Love of Neighbor

Justice Defined
Merriam Webster Encyclopedia defines justice as maintenance or administration of what
is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited
rewards or punishment.

Different Application of Justice

Justice is an action in compliance with the conditions prescribed by law. Whether these
rules are grounded in human consensus or societal norms, they are intended to ensure that all
members of the society receive fair treatment. Issues of justice arise in several different spheres
and play important role in causing, perpetuating, and resolving conflicts. Just institutions tend to
instill a sense of stability, well-being, and contentment among members of society, while
perceived injustices can lead to dissatisfaction, rebellion, or revolution. Each of the different
spheres expresses the principles of justice and fairness in its own way, resulting in different types
and concepts of justice: commutative, distributive, legal and social. These types of justice
have important implications for socio-economic, political, civil and criminal justice at both
national and international level.

Commutative Justice
It is a type of justice that controls and harmonizes the exercise of rights between men to
his fellow man. It covers private persons as well as juridical persons (communities or
associations) to render to each other according to the principle of reciprocity. This means that the
exchange of anything shall be based on equal value. The business transaction of equitable
pricing of goods is an example of commutative application of justice.

Distributive Justice
It is a type of justice that regulates the exercise of rights between the individual and the
community. The objective end of this form of justice is the private or particular good of each
member of the community. It therefore regulates the acts of the public authority or of the state in
relation to the rights of the individual citizen or party. It presupposes these rights as something
which the public authority or society must preserve and respect. It regulates the imposition of
taxes, fees or privileges by the community upon the individual members practice distributive
justice by accepting uncomplainingly the equitable distribution of charges, burdens and
privileges.

Legal Justice
It is a type of justice that regulates the exercise of rights between the community and the
authority charged with the general welfare of the community. The objective purpose of this is the
common good. Common good refers to the total conditions of social living necessary and
contributory to the development of man within the community. The imposition of laws derives
from legal justice.
Legal and distributive justice compliments each other. In the measure in which the
individual devotes his powers and resources to the common welfare, the community must show
its concerns for his particular welfare.

Social Justice

It is a type of justice that presupposes commutative justice as a condition. But it goes

beyond the requirements of commutative justice. Its objective purpose is the common good, and
is thus called justice of the common welfare or justice of the community. Where the
commutative justice depends on the law or legal contracts between individuals, social justice
draws its force from the solidarity of men living in the community of persons.
The model of social justice is the solidly united family where the common interest prevails
and where it is self-evident that the weaker members have just claim on the stronger ones and
the solidarity of all.
In the political stability the senate has the duty to safeguard every member of the
community, life, sustenance, and the opportunity of work. In the individual level, social justice
imposes the obligation to assist those in need so that they too are able to live in manner worthy
of their dignity as a person.

Love of Ones Neighbor

American Catholic Quarterly Review enumerates some ways on how to love ones
neighbor, these are:
1. Even apart from civil society men are bound to reciprocal duties in virtue of likeness of their
specific nature and the identity of their end. All men have the same specific nature, the
same origin, the same end. This establishes a kind of affinity among them which, apart from
civil society, imposes on them reciprocal duties.
2. The foundation of all duties to ones neighbor is the precept

Self-Defense Defined
It is the right for civilians acting on their own behalf to engage in violence for the sake of
defending ones own life or the lives of others, including the use of deadly force.

Legality of Self-Defense
In most laws, when defense succeeds, it operates as a complete justification provided the
degree of violence used is comparable or proportionate to the threat being confronted, and so a
deadly force should only be used in situations of extreme danger. The defense would fail if a
defendant deliberately killed a petty thief who did not appear to be a physical threat. Sometimes
there is a duty to retreat which invalidates the defense. On the other hand, such duty of
retreat may be negated in situations involving abusive relationships and in burglary situations,
given the so-called castle exception (protecting ones own home), namely that one cannot be
expected to retreat from ones own home,) namely, a mans house is his castle, and each
mans home his safest refuge) which brings self-defense back in play.
In some countries, the concept of pre-emptive self-defense is limited by a requirement
that the threat must be imminent. Thus, lawful pre-emptive self-defense is simply the act of
landing the first blow in a situation that has reached the point of no hope for escape. This preemptive approach is recognized by many self-defense instructors and experts believe that if the
situation is so clear and that violence is unavoidable, the defender has better chance of surviving
by landing the first blow and gaining the immediate upper hand to quickly stop the risk to their
person.

Self-defense cannot be considered immoral. It is normal and natural reaction for every
human being to protect himself against any threat or harm to his body. Provided, however, that
the act of killing is done because it is the only available means to protect oneself and there is no
way to evade danger. But if killing is done despite superiority of strength, arms or despite the
available means to escape such threat to life, then in legal perspective, it may be regarded as
homicide or murder, by which both are considered immoral.

Capital Punishment
This, also referred to as the death penalty, is the legally ordered execution of a prisoner as
a punishment for a serious crime, often called capital offense or a capital crime. The term
capital comes from the Latin capitalis meaning head. Thus the capital punishment is the
penalty for a crime so severe that it deserves decapitation (beheading).
In the past and even in the present under certain system of law, the death penalty was
applied to a wider range of offenses. In the Philippines, it was imposed before and those
sentenced to death are usually those who committed heinous crimes. Heinous Crimes are
defined by the repealed Republic Act No. 7659 are crimes punishable by death for being
grievous, odious and hateful offenses and which, by the reason of their inherent or manifest
wickedness, viciousness, atrocity and perversity are repugnant and outrageous to the common
standards and norms of decency and morality in a just, civilized and ordered society. Examples of
heinous crimes are complex crimes like rape with murder or rape with arson, rape with parricide,
drug trafficking and plunder (large scale graft and corruption) and other crimes.
Offenders who have been convicted to death are usually kept segregated from other
prisoners in a special part of the prison pending their execution. In some places this segregated
area is called death row.
Arguments Against Death Penalty
Some of the major arguments used by those who opposed death penalty include:
Death penalty is killing. All killing is wrong; therefore death penalty is wrong.
A violation of human rights.
Torture and cruelty is wrong. Some executions are botched and the executed suffer
extended pain. Even those who die instantly suffer mental anguish leading up to the
execution.
Criminal proceedings are fallible. Many people facing death penalty have been exonerated,
sometimes minutes before their scheduled execution. Others, however, have been executed
before evidence clearing them is discovered. Whilst criminal trials not involving the death
penalty can involve mistakes, there is at least the opportunity for mistakes to be corrected.
Since in many cases the defendants are financially indigent and therefore end up being
represented by court-appointed attorneys whose credentials are often highly questionable,
opponents argue that the prosecution has an unfair advantage.

Arguments for Death Penalty

Key arguments for supporters of the death penalty include:
People who committed heinous crimes (usually murder in countries that practice the death
penalty) have forfeited the right to life.
Government is not an individual and is given far more powers.
Capital Punishment and Morality

In the above discussions about death penalty, both arguments (pros and cons) have their own
merits, legality is not an issue because some activities are legal but may not be moral like
gambling and to add death penalty.