I have not ignored the definition, and have not altered it. I've explained the purpose of "motives" in that definition --- to allow for praise or even rewards for efforts that were not successful but were well-motivated. To allow for "consolation prizes," so to speak. The interpretation you wish to place on it leads to absurdities, as I've shown with the examples of the sprinters and the princess, which you do not address. Not only does it lead to absurdities, your interpretation contradicts other clauses in the definition: "requital of deserts," "merited rewards or punishments." Rewards and punishments are not meted out for motives; they're meted out for actions. At most, the motive driving an action may affect the magnitude of the reward or the severity of the punishment. Laudable motives are NOT substitutes for meritorious actions.Bruno, I mean GE Morton, You have answered well, and you wrote a compelling and convincing essay. That is, a compelling and convincing essay if and only if you ignore the definition you yourself provided that defines what justice is.
You do not address that absurdity. Nor do you address the motive/desire distinction --- that a desire only becomes a motive when action follows. Nor do you answer the questions regarding what is due someone who has acted meritoriously, and from whom is it due. Nor do you answer my question, "On what basis, per what criteria, are they [' . . . those who do not have the means . . .] deserving?" Surely you have some criteria in mind; surely you're not making a baseless, arbitrary claim, or merely expressing a sentiment.
If you're speaking of the sprinter example, or the princess example, or the worker example, in what sense are they "special cases"? They are perfectly typical cases --- the sort of garden-variety cases in which questions of justice arise every day, and often end up in court. Here are some others: a person injured by a drunk driver is due damages; a bank that has made a loan is due repayment; a landlord who lets an apartment is due rent; a person who has been libeled is due an apology, and perhaps damages; a customer who has paid for a product or service is due delivery of the product or service. If the injured person, the bank, the landlord, the person libeled, the customer fails to receive what they are due, an injustice is done.In particular, in your entire essay you made special cases . . . "
Are those "special cases" also? If so, what counts as a non-special case, in your view? Note also, that in all of those perfectly typical cases, what is due is due from some specific person --- the bank, for example, is not due payment from a passerby on the street; it is only due payment from its borrower.
No, it is not. Motives and desires are not identical. A desire becomes a motive only when action follows. A person may desire, say, a pizza. If his wife surprises him by walking through the door with a pizza, he would be delighted and happily consume it. But unless it drives him out the door to the pizza shop, that desire is not a motive.You also have some unclear issues with regard to what motivation is. Motivation is a desire to fulfill unfulfilled needs.
-- Updated August 21st, 2017, 10:49 am to add the following --
Sorry, but I'm not sure I'm following that sentence. Are you suggesting that I am seeking a change in the language? I'm doing no such thing. The definitions of "justice" I gave are from standard dictionaries.Hereandnow wrote: No, not just "lefties." Look, you seem to be entertaining a fiction set up in the minds of those who would like to see a change in language to reflect a hard reality, one which liberals are missing in their mistaken equation of fairness and justice.
Er, no. I'm not "bending 'justice' to create a new paradigm." I'm using the term as defined in standard dictionaries; I'm using the "old paradigm." Modern lefties are bending "fairness" by adding equality as an element of the definition, then assessing justice per that spurious standard.Here you want to bend 'justice' to create a new paradigm of what is right by law by explicit leaving out fairness.And in doing this, you change the discourse on matters of right and wrong, which is part and parcel of what our justice system is supposed to be. A system of justice that ignores fairness? But then, you could be suggesting that fairness is an ancillary consideration, one that can be invoked in certain cases where one must judge like cases in like ways.
A just action, decision, or policy --- one per which all parties involved receive what they are due --- is always fair, per the classical conception of fairness. But if it results in inequalities it will be deemed unfair by lefties.
As I said before, "fairness" is heavily context-dependent. Classically it means, in various contexts,
1. Playing by the rules (in games);
2. Evenly matched (in structured competitions, such as boxing or wrestling);
3. Impartiality (in weighing competing claims or judging guilt or innocence in a courtroom);
4. Just --- i.e., securing to each person what he is due (when apportioning praise or blame, rewards or punishments).
"Fairness," classically, does not entail or demand equality either, except in cases where performance is equal or claims have equal merit.
In general, when assessing the truth of a given proposition one appeals to other propositions considered more certain or less controversial than the proposition in question. What consitutes fairness, however, is even less certain and more controversial than justice. Until there is agreement as to the meaning and implications of "fairness," it can't be invoked to assess justice.
I agree.All laws should be just (not, all lawful decisions are just . . .
Oh, no. No proposition asserting a "should" or "ought" is analytic.Let's call this an analytic truth, a tautology. To be legal and unjust is a contradiction . . .
Oh, surely not. Alfie is (unquestionably) guilty of shoplifting a melon from a sidewalk vendor. He is sentenced to amputation of both hands, or sentenced to death, per the law in that jurisdiction. Is this sentence just?The assumption of guilt, this is interesting as it is an essential feature of justice, regardless of how absurd the laws are: your sentence is just because you're guilty. To me, this also is analytic, and any judge worth her gavel's thunder will tell you.
Er, what does that mean? And have you noticed the statement is circular ("fair requires fairness")?An unjust law is not fair in that all justice requires a fairness in the moral dynamic between individual: . . .
You're comparing apples and oranges. In what sense can there be an equality between someone's action and a law? You're losing me.. . . there must be equality between, on the one side, a free and knowing agent of action, and on the other the world of just laws.
In law those are called "mitigating factors." While I agree they should be taken into account in imposing sentences, I have no idea what you mean by "an equal balance between knowing-in-freedom and doing."This is why we have degrees if criminal behavior, whether it was a freedom compromising passion that was in play, whether a bad childhood figures in, or if one is a child or mentally ill: these matter because any application of the law is only just if there is equal balance between knowing-in-freedom (an odd locution, but so what? That is why things are) and doing. This is why a failings in justice are called unfair.