@Madeleine to some extent i agree but isn't it what is being discussed in death penalty cases or in religious circles?

@cucupp It can be applied to this, but it's about all kinds of crimes in general.

@Madeleine thats true, for me the reason it is difficult to talk about it is due to the nature of the crime. As i said before its difficult to say which one is valuable without any context.
But good question, was interesting to see someone asking it here :)

@Miram I apologize if I made you feel offended.

@Madeleine hun, come here 🤗

@Miram Exactly. Justice is a fiction we tell ourselves so that we believe we can be made whole from evil. We can not. We can not return, forget, not remember.

@Abrienda "justice" is a social construct, a fiction, societies perpetuate to communicate that the social contract is intact after a transgression. Beyond that it has no substantial value.

Say a man is murdered. We call it "justice" to put another man, the murderer, in a cage. We call that great virtue. Self congratulate ourselves. Sure. It's good to get the prick off the streets...

But the substantial effect of the murder is entirely unchanged. There is a widow without a husband, kids without a father, parents without a son, colleagues without a team member.

"justice" isn't going to fix that. If anything it seems the promise of "justice" as closure, "justice" as healing, "justice" as a new beginning just makes the horrible reality worse. Husband, father, brother, son-- still gone. Even after the arrest, trial, and sentencing. Even after the murderer was gassed.

That's my experience as a witness to violence and violent ideology in my own life.

@CopperCicada First you misuse the word "axiomatic" to try and make your point, then show you do not understand the concept of "justice" is not a "social construct" but religious in nature(introduced into the West by Plato - the "divine command") and next resort to argument by anecdote which is an invalid argument because your "personal experience" is "by definition" (as you would say)completely subjective,no better a basis to support your position than my personal experience is to support mine. That is why I gave you two objective historical examples which you would/could not answer.

You finished with the equally invalid "appeal to authority" argument: why should we accept your "experience" as authoritative? Again "my experience" is (by definition) purely subjective unless you believe what happens to you (and you alone) is universally true for past, present and future. The only man who made that claim was Jesus Christ and I see no proof that you are he.

I think you should quit while you are behind. Or at least answer my two examples or come up with an argument that doesn't rely only on yourself to prove it valid. Meanwhile, go with God.

@Abrienda I guess I missed the notice that we're doing formal philosophy here.

The OP asked a subjective question, and I gave a subjective answer.

Personally I don't feel arguing from the basis of personal experience is problematic in such a context.

We could argue "justice" from the vantage point of Plato's Republic. Or from Mill or Rawls. We could also break down power, equality, and fairness in a post-modern context. But in the end we're back to subjective experience. There's no way around it. The point of philosophy is to make sense of and give meaning to experience. Not dictate, define, circumscribe experience.

God can offer "justice".

Man can not.

Man is fundamentally incapable. That is what makes man-- well, man, and not God. As such, all our talk of "justice" is just euphemisms, constructs, language games.

No. I didn't respond to your examples...

I don't see "justice" in a nation destroyed.

Did the 3rd Reich deserve to be utterly and completely destroyed? Yes. Did those who destroyed it do something virtuous and good? Yes. Was it moral? Yes. But I don't see that as "justice". (That doesn't imply the negative, that it was injustice.)

That evaluation has nothing to do with a reticence to use force to conquer evil. It has nothing to do with pacifism. It has nothing to do with some favoritism, some partisanship, some political correctness. Just the belief that "justice" is impossible.

Back to the dreaded personal experience...

I once used physical violence in self defense. I seriously hurt somebody. I protected myself and others. That was a totally justified act. It was self defense. It was moral, ethical, legal. But not a stick of "justice" to it. (Again, that doesn't imply the negative, that it was injustice.)

No political correctness or political/social nuance to that evaluation. Just the insight that "justice" is an impossibility. Fundamentally so.

And that "fundamentally so" is why I say "axiomatically".

@SW-User Justice is mercy to the victim.

What if there is no victim?

@SW-User Then Justice was already there.

@sometimeslonelytoo We do what we can be bring about justice for people. But if people who have been wronged decided to take the extra step to forgive, then mercy should be the way.

I thought about this abit more... this means your question is a very good question to me..

I think it depends on the situation...

@Soossie Exactly. Sometime mercy can be injustice.

@Madeleine very true...

@wildbill83 I agree with you, but there are some situations where Mercy is better to be used.

@Madeleine true, but you can never let your guard down afterwards; I've made that mistake before...