Friday, January 23, 2015

The Correlation of Justice and Punishment


Our first topic in this class has been justice.  Justice is a concept that has been pondered since the beginning of time, perhaps the first example being when God punished Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Justice is a formality of life and has been since Adam and Eve were banished from the garden.  I believe that the best way to understand justice is to realize that it is dealt and received through the eye of the beholder.  Everyone has a different view as to what is just and that is what makes it such a heated topic.  In the Bible it says “when justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers” (Proverbs 21:15).  That verse in particular helped me to understand the meaning of justice.  Justice is meant to eradicate evil and to bring joy to the lives of good people in a sense.  Where justice is argued is how to eradicate this evil and to what extent.  I feel as if maybe justice itself is not such a convoluted idea, but punishment is instead what people disagree on.  Punishment and justice work together in an odd way to bring joy to the “righteous”.  Justice is mostly based on the severity of evil.  When a child is disrespectful to his mother and is punished, is that justice?  No, most people would say that this is merely a small punishment.  The mother is not happy in giving out this punishment and it does not bring joy to anyone.  No one that has witnessed that event take place is overjoyed because the world is now a better place.  However, if a murderer is sentenced to life in prison, evil is eradicated and the ‘good’ people are happy.  The crime has been justified.  In other words, justice in the world today is directly influenced by what kind of evil has been perpetrated.  So what is justice?  I think the best answer is that justice is a form of punishment based off the severity of evil committed to bring joy to the people that strive to be moral.  

2 comments:

  1. I agree with everything you have said in this post. Everyone is their own person, and entitled to their own opinions and decisions, and I really like how you pointed out that justice is dealt with through the eye of the beholder. There is indeed a correlation of justice and punishment and I think there are always consequences for your actions no matter how big or small.

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  2. Your post was on point. I like how you brought the Bible into the argument and shows that justice is to eradicate evil. I also like how your two examples were true and you used the example of the mother and child, the punishment the child received wasn't justice and it hurt the mother having to do something about the misbehaved child. I agree with your statement of the individual whom committed murder with his sentence that was given to him because justice was in fact served. I agree that the form of punishment should be given based on the evil committed.

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