As we discussed in class, when it comes to justice the
strongest one will prevail. Now what type of "strength" can differ
from situation to situation. During class we mostly all agreed that it was the
"strongest" willed person that would be most justified. This was
because if you have more will than your opponent, then common sense would say
that you would win. More will does sound like the stronger, more justified
person but I do see an opposite side to this. Even if the advantage of justice
goes to the "strongest" person, I think that someone with more
information could still have more justice. The person with more "strength"
may have an advantage but even if they have all of the "strength" in
the world if they don't have any information to back them up I don't see how
they could have any justice at all. That also falls along with the rings in Plato's
Republic, if a just man receives a ring that can allow him to turn invisible
and do things he couldn't have done before he would turn into an unjust man. So
accordingly, a man that was once just and had justice, after gaining
"strength" becomes unjust so his sense of justice will become
lessened making him a man of "strength" without justice. I see
justice can be formed and perceived in many forms, one being the definition
given in class of the one with the most "strength." Another form of
obtaining justice is through a mass amount of knowledge of the subject or just
a broad knowledge. Lastly I see the truth as a form of justice. Many times the
truth can be hard to find because different people have different truths, but
if the whole truth can be obtained then that can be used as a major source of
justice. All three I see are Justice.
You make some really good points here Ryan. When you were talking about how we formed our own definition of justice in class it reminded me of a quote from the series Game Of Thrones that goes something like, "Power resides where the people think it resides." The same could be said about your conclusion on justice. Justice is what the people decide it is. Common opinion will almost always ultimately decide if something was just or not. If a judge makes a decision in the court room in a high profile case, people will talk about the decision and in the end they will say whether or not the judge's decision was just. The power of the people can be very persuasive.
ReplyDeleteRyan, I agree with you when you speak about mental strength. In my philosophy class last year, I read about a philosopher named Hobbes. He made a similar point to yours. His point was that we all may not be equally strong as far as strength, but mentally we could out smart one another. Hobbes also made a point about slaves. He said that although they could not do much physically, they could have banned together mentally to escape their opponents. The more information one has, the more strength they actually have. Your post is awesome!
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