"Justice" as a religious institution

[Cyborg Girl]

Just a test balloon:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... .html#more

As usual with Stross, I find myself in some disagreement. I sure wouldn't want to live in a society where there'd be no consequences for murdering me, etc. Fear of the consequences might be the only thing that could dissuade a sociopath... Or an ordinary Joe who was very, very angry.

OTOH, he raises an interesting question: how much of our system of deterrence is actually rational? I'm going to go out on a limb and say "not much," seeing how people can go into prisons as petty crooks and come out as neo-Nazis. Meanwhile, people in political office can generally get away with war crimes, so long as they can put it down to "the greater good."

I don't think the concept of justice is bad. But the handling of it seems a bit dogmatic, no?

[FZR1KG]

Justice itself isn't that big a problem.
Justice for sale is.

[SciFiFisher]

Society creates rules and norms that allow the group to co-exist semi-peacefully. In essence justice and the justice system is a set of rules for how to deal with those who do not wish to follow those rules. The justice system is subject to change through a process that creates evolution of the rules. i.e. the courts rule that not reading someone their Miranda rights invalidates any confession made. Prior to that ruling you could pretty much beat a confession out of someone and the confession would stand up in a court of law.

Since Religion evolved first as a method for society to develop rules and norms vs a system of justice there are many parallels between religion and our current system of justice. The fact that the basis of western justice is derived from religious tenants doesn't make it a religion. It could just as easily be argued that our current system was based on the laws of Hammurabi which predate the 10 commandments. And some claim that the laws of Hammurabi were the basis of the biblical laws.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Justice isn't a religious institution. Take it from someone who has seen the sausage get made. That's nonsense.

But a lot of the attitudes that surround criminal punishment in the general populace? I'd call those religious (or, rather, dogmatic since religion doesn't come into this as far as I see). I mean, all the nonsense around being "tough on crime" and needing to "punish" people rather than rehabilitating or segregating them is an atavistic, irrational, reflexively revenge-filled impulse in many people.

So I think Stross is getting at something real, but he misses the mark by identifying the issue as justice in the abstract rather than as the impulse to harm those who have wronged us or others.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Also? I can't agree with Stross' apparent implicit support of anarchism. Laws are good not because I have a "religious" impulse telling me so, but because they produce good outcomes when well-written and -enforced. Anarchy does not... but it does inevitably disappear as people in the anarchy come to agreements about how to behave and interact - otherwise known as laws. I don't understand how you can say anarchy is good because people will work out those rules themselves. That isn't anarchy. What do anarchists think laws are?

[cid]

It is not so much that justice be done as it is that justice be seen to be done.

[geonuc]

Justice is a moral institution, not a religious one.

GJ, your issues are with the application of justice. We are all human and human fallibilities make their way into the laws. Much as TSC said.

[FZR1KG]

Lets not forget equating anarchy and atheism is a really bad analogy.

[Swift]

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/todays-troll-bait.html#more

As usual with Stross, I find myself in some disagreement.

I don't know who Stross is, nor why I should care about his opinion about anything. After reading this piece I don't even know if he is arguing for or against the idea that "justice is a religious institution"; but it just seems like more badly written crap disguised as a blog. I have no idea why such stuff exists.

As to the question "justice is a religious institution": no it isn't. Morals aren't a religious institution either; check out the Society for Ethical Culture as an example of this.

[code monkey]

As to the question "justice is a religious institution": no it isn't. Morals aren't a religious institution either; check out the Society for Ethical Culture as an example of this.

which defines ethical culture as

an ethical, educational, and religious movement

so i guess the question is this - how do you define religious or religion?

[FZR1KG]

As to the question "justice is a religious institution": no it isn't. Morals aren't a religious institution either; check out the Society for Ethical Culture as an example of this.

which defines ethical culture as

an ethical, educational, and religious movement

so i guess the question is this - how do you define religious or religion?

Funny thing about it is the article says the founder proposed that religion is not required for ethics, which pretty much killed his prospects as a Rabbi. Then slowly over time religion gets back into the organisation.
Like always, the founders vision is one thing, the evolution of the concept however can be completely opposing to that view and always seems to have contradictions or hypocritical ideals.

Maybe that is a primary characteristic in the definition of a religion:
A concept relating to the meaning of life or how to live one's life, by way of deity or not, proposed and started by an individual which gets corrupted by the followers after the founders death. This causes it to either split into factions due to differing interpretations of the religious text, or cause it to change to the point it becomes a hypocritical organisation of power hungry people who want to use it as a vehicle to push their delusions of grandeur rather than abide by the original core principle of the founder, or both.

Yeah, pretty sure that covers it.

[Swift]

As to the question "justice is a religious institution": no it isn't. Morals aren't a religious institution either; check out the Society for Ethical Culture as an example of this.

which defines ethical culture as

an ethical, educational, and religious movement

so i guess the question is this - how do you define religious or religion?

As someone who grew up in a family much involved in the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, that the quoted first sentence from the wikipedia article is just wrong (IMO). Ethical Culture is not a religion, for one thing, there is no deity, though it has some aspects of institutions that are commonly recognized as religions. The rest of the article gives a much better explanation. I still stand by my statement that Ethical Culture is a an example of an organization that promotes moral behavior without a deity.

The Ethical Culture 2003 ethical identity statement states:

It is a chief belief of Ethical religion that if we relate to others in a way that brings out their best, we will at the same time elicit the best in ourselves. By the "best" in each person, we refer to his or her unique talents and abilities that affirm and nurture life. We use the term "spirit" to refer to a person’s unique personality and to the love, hope, and empathy that exists in human beings. When we act to elicit the best in others, we encourage the growing edge of their ethical development, their perhaps as-yet untapped but inexhaustible worth.

There are some people within Ethical Culture who describe it as a religion, but such people generally use a broad meaning of "religion" that includes organizations without a deity (I personally don't)

Individual Ethical Society members may or may not believe in a deity or regard Ethical Culture as their religion. In this regard, Ethical Culture is similar to traditional religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, about whose practitioners similar statements could be made. Felix Adler said "Ethical Culture is religious to those who are religiously minded, and merely ethical to those who are not so minded." The movement does consider itself a religion in the sense that:

"Religion is that set of beliefs and/or institutions, behaviors and emotions which bind human beings to something beyond their individual selves and foster in its adherents a sense of humility and gratitude that, in turn, sets the tone of one’s world-view and requires certain behavioral dispositions relative to that which transcends personal interests."

I know in our Society that there were people who also practiced various religions. They did not see Ethical Culture as a contradiction to those beliefs, but an extension.