The qualitative experience of moral outrage is painful, like claws slowly ripping through my chest, at my heart, combined with a throbbing sensation in my brain. It’s an escalating sensation that amplifies with the more attention I give to it. The mental experience is more severe: I can almost hear a voice in my head screaming ‘Injustice!’ , demanding me to action. It’s an overwhelming voice, filling my mind with strategies, plans, tactics, methods, and so on. Even after I’m sick of looking at it it’s still screaming at me, filling my head with these thoughts.
I call that voice justice.
Is that truly justice? OED defines Justice in a few ways: 1) Just behavior or treatment. 2) The quality of being fair and reasonable. 3) The administration of the law or authority in maintaining this. In looking over these three definitions I can see them as separate parts, yet part of the same. The first describes external actions, and questions such as ‘Have I been treated justly?’. The second is more internally and motivationally driven, with questions such as ‘Was I being just in my decisions?’. The last is the balancing force, the scales of Libra, when things are not just, justice re-balances the scales.
Then the question is, what is just? Again I go to the OED, and here’s what I find: 1) Based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair. 2) (of treatment) deserved or appropriate in the circumstances. 3) (of an opinion or appraisal) Well founded; justifiable. So to lack justice is to lack moral rightness and fairness, to receive treatment that is not deserved or appropriate, and is not well founded. Is my internal cry of injustice indicative of these characteristics? I believe so. This is why I call that voice justice.
Yet it is not justice alone, it is also vengeance. Again, OED: Punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong. There is a social contrast between justice and vengeance, yet let’s spend a moment looking at the definitions side-by-side. I’ll use the third definition of justice as it seems to match the closest:
Justice: The administration of the law or authority in maintaining [justice].
Vengeance: Punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong.
If to be treated unjustly is to be morally wronged, then it strikes me that Justice can be seen as an institution in righting those wrongs. What I can see here is justice can be punitive, which seems like a kind of vengeance; or it can be additive, which strikes me as being more akin to social welfare.
In looking at the two definitions, it strikes me that they are like overlapping circles. Justice can be vengeance, and vengeance can be justice. It is not necessarily so, but they are not mutually exclusive, nor the black & white morality choices that mass society portrays them as.
In understanding these distinctions I am able to better separate, within myself, the conflated justice and vengeance. I do this by asking that voice ‘would you be satisfied to receive compensation for the injustice that has been suffered here?’ Part of it says yes, as long as the compensation balanced out the level of injustice. Another part of me is still screaming at me, seeking retribution.
In having the word retribution come up, I go back to the OED: punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved. This word occupies both the vengeance sphere, in being punitive, and the justice sphere, in being about moral correctness. I won’t claim that all cases that are just and vengeful are also retribution, but the correlation is ringing strongly with me.
So I question further with the voice that’s still screaming: ‘Would you be satisfied to punish in a morally correct way?’ And in a fury, the voice pronounces its agreement. Yet I find that without the backing of the purely justice driven side of me, this voice lacks the weight and character that defines me. If justice is indeed ‘just behavior or treatment’ which is ‘based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair’ then is it morally right and fair to treat someone in a punitive manner because of the injustice I’ve suffered?
In even asking the question, justice (which I have now separated from vengeance) resounds a strong and hearty ‘NO!’ In the process of asking the question vengeance is also silenced, still raging, but silent about it.
Yet in this reflection, I now see an opening in my sense of justice, tracing back to my original question. I see a possibility of having my justice without punishing someone for it. Justice received as compensation, as a validation for my suffering, as an acknowledgement of the injustice I have suffered.
Justice as a gift to elate me.
As I think of this, I cry.
Reference - Oxford English Dictionary: http://oxforddictionaries.com/
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