Thinking about Justice

Justice is a part of everyday life. Because it is, the key concepts associated with justice are familiar ones. We routinely talk about whether someone deserved something (“oh, he deserved it,” “yeah, he had it coming”). We talk about whether someone’s act was right or wrong (“you know, that just isn’t right”). And we talk about whether something is fair or unfair (“that teacher wasn’t fair to me”). This is the language of justice. Its familiarity means we take it for granted, so a course on justice is somewhat different from other college courses. The language of physics, to take an obvious example, isn’t part of everyday conversation. We don’t regularly refer to atoms, neutrons, neutrinos, or quarks. These are words from a special world of thought. Students enter this world when they take a class in physics, just as they enter different mental worlds when they take classes in, say, mathematics or chemistry. In a course on justice, on the other hand, students bring their world into the classroom. A course on justice gives students a chance to think about ideas they otherwise take for granted, to arrange those ideas carefully, and to apply them in settings that go beyond their immediate experience. • Identify the aims of corrective justice • Distinguish between the aims of corrective justice and criminal justice • Analyze criminal punishment from the standpoint of theories of deterrence and theories of retribution • Consider the connection between criminal and corrective justice in settings where crime victims are unable to secure complete corrective justice for themselves Learning ObJecTives