Let me talk about “justice” for a moment. Is there any question around here but that this is, at root, an ethical concept? It’s about values and their disposition. Political questions (what specific acts to take in a social context in order to resolve the disposition) are consequential to that. (This is elementary logical hierarchy. It should not be strange around here.)
When we talk about “injustice”, we’re talking about the willful destruction of values by an entity that should know better. (For instance: nobody in their right mind would ever consider indicting a tiger for murder.)
Now; in a forum ostensibly and to some degree or other devoted to Objectivism, I should think that most people would understand the nature and source of values, and their original location in the individual human being. Given that, it never makes any sense to me to see people of this way of thinking making that “No Man Can Judge His Own Case” argument, which I say is just a threadbare habit come down from a time before people actually thought about this stuff (rather in the same way that, say, feudalism was, intellectually, just a habit until reason put it in its grave).
If the point of “justice” is not to address a matter of destroyed values, then this whole discussion is moot and all bets are off. But if it is, then the whole context of that subject (values) must be taken up with it. And I say that whether you like it or not, there is no one better morally qualified than the victim to judge the claim of lost value that constitutes action against any criminal. To dispute this is to arbitrarily substitute someone else’s values as a standard of judgment, and this I submit, ladies and gentlemen, is the very essence of socialism.
Perhaps, Billy Beck. [1] But I don’t know.
Look, man, I understand where you’re going here, but the discomfort I personally have with this, and perhaps you might address it, is the issue of passion as applied to the situation by the wronged party. You’re trusting the guy whose just been wronged, to make a calm, cool, reasoned and dispassionate … in short… objective… jugement, and at exactly time when he is bound by nature to be the least dispassionate. In many ways, you run as much risk of such judgement being too violent, as you run a risk of being too easy on the perp, when going through ‘the system’.
Now granted, I’ve often said in my more Menken-black-flag like moods, that a bit stiffer punishments would result in less crime, and certainly allowing the victim’s passion into that mix would accomplish that end. But I’m not convinced that’s always a good thing either.
I’m not seeing a clear way out of that one. What am I missing, here?
Update: Billy Responds: [2]
A proper integration of all the principles and elements. That’s what.
Right off the bat, you’re conflating passions and reason in all kinds of ways, as if the two are necessarily mutually exclusive and the presence of one necessarily precludes the other. This is just nonsense. A person outwardly cool as a cucumber can reason like an idiot just as plainly as the passionate can reason.
Can? Certainly! Do they as a rule? Another matter altogether, in my experience.
And if you read the whole discussion, it will become clear that “trust” has nothing to do with any of this.
Well, I didn’t note a link to the discussion in your original post, but I suspected then and still do, and will suppose for the moment, you’re talking about application of law, in which case, it fairly certainly does not. It’s my observation that laws very seldom are about trust, but rather the lack of it. OTOH, and by logical reversal, an absence of law in a given area does to my mind suggest trust of the individual at least in that area, and it was with that in mind I made my comment.
Nothing that you’ve noted argues for for attempting to compel my participation in any of it.
True. Then again, that’s mostly because imposing requirements on you, or anyone else wasn’t the thrust of my comment; since my argument hadn’t gone quite so far. I’m merely looking at all this from the side of consequences, at the moment. Seems a reasonable place to start.