Continuing from a previous post “Logic”, Adam S. Miller writes:
The law is about justice, not punishment. Punishment—defined as the work of returning evil to those who have done evil—can only compound evil. Punishment, as the work of giving people what they deserve, can only make the world more unjust.
If evil is what evildoers deserve, then giving people what they deserve is not the work of justice. And if evil is what evil doers deserve, then deciding what people deserve is not the purpose of God’s law. Using the law to decide what is deserved—for example using God’s law to decide if the beggar “deserves” your help—is a sinful misuse of the law. Punishment isn’t what justice looks like from God’s perspective. It’s what justice looks like from sin’s perspective.
Despite Polemarchus’s misstep, Socrates still likes the idea of defining justice as the art of “giving to each man what is proper to him.” And if this is right, the next question is simple: what is proper to each?
For Socrates, the answer is obvious. What’s proper is good. What’s proper to each is whatever is good for them. Or, what’s proper to each is whatever they need to become good. Justice is the art of determining what good is needed.
Justice doesn’t fight against itself by returning good on one occasion and evil on another. Rather, justice adopts an entirely different logic: justice returns good for good and good for evil.
If you’ve suffered evil, justice takes your measure by way of the law and prescribes what good is needed to make you whole. If you’ve done what’s good, justice takes your measure by way of the law and prescribes what good is needed to make you even more just. And if you’ve done evil, justice takes your measure by way of the law and still prescribes what good is needed to make you even more just. What is good for a liar? To no longer be a liar. What is good for a thief? To no longer be a thief. What is good for an adulterer? To no longer be an adulterer. What is good for the unjust —and, for that matter, everyone who suffers at the hands of the unjust? What’s good for everyone is for the unjust to become just.
Justice isn’t the work of doing evil to people. Justice is the work of saving people from evil—saving them from both the evil they suffer and the evil they do. It’s the work of making bad people good and good people better.
The logic of justice isn’t good for good and evil for evil. The logic of justice is good for good and good for evil.~Adam S. Miller, Original Grace (Deseret Book Company © 2022) 35-36
