What Is Meant by Justice

524 Words3 Pages
Consider what is meant by justice. Discuss whether English Law achieves or fails to achieve justice Justice is an entirely subjective concept, largely depending on political affiliation, and previous experience of the legal system. Similarly to law, there is a vast amount of documentation providing different definitions and different theories of justice but is best described as what one believes to be the fairest course of action for both parties. In order to achieve justice, countries institute a legal system of some sort. Sir John Salmond defined law as “a body of principles recognized and applied by the state in the administration of justice”. However, sometimes those systems are flawed, and therefore, an injustice will occur, such as when innocent people are convicted of crimes they did not commit as in the case of the Guilford Four whom wrongly served sixteen years in prison. Distributive justice is concerned with economics at its core but not just our modern interpretation of what economics is. The idea of distributive justice and economics comes from the Greek ‘oikonomia’ which was defined in Aristotle’s time as “household management” and rather than modern interpretations of economics as just the allocation and flow of wealth it was also extended to the rights and responsibilities within society. Aristotle himself saw it best to distribute the wealth on the basis of merit; that those whom contributed the most to society should reap the largest rewards. By many this is seen as a fair system as it allows those whom are hardworking to prosper while those whom are lazier receive less. It is interesting to see this applied to the modern day as it would seem he would agree with some actions of our government such as instituting the requirement of community service to receive unemployment benefit. While on the other hand if you take his basis of merit to the full
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