Law and Justice (Part 2): Confusion, Fear and Chaos (Episode 12)

We begin with the "Allegory of the Bad Laws", the tale of a mythical Prime Minister and his dim witted Minister of Justice, who in an attempt to create legal utopia on earth, create only "confusion, fear and chaos." Sound familiar? It's not so allegorical after all but very much about modern western states. Last time we looked at how equality had overtaken justice as the supreme purpose of the legal system. This time we look at "substantive justice" beginning with laws supposed "internal morality" and then "concrete justice", namely, what exactly makes a legal rule just or unjust. Then following along with Aristotle's notion of distributive justice, we ask how exactly and on what scale of values do we decide what each citizen is due? It turns out up until the 20th century, when most societies were homogeneous, with common values, this was a pretty easy question since we used our traditions, customs and morals to provide content to justice. All that changed under the post World War II regime, with ideology and a hatred for the past cutting us off from the true fountain of justice. What exactly is the way back? Start by asking the right questions and coming to the right conclusions.