The concept of justice is simultaneously recognized and misunderstood around the world. The Oxford English Dictionary defines justice as “The quality of being (morally) just or righteous.” For such a brief definition it would not be unlikely to assume that the term justice is a superficial one. On the contrary, this age-old term might have started with a single simple meaning but has developed many more over its existence. The ways civilizations have evolved have in turn forced the word to evolve. Due to this evolution of civilizations, the current state of justice has been lost and it is important to recollect it traits. Many branches of justice now exist and it is possible one may become overwhelmed when searching for its true definition. Observing the term justice presents a plethora of opinions about its definite meaning. In order to create a solid understanding of justice it is necessary to analyze a few of its important branches: retribution, restoration, and distribution. The first step begins with retribution. In order to arrive at a unified definition of justice it is important to take an in-depth look at retributive justice. Robinson provides a clear answer when he states “people often conceptualize justice as that the guilty being held accountable for their actions” (337). In other words, one who has committed a crime has gained an unfair advantage which they were not entitled to by law and deserve punishment. Likewise, it also acts as reinforcement to rules that have been broken (Maiese “Retributive Justice” par. 4). Retributive justice is especially important for severe acts of cruelty and violence. This more severe form of justice, serves for instances where none of the others will suffice. This could include, for ... ... middle of paper ... ...o, Boulder. Posted: October 2003. 12 February 2011.. Maiese, Michelle. "Retributive Justice ." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: May 2004. 12 February 2011. . Maiese, Michelle. "Types of Justice." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: July 2003. 12 February 2011. . Robinson, Matthew B. "Justice as freedom, fairness, compassion, and utilitarianism: How my life experiences shaped my views of justice." Contemporary Justice Review 6.4 (2003): 329-340. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 February 2011.
Before discussing justice in the epic, it is important to establish the meaning of the term. For our present purpose, justice will specifically apply to the social system of moral checks and balances. Acts that are valued in society are rewarded materially or emotionally. Acts that are devalued lead to punishment. Also, recipients of unmerited punishment receive compensation for their injuries.
Ulrich, G. (1999). Widening the circle: Adapting traditional Indian dispute resolution methods to implement alternative dispute resolution and restorative justice in modern communities. Hamline Journal of Public Law and Policy. 20, (2), 419-452.
According to Graham, reconciliation is both “… a goal in the sense that it aims to restore relationships or to promote agonism or mutual tolerance, respect, and dignity […] [And] it is a process because it requires multiple modes, steps, stages, and transformations across all levels of society and amongst all stakeholders in a conflict” (Graham 2015). Through reconciliation and the related processes of restorative justice, parties to the dispute explore and overcome the pain brought on by the conflict and find ways to build trust and live cooperatively with each other. Restorative justice seeks to have a positive impact on offenders by confronting them with the consequences of their actions and delineating their responsibilities, giving them both the opportunity to repair the damage caused to the victim and to work on finding a solution to their problems (Umbreit, Bradshaw and Coates, 1999). According to Philpott, there are six components of political reconciliation: building socially just institutions and relations between states, acknowledgement, reparations, punishment, apology, and forgiveness (Philpott
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. 86. Print.
He explains that when a conflict arises, we are less capable to take on the situation and are more likely to hand it off to authorities. He then comes to the conclusion of how they are overlooked, in terms of importance, and that individuals own their conflicts as one would own property. Furthermore, he justifies that these properties are stolen by law, therefore, no longer owned by individuals. Christie urges the need to eliminate ‘professionals’ from the sphere of conflict resolution in order to prevent the theft of conflicts. He explains his perspective of “conflict as property” as not relating to material compensation but rather to the ownership of conflict itself. He then recognizes the effects of victim losing the “property” originally, and puts forth a fix for this process. He introduces a way to remodel the justice system for dealing with conflicts in which the court is victim
Berstein, R. (2007). “Racial Discrimination or Righting Past Wrongs?” in Justice: A Reader. 237-240. Ed. Sandel, M. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 237.
Hulbert, M. A. (2011). Pursuing justice: An introduction to justice studies. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
This paper considers the desert arguments raised to support retributivism, or retribution. Retributivism is "the application of the Principle of Desert to the special case of criminal punishment." Russ Shafer-Landau and James Rachels offer very different perspectives on moral desert which ground their differing views on the appropriate response to wrongdoing. In "The Failure of Retributivism," Shafer-Landau contends that retributivism fails to function as a comprehensive theoretical foundation for the legal use of punishment. In contrast, in his article "Punishment and Desert," Rachels uses the four principles of guilt, equal treatment, proportionality and excuses to illustrate the superiority of retribution as the basis for the justice system over two alternatives: deterrence and rehabilitation. Their philosophical treatment of the term leads to divergence on the justification of legal punishment. Ultimately, Rachels offers a more compelling view of desert than Shafer-Landau and, subsequently, better justifies his endorsement of a retributive justice system.
Have you ever ask yourself how much being unjust impacts your everyday life and decisions, and how your life would change when you are just? Plato wrote in this book’s expect about how Glaucon perceives the basic idea of justice and how we humans perceive justice as. People created own laws and are deciding whether or no to follow them. One of Glaucon’s argument is that we follow justice to get things or because of its consequences. He also argues that we should preserve justice as a way to gain things not to value it for its own sake. The first of Glaucon’s two claims is the descriptive claim which talks about and explains that humans instrumentally value justice instead of intrinsically valuing it.
Maiese, Michelle. "Social Status." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: September 2004 .
Wolf, R. (2007). Prinicples of Problem-Solving Justice. Bureau of Justice Assistance, Center for Court Innovation.
Justice plays a valuable part in the public’s life; no matter who you are or where you are from. In Michael Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? the reader encounters six specific approaches to lawfulness and ethical morality, which constitute of utilitarianism, libertarianism, Locke, Kant, Rawls, and Aristotle. Each of these definitive philosophies falls under one of three general concepts and categories. These consist of freedom, virtue, and welfare. Exclusively judging the title of the book, one may think that it attempts to solve or bring forth ethical and moral issues of our time. After reading the book however, the reader becomes aware that Sandel’s work is much
Michael W. Morris& Kwok Leung, “Justice For All? Progress in Research On Cultural Variation in the Psychology of Distributive and Procedural Justice” Applied Psychology; An International Review, Vol. 49, 1999.
The retributive model of justice follows a social contact through criminal laws put into place by the governing party. If there is a violation of the social contract a offender must have consequences in order for the social order to remain. Julio Miguel Blanco-Garcia committed this murder despite his agreement with the social order in Virginia.
...Available By: Acker, James. Contemporary Justice Review, Sep2008, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p287-289, 3p; DOI: 10.1080/10282580802295625