...Also to "corrections" and certain Security Guards. This is not to brush everybody in these places with the same color of paint. That would be untrue and surely unfair. But there is Certain Truth in the generalization.
And when I said earlier that there was no justice I did not mean to suggest that one should not hold values of justice and strive for them. But remember in this world it is about winning and losing. The pain and anguish we suffer comes from feeling wronged because of the failure of "justice". Healthy and happy people get past that illusion and (while always trying to do "right" by their particular lights)... they cease to lament being "wronged". It really is about winning and losing. It is not "just" when a vicious and obtuse man starts and wins a fight on the street over say a parking spot or (fill in any blank with anything); nor is it "just" when any one person does or does not get hit by a car or by cancer or by a lynx.
So, is there an objective "justice" amongst people (if we could only live up to it) or within the universe (if we could only KNOW it)?? There is nothing to indicate the affirmative. The best attempt to define such an objective value was made by Rand but she falls short in the attempt. Her philosophy basically derives from the (correct) idea that morality (which subsumes justice) is (prima facia) equated with self interest which is (firstly) survival and (secondly) the means to survival. Because she sees the universe as being rational she presumes that the interests of survival (and thus morality) may be rationally determined or understood. However, she confused logical FACTS (A=A, etc) with value--reason with motive. If the goal of a rational being is to survive (reason being the tool), it does not follow that the reasoning or self interest is objective rather than subjective. Rational behavior need not worship logical behavior. Every act imaginable can be "right" or "wrong" under different circumstances. If you or I had witnessed that brutal assault on that kid, we might have intervened and spent several years in prison for "assaulting a PEACE (!!) officer".
Only your own survival makes anything truly "JUST". Fortunately, rational people are kind and gentle toward people whom have kind and gentle feelings and whom cooperate toward values of self interest. Basically we believe in the "deserved" as opposed to the "undeserved". But this is only a concept of justice. Who "deserves" what?? Does the cop "deserve" (say) $20,000.00 off a drug muscling (not a legal bust) (oh, and plus all the drugs!!)...or does the villain working in an underground business (for whatever reason) "deserve" to be busted. Neither of them ask the question. They have been educated in various forms of vomit. They win or they lose. They get the values or they don't. They recognise that money, power, friends, connections, and so forth are OBJECTIVE values--even if they have a double digit IQ which is not unlikely.
Survival DOES equate to acting rationally amongst rational beings (thank you, Ayn)...but it does not (necessarily) equate to acting with (falsified) self interest in a non-subjective "rationality" which is (or might) be a contradiction. Many beings are NOT rational--cultures and societies are ALWAYS a mixture...and considering that concepts of rationality are disputed by "rational" people (else why so many books), it behooves us to survive first and reason later. |
