Justice

justice

In philosophy, the concept of a proper proportion between a person's deserts (what is merited) and the good and bad things that befall or are allotted to him or her. Aristotle's discussion of the virtue of justice has been the starting point for almost all Western accounts. For him, the key element of justice is treating like cases alike, an idea that has set later thinkers the task of working out which similarities (need, desert, talent) are relevant. Aristotle distinguishes between justice in the distribution of wealth or other goods (distributive justice) and justice in reparation, as, for example, in punishing someone for a wrong he has done (retributive justice). The notion of justice is also essential in that of the just state, a central concept in political philosophy. See also law.

---

justice

1. Ethics

a. the principle of fairness that like cases should be treated alike

b. a particular distribution of benefits and burdens fairly in accordance with a particular conception of what are to count as like cases

c. the principle that punishment should be proportionate to the offence

2. the administration of law according to prescribed and accepted principles

3. conformity to the law; legal validity

---

Justice

personified as a blindfolded goddess, token of impartiality. [Rom. Tradition: Jobes II, 898]

See : Blindness

---

Justice

See also Lawgiving.

Kidnapping (See ABDUCTION.)

Killing (See ASSASSINATION, INFANTICIDE, MURDER, PATRICIDE.)

Aeacus

a judge of the dead. [Rom. Lit.: Aeneid]

Ahasuerus

(519–465 B.C.) Persian king rectifies wrongs done to Jews. [O.T.: Esther 8:7–8]

Arthur, King

trained by Merlin to become a just ruler, he endeavors all his life to establish a realm where justice prevails. [Br. Lit.: Malory Le Mort d’Arthur]

Asha

in moral sphere, presides over righteousness. [Zoroastrianism: Jobes, 138]

Astraea

goddess of justice. [Gk. Myth.: Benét, 59]

Barataria

island-city where Sancho Panza, as governor, settles disputes equitably. [Span. Lit.: Cervantes Don Quixote]

blindfold

worn by personification of justice. [Art: Hall, 183]

blue

in American flag, symbolizes justice. [Color Symbolism: Leach, 242; Jobes, 356]

Brown vs. Board of Education

landmark Supreme Court decision barring segregation of schools (1954). [Am. Hist.: Van Doren, 544]

Cambyses, Judgment

of corrupt judge’s flayed flesh provides judicial throne. [Gk. Hist.: Herodotus]

Carlos, Don

conscience piqued, tries to lift Spanish yoke from Flemish. [Ger. Lit.: Don Carlos]

Cauchon, Bishop

presided impartially over the ecclesiastical trial of Joan of Arc. [Fr. Hist.: EB, (1963) V, 60]

Dike

one of Horae; personification of natural law and justice. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 85]

Gideon v. Wainwright

established right of all defendants to counsel (1963). [Am. Hist.: Van Doren, 585]

Hatto

during a famine he saves food for the rich by burning the poor, whom he compares to mice; mice invade his tower and devour him. [Ger. Legend: Brewer Dictionary, 439]

Henry VII

(1457–1509) deliverer of Richard III’s just deserts. [Br. Lit.: Richard III]

International Court of Justice

main judicial organ of U.N. [World Hist.: NCE, 1351]

Libra

sign of the balance, weighing of right and wrong. [Zodiac: Brewer Dictionary, 640]

Minos

his justice approved even by the gods; became one of the three judges of the dead. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 168]

Moran

equitable councillor to King Feredach. [Irish Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 728]

Moran’s collar

strangled wearer if he judged unfairly. [Irish Folklore: Brewer Dictionary, 728]

Nuremberg Trials

surviving Nazi leaders put on trial (1946). [Eur. Hist.: Van Doren, 512]

Portia

as a lawyer, ingeniously interprets to Shylock the terms of Antonio’s bond. [Br. Drama: Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice]

Prince Po

settles dispute over a stolen child by asking the two claimants to pull it out of a circle of chalk by its arms. [Chin. Drama: The Circle of Chalk in Magill III, 193; cf. Brecht The Caucasian Chalk Circle in Weiss, 74]

Rhadamanthus

made judge in lower world for earthly impartiality. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 911]

rudbeckia

indicates fairness. [Flower Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 177]

scales

signify impartiality. [Art: Hall, 183]

scepter

denotes fairness and righteousness. [Heraldry: Halberts, 37]

Solomon

perspicaciously resolves dilemma of baby’s ownership. [O.T.: I Kings 16–28]

stars, garland of

emblem of equity. [Western Folklore: Jobes, 374]

sword and scales

attributes of St. Michael as devil-fighter and judge. [Christian Symbolism: Appleton, 98]

Tale of Two Cities, A

barrister London Stryver gets Charles Darnay acquitted by showing his resemblance to Sydney Carton. [Br. Lit.: Dickens A Tale of Two Cities]

Valley of Jehoshaphat

where men will be ultimately tried before God. [O.T.: Joel 3:2]

World Court

popular name for International Court of Justice which assumed functions of the World Court. [World Hist.: NCE, 3006–3007]

Yves, St.

equitable and incorruptible priest-lawyer. [Christian Hagiog.: Attwater, 347

---

Justice

a concept about what should be, a concept that is consistent with certain notions about the essence of man and man’s inalienable rights. Justice is a category of the moral-legal and sociopolitical consciousness. The concept of justice necessarily requires that individuals’ (social groups’) social status correspond to their actual role in society, that their duties correspond to their rights, that retribution correspond to deed, pay to work, punishment to crime, and social recognition to merit. Any noncorre-spondence in these relationships is considered injustice.

In the history of social consciousness, the first conception of justice was associated with the acknowledgment that the norms of the primitive order were undisputed. Justice here was simple conformity to the accepted order. In social practice this conception of justice was negative in sense—it demanded punishment for violation of the general norm. One practical expression of this conception was clan retaliation against an offender. A more refined, affirmative conception of justice, one that included the allotment of benefits to people, emerged as individuals gained an identity distinct from that of the clan. Originally, this conception meant primarily the equality of all in the enjoyment of rights and the means of life.

With the appearance of private property and social inequality, justice came increasingly to be distinguished from equality, embracing a differentiation among people according to merit. Aristotle was the first to distinguish between corrective (or retributive) and distributive justice; in his view, a special form of justice was retribution, which should originate in the principle of proportionality. This differentiation between the justice of equality and the justice of proportionality (according to merit) was subsequently preserved throughout the history of class society. At the same time, the popular consciousness always kept alive, side by side with the concept of justice that reflected the structure of existing class relations, an idea of justice that expressed a protest against exploitation, inequality, and national oppression.

From the point of view of Marxism, the concept of justice is always historical, always the result of the conditions in which people (classes) find themselves. The founders of Marxism-Leninism repeatedly emphasized that evaluating social reality from the standpoint of justice “does not move us one step forward scientifically” (F. Engels, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 20, p. 153). Human social relations can be called just only in the sense that they correspond to historical necessity with respect to the practical possibility of creating conditions of human life that answer to a given historical epoch.

The socialist conception of justice includes equality with respect to the means of production and with respect to real political and legal rights. Under socialism, differences in the character of labor and in the distribution of consumer goods still remain. As V. I. Lenin wrote, “Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the ’injustice’ of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods ’according to the amount of labor performed’ (and not according to needs)” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 33, p. 93). In communist society, full congruence of justice and social equality is achieved.