What is Justice?

Every culture and tradition has grappled with the question of justice, though each has understood the idea somewhat differently. In ancient Indian society, justice was closely associated with dharma, and maintaining dharma — a just social order — was considered a primary duty of kings. In China, the philosopher Confucius argued that kings should maintain justice by punishing wrongdoers and rewarding the virtuous.

In fourth-century BC Athens, Plato examined questions of justice in his book The Republic, through a long dialogue between Socrates and his young friends Glaucon and Adeimantus. The young men ask Socrates why we should even be concerned about being just, pointing out that people who are unjust — who twist rules to serve their own interests, avoid paying taxes, and are willing to lie and deceive — often seem to do much better in life than those who are truthful and just. If a person were clever enough never to get caught, wouldn't it actually pay to be unjust? As Glaucon puts it to Socrates:

"They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just."

Socrates responds that if everyone in society behaved unjustly, manipulating rules to suit their own interests, no one could ever be sure of actually benefiting from it — nobody would be secure, and everyone would ultimately be harmed. So it is in each person's own long-term interest to obey the law and be just. But to see why, Socrates says, we first need to understand clearly what justice actually means. He explains that justice does not simply mean 'doing good to our friends and harm to our enemies,' nor does it mean narrowly pursuing our own interests. Justice is concerned with the well-being of all people. Just as a doctor is concerned with the well-being of his or her patients, the just ruler or the just government must be concerned with the well-being of the people — and ensuring that well-being includes giving each person his or her due. …