Wednesday, November 28, 2007
A Few Thoughts On Justice
We've been talking a lot about Justice and Judgement recently, but what makes something a "crime?" There are numerous crimes that are considered so not because of the overt act, but because of the "victim's" perception of the act. For example, in some places it is legal to kill someone if they "want" to die, but illegal if they do not. But how accurate can justice be that is based on the victim's "feelings?" Can that be quantified? And does that mean that, if the overt act is irrelevent, whenever someone does something that someone doesn't like its a crime? Does anyone else see a problem with this? Does anyone have a better solution?
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2 comments:
I think that this is a really interesting point, because it totally depends on the culture, background and expectations of a group of people. I think that it is always going to be a perplexing problem, since it involves ideas on morality and personal values. I think that the closest solution that I can think of is to have something similar to universal laws that basically spell out the definition and guidelines for what is a crime, and when someone is considered "guilty" and "innocent" of these crimes.
However, if we were to instate these kind of laws, it still brings us back to another problem that we have also been struggling with, which is WHO gets to decide on what these "universal laws" are and who is the judges in this international court? How can the world's 6.5 million people decide on a document that spells out morality for each individual?
This is really tough. Does anyone else have any other thoughts?
Victim's "feelings" cannot be quantified, but in an attempt to do so, the U.S. has created a largely flawed judicial system. I think that one of the biggest problems with justice and judgment, especially in American courts (I don't know that much about foreign courts) is that in more serious cases guilt is based on the jury's "feelings" which is largely influenced by the quality of lawyer, and better lawyers are usually more expensive. In other words, in an attempt to decipher the victim's "feelings" a group of total strangers influenced by money decides the verdict. The problems with this are evidenced by all the innocent people in American prisons. One step in the right direction in this case could be assigning lawyers to all parties involved so one does not have an advantage because of money. Other than that, I can complain all I want, but I don't have any better ideas.
Can a group of strangers largely unfamiliar with law specifics properly judge someone's guilt in an unbiased manner, based solely on the evidence?
In response to Thom's other points, I don't think that it is automatically a crime whenever someone does something that someone doesn't like. Okay, maybe it is a crime, but it is not punishable by law unless the person was seriously injured in some way (propery, emotional, physical).
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