I agree that our principles are not necessarily our essence, though I think they can be informed by it. I can picture what your saying, with cold reason suppressing one’s humanity for the sake of satisfying principle. For example, one might seek a cruel revenge on the basis of principle, when in their heart of hearts they want only peace. I think, however, this is a misapplication of the tool, rather than a defect with the tool itself. Some will see “strength” as never being able to be vulnerable; others will see it as a reason to be vulnerable. The proper principles would be extensions of the soul, not a cage of the soul.
I also agree that the concept of justice has been corrupted into meaning revenge. I think if we can look at the purpose of justice — maintaining harmonious and morally upright social order — as the true essence of justice, and not the means, we can find our ways to different forms of justice. I’d say punitive justice is a sham, but rehabilitative justice is a true justice.
A number of my recent articles were inspired by the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, including this one and “The Contortions of Cowardice.” I had Mitch McConnell’s (the leader of the Republican Party in the senate) speech in mind as he voted to acquit Trump, wherein he made a dubious argument linking his “No” vote to the defense of the constitution, and that’s why I wrote about fear bending logic. For this article, I was wondering if there was any point in impeaching Trump if it was going to prove useless. I thought that there was no good answer; there were positives and negatives, politically, on both sides. But then I thought that on principle the answer was yes, and that clear-eyed posterity would surely agree. That was the particular example of justice I was thinking of.
To be honest, I contemplated the values listed in the last sentence for a while, and new more that I wanted to list some specific values than which ones I wanted to list. But I intentionally sought to include “mercy” as a counterbalance on justice.
I think I’ve previously shared with you my feeling that it’s gauche to link to posts in the comments, lest it be taken as shameless promotion. But I took the time to elaborate my thoughts on justice in general in another article, so I’ll make an exception and link to it below. Thank you, as always, for gracing my comment’s section with your insights and soulful words.
