Justice In Society Essay

In every society, most people desire for justice. Even most of our great political thinkers and philosophers used to ponder about this word and exerted some effort to seek and define it. For a long time, there was a debate whether justice is a man centered word. It means that justice is present if an action promotes the welfare of humans. American heritage dictionary defines justice as the quality of being just and fair. (batlevy.com) There are instances when the issue of justice is not only applicable for humans. What is justice becomes the issue of killing animals for food or damaging the Mother Nature for human welfare. Is it justice when it involves animals or physical things? In some cases, it becomes the issue of living a good life. But not at all times, living good means living a just life. A person can live good even virtuous life but still stepping on the rights of other people.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã¢â‚¬Å"Plato contended that justice is the quality of soul, in virtue of which men set aside the irrational desire to taste every pleasure and to get a selfish satisfaction out of every object and accommodated themselves to the discharge of a single function for the general benefit.† (Bhandari, www.bu.edu)   It means that justice is a responsibility of human beings regardless of their own pleasure and needs. Although an action deprives human being of their pleasure and welfare, it is still justice as long as it demonstrates fairness. One example is the execution of justice through penalties and punishments. It sounds not good for the criminals and law breakers. But it demonstrates fairness and is widely acceptable in our society. If justice is just for the welfare of human beings, it will be hard to execute justice because punishment will become a big issue. References American Heritage Dictionary. 2000. Retrieved February 22, 2008 from http://www.bartleby.com/61/76/J0087600.html Bhandari, D.R. Plato’s Concept of Justice: An Analysis. Retrieved February 22, 2008 from http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciBhan.htm