Concept of Justice

The desire for justice is an innate characteristic of the human condition. To understand justice, one must first acknowledge the root cause of this idea. Justice is a tool implemented by mankind in an attempt to protect society from the 'wrongs' committed against members of society. It is not realistic to prevent all wrongs before they happen, thus a system must be implemented to compensate for the wrongs after they have been committed. At the root, most if not all wrongs which are committed can be attributed to a lack of respect between members of society. Justice serves as a means of encouraging the mutual respect amongst members of a society by punishing those who illustrate a lack of respect.

Upon examining the systems of justice which have been implemented throughout the history of mankind, it becomes evident that the lack of respect amongst the members of society has been of great concern. While the actual retributions for the wrongs committed against society have varied a great deal from one society to the next, the essential nature of these wrongs are derived from the necessity of respect for a functional society. There is one common issue which confronts all societies, namely, self-sustainability. In pursuit of self-sustainability, the implementation of justice into society is a means by which society weighs the costs associated with justice against the benefits the society will gain. Wrongs committed against society which pose a great harm to the members of the society are seen as worthy of sacrifices by the society as whole.

In recent history, perhaps one of the greatest examples of the justice system asking the members of society to make sacrifices in pursuit of the overall protection of society, would be the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. The citizens of the United States have sacrificed a great deal in terms of their civil liberties in order to protect society as a whole. The very name of the main legal code instituted by the United States after these attacks sums up the points I have made thus far, "USA Patriot Act". The Patriot Act resulted in United States citizens sacrificing a great deal of their civil liberties, but this action was justified due to overall protection of society which it promotes. The costs associated are claimed to be less the benefits which society has to gain. Whether or not the benefits actually outweighed the costs for this particular example has been the topic of great debate since the Patriot Act was signed into law.

Since the concept of justice is dependent on a lack of respect to exist within humanity, will justice ever only be read about in history books? This may be a rather idealistic view, but I find it inspirational to consider the possibility of a society which fully respects one another, and thus has no need to implement any form of justice system. Perhaps one day people may start to see justice as merely putting a band-aid on a bleeding wound. Sure it may seem to fix a problem, but if you had never gotten the wound to begin with, a band-aid would not be necessary.