Overcorrection

Dissatisfaction with the way the world is ordered is nothing new. No one is completely satisfied with the way the world is ordered. We are all looking for justice. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur says the telos or goal of every human life is “aiming at the “good life” with and for others, in just institutions.”[1] People divide over the meaning of “the good life,” we differ about the size of the circle of “others” with whom and for whom we wish to share “the good life,” and we disagree, sometimes violently, about how “institutions” lay claim to being “just,”[2] but in one way or another we are all looking for justice. The problem is that we all have a tendency to believe that justice serves our own personal purposes and some strive to enlist the power of the state to further their own private interests.[3] These tendencies have roots deeper than all the historical conflicts between competing nations and clashing civilizations.[4] It’s a story as old as Cain and Abel....

Almost all of us prefer justice that is more than a little unfair and unequal – a system of justice that tilts the scales in our own favor.

[via Mainstream Baptists]