Justice

[is]

Justice, justice, justice. It's all they ever think about in the Way.

Why can't we all just get along? Run through gumdrop vallies and down lollipop roads, skipping hand in hand with armed robbers, murderers, and child molestors? Why?

Is Hell the ultimate deterence policy? Or is based on retribution? How many times should you turn the other cheek? When you run out of cheeks?

Btw, the poll options are the bona fide theories of sentencing... at least how I learned them in my A-level Law class.

[Telephalsion]

Good question. Personally justice depends on when it is introduced. If you introduce justice to a case of crime, then justice should be determined based on the crime and the laws of the crime. But in a lawless society it's anyones guess I suppose.

Heck, I can't even fathom the entire meaning of the word justice. It's a strong word. Justise for me will undoubtedly be injustice to someone else

[Forerunner]

I think Justice is about Retrubution, or if you will Equivalent Exchange.

Someone gets raped and suffers from it, then the punishment should cause the rapist to suffer an equal amount in it's own way.

This way everyone gets what they deserve. Whether Society or Government benefit from that is another matter entirely.

[is]

The idea that someone who has done wrong 'deserves' to be punished is so fundamental to most people's nature, that if questioned, they wouldn't be able to provide a further justification for that fact, they'd say 'they just deserve it.'

I think the revenge/justice instict evolved as a deterrent. If you know that if you wrong someone, they will seek revenge, no matter how risky, costly and unrewarding (gaining revenge rarely repairs the damage done to you), they aren't likely to try you.

Note: If you think this is in the wrong forum, I'll expand my original post. 'Rhue' was created as the tool of perfect justice. Gaius is apparently obsessed with justice. Traziun's last words are 'A life for a life.' Slade needs no explanation. Midian sought revenge against Jeruh. And revenge features in other character's stories. But Slade's dying speech about forcing one person's code of morality on another shows that Lun seems to have considered all sides of the argument in depth...

At any rate, justice is one of the major abstract themes of the way.

[Imoto]

The goal of justice is to prevent further injustice from occurring. Often, the secondary goal is for the perpetrator to feel remorse for what they've done, either morally, or via punishment. If the person feels no remorse they are to be punished more severely, or killed/cut off from the rest of society if the crime is serious enough, as there is no assured detterent for them then.

In the way, justice is pretty much the elimination of those who would commit injustices by swift merciless death.

Also, in the way, justice is always personal.

Edit: As far as the motivations for revenge, it's often in order to regain a personal sense of control, and a desire to undo what happened to us, for example, if your lover is murdered, you want to get them back, but can't, and the extension of this is to cease the existence of the one who murdered them. In the case of the person feeling no remorse about killing, we desire to have them regret their action, either by making them understand the same pain, or causing more direct forms of pain and loss towards them, to reaffirm to ourselves that what happened shouldn't have happened.

[Telephalsion]

as is's smaller text shows, all of the characters in the way have their own aspect of justice. Naturally all there different views meet and it gets fucked up.

[Sling]

Justice is the retibution inflicted on a person for doing something which is wrong in the eyes of the establishment, in our case the government.
However, there is no such thing as true justice. I personally believe that if every single person on the planet agrees on something then it's right, but that's impossible as there is no way that we could capture the opinions of 6 billion people. Anywho, nowadays Justice is just something used by the government to inflict pain and misery on the working class.

[Jasonflare]

Justice is protection of society. I think the belief states that if there is no society, there is no justice.

[Imoto]

However! Consider that the very idea of society, the clustering of mass amount of individuals into unfamilliar groups, which often have large disagreements among themselves, may be at it's core a fallacy!

Indeed, the only real societies we are actively a part of is that of our imediate, and important aquaintances!

THUS! Justice is nothing but the protection of those you feel are important to you, and those you empathize with! It is naught but our animal instinct to group together and protect eachother for mutual survival and happiness!

Justice is a reaction of fear, compassion, and a need for companionship, it is a fierce expression of humanity!

[Apocalypsis]

Indeed, the only real societies we are actively a part of is that of our imediate, and important aquaintances!

THUS! Justice is nothing but the protection of those you feel are important to you, and those you empathize with! It is naught but our animal instinct to group together and protect eachother for mutual survival and happiness!

Hmm, yes. But as society grew, so did the understanding of justice. To ensure our own survival and happiness, we have given the power to interpret the concept Justice, to a higher power, which in our case is the Government.

Society is entangled and we somehow understand that if everyone were allowed to do what they want to, then we or those close to us, could just as well be target to abuse. That's why we choose to restrict ourselves within the confines of what we believe is 'Right' so no one does 'Wrong' to us.

Justice is in essence a balanced act, that has to both punish the one who committed the 'Wrong' and hopefully make sure they will never do it again, as well as scaring any individual who might be considering, stepping out of the boundaries of 'Right'.

This is to protect the Society. As long as we believe that there is some kind of Justice that punishes those who commit 'Wrong', we are able to exist within the boundaries of the Society. Or at least, that is what I believe.

[is]

Ye, I think we've got a 'natural' sense of justice, hard-wired into our human nature. This includes things like murder, rape, freeloading on other's hard work, ie all the things that if done to you, would hamper your ability to survive/reproduce. (Yes, children could be born of rape, but the rapist is unlikely to be the person the victim wants to father her children.) A powerful, irrational sense of justice is a powerful defence against this.

Then there's 'social justice' the laws and regulations that society uses to keep itself stable. People aren't as malleble as many twentieth-century utopianists/totalitarians believed, and a society must respect its subjects human nature to survive. Following what Imoto said, people haven't yet evolved to live in such large groups, it's not 'natural' for them, and the most long-lasting societies are those that don't infringe too much their people's basic instincts. Hence few argue against laws against murder etc.

However, a stable society must also protect powerful institutions (eg corporations) within its jurisdiction, hence the many laws that protect the powerful at the expense of the masses.

And we all know that wanderers were never meant to settle...

[Legend of the Past]

Justice means you do good things, you get good things. You do bad things, you get bad things. Sure, how you get him is a wholly different matter, but sure.

Read a book called 'The Master and Margarita'. Good book about justice.

[fwacho]

I think Justice is about Retrubution, or if you will Equivalent Exchange.

Someone gets raped and suffers from it, then the punishment should cause the rapist to suffer an equal amount in it's own way.

This way everyone gets what they deserve. Whether Society or Government benefit from that is another matter entirely.

well said fore runner. particularly the last part. evidently justice all by itself is missing something. One of the biggest unspoken themes in the way is the relationship of Justice to it's counterpart, Mercy. you will note that there is acertain character in the game who shows mercy and another "darker" one who doesn't. I actually have to tread carefully here, believe it or not to avoid giving away secrets.

[fwacho]

"Now for something completely different" justice as defined is basically "eye for eye and tooth for tooth" the goal of Justice however is partially deterance (people don't want to suffer what they see someone else suffer) which leads into protection of society. There is also teh goal of rehabilitation of the individual to make the "safe" for other to play with.
Justice is also seeing "rightness" rewarded. which is like a bribe that say if you are good you'll be rewarded, but if you are bad you will be spanked.
Thus there is a difference between what it is what is does. aka my refridgerator is collection of nuts and bolts and plastic peices powered by electricity. what is does is keep my food cold (IF everything functions properly in concert). big "IF"
Naturally for there to be justice theri will be times when absolute justice isn't right. (example: the poor is caught man stealing bread for his sick wife and two young children) justice say he he return what he stole and give a little extra back (to ensure a penalty and deter others form copying his behavior) but this is where Mercy comes in. Mercy says "Yes you've done wrong, but I won't punish you because I understand the circumstances" (which vary in every case)
It has been argued by some scholars that even failing to do the right thing is a breach of conduct and therfore the justice of retribution(which we have all been guilty of at some time or another) Naturally it is impossible to punish these people as this happen far to often and no one would agree on what would be a punishable offense as not everyone agrees about what is rgith and wrong(The US does have laws against failling to render aide in critical situation. A reporter was once prosecuted under these laws and spent some jail time) theoretically, wasting your time could be a punishable offense.
It has also been argued that if Justice were truly perfect (and people too--long shot on that one) there would never be a need for Mercy because nothing would ever lead to a situation where mercy was needed. but life has intervened. and yes this belongs in Estrana forum.

[Imoto]

I think Justice is about Retrubution, or if you will Equivalent Exchange.

Someone gets raped and suffers from it, then the punishment should cause the rapist to suffer an equal amount in it's own way.

This way everyone gets what they deserve. Whether Society or Government benefit from that is another matter entirely.

well said fore runner. particularly the last part. evidently justice all by itself is missing something. One of the biggest unspoken themes in the way is the relationship of Justice to it's counterpart, Mercy. you will note that there is acertain character in the game who shows mercy and another "darker" one who doesn't. I actually have to tread carefully here, believe it or not to avoid giving away secrets.

So do you mean Jeruh (Including the more Jeruh actions that Rhue takes) and "Rhue", or Gaius and Traziun? Or Gaius and Rhue? Or Rhue and the PS? Or Traziun and Rhue?

Edit: Or maybe Tetzel and Kalmar?