I used to read a book called “ The republic” written by Plato. In this book, I also found Socrates which is a teacher of Plato argued with different philosphers about the definition of Justice. Cephalus defines justice as giving what is owed. Polemarchus says justice is "the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies." Thrasymachus proclaims "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.Glaucon gives a speech in which he argues first that the origin of justice was in social contracts aimed at preventing one from suffering injustice and being unable to take revenge. Socrates overturns their definitions and says that it is to your advantage to be just and disadvantage to be unjust.So I wonder what is the definition of justice because I felt like I  lost in a maze. I want to tell you this thing before we start, onion has many layers so does a word. In our presentation, we get access to the word justice as the meaning the condition of being morally correct or fair. Like John Stuart Mill used to say: “ When we are pursuing something, a clear and precise conception of what we are pursuing would seem to be the first thing we need’.To find out the definition of justice, I have read a lot about this topic and I found out that each scholars has their own definition of justice. Therefore, our presentation to day will give you 3 approachs of justice under the view of John Stuart Mill, Alexis Tocqueville and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

In chapter 5 of the book called “ Utilitarianism” which you can simply understand that happiness is an aim of this theory, John Stuart Mill mentioned one of the strongest objections to the doctrine that utility or happiness is the criterion of right and wrong has been based on the idea of justice. Just must have an existence in nature as something absolute. Justice in this chapter is to  respect the moral right.

So what is moral right? Moral rights are rights that are according to the universal ethics or moral code. .Moral norms play a role in guiding and evaluating action. Moral rights somehow is different from  legal rights. In a law, maybe this behavior may be proved right but our general morality think its wrong. John Stuart Mill said :” The legal rights of which someone is deprived may be rights that he oughtn’t to have had in the first place, the law that gives him these rights may be a bad law. But when a law is thought to be unjust, it seems always to be because it is thought to infringe somebody’s right. This can’t be a legal right, so it is labelled moral right.

I will give you the case  called Dred Scott vs Stanford to help you understand profoundly.  This case was one of the most controversial events preceding the Civil War. Dred Scott along with his wife were black slaves who belonged to army surgeon John Emerson in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri. After Emerson died,  Scott sue Emerson’s widow for his freedom. In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in that case, which had been brought before the court by Dred Scott. Scott argued that time spent in a free state entitled him to emancipation. But the court decided that no black, free or slave, could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks were unable to petition the court for their freedom. The Dred Scott decision outraged abolitionists and heightened North-South tensions. This case also contributed to the divisions that helped lead to Abraham Lincoln‘s election and the Civil War.

Our judgments about moral wrongs are from how we experience and react to the actions of our-selves and others.This judgement is really important to react  and take action to limit the wrong doings in our society and to try to get the unjust law altered by those who are authorized to do that . This is also the spirit of protecting moral rights that John Stuart Mill mentioned throughout his book. Like John Stuart Mill used to say “ If we want to see whether this is possible first we have to clarify for ourselves well what is justice.”

References

Plato ( 380 BC), Alan Bloom ( translator). Book 1. The republic ( 2nd edition). Retrieved from the web. http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/Plato-Republic.pdf

John Stuart Mill. Jonathan Bennet ( Copyright), 2017. . Utilitarianism. Retrieved from the link:   Christopher Macleod. The Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (The Cambridge History of Moral Philosophy). https://www.academia.edu/22343356/The_Moral_Philosophy_of_John_Stuart_Mill_The_Cambridge_History_of_Moral_Philosophy_

Dred Scott Decision (27/02/2019). History.com. Retrieved from link: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case