I was watching a video titled "Plato's Philosophy" hosted by Thelma Zeno Lavine, from her series "From Socrates to Sartre." Regarding her point about Socrates' understanding of justice, defined by Socrates as "repaying your debts," which is the definition I will be using throughout this essay, she said something that troubled me. I felt as if there was a fallacy in her logic. She gave this example with the intention of challenging his definition. I will paraphrase, as I am recalling only by means of my own memory. "If you borrowed a gun from someone, but they became mentally unstable since borrowing the gun, would it still be justified to give the gun back to this person?" She said it with such certainty, but I must disagree.
By definition, paying our debt would be justice served, but in this example given by Ms. Lavine, it no longer is a question of justice. We must ask ourselves whether or not justice should be served in this particular situation. It becomes a question of ethics as to whether or not we want to pay our debt and return the gun to the now-unstable loaner. If the gun is returned, they are very likely to use it in a way that harms themselves or others. If the gun is not given back, justice is not served and the person who chooses to keep the gun risks damaging the reputation of their personal honor. Was the cost of not serving justice worth the price of being judged negatively for keeping someone else's gun when an agreement was made to return it?
If the gun is returned and used to harm themselves or others, is the person who returned it, knowing the loaner is no longer of sound mind to have a gun, partially responsible for the consequences? I believe the answer is yes. Returning the gun would be paying a debt, which serves justice, but consequently causes harm in the name of justice. This means it is not always the correct course of action to seek justice in every situation.
Now this brings us to the question, in what situations should justice be served? With the example previously stated, when serving justice is determined, through inductive or deductive reasoning, to cause harm, then justice should not be served. Perhaps the best course of action would be to find the mentally unstable loaner some sort of mental health treatment until they are proven to be of sound mind to possess a gun, and only then should it be returned to them.
Some would argue that giving the gun back to the mentally unstable person is how justice is served in this situation. I disagree. Justice, by this definition, could only be served when the gun is returned. In order for justice to be served in a morally responsible way, an ethical question had to be answered and agreed upon before the gun could be returned. This should be why juries are appointed instead of a single judge imposing their own opinion of justice upon any given case. The judge and jury should collaborate with reasonable discourse to address the moral and ethical questions for all those who are involved or could be affected by the consequences of any given course of action on how to proceed. Only then should they reach a decision on how justice should best be served.
Therefore, justice being served in and of itself is not enough. Moral and ethical analysis must be conducted to ensure that if justice is to be served at all, which I believe in some cases it does not have to be, it is done in a responsible manner according to the ethics of those involved in the matter. I believe if modern courts of law conducted themselves in a way that not only brings justice, but also rights all the moral wrongs through correction and rehabilitation, we will have a much better society. It will by no means guarantee that the loaner will not use the gun in an irresponsible way, but it can certainly decrease the likelihood of misconduct if they have been proven competent and rehabilitated by medical professionals. Perhaps, then, the true definition of justice is not simply repaying your debts, but repaying them in a way that does not cause greater harm.
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