XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

What is justice? This question is debatablenot only among philosophical scientists, but also among ordinary people, which are not related to science. After all, each of usat least once thought about the meaning of this word because it accompanies us throughout life. Justice is a very complicated, ambiguous term and it is hard to comprehend.

The purpose of this paper is to study the point of view of N.V. Somin, a famous Russian philosopher, regarding the public assessment of justice value. He studied a huge number of different teachings on this topic, which were expressed in ancient Greece by great minds Plato and Aristotle, and turned out to be the most adequate. Having studied the doctrines Somin gives the definition, classification of this phenomenon and characterizes it.

According to Somin, Aristotle considered justice in two ways - as personal and public. On the one hand, he sees personal virtue in justice and praises a just man: «fair and fair is some kind of perfect virtue». But Aristotle also considers justice as a principle upon which the life of human communities rests. Moreover, the second point of view prevails. Thus this concept can be divided into «just» and «distributive». They differ in that justice theory comes down to the concept «punishment complies with the law» butdistribution is reduced to a factor «gave-got».

Somin also reviewed the activities of Plato, who also talked a lot about justice.

«The thought of Plato is that if a person is engaged in the work for which he has the greatest abilities, then it will bring the greatest benefit to the state, which means that the truth will be. Actually, the establishment of justice is the goal of the state».

N.V. Somin reckons thatjustice in the society is equal to the level of love in it.It comes in different levels. High justice is equal to a high level of love in the society.Low justice in social relationships means little love.It also allows us to understand the stability of the society better.

It can be concluded that justice is like public health. Everyone has different health. A man can have good health or bad health. But if there is no health, then the person dies. The same with the society. If there is no one in the society of justice, the society falls apart.

Is justice possible in the society? Under what conditions? Somin N.V. answered this question. He supposes that the majority of mankind still hears the voice of God, which is not yet completely supplanted by ringing of money. When they begin to follow the voice of God,they will understand what social justice is, its essence, demand it and be aware of it.If they do not begin to follow God, but the voice of capitalism, then they will remain «buried noses in the trough of consumption». There is a struggle for these souls.

Capitalism tries to instill the thirst for money in the fragile souls and promotes the idea that everyone should take care of himself. People's understanding of “justice” depends on this confrontation.The role and participation of the Russian Orthodox Church is a very important necessary condition for the correct concept of justice.It must spiritually guide a person on the right, true way.

Somin confirms that ways of capitalism and justice are incompatible. Justice can appear in the society when all, even non-believers will believe in God. If it happens, Russia will begin to return its original way, the society will acquire social system, which is not similar to the West, but approaches Soviet socialism.

Unfortunately, at the moment, the Russian Orthodox Church simply stepped back from the struggle for justice in the society, reducing social assistance to near minimum.

How should a person live in order to observe such social justice? The answer to this can be found in the «Notes on Justice». Nobody is a saint.After all, human’s love for others is limited to his love for himself (egoism). Somin supposes that «love in the society equals justice in it». Human essence consists of love and egoism as moral qualities,being the strongest.

N.V. Somin put forward the idea of «moral axis» consisting in the assumption about the conditional axis on the top of which there is God's holiness,love, truth, justice. And below there is Satan's selfishness and lies.And any person is also on this axis.If love prevails in him, then he is closer to God, if selfishness, then closer to Satan.But there are those who have equalized these two concepts. So is this justice? No, this is just a conditional point on the scale, but it’s not justice.

Regarding abovementioned issues, the author concludes that in the quest for social justice people are absolutely right, as it is in keeping their moral law. They are right because a sense of justice is in the depths of a person. «People are completely right in the sense that a society of justice can be achieved, even by present humanity.And, of course, they are right because only in such a society flourishing of love communities is possible, as the New Testament tells us about.Justification of justice is what we, Orthodox people, need if we want Russia to rise from the ashes.»

References :

1. Nikolay Somin. Notes about justice. Justice and love [ Электронныйресурс]:  http://ruskline.ru/analitika/2016/09/15/zametki_o_spravedlivosti/

2. Nikolai Somin. Notes about justice. Justice as a phenomenon of God [Электронныйресурс]:  http://ruskline.ru/analitika/2016/09/20/zametki_o_spravedlivosti/

3. Nikolai Somin. Christian understanding of justice. [ Электронныйресурс]:   http://ruskline.ru/analitika/2016/09/13/zametki_o_spravedlivosti/