II. Justice is the "voice" of human conscience

When we get justice through the law, and when the criminals are brought to justice, we keenly realize the value of justice, which is like a bright lamp shining the voyage forward in human history. Since ancient times, countless heroes and towering figures have sacrificed all they have, including their lives, for justice.Without justice, the good would be trampled, the evil would rage, and the entire society would plunge into darkness and chaos.Expecting for justice and protecting justice is the common heartfelt wish of all human beings.

i. Justice is the basic requirement of human nature

Rousseau, the representative figure of the Enlightenment, once said,“This passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man:the role that instinct used to play in his conduct is now taken over by a sense of justice, and his actions now have a moral aspect that they formerly lacked...and out of a dull and limited animal made a thinking being, a man. ”

Men are a senior animal with thoughts and feelings, and human behaviors are led by their thoughts. Historical materialism tells us that social being determines social consciousness, and that human thoughts and feelings and other conceptual things are prescribed by the real life. Different social groups and classes have different thoughts. For example, the poor would want the taxation to be increased, their well being and the level of social security to be improved, while the rich would want the taxation to be reduced, investment to be increased and profits to be improved, too. That is the specialness of human thoughts. Despite such specialness, human thoughts present certain communion like everyone wants to live a happy life; and everyone agrees with the goal of building a society featuring equal“access to education, job opportunities, medical services, services for the elderly and residence”. Such communion of human thoughts is human nature.

Take an overall look at the entire human history, the silhouette of justice can always be seen in people's description of the ideal society at all social stages and by all classes.

In ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle began to pay attention to justice in a polis, thinking that justice was the foundation for building a social order. Modern enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau studied and discussed about social justice in many aspects. Utopian socialists viewed social justice as an important goal of the future ideal society. Philosopher Hegel pointed out that justice was a unique social rule. In his great book A Theory of Justice, Rawls proposed that justice was the primary value of social institutions. Since then, people in Western society have begun fierce discussions on the issue of justice.

In the history of China, both Confucianism, which held a dominant position, and other major schools of thought including Taoism, Mohism, and Legalism contained profound ideas on social justice, like Confucian“debate on righteousness and benefits”, the Taoist view that“the law of the Tao is its being what it is”, Mohist“universal love, mutual benefits”, and the Legalist view that“the law does not protect the powerful”. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially after China adopted the reform and opening-up policy, the Chinese communists have adhered to the Marxist view of justice. In combination with the reality of China, they timely proposed, “The essence of socialism is liberation and development of the productive forces, elimination of exploitation and polarization, and the ultimate achievement of prosperity for all. ”In the report to the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party proposed to“step up efforts to develop institutions that are vital to ensuring social fairness and justice; establish in due course a system for guaranteeing fairness in society featuring, among other things, equal rights, equal opportunities and fair rules for all; and foster a fair social environment and ensure people's equal right to participation in governance and to development. ”

As can be seen, in both the East and the West, and in both the traditional society and the modern society, people have never stopped pursuing justice. In some sense, the history of the human society is a history of unremitting human fights against injustices and the pursuit of justice. People all want to live in a just society, and justice is the basic requirement of human nature. Bao Zheng, the black-faced impartial and just government official in the Chinese history, the statue of the Goddess of Justice in the West, with one hand holding the scales and the other a sword, both vividly express people's strong desire for maintaining and safeguarding justice.

ii. Justice is the most fundamental evaluation standard in human society

Men live in the society, and can live only in the society. Each man living in the society has a natural sense of justice, and judges different social relations and conditions, and recognizes or negates various institutions and rules. Either in ancient times or currently, in no matter what nation or society, we can all see that justice has always been an important indicator used by people to evaluate a certain social stage, social institution or social relationship.

In daily life, each of us would always compare what we pay and are provided for with that others pay and are provided for, consciously or subconsciously, and then get the feeling of justice or injustice. If people think something is just, it means that it is reasonable and people would like to obey it; or if people think something is unjust, it means that they are dissatisfied, and would oppose it. Even if people are forced to obey something, they reject it deep inside and would more than often negatively resist it. That is to say, an important criterion for judging if a certain society or a certain institution is good or reasonable is to see if it is just. “A just cause gains great support, an unjust one gains little. ”“Just”here refers to fairness and rightfulness. Just institutions can always attract more moral and spiritual supports from people.

As the most fundamental criterion for evaluating the human society, justice is demonstrated in many specific social rules. Due to the differences between men, there are winners and losers in competitions. But as long as people think the rules of competition to be just, and the differences thus caused to be reasonable, then the losers and those who support and feel sympathy for the losers would not resent the society. On the contrary, if people think the rules of competition to be unjust, they would be dissatisfied with the results. In daily life, people always say, “All men are equal before the law, ”“treat all men alike, ”“there should be fairness in buying and selling, ”“children under the same blue sky should have equal educational opportunities, ”“oppose gender discrimination in employment, ”and“let the development results benefit more people in a more equitable way, ”etc. They all show their strong yearning for just social rules, and that justice has become an important criterion for judging social rules.

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