The Problem With Justice

Do you think ‘fair’ means ‘right’?

Photo: Unsplash

Growing up, I was led to believe that justice was a simple matter of right and wrong. Actually, I was misled. Justice is a much more complicated concept than a simple matter of morality. It’s not about what a court of law decides. Such bodies can only say what is legal, as opposed to what is right or wrong; they can only say what a particular society deems acceptable. They can’t say what is inherently good or bad, only what is ‘just’.

As an army chaplain, I came across this confusion early in my military career, especially on active service. There are frequently situations where bonds of loyalty or friendship can show how morally ‘wrong’ justice can be.

One example of this was my first tour of duty in Northern Ireland. I joined the British Army at a time when the Officers’ Mess deployed on active service as a mess. There was a clear distinction between Officers and Other Ranks and both had their own accommodation and eating arrangements, known as their ‘Mess’. Bizarrely, they took everything, silver cutlery/dinner settings/candle sticks, you name it, although my first Regiment had stopped taking most of the large silver table pieces with them after 1796, when their ship, returning from the Colonies was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean with all hands and silver lost.