Doing Justice to Mercy: Religion, Law, and Criminal Justice

Justice and Mercy: The Relation of Societal Norms and Empathic Feeling

222 Justice and Mercy The Relation of Societal Norms and Empathic Feeling pe t e r j. pa r i s The moral relationship between justice and mercy is analogous to the relationship between a morally good state and a morally good person. That is to say, justice is prior to mercy in the realm of practice. A morally good state is determined by morally good laws, which in turn provide the necessary conditions for the moral development of its citizens and, most important , the practice of justice by both individual citizens and the state. Of course, morally good laws are determined in large part by the moral quality of those who make the laws. In brief, justice pertains to objective standards of fairness that regulate human practices. Clearly the relation between just laws and just practices is circular. Each reflects the other. One cannot have the one apart from the other. Within the state, justice is the rational dispassionate calculation of the good for all citizens including those who violate the law. In the wider world, justice is the good of all humanity guided in our day by such normative standards as those specified in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Justice provides the structural conditions that enable humans in general and citizens in particular to grow and flourish so as to actualize their full potentialities. Since the time of Aristotle, we have known that the morally good person is one whose passions and appetites are ordered by an internal rationality that is harmonious with that which the just laws of a morally good state allow. Accordingly, true friendships between morally good persons are based on the mutual love of each other’s character. That love is the basic condition for mercy and its analogue, compassion. Mercy or compassion is empathic feeling for the other. It is based on sympathetic V4366.indb 222 V4366.indb 222 8/22/07 3:21:44 PM 8/22/07 3:21:44 PM Justice and Mercy 223 understanding of human weakness. Those who have had the experience of pain, suffering, and other kinds of distress are more likely to have the capacity to put themselves in the other’s place and, hence, more capable of mercy than those who have not had such experiences. Like Reinhold Niebuhr, I contend that individual persons generally have a greater capacity for mercy than groups of people. Yet, unlike Niebuhr, I also contend that certain groups of people, often motivated by the inspiration of a particular type of religious insight, can and do undertake acts of mercy by providing habitual nurture and care for the growth and development of many people victimized by enduring cycles of destructive conditions. Examples of those who practice such acts of mercy are seen in the work of Mother Teresa and others who care for orphans, the homeless, the sick, and the oppressed. All such people do mercy while imagining a more just society wherein the needs of the weak are met. More often than not, however , organizations of mercy do not have the capacity to protest against the structures of injustice as the primary causes of the suffering. Yet, though their acts of mercy produce only limited short-term results, they do not necessarily contradict or take the place of justice. If they were to do either they would be in opposition to justice and hence immoral since justice is surely inclusive of all the moral virtues. Thus, true acts of mercy do not thwart justice even when they cannot work directly for justice. As stated above, mercy refers to the quality of our responses to vulnerable people: the poor, the disabled, the orphans, the strangers, the refugees, or the imprisoned, and others. Mercy and justice are not polar opposites. Embracing and loving mercy implies treating the vulnerable and weak with loving kindness. Yet, when the conditions for justice do not exist, priority must be given to the aim of establishing those conditions. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s evidences that endeavor, and the activity of nonviolent resistance illustrated the unity of justice and mercy in its concern for the well-being of both the civil rights activists and their enemies. Some organizations do the work of mercy while prophetically condemning injustice by demanding structural reform as the necessary condition for justice. Examples of such groups are the Open Door Community in Atlanta, many churches like the Glyde Memorial Church in...