neq1 comments on Rationality Quotes: November 2010 - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 02 November 2010 08:41PM

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Comment author: neq1 03 November 2010 01:20:47AM 0 points [-]

Justice is an artefact of custom. Where customs are unsettled its dictates soon become dated. Ideas of justice are as timeless as fashions in hats.

-John Gray, Straw Dogs

Comment author: jfm 03 November 2010 02:38:59PM 3 points [-]
  1. Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.

  2. Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice; and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.

  3. There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.

~ Epicurus, Principal Doctrines

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 November 2010 02:18:15AM *  3 points [-]

...justice is rooted in a system of conventions. They arise spontaneously as behavioural equilibria that bring mutual advantage to those adopting them. They protect life, limb, property and the pursuit of peaceful purposes, and require the fulfilment of reciprocal promises.

-Anthony de Jasay, Inspecting the Foundations of Liberalism

Conventions against torts like murder and theft are older than civilization. I think it is a safe bet they will still be around in a thousand years.