Law Court & Society

Note Set 1

Old French, from Latin justitia, from justus just

1 a: the quality of being just, impartial, or fair
Example: it is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice . . . of these laws -- Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)

b: the principle or ideal of just dealing

also
: conformity to the principle or ideal of just dealing

2 a: the administration of law
Example: a fugitive from justice

esp
: the establishment or determination of rights according to law or equity
Example: system of justice

b: fair, just, or impartial legal process
Example: courts or tribunals . . . for the administration of international justice -- G. R. Winters

3: "judge"

esp
: a judge of an appellate court or court of last resort (as a supreme court)

 

Philosophies of Justice

 

Intuitionist – (Immanuel Kant) – Priori, knowledge of the self-aware; people know justice, or the good, priori (before experience).  Proposed the Categorical Imperative – The basis for the “Golden Rule” – Act on such principles as you would want to be adopted as universal law, or acting as you would have others act.

 

Utlitarian – Pragmatic – Serving the greatest good.  Jeremy Bentham suggested that people must calculate the act and result, thus acting in accordance with the result desired (assuming the result is good). 

 

Contractual – John Rawls – Equation of justice with fairness (which is what most people think of when dealing with law and justice); Justice is achieved by implementing rules in society to maiximize fairness.  “Veil of ignorance” – The question is what law would we want to see enacted if we, under a veil of ignorance, were to evaluate a condition/situation, and if we were to be either on the advantaged or disadvantaged end. 

 

Egalitarian – Karl Marx – Implicitly equates justice with equality.  Jeffrey Reiman (1990) added to this the principle for evaluating justice within  a society: conditions under which humans are not subjugated.  Marx argued that a system that eradicates conditions of socioeconomic inequality is inherently just.  

 

Lawrence Kohlberg (developmental psychology) (pioneered by Jean Piaget – 1932) moral development and an attendant sense of justice is a matter of logically ordered sequences of cognitive development.  In the earliest stages of life, human being have a premoral orientation, where what is good is equated with pleasure and what is bad is equated with pain.  Socialization of the child likely brings about a shift in moral certainty to what we might consider as conventional, where moral evaluation is guided by what is approved of and disapproved of by one’s most important referential group. 

 

Cumulative Principle of Justice – known also as the legalistic, corrective, and restitutive.  The formula calls for restoring “balance” following some wrong doing or making redress in accordance with formal entitltement.

 

Distributive Principle of Justice – known as primary, moralistic and equitable.  The formula calls for resolution through proportional merit, or in accordance with a moral calculus.

 

Retributive Principle of Justice – This formula calls for resolution through the imposition of suffering on those who have done harm.