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Justice is a topic often explored through different lenses, such as through political, philosophical, historical, and religious aspects. At its core, justice can be understood as the successful application of rehabilitation, which is the principle that an individual’s actions can be restored through their future experiences, whether for good or bad. This focus on accountability and the resulting consequences is heavily mediated by the prevailing societal guidelines and moral codes: a dynamic tension that ultimately defines the pursuit of justice.
A theoretical framework presented by Dr. Wills is the text ‘Whiteness as Property,’ and how much racial status impacted society. Whiteness is property, especially in the way that shareholders are able to withhold benefits of the privilege towards those who were discriminated against. Every construct divided in society, no matter the lack of money or social status, can immediately be elevated with the presence of being a white man. This structure not only reflects racism; it actively defines it. By embedding white value with enforceable rights, the system ensures that marginalization is both a legal reality and a cultural norm.
Professor Jankovic explains the argument of Mills, which is using nonideal conditions to identify historical oppressions and prevent injustice. The ideal society tends to blind society from reality, and the perfection philosophers like Rawls present mask mistreatment. Similar beliefs are expressed in a lecture of Professor Lipsker, where he analyzed Struken’s argument, discussing cultural memory and its common sense of oblivion. When society is faced with violence, they tend to erase the atrocity in order to obtain peace. The situation is evidently political: a specific moral framework is used as a tool of historical erasure to prevent marginalized narratives from gaining political force.
Epistemic Injustice, as discussed by Dr. Corso-Esquivel, entails when someone is wronged specifically as a knower. As to what a knower is, it is a person with skill and knowledge on something in particular. The passage gets into the idea of marginalization, and how gaps in information between different racial groups can produce misunderstood concepts of history. Dr. Corso related this to capital punishment, wherein mistakenly tried for a crime relates to power socially and oppression. Prejudice in the justice system is common, and the author attempts to incite more interpretive resources for the community and amplify marginalized voices. Similar to ‘Whiteness as Property,’ the passage connects power to social identities. When the legal system protects whiteness as a property interest, it both devalues the epistemic worth of marginalized voices, ensuring their version of history is never understood as legal truth. Overall, the concept of power can shape who is credited, and how experiences are understood.
In a lecture led by Professor Lipsker, the concept of unresolved justice, and while it was said to have been served in the Nuremberg Trials, the voices of the victims were not considered. Justice was found in terms of disciplining war criminals, but hypocrisy was induced when America failed to convict themselves for similar crimes earlier in history. Failure to take accountability deems the Nuremberg Trials as an incomplete justice.
In contrast, I believe justice can be a value, easily redeemable, established in the Truth and Reconciliation commissions where amnesty was provided by the families affected. Professor Jankovic deliberated on the compromise the TRCs offered, which was the perpetrators admitting their crime and being on trial for the possibility of not going to jail and receiving amnesty. She did this, while prompting the discussion of the different scales of this commission offering. In a sense, justice is achieved in the context of resolve, as families who often receive no say decide whether the perpetrator can be forgiven in the eyes of the government. Simultaneously, it might also prompt discourse about whether those who have committed crimes need to be punished, to which rehabilitation should be implemented, not just amnesty.
A book integral to the interpretation of justice in this portfolio’s lens is Until We Reckon by Danielle Sered, discussed by Dr. O’Geen, which emphasizes rehabilitation and inspired the portfolio to examine discrimination this semester. It is argued continuously that prisons in the US are all profoundly anti-rehabilitative, with most prisoners incarcerated and never sought to adapt out of it. Matter of fact, the lecture included the point that prison systems tend to create crime rather than reduce it. Rehabilitation can be classified under restorative justice, which Sered defines roughly as a decision making process that involves those directly impacted by wrongdoing to identify a ‘pathway toward repair.’ This should look like mental health reparations, beneficial addiction treatment, job training, and therapy when considering how to approach society after custody.
While Dante’s term of contrapasso suggests that justice is a mirror of the crime, fixed and eternal, Sered’s restorative model suggests that justice is a moving pathway. Instead of a more static punishment, interpretation flows to be trying to heal those who have been wrongdone.
Through the scope of philosophy, Professor Jankovic discusses the principle of utility as stated by Jeremy Bentham, stating his desire for actions that promote happiness. Feelings of pleasure and pain are debated, as by many means they are similar feelings, deviating by the speed of pain compared to the fleeting moments of pleasure. Further examination of the notion of retributive justice lies in the principles found in Dante’s Inferno. Professor Wills delves into the story of Dante and the difference between inclination and duty. A main principle in the epic poem is ‘contrapasso,’ which in this context means those who sin must be punished, depending on the severity of the crime. Justice is disguised by vengeance, sought out by Dante as he descends further into hell.
Justice is a vastly ambiguous term, changing with the more perspectives it uncovers. It involves questions of equality and what it means to find solace in the tragedies caused by other forces. Whether through the social sciences or the misconception of intertwining justice and law, it is a broad term that in this portfolio means acknowledging the truth. Ultimately, justice is not found in the gavel of a judge, but in the courage to refuse historical erasure.
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