It's not that they're subjective due to logical necessity (so in that sense they "need not be"), but they're subjective contingently, due to what the world is like. It's a fact re how things are.Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 2:15 pmThey need not be "inherently subjective". In lawmaking we can consider practical evidence, the opinions of experts, and even trial and error in moving things forward and expanding agreement.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 11:20 am
Functionally, "what justice is supposed to accomplish" tends to be what I said: the distribution of rewards and/or punishments in a manner that folks feel is reasonable and equitable in a given situation.
The problem is that you're never going to come to a universal agreement about just what (distribution of) rewards and/or punishments are reasonable and equitable. There will always be disagreements, and those disagreements will always result in some level of discord. That's because we're talking about inherently subjective assessments. There's no way around that. One needs to recognize that the assessments are inherently subjective and then adjust one's expectations accordingly.
The opinions of "experts" aren't something other than subjective. I put "expert" in quotation marks there because one can't be an expert on a subjective assessment issue--there's nothing to get right.
Considering practical evidence doesn't make one's assessment non-subjective. And neither does trial and error.