just. Because of the personality of different nations, the idea of justice is different from place to place, even within groups and sub-groups.

To the religious, Justice is something to be administered by God and God alone. This idea is founded on the believe that all men are guilty of one thing or the other, or even the very same offence for which they want to administer justice, and for one to be worthy to administer that justice, one has to be free of the supposed crime, or all crime even.

Basically these school of people believe to decide and administer justice, you must be completely righteous yourself, but they also believe no single man, not even children is completely righteous as 'we are all sinners by virtue of the fall of Adam".

There are those of course, who do not believe in the existence of a supernatural being like God, but do not also believe the earth and it's fullness is a production of chaotic orderliness. These ones are usually of the 'educated and logical' school. They believe that somehow, someway, nature has a way of just balancing and cancelling out everything.

They believe that whatever goes around, comes around, but not by virtue of God's direction but by a natural mechanism in place that ensures everything is rewarded equally to keep things in balance. Depending on the level of sophistication, this force of nature responsible for this can take different names, most commonly called Karma.

There are those who believe that justice is what the constituted authority at the time say it is. It doesn't matter what they think about it for themselves, what matters is what the constituted authority says about it.

The most interesting of all are those who believe that there's no such thing as justice, at least not in the sense that most people see it. To these group, the world is a product of evolution, hence what people consider justice is simply the 'survival of the fittest' at play.

The only justice in their perspective is that visited on a prey by a predator. You might think this is stupid, until they tell you every single living thing, every predator has it own predator, hence balance.

Conclusion

Whether we believe it or not, we all do one way or the other subscribe to the idea of a system that checks and balances. It is really the how that comes to question. I for one don't want to pick a side.

The whole point is that, whether we like it or not, we can't really do anything we want, not when it is causing harm, loss or discomfort to others. There will be consequences, believe it or not. I would like to hear what you think about the concept of justice in the comment section.

Thanks for reading!