Justice

• First off, there is a problem: the word that is translated as 'justice' (see lines 773f. in Agamemnon) also means 'custom/tradition,' 'court case,' 'judgement,' 'trial,' 'court,' 'right (morally),' 'penalty' etc.

• legal v. 'real' justice
• legal justice is more confined, specified, and also always imperfect
• a law must be general
  
• no law can specify what should happen in every particular case
  
• when a legislature decides a particular case, that is a 'decree' not a 'law'
• there is always a need for a person, a mind, to apply a law to a particular case
• nonetheless, how some laws should be applied is very clear and there can be very little 'wiggle' room
  
• 'real' justice is for god: it is perfect and ideal and unassailable
• being an atheist, I don't think such a thing exists
• I am not sure if I am a moral realist
• and yet, in some of the most important cases, we can see clearly what is 'just' and yet the law requires us to go another way
  

• A principle that one is not liable for crimes committed by one's parents or ancestors:
• "no vicarious criminal liability" or "no parental criminal responsibility"
• This does not apply in tragedy, quite obviously
• Should it apply? Where? When? To Whom?

• Vengeance v. justice
• Justice is usually held to be retributive: there is a proportionality to justice
• vengeance often exceeds due proportion
• and yet, there is a blurry line here: an eye for an eye, harm for harm
• returning harm for harm doubles the harm
• redressing a harm rights it (to some extent)
• Justice is usually impersonal: an institution, not a person, administers it
• blurry line comes in small organizations, such as a family, where the judge and jury and prosecution and defense is often in one single person
• hence there is a need for larger-group institutions
  
• vengeance is almost always personal: the person wronged is the one to exact the punishment
• and yet, we have the right to confront one's accuser, which is the flipside of this, and we also have the idea of "closure" and the need for victims to 'see justice done'
• Justice concentrates on the specific wrong
• vengeance concentrates on the person
• Justice often involves some sort of 'hearing' where the accused, the victim, the prosecutor, the defense, the judge, etc. are most often separate people
• vengeance is most often not rational: someone who thinks they have been wronged but has not often seeks vengeance and there is little control on that
• Justice is 'impartial'
• it should not care one way or the other in terms of who 'wins' or 'loses'
• justice is concerned with truth, fact, accuracy

• One law for every single person
• this, to my mind, is an important principle
• sure, there are differences
• children are treated differently
• insane or incompetent people are treated differently
• but whether one has this or that body part, how one identifies, whether one has this or that pigment or shape or age: none of that should be taken into account in terms of how the law applies

• Justice in Oresteia
• it moves closer to the principles outlined above
• but it does not get there fully
• how does it get closer
• how does it not get there