Justice: Does History Matter?

As Western civilization advanced into the sixteenth century, the notion of justice originated as a central theme for discussing the treatment and condition of the human race. At this time, much of Western Europe was uncertain of how to describe justice on a universal scope or distinguish what circumstances constituted an act of such merit.

This indecision within the public realm left the matter in the hands of several political theorists to consider. These philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More and Tzvetan Todorov all formulated different perspectives in determining the correlation between justice and history.

With these views in mind, justice can not be fully understood independent of historical contexts. Instead, those that possess power can ultimately determine justice for any society according to their own personal experiences and beliefs.

Humans often rely on events from the past as a basis for the values and morals that enter into their daily routines. These historical contexts provide humans with the opportunity to compare different societies to each other in order to gain a new and diverse perception of justice.

Without history as a reference point, justice could not exist as an individual entity free from all standards of society-a universal conception of justice can not be created without any basis for comparison.

For example, many strongly believe that the colonization and genocide of the native peoples of early America were actions of injustice.

On the other hand, others may not view these actions with a similar sense of disgust but rather with satisfaction. These divergent perceptions of justice can waver on various policies, depending on the issue at hand. Therefore, justice can not be defined by concrete borders or provisions-people will ultimately determine what is right and wrong in a particular society by understanding the rewards and consequences from early events in history.

Those that hold power must formulate a perception of justice according to the events that preceded their position of authority. This relative view of justice indicates that objectivity can never be an attainable goal. If justice is determined individually by a person's own judgments, individual experiences and biases will often dramatically alter one's perception of justice. Hence, justice continues to operate as a subjective and indefinable matter relative to each individual's outlook on society.

On the other hand, many opponents would claim that this argument for historical relativism offers a complacent view of justice. This position refutes the idea that justice can not stand on its own in society and claims that justice can actually be followed under a universal conception.

Justice is not the only means for power but in reality remains free-standing, fully capable of holding its own universal identity.

Additionally, justice can be improved over time-acts of justice do not remain static and inflexible according to only those that hold power in a society.

For example, the United States adopted a Constitution to differentiate what actions were declared as just and unjust. Today, human beings are expected to accept and follow laws described in the document in order to uphold civility and virtue throughout society.

While this example reveals the ever-changing dynamics of justice, its foundations are still based on the morals and values of America's earliest citizens. Historical contexts place constraints on one's own ability to understand justice through an objective perspective.

This reality of objectivity becomes a centerpiece to this counter argument, confirming that justice is not a subjective and individual matter. Individuals can not solely decide what constitutes a just and unjust act, for justice can be characterized under one larger definition.

Niccolò Machiavelli demonstrates in The Prince that a human being seeking principality can understand justice independently of historical contexts. Machiavelli explains that a prince must understand justice in terms of obtaining and maintaining his power over the society in which he rules.

Under this scheme, morality does not concern a prince-moral decisions remain irrelevant as long as a prince holds absolute power over his people at all costs. Therefore, a prince deems what actions are considered just and unjust according to the conditions of his power in society.

In his text, Machiavelli emphasizes that a prince must determine a society's definition of justice by excluding morality and civility as potential factors in seeking and upholding power over a body of citizens: "For a man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards must come to ruin among so many who are not good. Hence it is necessary to a prince, if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity."

This argument contests a connection between justice and history, placing objectivity within the mind of a prince.

However, no person can develop an absolute objective view of any subject, particularly of justice. A prince's determination of justice will constantly vary by the weight of his power at different periods in time. While Machiavelli states that a prince must be feared rather than loved in order to hold power due to the omnipresent dangers of mankind, a prince that commits injustice to his people will be hated.

Further into the novel, Machiavelli distinguishes this disparity between hate and fear of a prince: "The prince should nonetheless make himself feared in such a mode that if he does not acquire love, he escapes hatred, because being feared and not being hated can go together very well."

By being feared rather than hated, a prince can remain in control of his people without the possibility of a rebellion that could quickly destroy a prince and his power.

Overall, Machiavelli demonstrates that a prince must be free of good and bad during his time of rule. While committing acts of injustice could greatly jeopardize his ability to sustain power in a civilized manner, acts of extreme benevolence could also remove a prince from power.

In Utopia, Sir Thomas More utilizes England as a historical context to create a justifiable and idealistic society through his imaginable, fictitious prose. More believes that nature produces certain human needs and values within society, which include justice, reality, and use value as natural elements in developing a "true" reality.

Through his description and conception of Utopia, More illuminates the underlying reality of human reality-he illustrates the misunderstanding of justice in England through the realities of hierarchy, inequality, and social rank to compare this society with one that practices the fundamental values of justice and morality. Thus, Utopia represents the idealist vision for a perfected society through More's objective perspective.

By using England as an empirical model based on fact, Utopia reveals that true human beings will be capable of forming a society free of such flaws. Unlike Machiavelli, More firmly believes that people must be good in order to reach this higher level of existence.

However, this objectivity is slanted by More's own vision for justice through equality.

Moreover, his vision rather employs a system of counterfeit justice that does not exist in reality. More suggests peace and love from the doctrines of Christianity to emphasize that a man's moral consciousness ultimately determines whether a society can be considered justified.

In Book I, More describes this focus of restoring the goodness of men at an early age rather than trying to punish an already corrupted society: "'Assuredly, unless you remedy these evils, it is useless for you to boast of the justice you execute in the punishment of theft. Such justice is more showy than really just or beneficial. When you allow your youths to be badly brought up and their characters, even from early years, to become more and more corrupt, to be punished, of course, when as grown-up men, they commit the crimes which from boyhood they have shown every prospect of committing, what else, I ask, do you do but first create thieves and then become the very agents of their punishment?'"

More explains that justice resulting in punishment will not mobilize people toward a better conception of morality-individuals must instead be instilled with what is right and wrong at birth in order to avoid potential corruption during adulthood.

Furthermore, More describes in Book II his ultimate vision that reflects the Utopian ideals of human equality and virtue: "When nature bids you to be good to others, she does not command you conversely to be cruel and merciless to yourself. So nature herself, they maintain, prescribes us a joyous life or, in other words, pleasure, as the end of all our operations. Living according to her prescription they define as virtue."

This quotation indicates that all humans should be conscious of morality; More envisions that people will naturally act with virtue as their primary purpose for living. While Machiavelli conveys in his novel that a prince must conduct whatever acts are necessary for seizing power, More indicates that all corrupted humans can return to virtuous ways through the provisions of Utopia.

Contrary to Machiavelli and More, Tzvetan Todorov conveys a relativist viewpoint in The Conquest of America. Proposing that justice can not be understood independently of historical contexts, Todorov showcases people in these circumstances and examines the moral judgments that they construct consequently.

In More's Utopia, he offers an objective perspective through his creation of a justifiable society.

Todorov, instead, indicates in his novel that objectivity does not exist on any level. He offers a critical perspective that emphasizes the moral judgments of human beings.

While More focuses on developing a universal standard of justice for all human beings, Todorov understands this notion through the individual stories of several European explorers. Rather than separating nature from culture, he describes various invasions of native tribes as representations of reality determined by the circumstances and cultures of the period.

This cultural realism stems from the belief that the past dictates the human actions of the present, described in Todorov's section on Cortes' invasion of the Aztecs: "The individual's future is ruled by the collective past; the individual does not construct his future, rather the future is revealed; whence the role of the calendar, of omens, of auguries."

Todorov offers a perspective that questions both modernity and objectivity as the superior position to establish truth. In return, he suggests that the cultural construction of society is the society itself through memory and inherited ideas.

In describing Las Casas' conquest, Todorov points to justice as an individual, spiritual concept influenced by humans' interactions and relations with God: "Hence, it is by confronting the most troublesome argument that Las Casas is led to modify his position and to illustrate thereby a new variant of the love for one's neighbor, for the Other-a love that is no longer assimilationist but, so to speak, distributive: each has his own values; the comparison can be made only among certain relations-of each human being to his god-and no longer among substances: there are only formal universals. Even as he asserts the existence of one God, Las Casas does not a priori privilege the Christian path to that God. Equality is no longer bought at the price of identity; it is not an absolute value that we are concerned with: each man has the right to approach god by the path that suit him. There is no longer a true God (ours), but a coexistence of possible universes: if someone considers it as true."

Through his examination of the conquest of America, Todorov theorizes that justice lacks any form of objectivity contingent on truth-in essence, morality can be determined by the cultural and historical contexts in which one endures.

In considering the theories of Machiavelli, More, and Todorov, justice can not be strictly measured through an objective prospective.

Furthermore, human nature is not defined by universal standards but rather through human insight produced by historical and cultural contexts. Human beings must decide for themselves which actions represent virtue and which are classified as iniquitous.

Today, societies around the world continue to develop and alter justice systems according to the advantages and disadvantages of past practices.

Conversely, many of those that oppose this belief claim that humanity can be determined by particular moral judgments. Additionally, this view assumes that human beings are innately moral and just. This conception of humanity presents a naïve approach-all human beings possess the capability to commit virtuous and malicious acts.

Machiavelli explains in The Prince that the human race is essentially corrupt: "For one can say this generally of men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, pretenders and dissemblers, evaders of danger, eager for gain. While you do them good, they are yours, offering you their blood, property, lives, and children, as I said above, when the need for them is far away; but, when it is close to you, they revolt."

While this quotation only states Machiavelli's realist attitude, it affirms that human beings are neither completely good nor evil.

On the whole, the large diversity of the human race does not allow for oversimplification-individuals can not simply be defined by generalities and borders. The connection between historical contexts and justice during the 1500s exemplifies this case with the perception of individuality and subjectivity as its primary constituents.