230826 What I learned in my studies this morning 3

Fools' ships, blundering

Vital missions of justice.

Find an even keel.

Today's Meditation:

Today's Meditation II:

Today's Meditation III:

Thoughts:

Justice is wisdom applied to relationships between people (or between a person and their community or between communities).

We have rules / aspirations about such practices:

— Be fair.

— Be proportionate.

— Don't be capricious.

— Be kind. / Don't be cruel.

— Look for a chance to show mercy.

— Give the offender a chance for redemption.*

— Set a good precedent to follow in similar situations in the future.*

— Motivation matters, in both committing the offense and in passing judgment.

— Outcome matters, in both committing the offense and in passing judgment.

These rubrics help guide our actions and decisions when someone has transgressed, but there will always be cases where they aren't enough, where no set of static rules will produce justice.

In those cases, we have to look deeper. It's up to whoever is determining the outcome of this offense to find the path of Nature through the morass of ethical issues presented.

And it's always individual. It is (should always be) bespoke justice, tailored to the real people in the real event, the specific facts, to our best guess about motive, etc.  One size fits all doesn't.

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* Thank you to my eldest for suggesting these points when we discussed this topic this morning.**

** Have I mentioned lately how much I love being able to have intelligent conversations about such things with my kids? 😁