For our very first symposium, we discussed justice. In which many people in class shared what they thought justice was. When I think of justice I think of fairness and the correcting of wrongdoings. It is purely doing what is right. However, as we continued with the discussion of justice we, as a class, were given the Trolley problem. The Trolley problem, simply put, was deciding whether we would save the life of many by sacrificing one life or would we kill the others and leave the one person living. A majority of the class chose to kill the one and save the group. Then that all changed when we discovered that the one person standing could be a loved one and just as quickly as we decided to kill the one person and save the five we decided we would save our loved one over the group of people. Even though this was all hypothetical, I was later forced to ask myself, is this just? Is it okay to let more individuals die just to save the one person I love? In my opinion, it was more of a selfish act, mostly due to the fact that I was not only saving my loved ones life, but I was also saving myself from the pain I would feel if I had let them die. Now there is no right or wrong answer to this problem, but if I took a moment and went back to what I thought justice was I would realize that I was not being just at all. I was not being fair to the other five people when my loved one was a possible victim. Nor was I doing the right thing in deciding to save one life and letting the other five die. So I had come to realize that in order to be just, according to my definition, I would have to choose to save the five versus the one life. Otherwise, I was not being fair because five lives is greater than one. I found myself reflecting more on this scenario later on in the weekend when I read Plato. In Plato's Republic I was struck by one line in particular, and that was when Thrasymachus said that justice was "to the advantage of the strongest". When I read that line I interpreted it as saying that it took a stronger individual, not in the physical sense, to be able to make a decision that may be more difficult for others to decide. I found this statement to be very true. It took a stronger person to be able to take a step back from the Trolley problem and separate themselves from any connections and make a decision based on what would have the least impact on the rest of society. In a sense that is what many leaders of today have to do. They have to be able to step back from a problem and look at it from all angles before deciding on what to do. This way they may attain a more just result that is fair rather than acting on impulse. And in my opinion that is what justice is. It is the ability to separate yourself from a given situation and make a fair decision.
I can agree and even relate to what you interpret; to what you believe the trolley story and plato's statement convey, but who are we to decide how justice should be served or even if it should be served. Plato's argument is rooted in the matter of justice being served by one who is mentally stronger, but if that person, however wise they may be, has a poisoned heart, how can we trust that they'll be just? predominantly, the wisest decisions are made when time has been given to think it over, but, that isn't always the case. There are times, more common than you'd expect, in which we are faced with a tough situation that requires immediate action, there is no time to think it through, to "step back from the problem and look at it from all angles." How can we be just in those not-so-rare events, why should we be the ones to be the judges or justices of the case if we ourselves are corrupted and damned since birth, as we are born into sin and a product of sin since the times of Adam and Eve? How do we know what truly is fair? is one person's thoughts of how the world should be ran fair or does it have to be accepted by others for it to be fair?
ReplyDeleteI can absolutely agree with what you were asking yourself after the trolley problem. I also went back and asked myself the same questions. I'm I being truly just in saving my loved one? To be honest I would still save my loved one because I am selfish and could not bear my life without them. I also agree with how leaders hold the advantage of justice over the people. I also liked the definition you gave for justice, "the ability to separate yourself from a given situation and make a fair decision" and believe it is very appropriate in the cases where one has time to think.
ReplyDeleteNadia, I agree however I am a little still skeptical about what justice really is. Justice is to do what is right but sometime the right thing to do doesn't seem just, as you said. Also, what seems right to one person might seem wrong to another. The trolley example showed just that. Some people would have no problem killing one to save the greater number of people however if you kill one that is not just nor does it necessarily make you a hero.
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