Episode 62: Nicomachean Ethics V-1: Justice, Injustice, Laws, and Fairness.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Welcome to another round of uh resiliency rounds, another episode uh with Anish and Jeremy. Um we are uh in the middle of Nicomachean ethics. Uh this week we're talking about book five. Uh we have been covering uh the cardinal virtues, and today we are jumping into the cardinal virtue of justice.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Um justice of all the virtues is probably the one for me that is probably the most prescient in not only this current moment, but every time when we interact with another human being, justice is the forefront of that virtue, right? And uh, sorry, of that of that of that interchange. And right now, where we are just in the world, right? We're recording this April 12, 2026, and and there are big things happening in the world right now, and justice is just comes to mind every time I hear the next breaking news. But um I just want to talk a little bit about how we have gotten here. We are discussing the Nicomachian ethics, which is Aristotelian lecture series that he delivered to princes, uh, to future leaders of state, monarchs. And what he was doing in in his lecture series is trying to build the philosopher king. And the philosopher king concept comes from Platonic works, platonic uh dialogues, Plato's Republic. Plato's Republic is more about the is not more about, it is about every individual building inside of them a philosophic constitution, a constitution that is that is led by rational thought. And the rational thought or rational principle knows the difference between good and evil, and chooses good, and is able to then then control the appetitive elements of the body, the honor-seeking elements of the mind, and and creating this philosophical individual who is in the pursuit of wisdom and is in the path of virtue. Aristotelian Nicomachean ethics talks about how this philosophical king can build a republic, a philosophical republic, where all of those things are also true, but they are true for everybody who participates inside of that republic. Now, there's a little bit of a paradox here because Plato, through the words of Socrates, believes that it is next to impossible to get to convince someone else to be philosophical. This journey is purely an introspective journey, a journey that one takes, undertakes for themselves. The only change that happens is within. But at every point, he keeps coming back to the point that this is just an analogy. In order to show that it can be done inside of a human, I'm going to show how it should be done in a republic. But this cannot be done in a republic of a collective of people. Aristotle believes that it is possible to do that. What one needs is a leader, a philosophical leader, a leader who can then, through creating the right laws, make people do the right thing. Now, there in you know, there's there's some argument there. I find myself more on the platonic side of this, and most skeptics will also agree that it is much harder to do this for a populace, create a population of people who build who are philosophical in their bent. Those same skeptics would say that it's also impossible to create that the philosophical bent inside oneself as well. But I believe that there is a possibility to create an inside. Now, the more though, I feel that the more I go through life and and look at my own experiences coming from someone who's ignorant to having partial understanding and now gaining some amount of wisdom, all of this completely gained secondhand by participating in the great conversation. I feel that my my journey, though fortunate because I know how to read and write, and I have the leisure time that I've built for myself to be able to participate in these conversations, I've been able to, though, despite all these other distractions, I have been able to participate in this in this path. And I believe others can also participate in this path. And Jeremy, you're a great example of that, right? And so if if you can do it and I can do it, then yes, a multitude of people can also do it, and so there is, in fact, in a way to build a republic, a republic of like-minded people, people who are philosophers. So I do agree a little bit with Aristotle. Yeah, so so we are here right now. I'm gonna pass it over to you, Jeremy, very quickly. But I'm but uh the way Aristotle starts this conversation is about a conversation about a good life. How do you have a good life? You have a have a good life if you do all the right things. If the doing of the right things means you're following in a direction, that direction is led by is it's sorry, is in the direction of virtue. There are there are cardinal virtues and non-cardinal virtues. The cardinal virtues are justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom. The non-cardinal virtues, we've discussed some of this. It was pride, there was anger, there was uh sorry, you know, or good temper, uh pride, um, uh magnanimity, um, and in uh so these are prudence. So these are all things that um that that we discussed in the last episode. All of these virtues are a mean between two extremes. Uh, like a a uh courage is the mean between uh someone who's cowardly and someone who's absolutely rash and has no sense of fear. And finding that mean, that middle of all of these virtues, as you're finding the mean and you're walking, it turns out that that direction is in line with a good life. And and in these among and in these virtues, there are there are those that are um are virtues that are more appetitive in nature, and that is courage uh and uh temperance, because they deal or discipline, but that's what they deal with, they deal with the appetitive side of one's um mind, and then there are intellectual virtues, uh, which is wisdom, wisdom is an intellectual virtue that helps you determine in the absence of complete knowledge of everything that there is, how to still choose right action. That's wisdom, it's an intellectual process, and justice is in between of those, it's a social virtue and an intellectual virtue. And justice is how do you be how can one be fair uh to the one's neighbor? That means in a social setting, when it comes to the distribution of the good things, the goods not being in a particular sense, not like you know, how should you split a donut between two people, but goods in the sense of like what is uh the the goods that makes one's life whole, the good life. How do you create the opportunity for your neighbor to participate in the good life? That is um justice. So I'm gonna pause that. I'm gonna hand it back to you, Jeremy. So, what are your thoughts in reading this chapter?

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah, so um I think you you mentioned a few things that I think are kind of important to touch touch on too. Um, so we spent a lot of time going through courage, and that that is really uh an internal me you need to find, right? That's uh we're talking about the individual experiencing courage in different ways. And you mentioned this justice is different. This is more of that social virtue here. So, you know, in in chapter one, we're starting to the Aristotle started to define kind of generally what justice is, and that this one that this virtue is in relation to others, that's social peace, and so I think that that was number one is from generally speaking, you know, this virtue is in relation to others, and essentially like living morally in all dealings with all fellow citizens and peers alike. How does does that come up kind of by capturing that correctly?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I yes, I I believe so. The the other thing that you brought up that I had uh failed to mention is virtue is a mean between two extremes. Justice is a hard one to find a mean, even though justice is a mean between two ext two extremes, the extremes are one extreme is easy to uh ascertain, but the other extreme is is very ambiguous. How how can one be the extreme of just so much so that it is a fault? Like for courage, one could be rash and it's a fault because you're you go headfirst into danger without thinking about the consequences because you have no fear of consequences, um or good temper, one can just fly off the handle, uh as opposed to having good temper. With justice, it's hard to define the other extreme, so it's a little bit different. Having said that, there is, I've I've thought about this, and there is, in fact, an extreme. Um, and and it will come up. Uh, hopefully, we'll discuss it later on when it comes up. But to your point, uh courage, temperance, and wisdom are are inward-looking, they're introspective. Justice requires the presence of another. However, if we were to introspect some more, we realize that there is a certain amount of justice that one extends to oneself. The paradox there is that if one is doing an act for gain, it's usually not a just act for their own gain, it's usually not a just act. Um, when you do an act uh an act for someone else's gain, that could be a just act. So if you're if whatever act you're practicing you're practicing on yourself for your own betterment, cannot be really, you cannot say that I'm being just to myself because I'm procuring for myself some gain. Uh, but I but it but but you could imagine, right, that there are situations in life and you have to choose between two things, you choose the lesser of the two evils, right? Right, and when when you and sometimes you have to choose the harder thing uh because of what you believe, because of your wisdom, it drives you to do the harder thing, and that is in fact some sort of justice that you are you have to kind of exercise in yourself. Like, you know, does that does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 12:35

It does, and I one of the challenges in trying to find what is just for me, uh, as I was reading this, is one, yeah, we're getting back into the looping type because it's kind of heavy to read to begin with. And so it's as you mentioned that anyone could have these conversations. I'm an example of just how anyone can be part of the great conversation. Um but but there is we can define just in different ways, but there's examples of there's research on there, so I and I like using the idea of so some of the research on judges who make determinations on sentencing, and there's even a study, a research study on mortality, and you bring up mortality to these judges, and they change their sentencing of the same crime than the placebo group that was not where mortality was not brought up to them before they went to do sentencing for the exact same crime, and the difference could be 20 years in prison for the same crime where others were getting a slap on the wrist. This isn't uh really yes, and so so when we're talking about what is just I I struggled with it, and I we we're gonna get uh we're talking on the general sense of just right now because we're gonna get into narrower how are we defining this in terms of um like the fair share in distributions between each other, but but just on the general concept of that's now being defined by an individual that impacts others.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

This is a very interesting point, Jeremy. It's it hits the problem, it hits the nail in the head. Like what Aristotle says is that it is it is a state of character, justice is a state of character. And unlike unlike unlike other situations where one could have both sides of the the equation present at the same time, justice is a state of character where you either have one extreme that's justice or injustice, both cannot exist at the same time. If there is a little bit of injustice, it's no longer justice, and because it's what you described is ambiguous, right? Like there's a judge, there's a sentencing, and the judge talks about mortal is spoken to about mortality, and then they reduce the sentence. Now, there's so many players here. What was the crime? What was the sentence, right? And so there are particulars to this. There's it's all ambiguous. Someone would say, just because someone received a smaller sentence, the just there was justice. The justice here, the judge was exercised justice, and someone would say that it was in unjust because this crime required more uh a severe, more severe punishment. There are particulars here, but there's ambiguity. But once you say, once you bring in the injustice side of this, it makes justice that much more clear. In face of injustice, one knows what justice is. It needs the counter to exist in order to know what justice is. That's very hard to define.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

You see, like to give you an example, if you were to say that um marijuana possession, and I'm just giving an example, I don't know if it's true or not, but marijuana possession uh a judge would land would give somebody 20 years in prison just for possessing marijuana, and now they listen to a thing on mortality, and then the next person who comes in front of them gets community service. Right now, just marijuana possession, nobody should be going to jail for 20 years, right? And so the the just thing to do here, and that is unjust, to to subject somebody 20 years for that. And in the presence of that, it makes the justice more prescient, it makes it more obvious. You see what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yes, yes, and I yes, and um maybe maybe one of my challenges with the concept and with my example is the ambiguity around justice and injustice. An injustice happens, someone commits a crime, there would be an injust action towards another. There's a punishment then for that injustice. If the punishment is different by 20 years versus community service, then that that is another injustice on the person that committed the injustice.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

In a system that is supposed to be just.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

That's correct. Okay, you you have to bring about the injustice in order to show what justice looks like. When you do that, it takes away the ambiguity a little bit, you know. But um, it's a state of character. In this case, what you the example that you gave, it's not necessarily a state of character. Because a judge adjudicates, but it's not based on their state of character that they do it, they do it based on the laws and their interpretation of the laws. And so what what we need to realize from a from a virtue perspective, this is it's a state of character. There's these are things that one does. And if one does an unjust act, they are not being just in that moment. And so, what is so the uh justice that means a just character is somebody who is lawful and fair, and unjust is somebody who's unlawful and unfair, and and lawful and and lawfulness and fairness, not in relation to the particular things, like how much of the donut did I share with Jeremy, right? It is in relation to absolute good, not particular goods, absolute goods, G-O-O-D, the big G good, all that stuff that is in the bottom layers of the Maslow's hierarchy, safety, security, you know, money, uh, health, education, you know, these are these are what we like to believe are absolute goods. Right? How are we being lawful and fair in relation to those things, those absolute goods? Right now, um another way to look at this is that that it's not that particular goods don't matter. But the bigger question is when it comes to absolute goods, right? Um the just man is not grasping those goods for himself or herself first. That is the the so so g so give so give an example. As a matter of fact, what the just man is doing, the just man is trying to is the the just man's concern is that even when it comes to certain absolute goods, if I if one goes after them graspingly, they may not turn out to be goods in the end. So just to give an example, this may be a silly example, education, certain amount of education is important for everybody to have, but one can get so caught up in trying to become a PhD in I don't know, cabinet cabinetry. I don't know if you can do that or not. Right, beyond a certain point, there's diminishing returns, there's there's a strain on the on the system in order to get somebody that focused in in that tip of the spear fashion, right? The person who is going down that path, say they're using public funds to do it, or whatever means they are doing it, or they are spending their time away from the things that they must be doing to do this, is being unlawful and unfair in a way. If it's public funds that are being used, it's not unlawful necessarily, but unfair. All that so from a just Person, person with the just character, they are just hoping that the absolute goods are absolutely good for them for them. That in fact what they are doing, what they are pursuing, are in fact absolute goods. And that that and it doesn't flip on them. The pursuit of actually trying to get absolute goods for themselves doesn't flip the equation. You don't find yourselves participating in a health as a physician in a healthcare system that is that that is not based on equity. You're being unethical without having gone in that path. You went down, you you chose to be a physician because you thought that was an absolute good. And then, you know, just the the the way modern medicine works, how much money there is to be made and what perverse the incentives are, you suddenly find yourself practicing unethically. You see? So so in that situation, in that particular situation, this physician it's it is not somebody who had an unjust character to begin with. They just found themselves in a situation where they are now suddenly participating in injustice, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Where the initial intent was the absolute good, which is education to also better society, help other people, help your neighbor, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

You become a physician because you want to go help your neighbor and you know want to help other people, and it turns out you participate in an unjust system. So you see, you see so so so justice is not just all injustice, is if you're obviously going out there and grasping and holding on to these things for yourself, right? Right, right. Justice is not necessarily helping your neighbor become a physician. That's not justice necessarily. Justice is really hoping that what is is the the aim is to make sure that these absolute goods don't become perverse for you because of the choices that you make in life and going forward, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Do you think that's one of the do you think the absolute good of the education piece, just to make sure I've understood it, does that need to be equitable? Everyone has the access to the education then to make that decision.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

That's a good way of looking at it, right? Like, in order to be able to make the right decision, does one have to be educated to be able to make the right decisions? I don't know how to answer that. He does come, he does discuss this down the line a little bit about this role of education. But the way to look at it is someone would say, justice is that everybody gets an opportunity to be a physician, right? Which I which I agree, like that's how it should be, right? Like one should not be prevented from becoming a physician, if you know, but but but but but but the person who's going down this path has to make sure that this absolute good of being a physician does not eventually turn out to be not the case for them in their particular case, where they suddenly find themselves participating in an unethical system.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

There's a bit of a paradox there, so it's not such an easy thing to kind of grasp. I found it hard to kind of grasp that paradox.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, and I think that that's where my my questions kind of come in around when as I'm reading this, around like, well, do we actually set up current scenario of the life we're living in the world we're living in? Do we are we faced with just and unjust decisions every day? Do we live in an unjust society? The example of a physician, like you go in, you become a physician to help people, but you you have to go into concierge practice to spend more than 15 minutes with a client, with a patient. So you never actually get the it was so then you're you leave your general practice to go and work with people who can only afford to pay for it in cash, but then you're actually practicing medicine again. Yeah, I mean, I know it's a little off topic, but like it this paradox is very challenging to understand of like what is justice and what is injustice in the society in which we live in, which maybe is an unjust society. We're not necessarily in we're not necessarily experiencing injustices every day. At least, you know, but maybe we are. Maybe we are might be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yes, and maybe we are too. We just don't we don't realize, and that's why in and to going back to what Aristotle says, in the presence of injustice, it becomes easy to talk about the justice. So a society that prevents women from getting educated, right? Yeah, versus a society that you and me are talking about where everybody has access to become a physician if they want if they chose to be. Obviously, that the latter seems like a just society, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

That's the that's so that's why it's important to have the injustice in uh mind when you're talking about justice.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Yeah, that's helpful, yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

So he then goes on to talk about um that the this so he says lawful and fair. And fairness is obviously in dealings with someone else, lawfulness is following the laws of the state. He says a just character is somebody who follows the law of the state. Now, I am not this is where I diverge a little bit from Aristotle, and and I'm gonna I'm gonna to state my disagreement with him, but then I'm gonna go ahead and say why I believe that he is right in the way he's thinking about it, too. Uh-huh. So I don't believe that laws, there's a difference between law and justice. Um, not all laws are not just, right? And um things that are just are sometimes not in the law. But the but so that's why I disagree with um with Aristotle that a law-abiding person is a just person. If a law-abiding person is just person, then then people like Nelson Mandela and um Mahma Gandhi would be unjust people, right? I but in Aristotle's defense, the law that he's talking about is the law created by a state which is a philosophical republic, those laws then are created with virtue in mind, with the thought that if as long as the citizens are following the law, they are being virtuous. Now, I don't know if a single country that has such a salient law system of law that is purely virtuous.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Um this was a great clarification for me. Um because I think one of the things I was struggling with, this is this is really good that that's that's I I think I landed on the same opinion, which is well, this is assuming that the laws are just, they were in a land of justice. And and I think that from Aristotle's view, he is talking about an idyllic state, that's right, a philosophical state where the laws are follow these virtues and are just. But we I was explaining to him the Netherlands political system, which which my understanding coming from visiting there and having people tell me about it, was you as a political service, you know, certain servant, as a politician, you are a servant of the people, you're only there for two years, you're in and out. And and if you're not meeting the people's needs, then you are then you're ousted. It's it's very simple as that. And so we talked about what well, where is it then where you have a political system that allows for people to live a just life? And we were thinking that maybe you need to look at happiness scores. And we were looking at Finland, Sweden, Norway, like where they have the higher happiness scores and saying they it's possible, maybe. Like we're curious about what is the political system that they live within that allows them to live a good life, that improves their happiness. We certainly know it's not the weather there that does it. So there's there's more to it, obviously, and it's complex. But as we think about this justice, I it's just you know an interesting conversation I had around it.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

And so what you're what you're talking about is what Aristotle is saying that the laws in their enactments on all subjects aim at the common advantage, either of all that would be the ideal situation, or of the best, which is who are the best, and this turns out to be oligarchical, or of those who hold power, which is where we are right now, right? Or something of that sort, so that in one sense, we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve happiness and its components for the political society. Right? So you so the political society, what the laws, if the political society is is a society of the all for the benefit of the all, then the laws that uphold that would be would be the laws of virtue. The laws that bid people to act like a like a brave man, a temperate man, a good tempered man, right? Where where you are not where you where you're taking up arms in defense of your country, where you're not committing adultery, where you are uh not striking someone else, or taking their uh or speaking evil against them, all of these things are are things that a brave man, a temperate man, a good tempered man would do, right? And it and if if you create those kind of laws, then those laws are virtuous laws. And in that situation, I agree with Aristotle. Then if he says it's a state of character where someone is lawful because he's following the law of virtue and fair in his dealings. The second part is where I believe where most of the justice comes from is justice unto others, uh, justice for another's doing acts that are in for another's good, not for you, you're not grasping things for yourself, one is doing it towards others, right? Um, because one can be wicked, one can be what I mean to say is one can be an irate person, one could be um a mean person, meanness from the standpoint of money like Scrooge, one could be like Scrooge, right? One could be very quick-tempered. Now, these are these are not virtues to have, but they don't necessarily make you unfair or unjust, just because you yell at somebody or you don't spend your money. Um, but that's not what we're talking about when we talk about injustice, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Right.

unknown 34:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Injustice that we are talking about is when you when you do acts, you may actually not be some you may not be somebody who is uh irate all the time uh or mean, but you may still do acts that take from others and are for your own gain. That is an unjust that is being lawful and being fair, and fairness here is not being grasping or taking someone else's for one's own uh for one's own advantage, and so um that is the best man is he who is just both unto himself and others, and I think that's the point that I was trying to make. There's a certain amount of justice that one also has to have for oneself, uh and and sometimes that justice, it's hard to determine what justice unto oneself is unless you look at injustice unto oneself. And injustice unto oneself may not look really like injustice, where you are participating for a conventional good, but you're suffering on the inside. You're not a happy person on the inside, but you have all of these conventional underpinnings of a great life, uh conventional good life. The the house, the car, the spouse, the the titles, but inside one is hollow and burning and you know having negative self-talk. And there's a way to get out of that, and that peeling off the band aid is hard to do, but that is justice unto oneself. Building that self-worth is justice unto oneself. Now, once you do that, the and what once you get to that point of self-worth, of self-respect that is not underpinned by conventionality, then you are in a good position to now participate in someone else's good. And not goods when it comes to particulars. It's not about giving somebody$10, it's about this absolute good, um, that and and allowing for other folks to participate in that.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

I love that, and that's a total reframe, actually, and in you know, you know, like you know, and sharing vulnerabilities here, but but I I come to that own my own conclusions around that recently, of really actually creating more value, like focusing more on myself and self-worth and going off and doing my own thing instead of continuing to, you know, in my mind experience unjust being being in an unjust environment. Um, so like recognizing that for yourself, your own personal journey of that, where you have it. I love it, that the conventional life and versus you know, but but you're hollow inside. I think you know, I that resonates. I think it probably resonates with a lot of people that find themselves doing things. I just had a conversation last week. He worked guy who makes great living, seven figures, even like I I I imagine, but brought up the word just multiple times in the conversation as I was working through the challenges that they're faced with in their working in an organization that they're working in. And and that and at the end of the day, they're questioning their self-worth to go off and do their own thing. There we go. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

There we go. And so that's why, Jeremy, to your c uh, I disagree with your uh your self-disparaging comment that you made about participating in you know, your lowly self participating in the great conversation. That's I think that is the furthest removed from the truth. I think the great the it this is the most democratic process. And first of all, you're absolutely worthy, just like anybody else, to be able to walk through this uh great conversation. And because one is that um there's a certain amount of life that you have lived, there's a certain amount of of uh of there's so many heroes journeys that you have undertaken, and you've come out the other side, you've learned, and and and you have gained a certain amount of practical wisdom. And power and in real health can cement those learnings at Vim, create tools out there, and you can keep them unique. But what uh a way for you to have that where you have made big decisions like this in your life, and you're so confident in that decision. It comes not from a sense, it's not a gut feeling, really, it's almost a logical thought. It's almost like logic is telling you, a rational principle is telling you this is good, this is this is evil, choose good, and you're choosing good. It is not a you know, I don't know if I should do it, I can talk myself out of it. You see injustice, and you see justice, and you're walking towards justice because you know anything else in that direction is injustice.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

It's almost a binary, very, very in life. The way you can get to a binary situation like this, that's logic, that's a rational principle, that is and and in and you're doing that, and you're doing with you're walking the path in the direction of virtue toward a good life. So I disagree with your comment about that you about your lack of worth in this journey. I don't think that's well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

I'll take I'll take that. I'll I I accept, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

And it's it's been a pleasure walking uh these uh through these books with you too, Jeremy, and walking through a lot of uh ups and downs of life with you too. So I appreciate your friendship.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah, yes. Uh feelings mutual, yes, likewise.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

All right, I think we can wrap this one up for now.