As Professor Robb explains in his essay “On Definitions,” a complete definition of a term “presents the necessary and sufficient conditions for being [that term]” (Robb). However, some concepts are so nebulous and expansive that a complete list of their necessary and sufficient conditions must be either too vague or too excessively detailed to be meaningful (Robb). Throughout this year in Humes, I have come to understand justice as one such concept: its subsets range from transitional to transformative to distributive and beyond, defying a simple definition. Yet based on my exploration of language’s relationship to justice, I believe that language is essential in efforts to manifest justice. In this essay, I examine efforts towards justice across temporal, spatial, and fictive boundaries to contend that language constitutes an insufficient but necessary component of justice. I define “language” as meaning-making verbal or written communication between—for this essay—parties involved in an effort towards justice. An “effort towards justice” refers to a community or individual’s attempt to address perceived moral wrongs. These considerations reveal that language is a critical component of a descriptive definition of justice. However, it remains a proscriptive requirement for societal and individual efforts towards justice.
Language: An Insufficient Condition for Justice
By examining efforts towards justice that rely on language, I have found that language alone cannot foster justice. One example of language intended to implement justice is a “speech act,” which “can […] be performed by saying that one is doing so” (Green). When framed as speech acts, language-based efforts towards justice, like national apologies, are meant to enact justice in and of themselves. However, Australia’s national apology for its forced assimilation policies towards First Australians illustrates a failure of this form of justice. In 1998, Australia began celebrating a National Day of Healing, or “National Sorry Day,” wherein Australians demonstrate their remorse for and commitment to addressing historical wrongs towards First Australians (Campbell; Lipsker). However, in contrast with the Australian public’s recognition of National Sorry Day, the Australian government refused to issue an official apology until 2008, following a decade of extensive First Australian campaigns for them to recognize their wrongs (Campbell; Lipsker; “National Apology”).
Further Notes on National Apologies
First Australians’ campaign for a national apology demonstrates that—to them—the apology served as a meaningful contribution towards justice (“National Apology”). However, the example also illustrates speech acts’ insufficiency as justice: the government’s apology drew widespread criticism because it was not accompanied by material reparations (Campbell; Lipsker). This criticism demonstrates that a language-based act like an apology does not, on its own, constitute justice.
Another, more successful example of a language-centric effort towards justice comes from the Book of Job. Throughout the text, Job emphasizes his desire to seek justice through a legal exchange with God, despite God’s overwhelming ability to punish Job (The Book of Job 72-4; Boyer, “The Book of Job”). By demanding a divine court case, Job seeks an effort towards justice for the unfair punishment he has received.
Yet Job does not expect justice from the reparations or restitution he might receive in a legal setting. Instead, he believes he can receive justice through the very act of conversing with God: he cries out, “You can call, and I will answer / or I will speak and You can answer me. / How many are my sins and offenses?” (The Book of Job 82). Job does not want material reparations for his condition; instead, he seeks God’s verbal explanation of God’s treatment of him. To him, above all else, justice means language.
Further Notes on the Book of Job
The book of Job’s narrative arc, however, undercuts language’s value as sufficient justice for Job. The text does not conclude with Job’s verbal exchange with God: instead, in the last chapter, God “restore[s] Job’s fortunes” and makes Job “more prosperous” than ever before (156). By including Job’s material gains in his “restoration” from divine punishment, the text implies that Job’s discussion with God was not sufficient to counteract the wrongs Job endured (156). Instead, as this Biblical text and as Australia’s national apology demonstrate, language must to act in conjunction with other, material efforts towards justice in order to actualize justice.
Language’s Necessity in Efforts Towards Justice
However, although language alone cannot constitute justice, justice remains impossible without communication between the parties involved in an effort towards justice. One example of language’s necessity in efforts towards justice comes from Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial by the District Court of Jerusalem (Arendt 21, 5). Philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt explains that Israel’s Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, designed the trial to display “the huge panorama of Jewish sufferings” rather than to address Eichmann’s individual crimes (Arendt 8-10). Ben Gurion’s orchestration did not allot space for Eichmann to communicate his role in perpetuating the Holocaust. However, the trial’s judges engaged in “dialogue” with Eichmann, bypassing translators to speak with him directly and communicating with him via genuine cross-examination (Arendt 4-6). To Arendt, Ben Gurion’s intentions for limited communication would have prevented Eichmann from receiving just punishment for his crimes (Arendt 5; Boyer, “Eichmann in Jerusalem”). Only through their efforts to communicate with Eichmann did the judges introduce an element of justice within his trial (5).
Further Notes on Hannah Arendt
Ken Gonzales-Day’s scholarship on lynching in the American west also demonstrates langauge’s necessity in efforts towards justice. Gonzales-Day examines vigilantism as a historical phenomenon arising from conflicting legal and cultural forms between Mexicans and Anglo-Americans during the late 1800s. Within that contenxt, he asserts that “frontier justice” was actually a form of race-based lynching (Bory and Boyer; Gonzales-Day). Gonzales-Day does not claim that his words constitute justice for the people murdered in Western lynchings. His focus on expanding the definition of lynching, however, demonstrates the importance of language in preventing the classification of racial violence as an effort towards justice. Only by linguistically recategorizing Western vigilantism does he assert its brutality and its racialized injustice (Gonzales-Day 10-11, 24). Without that revised linguistic framework, his work implies, the American west cannot progress towards a just future (19).
Further Notes on Lynching in the West
I propose that these examples are indicative of a broad truth about language’s importance in efforts towards justice. Injustice inherently involves a moral wrong perpetuated by one party against another, and without communication between those parties, an efforts towards justice cannot recognize all involved perspectives. It thus cannot arrive at a conclusion that responds to the full context of involved parties’ actions, and therefore, it cannot actualize justice. I find support for this understanding of communication as crucial to justice that in the works of philosophers John Rawls and Charles W. Mills. Rawls proposes that individuals could derive principles of justice by conversing behind a “veil of ignorance” that prevents them from understanding their personal circumstances (Rawls 721; Jankovic).
Further Notes on Rawls’ Principle of Justice in Equality
Rawls’ thought experiment underscores context’s significance in efforts towards justice: if individuals understood their personal situations, they would advocate for principles that unfairly favored themselves rather than principles that treated everyone justly (Rawls 723). However, as Mills indicates, the veil of ignorance cannot correct for situations where injustice has already occurred (Mills 17-20). In these situations, correcting fundamentally unjust societies requires that individuals behind the “veil of ignorance” recognize their own unjust context (Mills 47). In a real-world effort towards justice, that context can only be understood through communication between parties involved in the effort. Language therefore becomes crucial not only the isolated cases that Arendt and Gonzales-Day introduce, but in all actualizations of justice.
Language in Descriptive and Prescriptive Definitions of Justice
As demonstrated by the scholars I have cited, language is already a component in diverse descriptive definitions of justice. Naming language as a necessary condition for justice thus does not demand that contemporary communities revise their understandings of justice. Instead, it articulates a truth that we already understand. However, despite language’s inherent presence in understandings of justice, language remains a non-actualized and therefore proscriptive requirement within efforts towards justice in the United States. For example, US law prioritizes violence over communication via “Stand Your Ground” laws, which allow homeowners to use deadly force based on their own fear of trespasser’s actions rather than trespassers’ communication of a legitimate threat (Pyle, “Loving Music Until it Hurts”). The court system also discourages communication by pressuring defendants to take plea deals rather than communicate with prosecutors in court. This system perpetuates rather than preventing injustice, fostering a cycle of mass incarceration that treats incarcerated individuals—especially people of color—as sub-human commodities (Alexander 230-31; Pyle, “Mass Incarceration”).
Further Notes on Contemporary Injustices
The court system must, I find, strive to incorporate language in its efforts to implement justice. Without language, justice will remain a proscriptive ideal rather than a descriptive reality.
