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Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Justice

Since I don't believe there is any such thing as a supernatural being, and there is no inherent purpose to the universe, it's hard to see how there could be such a thing as universal justice. That is, a justice where which is fair to all participants.

There are a few painful points of reality that make this sort of justice impossible. For example, nothing is perfectly reversible. If someone gets punched, there is nothing that can go back in time and save the person from that hurt at that moment. If someone is killed, they're dead. No amount of money or grief will bring them back.

Furthermore, justice is purely in the eye of the beholder. Living things seem to more or less care about fairness, but this is more of a tool to further the future survivability of the group, not a fundamental concept of the universe.

Thus we should not try to think of justice as a way of fixing past wrongs. That is impossible. Justice is a tool to encourage people to function in a way that advances the group, not just the individual.

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