Justice and Selection

Ethics has developed over the course of human civilization. Through the rigors of natural selection the humans alive today managed to survive. What humans have deemed right and wrong is ultimately what they have decided upon as a whole, which is when humanity is the strongest. Thrasymachus would agree that the whole of humanity is the decider of what exactly is justice. The most functional and useful systems of ethics is ultimately what ends up working best for the survival of mankind and keeps mankind the strongest becomes the standard of justice. A group of people that might have weaker ethics where justice is seen as stealing from your neighbors for your own benefit could eventually bring upon their own downfall due to internal strife caused by their beliefs. Such a situation would present a power vacuum which would allow perhaps a stronger group to establish their own justice that might lead to much greater success and not cause such problems. This is not an absolute rule as there are many other factors to consider but a weak system of justice can be crippling. Thrasymachus's idea that justice comes from those in power is pretty spot on. This means there can be multiple competing standards or justice based on which one has the most power. Leading to a sort of selection by which naturally the system of justice which is the most effective may rise above the others. Humanity seems to have been moderately success and mostly come to agree on what justice is. Many groups of people believe killing innocent people is wrong as is stealing from others. It is plausible that the agreement has risen from the competition. The battle isn't over yet though. There are still many things that are not widely agreed upon showing that there could be a better system of justice. Now much could go wrong and simply by chance a vastly inefficient and flawed system of justice could come into place. The responsibility falls on everyone to correct it. There is no real standard of justice as no one can make such a claim and support so there are just multiple competing standards. This compares very closely to the daily struggles animals face competing to survive.