Truth or Justice

[jeffora]

Hey, i do debating with my school, and our competition is reknowned for coming up with some really dodgy topics. Anyway, our topic for this week is a lot more philosophical than they normally come:
That Truth is More Important Than Justice
(we are arguing the negative)
Anyway it does raise some interesting notions of what is more important, or are they both as important as one another. Obviously we immediately jumped to "u cant have justice without truth" which is true, especially in a legal sense, but we decided that the topic is broader than that. Anyway, any thoughts on the topic - from any point of view - are welcome!

[jaebo]

what is truth?
what is justice?

who determines what truth is?

relativists approach to truth: "is rape wrong on andromeda?" (this is a book) who's truth is the right truth?
people from andromeda who think rape is ok?
people from earth who think rape is wrong?

does this mean that people from andromeda can rape people from earth with no problems?

are both ok?
how can each justify their positions in the court of law?

can truth be broken in a ultilitarian sense of justice?
can one deny truth to save 1 for the benefit of 100?
is this moral?

some threads:

http://forums.farkin.net/showthread.php?t=22599

http://forums.farkin.net/showthread.php?t=25335

just some thoughts to start...

[jeffora]

here is an example that puts another perspective upon the whole issue of what is more important - truth or justice (also sorta bypasses philosophical definitional debate of what is truth and justice)
Disclaimer: not goin too much into what truth and justice is for this, im sure u will all work out what im on about

Anyway, take a situation (ill go extreme here) like the holocaust. Is it enough to move on from this with the truth, making sure the truth of the event is known eg Yes it was a shocking event and it will never happen again and we recognise this. Or should something more be done - ie is justice needed in such a situation. Is it enough to 'publish' the truth and move on or is there a need for something further - some justice ie punishment to those who committed the crimes?

[jaebo]

well,

i think you have basically summed it up yourself jeffora.

you need to ask philosophical questions first. you need to know what justice is before you can demonstrate it. in your case it is punishment.

the problem we find, is that things like justice may not be self evident in all people. and then what form of justice do we use for different cultures.
a good example is chapelle corby or bali 12.
indonesian justice = may be death sentence by firing squad
australian justice = not capital punishment
both forms of justice, which do we use? which is true? what is just for the situation using reason?

[Mitchy_Bris]

But you first also have to define what justice is? And from what perspective are you looking at justice? I know you negative for truth and plus for positive...but yeh you need to define what you asking..."What is justice?"

[blt2ride]

From a legal stand point, justice is accountability. Further, I think that someone must be held accountable for his or her crimes, and this is more important than truth. In addition, once someone is held accountable for their crimes, the truth will usually come out...

This question is a lot harder to debate than I thought it would be...

[jaebo]

blt2ride, your opinion is such a conservative view of justice. such a view entails punishment of underprivileged sectors of society due to things like lack of education and resources. while this opinion is not overt, and correct me if i am wrong, these are the undertones that i see in your post. an example is the mass overrepresentation of aboriginal people in corrective services.

i have to agree with jeffora, that without truth, you cannot have justice. you make the assumption that in the legal system people who are on trial, are the people who commit the crime. this is just, is it not?
but many times each year in america, it is estimated that a number of people are sentenced to death, who are not the criminal offenders.
here it is clear that you need truth, ie you need the correct person, before justice can be served.
you have also made an assumption ( i think) of fairness in your claims of accountabilty. that we would hope that our legal system is fair in distributing justice. but what about different countries with differing legal codes?
what then?

justice is an interesting one, and we are only really covering one part of it which is to do with the law and punishment.

there is another side which you may find intresting which is related to accountability.
humans all have rights. boiled down, these rights are to freedom and well being. if 1 person has the right to freedom and well being, then all people have a duty to uphold the persons freedom and well being. (this relationship is reciprocal).

this then brings us to distributive justice (eg welfare). to quote spiderman (well his uncle), "with great power comes great responsibility".
in regards to distributive justice, people with more money have a greater duty to the freedom and well being of the poor. why? is this fair on the rich people? of course it is, because if they were in the same situation as people who are poor, they would expect the same basic rights for life to be met (founded on the poverty line).

other things you need to consider is arithmetic and geometric distribution of justice. justice in social terms is about proportions (think of a pie, larger people need more pie to survive, leaner people need less pie), and sometimes, proportion means no portion. this is an extreme example, but really it relates to the welfare state and the class society we live in.

if you have time to read more, maybe check out some of Rawls, Aristotle or Nozick's work on justice.