What is justice? || Motivational Story

Justice is one of the most important moral and political concepts with no agreed definition. The word justice is
derived from the latin word “jus” meaning right or law. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just”
person as one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving everyone his or her due,”
offering the word “fair” as a synonym.1
The claim for justice gains meaning in specific circumstances and
cultural contexts. Justice is an evolutionary concept. The evolution of the meaning of justice from the ancient
Greek period to the modern day is interesting to know.
One of the earliest written definitions of justice is by Aristotle. “Equals should be treated equally and unequal
unequally”. Aristotle talks about distributive justice, corrective justice, commutative justice, legal justice, moral
justice. In the middle ages, justice was described as the foundation of the state by St. Augustine who believed
justice was created by the church.
According to Karl Marx, the idea of justice and its content varies with the economic interest of the ruling class.
2
Justice according to Chaim Perelman is a virtue among others. “Each will defend a conception of justice that
puts him in the right and his opponent in the wrong.” Gautam Buddha‟s concept of justice is not confined only
to respecting the law, but it also justifies a revolutionary concept of disobedience or defying law, if the law is
evil.3
Philosophers such as Kant, Mill, Rawls, Nozick have given their theories of justice. John Rawls propounds the
idea of “justice as fairness”. A Theory of Justice is one of the most important works of John Rawls. It offers
two principles of justice.4
From a utilitarian perspective, justice is about designing rules and political institutions