Sorry, I was offended and wasn't as clear in my point as I should have been.
My point is that justice is a distinctly useful concept when objecting to the mistreatment of oneself and others because it provides a way of explaining just what is wrong. It provides a counter to, for example, defenses that appeal to a "greater good" of some sort, such as one might find in utilitarianism.
I find it difficult to imagine even where to begin in objecting to political oppression without an appeal to the concept of justice.
Thanks for explaining, Mark. I also understand that it must upset you when one of your dearest and most important tools is threatened to be taken away.
Couple of points, if I may:
- Appeals to justice
are appeals to a greater good.
- People have objected to political oppression by way of appealing to quite a few abstract concepts that they consider a "greater good", and it is my impression, that "justice" was not the first and most common one.
- Interestingly, political oppression has always been justified by appeals to the same abstract concepts (well, the same words, to be precise).
- Personally, I am not sure that appealing to abstract concepts as "greater goods" is explaining anything. It seems to complicate things, and unless the persons you want to convince agree with you that a. this concept is the "greatest good", and b. they happen fill this generic concept with the same concrete meaning as you do you guys are left with mutual appeals to concepts you don´t agree upon, in the first place. Typically, you´ll end up discussing abstract concepts - with no more chance to get to an agreement than when abstaining from doing so.
- On a sidenote, I have observed that children at very young age appeal to "justice" (even though it´s questionable that they have an elaborated concept of "justice" at that age). It is my impression that when a child says "This is unjust!" this is but a clumsy way of expressing "One of my needs isn´t met." OTOH they have learned by example from early on that it is very common to evade to (post hoc) rationalizations and appeals to abstract concepts instead of directly expressing your needs. Thus, even if an adult would succeed in showing the child how their behaviour was "justice", the child´s need would still be unmet - and the actual problem would persist.
I am under the impression that basically the same happens among adults all the time when they appeal to abstract concepts. This saddens me.
- Personally, even back then when I used the concept "justice", I never felt it was the greatest good of all. Thus, an appeal to "justice" didn´t (and today does even less) strike me as particularly powerful since, in my system, it could easily be trumped by appeals to goods that were more important, to me.
