Justice
Justice (from the Latin iustitĭa, which, in turn; comes from ius —right— and means in its proper sense « lo justo") has several meanings in the Dictionary of the Spanish language. It was born from the need to maintain harmony among the members. It is the set of guidelines and criteria that establish an adequate framework for relations between people and institutions, authorizing, prohibiting and allowing specific actions in their interaction.
Etymology
Apart from what has been given at the beginning of the article, since certain authors disagree with this etymological root, the different opinions on the matter are revealed: On the one hand, the root is linked to other names of significant and religious origin such as: iurare, iovis or jupiter, or iuramentum, which is why the Romans believed that law and justice were a gift from divinity. However, the Romans perfectly distinguished between the legal sphere —ius— and the religious or moral sphere —fas—. Other authors opt for deriving from the Sanskrit root yoh, as coming from a deity or something sacred; others believe that it derives, also from the Sanskrit root yu which is related to an "obligatory bond".
This set of criteria or rules has a cultural basis and, in most modern societies, a formal basis, which intervene within the same concept and are explained as follows:
- The cultural foundation it is based on a broad consensus on individuals in a society about good and bad and other practical aspects of how relationships between people should be organized. In all human society, most of its members are supposed to have a conception of the just and it is considered a social virtue to act according to that conception.
- The formal basis it is formally codified in several written provisions, which are applied by judges and specially appointed persons, who seek to be impartial with respect to members and institutions of society and the conflicts that appear in their relations.
Concept
The concept of justice can be explained from different points of view: ethical, moral, as a virtue, philosophical, religious, legal, and many others. Some of them are presented below.
From a philosophical point of view
The study of justice from the philosophical point of view corresponds to Moral Philosophy and Ethics. In them, justice is defined as the cardinal virtue that resides in the will by which the person is inclined to give each his own, either individually, as a society or as groups of people, members of society. To better understand this definition it is necessary to make some clarifications:
- Justice is a virtue and "the very thing of all virtue and habit is to be a disposition that firmly and permanently inclines its actions."
- Justice, as indicated, is a cardinal virtue, a principal virtue, since on it the moral life of the person revolves.
- It is a virtue that resides in the will, that is to say, in the “sound appetite” as St. Thomas of Aquinas points out; it is not just who “knows” what is right but who work straight. For that reason, justice is in a apetitive faculty and not being able to reside in Sensitive appetite, resides in rational appetiteI mean, in the will.
- It is a virtue in which, by inclining to give each one his own, objectivity predominates.
A proper and metaphorical sense of justice
The proper sense of justice requires that there be a demandable debt, that there are different people since one can be fair or unfair with respect to another, that it must be a different and independent person from the one who practices justice, or injustice and Finally, that there is equality between both people. Therefore, the relations of justice between one and the other are always bilateral.
Concept of justice in Roman law
The term justice comes from iustitia. The jurist Ulpiano defined it as follows:
10. Ulpianus book I. Regularum.- Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi.§ 1.- Iuris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere.
10. Ulpiano; Rules, Book I.- Justice is the constant and perpetual will to give everyone their right.
§ 1.- The principles of law are these: to live honestly, not to hurt another, to give each one his own.
Garcia del Corral, Ildefonso L.; Corps of Roman Civil Law, Volume 1, (1889), p. 199.
The word justice originally designated the conformity of an act with positive law, not with a supreme and abstract ideal of justice. To said objective concept corresponds, in individuals, a special activity inspired by the desire to always act according to law; from this point of view, Ulpiano defined justice, according to the transcribed text. It is believed that the jurist was inspired by the Greek philosophy of the Pythagoreans and Stoics. So it turns out that the iustitia is a will that implies the recognition of what is considered just and good (aequum et bonum).
By observing compliance with the law in human actions, legal principles are constantly and perpetually concentrated. In this way, justice loses its abstract content, of ideal and static value, transforming itself into a concrete, dynamic and firm practice that must permanently direct conduct.
Concept in the Greek version of the Seventy
The term «justice» in the Septuagint version has the same primary meaning as in the Hebrew text although it is influenced by the Greek mentality since the Hellenic terms used: dikē and dikaiosýnē, refer to the virtue of purely human justice since it orders coexistence in the legal and moral spheres between people. However, the opposite effect has occurred: there are Greek voices —dikē, dikaiosýnē, krísis, kríma and several others—to represent in them Old Testament religious concepts that, in At first they were expressed in Hebrew as sedek, mišpāt, sedāqāh, etc. The reason for this change in meanings is simply that the resemblance between the terms is greater or less. For the best understanding of the Greek words that express religious concepts, they must be interpreted according to their Hebrew meanings.
Concept from the Christian point of view
The word "justice" appears more than two hundred times in any translation of the Bible. However, the word justicia has meanings and a range of nuances than it may have in Spanish or other modern languages. In it, it goes beyond the moral or legal realm, since it delves into the deepest religious realm: the relationship between God and man and between men among themselves precisely because of their religious dimension. The concept of justice has ever greater amplitude and transcendence. This is the profound value of justice at the time of God's Covenant with men. This first meaning of "justice" is in the environment of fidelity, sincerity, of the conformity of the fulfillment of the Covenant of God with men.
Biblical etymology
In Semitic languages, the triliteral root ص د ق (Ṣ-D-Q) is used to express the word justice, although scholars have different opinions on the meaning of this root. The first is "faithful, just"; according to the second opinion it can mean "hardness, solidity, conformity with the norm"; according to the third it is "to win." What etymologists do agree on is that none of them can be considered more or less valid than the other two.
Justice in the Old Testament
Throughout the Old Testament, especially in the original Hebrew text, there are constant references to this term that is "the action of God who wants to save man" to whom the salvific designs of which will be revealed little by little God had established with the chosen people, with the people of Israel, especially ratified at the time of the Covenant on Mount Sinai where the binding ties were concretized: the promises of God and the commitments of the people. God offers the commitment of the salvation to the people and they assume fidelity to the pact. God's justice is salvation and benevolence and in man, his personal fidelity. Old Testament justice entails well-known demands, among men and in society that are collected and specified in the Ten Commandments. The justice that the Covenant entails is not a mere legal relationship but rather the one that emanates from the relationship of God's free gift to men, which is the gift of salvation.
Justice in the New Testament
The fundamental concept of justice in the Old Testament, later transmitted to the New Testament, did not undergo any modification either by the extracanonical writings of Judaism or by Hellenistic influence. From the revelation in all its fullness made by Jesus Christ, the religious concept of justice also acquires a much deeper dimension than in the Old Testament.
Later Concepts of Justice
Justice itself deals with the proper ordering of things and people within a society. As a concept it has been the subject of philosophical, legal and theological reflection and debate throughout history. A number of important questions about justice have been fiercely debated throughout Western history: What is justice? What demand of individuals and societies? What is the proper distribution of wealth and resources in society: equality, meritocracy, according to status, or some other possibility? There are many possible answers to these questions from various perspectives on the political and philosophical spectrum.
According to many theories of justice, it is paramount: John Rawls, in particular, claims that "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought." Justice can be thought of as distinct from and more fundamental than benevolence, charity, mercy, generosity, or compassion. Justice has traditionally been associated with concepts of faith, reincarnation or divine providence, that is, with a life according to the cosmic plan. The association of justice with equity has been historically and culturally rare and is perhaps a modern innovation.
A 2008 UCLA study has indicated that reactions to equality are "hardwired" in the brain and that, "equity is activating the same part of the brain that responds to food in rats... This is consistent with the notion that being treated equally satisfies a basic need." Research conducted in 2003 at Emory University, Georgia, involving capuchin monkeys showed that other cooperative animals also possess such a sense and that " aversion to inequality may not be uniquely human', indicating that ideas about equality and justice may be instinctive in nature and in society.
In common language, the term justice carries with it the intuition that "people must receive the treatment they deserve" and, in this sense, Ulpiano's definition still retains all its vigor: "Give each one what they deserve." yours". From the individual point of view, according to Aranguren, the virtue of justice is the consistent habit of willingness to give each one what is theirs.
Justice can be the basis for restoring coexistence. This is governed by the principle of compensation and reparation in the eyes of the community. In the same way, it is argued that the denunciation of the violations and the search for justice have contributed to expanding the space of said groups. Restoring justice mechanisms is not only essential to deal with human rights violations, but also serves as a way of preventing and helping to deal with present-day conflicts, which the trail of war leaves as a legacy.
Justice as a virtue
Equally, justice has been understood as a human virtue, it can be defined as the art of doing what is just and of «giving each one his due» (in Latin: suum quique tribuere contained in the Ars Iuris), basically this tells us that justice is the virtue of complying with and respecting the law, it is demanding their rights, it is granting rights to an individual. For various authors, justice does not consist in giving or distributing things to humanity,[citation needed], but knowing how to decide to whom that thing belongs by right. Justice is ethics, fairness and honesty.[citation needed] It is the constant will to give each one what corresponds to them. It is that feeling of rectitude that governs conduct and enforces all the rights of others.
All the virtues are included in justice. In short, true justice is the art of giving what is fair or making an individual give what is fair, based on the principles of the art of law, without having any type of discrimination or preference towards any person; Otherwise, false justice would be being given and this would not be "giving each his own", but "giving him what he gets", depending on his social class or race, etc.[ citation required]
Theorizing about justice
Justice is not giving or distributing things to humanity, but knowing how to decide to whom that thing belongs by right. Justice is ethics, fairness and honesty. It is the constant will to give each one what corresponds to him. It is that referent of rectitude that governs conduct and constrains us to respect the rights of others.
Justice is for me that whose protection can flourish science and together with science, truth and sincerity. It is the justice of freedom, the justice of peace, the justice of democracy, the justice of tolerance.Hans Kelsen
Another level of analysis is constituted by understanding justice as a value and end of law (rather than as a subjective virtue) which we can conceptualize together with Norberto Bobbio as «that set of values, goods or interests for whose protection or Increasingly, men resort to that technique of coexistence that we call law». However, regarding the legal good protected by law, that is, the set of conditions protected by legal norms, it can be considered from an absolute natural law perspective within which all rights are fair and if they are not fair, they are not law. But from a iuspositivist perspective, the law is a condition (sine qua non) of justice and, at the same time, this is a measure of valuation of the law, so we can say that a certain positive law can be « fair or unfair" according to a subjective ideal of justice.
All the virtues are included in justice. In short, true justice is the art of giving each one what is his, or else, making an individual give what is his to another, based on the principles of the science of law, which must be done without discriminating or showing any preference for anyone, since all people must be treated equally in order to be able to fully apply justice.
John Rawls
Referring to Kant, Rawls affirms that he has maintained that a person acts autonomously when the principles of his action are chosen by him as the most adequate possible expression of his nature of free and equal rational being. The basic principles by which he acts are not adopted because of his social position or his natural endowments, or because of the particular type of society in which he lives, or what he wants to have. Acting on the basis of these principles would mean acting heteronomously. The veil of ignorance deprives the person, in the original position, of the knowledge that would put him in a position to choose heteronomous principles. The parties arrive at their choice together, as free and equal rational persons, knowing only those circumstances that give rise to the need for principles of justice.
Theories and definitions about justice
Among many other theories about justice, we highlight the one of the philosophers:
- Plato: Justice as a social harmony. In his book RepublicPlato proposes for the organization of his ideal city, through the dialogue of Socrates, that the rulers of this city be transformed into the most righteous and wise individuals, that is, philosophers, or, that the most righteous and wise individuals of the community, that is, the philosophers, become their rulers.
- Aristotle: Justice as proportional equality: Give to each one what is his or her own, or what corresponds to him. He says that what corresponds to each citizen has to be in proportion to his contribution to society, his needs and his personal merits.
- Thomas Aquinas: the natural law. He says that citizens must have natural rights, which are the ones God gives them. These rights were subsequently called human rights.
- For utilitarians, public institutions are composed in a fair way when they get to maximize the added utility (in the sense of happiness). According to this theory, the fair is what benefits the greatest number of people at once.
- Ulpiano: justice is the constant and perpetual will to give to each one that corresponds to him.
- John Rawls: defines justice as equity, which basically consists of the principle of equal freedom, the principle of just equality of opportunity and the principle of difference.
- Cicero: "Justice is a habit of the soul, which observed in the common interest bestows upon each one his dignity."
Contemporarily, meta-level theories of justice have emerged, in the sense that they try to harmonize or coexist with different theories of justice. An example of this type of approach is that of Gabriel Stilman in «Justice of justices», where he argues that «a fair system will be the one that democratically realizes and synthesizes the particular conceptions of justice of those whom it affects».
Distributive Justice
An interesting aspect of the organization of societies is how available resources, produced goods and available wealth are held. In principle, in most societies two partially incompatible concepts have been handled about what is a fair distribution of goods and wealth:
- La justice according to necessity, sustains those who have the greatest needs of a good must possess larger assignments.
- La justice according to meritit argues that those who contribute most to the production of goods and wealth must also have a greater proportion of them.
Justice and law
Justice is one of the general principles of law: the legislator resorts to it when he wants to establish a programmatic legal statute and also the judge when having to solve legal disputes that lack a legal statute that gives them a solution; It is said that these actors in their corresponding legal or political order act justly when they are born to protect and satisfy the basic rights of individuals, basing their authority on the exercise of their obligations in the same rights. Another level of analysis is to understand justice as a value and purpose of law (rather than as a subjective virtue) which we can conceptualize together with Norberto Bobbio as "that set of values, goods or interests for whose protection or increase men resort to that technique of coexistence that we call law». Now as far as the "ideal of justice" is concerned, that set of conditions protected by law can be considered from an absolute natural law perspective within which all law is fair and if it is not fair it is law. But from a iuspositivist perspective, the law is a condition of justice and at the same time this is a measure of valuation of the law, so we can say that a certain positive law is fair or unfair according to a subjective ideal of justice. The Digest, one of the components of Justinian's compilation of Roman law (the Corpus Iuris Civilis), begins like this (D.1.1.1):
1. Ulpianus book I. Institutionum.- Iuri operam daturum prius nosse oportet, unde nomen iuris descendat. Est autem a iustitia appellattum; nam, ut elegantr Celsus definit, ius est ars boni et aequi.1. Ulpiano; Institutions, book I.- It is appropriate for the person to study the right to know first where the word ius (right) comes from. Call it that iustitia (justice); because, as Celso defines it elegantly, is the art of the good and equitable.
Garcia del Corral, Ildefonso L.; Corps of Roman Civil Law, Volume 1 (1889), p. 197.
Representation of justice
Justice is depicted as a blindfolded woman with scales in one hand and a sword in the other. Blindfolded are intended to emphasize that justice does not look at men, but at facts, that is, that justice is the same for all men. The scale represents the judgment that will be determined by placing the arguments and evidence on each side of the scale. The sword expresses that justice will punish the guilty with a strong hand.
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