RE: Geometric Morality # 2: Justice
Perfect article. I though disagree with the conclusion. Regardless whether there is or is not free will (i think not) punishment can be just. If the consensus is reached about what is and what is not destructive for any given community (of any size), punishing the destructive nature can be just. If the punished being would be able to think rationally he would actually see it as fair justice, because he knew at the first point that he is doing a destructive act.
At the end, justice is "doing fair acts". There has to be a point of view in order to decide whether something is fair or not. The point of view always should be the community’s best interest, because that is the enabling entity of violent acts (in the name of justice). But everyone of course has to be part of the community willingly (that is though different topic to discuss).
Thank you for your comment. It's realy nice to see other opinions :)
What is fair acts? To be fair is relative. Justice is relative. If you was read Politeia, you saw what I mean. Many terms are actually subjective. The rules set for it always have a hole. I think a perfect law is not possible. You can not be fair where you do not have perfection.
Well I don’t need to read it to know that it is subjective. I actually said exactly that ("there has to be a point of view"= subjectivity)!
I also was not talking about perfect law, only justice. If the rules are set to benefit the society (if everyone in the society was not forced to agree on them), then the only hole it all has is that someone might be accused of something he did not do and he wouldn’t have any prove, or someone would do something bad and there wouldn’t be anything to prove it with. But those are not holes in the "justice system" but rather in the means of gathering information. The "justice system" doesn’t have to be perfect as long as those who are part of it agreed to it. Then it can safely be called justice even if there is no free will. Whatever makes the decisions have accepted the rules, and if they are broken, the individual is met with justice, free will, or not free will.
Well I guess I can agree with you for that part;
Because that is really good point and sorry for "there has to be a point of view", I missed :)
As I said it was a perfect article compiling work and thoughts of many great philosophers. I’m glad that at the end we managed to agree even on the summary:)