hello welcome to justice here we are in the first week of the semester so let's talk about what justice is the definition of justice at first glance seems simple and straightforward but it's far more complicated than it seems the reason is that justice is more than one thing it means different things to different people we all have different understanding of which sort of things are just and which are unjust what you think is just may in fact not be just in another person's eyes technical example of taxation is it just for the government to tax
the rich more to give to the poor during the kobe 19 pandemic tens of millions of americans lost their jobs and fell into poverty while the very rich were becoming much richer should the government tax jeff bezos and other super rich people and use the money to supplement the income of unemployed and poor people perhaps some will say yes some others will say not sure i don't think so our opinions can diverge on this particular issue and others because whether something is just or unjust depends on what we value the most but we value many
things in our lives and they can conflict with each other in certain circumstances you may value individual freedom and equality as moral principles but these ideas could contrast each other when it comes to practical matters like taxation the bottom line is there are many different nuances appealing approaches and applications of the concept of justice and here we explore those things together throughout the semester all right first things first let us define the term justice according to online etymology dictionary the word justice comes from the latin jew meaning law right order equally the rewarding to everyone
of that which is his due so justice is about giving someone what they deserve as determined by law here we see that some sense of equality is embedded into the concept of justice indeed equality is one of the fundamental principles of justice and the notion of justice as equality has been a major stream of political and moral thought in western philosophy for instance in the niculian ethics aristotle says the just is equal as all men suppose it to be even apart from argument so we can say that according to the principles of justice as principle
equality all those similarities trivial people should be treated as the same way in the eyes of the law because everyone deserves the same dignity and respect the prince displacement of justice as equality is clearly stated in the bible as well and now we'd like to turn to the bible to see what it has to say about justice as equality the biblical concept of justice is primarily captured in two hebrew words mishpat and chataka and the town which path captures the principle of equality in the concept of justice the pastor and theologian tim keller explains the
terms very well in his book generous justice the hebrew word mischievous translated justice appears more than 200 times in the old testament the word is derived from the verb she path meaning to judge and it means to treat people in equally treating people it equally means that you apply the same rules to everyone no matter what color skin they have or how much they make where they are from [Music] so in latex chapter 24 verses 17 through 22 we read the famous line about an eye for an eye and obtuse for a tooth here god
wants israel to have the same rule of law which spat for the foreigners as the native anyone who does the same wrong should be given the same penalty no matter where they are from but mishpath means more than just the punishment of wrongdoing it also means giving people their rights tim keller uses deuteronomy 18 as an example in that chapter the priest receives from the congregation a certain portion of compensation and this compensation is required as the priest mishpat which means they're due in this sense which path is giving people what they are do whether
punishing wrongdoers or protecting the innocent so justice is giving people their right or their due and the principle of equality figures large in this conception of justice but the bible tells us another meaning of justice which is captured well in the word judaica the hebrew word means being righteous when you say someone is righteous you may say about his or her personal morality but the word steika is used beyond the meaning of personal morality it's more of a sociological concept it's about having a life of right relationships humans are fundamentally social and we have relationships
with various people family work and community and so forth so when you say someone is righteous that means that they are living in right relationship with people around them husband and wife are faithful to each other children respect their parents parents nurture and provide for their children employers pay honest wages to their workers and workers work as they get paid neighbors are honest with each other these are what the word staka means so far we have reviewed two concepts of justice in the bible mishpat and steika respectively and now let us look at the relationship
between mishpat and chileka understanding this relationship is super important because it provides a richer and fuller picture of how god views justice as keller points out it's not surprising to discover that these words are used in the same sentence several times in the bible here's one really good example from jeremiah chapter 9 verses 23 and 24. this is what the law says let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boost of their strength or to reach both of their riches but let the one who boast boast about this that they have the
understanding to know me that i'm the lord who exercises kindness justice and righteousness on earth for in this i delight declares the lord so justice and righteousness are two sides of the same coin one complement the other here is the best sentence that summarizes this generous justice has a lot of useful footnotes and here is one one of them keller called it the old testament scholar christopher wright on page 195. mishpat is what needs to be done in a given situation if people and circumstances are to be restored to conformity with stacca so simply put
justice mission path is any action that makes things have a right relationship chitaka here we see clearly that god's justice is fundamentally a restoring and renewing justice this it's not just about punishing those who do wrong the goal of punishment is to put right what has gone wrong and restore its relationship with god and others and community this is where justice fulfills the double commitment of loving god and loving our neighbors as our service the prophet isaiah said it best in isaiah chapter 32 verse 17. the fruit of that righteousness will be peace each effect
will be quietness and confidence forever at the end of the day we wanted to live in a society where everyone would be living in the right relationship to everyone else so that we no longer need to fight for justice until then there still is unfairness injustice no society is perfectly just a nearly just society can have unjust laws and this oftentimes works unfavorable to people who are socially and economically marginalized that's why god has particular concerns about those who are vulnerable in our society so generosity is another important principle of justice there are many passages
in the bible regarding the treatment of what is called the quartet of the vulnerable widows orphans immigrant and poor here is one from zachariah chapter 7 and verses 9 and 10. this is what the lord almighty said the minister to justice show mercy and compassion to one another do not oppress the widow or the fatherless the foreigner or the poor do not plot evil against each other in this passage it is clear that the notion of justice includes an act of generosity just like today in ancient society there are groups of people who are the
most vulnerable poor and marginalized members god gives the poor particular attention because they have little power to defend themselves keller points out that this principle of justice as generosity is particularly important these days because we tend to think of giving poor as charity not as an act of justice we tend to draw a line between justice as a legal fairness and giving as charity as keller constantly reminds us throughout the book however giving generosity is not an option but a requirement for the christian life not giving generously therefore it's not just misery but unjust i
think this is a very powerful statement and allows us to reflect on our own past experiences and biases toward the marginalized group in our society let's take a moment to reflect on what we have learned so far before we move on to the next lesson now let's shift gears to think about how people think of justice in a different way recall that earlier we discussed justice means different things to different people and also means different things in different contexts now we are going to explore a little deeper on that subject people have different conceptions of
justice partly because defining justice always involves a tension between individual and community in particular individual freedom and collective equality the question we wrestle with here is fundamentally sociological what is a just society and how might we achieve it what is the role of social institutions like the government and the economy there's no single consensus answer to this question because behind every understanding of justice is a set of beliefs about human nature and purpose what is right or wrong and how we know what a good society looks like people have different answers to these questions throughout
the centuries western political and moral philosophers proposed different ideas and here i summarize four basic theories of justice each of which has different assumptions about human nature and social order and what a good society looks like tim keller again summarizes these theories well in chapter 6 of generous justice and a couple of articles available online by the way you are going to learn more about this subject when you take ethics do 380 but this is so fundamental that we are going to talk about it in this course the four theories of justice are a libertarianism
liberalism utilitarianism and post modernism or post-modern understanding of justice in order to better understand the similarities and differences of these theories it'd be useful to show a figure i got from keller's online article here on the left side of the continuum there is individual region which is conceived as a single unique independent entity people who hold individualism believe that what you are is primarily the product of your individual choices your own efforts your own abilities and your own skills and so on and so forth on the other side of the continuum sits collectivism where you
tend to believe that you are the product of social forces and structure you are still an unique individual but what you are is shaped by many different things beyond yourself like family schools churches communities and so on so each of these theories falls under somewhere between these continuum libertarianism is placed at the far left side of the continuum because libertarians think of justice more in individualistic terms it's called libertarianism because it says the fundamental individual right is the right to liberty libertarians believe that as long as you don't impede the freedom of others you have
the ultimate freedom therefore a just society is one in which everyone has an absolute right to private property and has the right of free speech and free association here equality plays only a minimal role in terms of the distribution of the right in order to achieve maximum freedom libertarianism advocates small government which means the government has no say about what people own and what people make so for libertarianism taxing the rich to support the poor is illegitimate and unjust libertarian justice does not advocate social or economic equality among students since it counts heavily on individual
liberty it tends to overlook the principle of justice as equality liberalism addresses this problem like libertarianism liberalism strongly advocates the importance of individual rights and freedoms unlike libertarianism however liberalism is concerned with social or economic rights on top of right to speech religion philosophical journals represents this tradition rose argues that the primary concern of justice is a fairness and equal opportunity for all people how is it possible he proposes a hypothetical agreement as the basis for justice he suggests that you imagine yourself in an original position behind what he calls a fail of ignorance behind
this veil you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities or your social status behind the search available ignorance or individuals are simply as rational free and morally equal beings you don't know what gender race social status they would be then no one would behave in a way that favors certain groups so this fear of ignorance would create a condition of equality by ruling out the differences in social groups and be able to establish many other economic and social right liberalism holds that only that kind of society would be just unfair the third tradition is
utilitarianism a doctrine invented by jeremy bentham the 18th century english political philosopher according to this view a just society maximizes the greatest happiness for the greatest number here justice is not grounded in moral absolutes but is some kind of a practical rationality if something makes many people happy then it's just of course this does not mean that editing the modularity desires for happiness is okay utilitarians use the harm principle to create a limit they argue that people should be free to pursue whatever makes them happy as long as it doesn't harm others it is obvious
however that there will be inevitable clashes over what makes people happy and so the final judge for utilitarians is majority rule today the news media relies heavily on utilitarianism when in august explicitly or implicitly the polls tells us that most americans now favor x and therefore x axis is now okay it is not as individualistic as the first two theories of justice it is a majoritarian indeed many utilitarians see individual rights as barriers to majority happiness the last one is called post-modern theory of justice french philosopher and sociologist michel foucault represents this idea post-modern theory
of justice assumes that all unequal outcomes in wealth webbing and power is never because of individual actions or differences in human abilities but only and strictly because of unjust social structures and systems so in order to build a just society the systems need to be changed and it is the marginalized group that must fight for justice we have reviewed four theories of justice next time we are going to evaluate these theories from a biblical point of view as we tackle the question of why we should do justice
