Justice should be blind, not ignorant.

Justice should be blind, not ignorant.

There are so many aspects of our discussions on the nature of Justice buzzing around in my head that I had trouble deciding which buzz would become a blogpost. One of the things that stuck out in my mind and really rubbed me the wrong way was Cephalus’ idea that justice meant paying one’s debts.  That gives me the idea that Cephalus had made some money or gleaned some support from being a merchant or by being involved in trade of some sort.  It seemed so narrow minded, even from the perspective of his time.  Surely, he had to be aware that there were lenders who overcharged interest, and merchants who cheated customers.  Wouldn’t it be unjust to pay one’s debt to an unscrupulous business owner? Justice is still viewed as payment of a debt, however, particularly in our judicial system. We often speak of released convicts having “paid their debt to society.” But can you buy justice? And if it is bought, does it remain just?

The comment attributed to Cephalus sounded so much like something that might have been said by a southern plantation owner in the antebellum south, biased and ignorant. If it works from his point of view, why should he bother with anyone else’s? Unfortunately, groups of ignorant people often band together to come to their own conclusions about justice. Justice seems so intertwined in the idea of consensus.  But a consensus does not justice make. Ask the two sisters in India who are in hiding because a village tribunal decided that they should be raped because their brother ran off with the wrong woman. Of course the rest of the world has reached a different consensus about that tribunal’s idea of justice.

I like to hope that justice is something beyond the point of view or opinion of any of us, but that we all have a seed of it planted within us.  A cosmic ideal that we can nurture or neglect, and when nurtured, gives us a little tug when it recognizes the seeds of justice in the actions of others. We have this image of Justice the Goddess, greater than any of us, with her scales to weigh consequences, and her blindfold to help her judge all equally.  But perhaps her blindfold is a reminder that we can’t see justice if we only seek it from our own narrow point of view.