What is the motivation? Why do it at all? Funny question, and I find my answer to it even funnier. My answer - because it never is going to be good. Of course, some things are better than others. Some other things are arguably good enough or meet whatever standards we determined for a particular purpose, but overall - nothing is ever going to be good in the final way, good in itself.
There is nothing pretty about justice. Justice is nothing more than the struggle to make everything better, which it can always be. In a way, there is nothing non-ideal about justice, it is always about something that we don't yet have.
Just as I don't think we will be able to explain it all, to have a final scheme of the natural laws - I don't think we can ever form the just society or live the good life, in the final and 'nothing better' way. While some bridegrooms would be depressed by this sort of thing, I find it encouraging. To me, that just means that they will always be more to be done. So why do it at all? Because there's more to be done.
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Another thought that might be of some contribution is this: if we consider justice as a result of public discourse (especially in democracy), in which different "sides" (persons, groups, communities) enjoy fair grounds for discussion, and in which each such "side" is both heard as they should be, as part of a society each "side" actually cares about; if we consider justice as a result of such a discursive process, then it seems inherent that justice be of dynamic character - ever changing and ever evolving.
ReplyDeleteSo back to your post, it seems that "there's more to be done" is exactly this: there are always more claims of injustice always rising and waiting on the horizon. As we evolve - politically (from nation-state to multiculturalism) and theoretically (adding more and more analysis of the wrongs in society and in current theory) - we must include these new claims and form a new idea of justice.
I tend to see this instability as a positive - and certainly a humane - feature of such a conception of justice.