Maritza Marin

April 21st, 2017

Justification Paper

The way you define something good or bad is very differently from how someone views
those two concepts. Life can be hard when you dont know if something you are doing is good or
not. For me, the word Justice means someone being honest and fair. It can be in a lot of different
ways but I believe that you are suppose to be justice with everyone. Due to reading some
excerpts from Justice: Whats the Right Thing To Do?, I have found out 10 rules to live by to
have a more positive and peaceful life. These rules go from respecting people to also loving
yourself. When finding rules to live by, you also want to make sure that the rules can help you
become a better person, as well.
When talking about the 10 rules to live by, the first rule that I thought was important to
have a good life was: Do No Harm. In the excerpts from Justice: Whats the Right Thing To Do?
from Obligations: What do we own to other people?, it talks about natural duties. Natural
duties are duties that we owe to any human being, just because they are humans. In line 3, it
states, They include the duty to treat others with respect, to do justice, to avoid cruelty, and so
on. Sandel is telling us that it is a natural duty to NOT do any harm. It is a duty that we are
suppose to know and do, and even if there might be some cases that might state otherwise, it is
telling us that we are suppose to know about not causing any harm to people. This rule is
important and is classified as rule #1 because it has showed what can happen if you do cause
harm. A great example is Lennie in the book Of Mice and Men. Lennie was talking with Curleys
wife and they were having an incident where Lennie wouldnt let go of Curleys wife hair. She
was screaming and he wanted for her to be quiet, so he was being a bit aggressive towards her
and ended up breaking her neck, which caused her death. Even though Lennie didnt mean to
hurt her, he ended up doing it and it caused him to have problems with Curley and everyone else
in the house.
The second most important rule to live by is to be respectful. Being respectful is a rule I
actually think is more important than the rest. I believe and see that being respectful is something
that is important for you to do and can really make your life more easier and nicer if you are
being respectful. In the excerpts from Justice: Whats the right thing to do? From Obligations:
What do we owe to other people?, it had said as well that, We owe them to persons for being
rational beings. They include the duty to treat persons with respect, to do justice, to avoid
cruelty, and so on. With this being said, Sandel is saying that it is a natural obligation for us to
be respectful to any human being. Not only is this important, but being respectful can actually
avoid problems with people or it could just make things even better. A example of someone
NOT being respectful is Jody. Jody was Janies second husband. Jody was at first a very nice
man with Janie and it seemed like he really liked her, but it ended up changing after a while.
After being married for some time now, Jody was starting to be rude towards Janie, and he
wasnt respecting her at all. He kept insulting her, and hitting her in a very rude way for any
reason that he wanted to. Even though the only bad thing that happened to him was his death, it
still shows how rude and disrespectful it was for him to do something like that towards her.
The third important rule to live by is: Stop and Think before making a decision. I say that
this rule is important because it has a lot to say about why thinking before making a decision can
really impact your life. This is something that we see happen in the novel Of Mice and Men. In
this novel, we see how George takes the time to stop and think before he makes a decision about
certain things. For example, he thought about what was the best thing for Lennie after he had
killed Curleys wife. Now, what George does conflicts with #1 of not doing harm, but this talks
about how he had to do it to save Lennie from getting in trouble all the time. He thought about
the situation and he thought about Lennie and who he is as a person. Knowing that he doesnt
know how to stop harming someone, he knew that he was going to get in a lot of trouble
anyways. So, with that, George thought about everything and decided that it was better for
Lennie to not be alive. Instead of seeing him get killed by Curley, he decided to do it himself and
when he isnt aware of it.
The fourth most important rule to live by is: Do not be judgemental. Even though its
hard to not judge someone if its for looks, the way they act, etc., its easier for you to try to at
least not judge someone since you have no idea about that person. Mrs. Turner is a good example
in the novel of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Mrs. Turner is a bit judgemental towards the
black people. She starts to complain about how they are loud and that is why the white people
dont like them and etc. Even though, Mrs. Turner is actually black herself, it shows a way of
how being judgemental occurs. It isnt good to judge someone like that, as for Mrs.Turner, she is
part of the African American culture and believes that everyone is like that when in fact, not
every colored person is like that.
The fifth most important rule to live by is: Go out and learn something new. I believe that
doing this can actually make you understand certain dilemmas and situations and how to
act/behave. Doing this can change you from believing a certain way and understanding what has
changed over the years. I believe that this can also educate your mind by knowing about things
that are important like history, science, math, etc. It can help you understand things that have
happened and things that are happening right now. With this, you can learn more about the world
and everything that it deals with.
The sixth most important rule to live by is: Be honest. Being honest is an important key
when you have relationships, either friendship, partner, family, etc. This can clear up any
confusion over a situation and can make things make more sense. In the excerpts from Justice:
Whats The Right Thing To Do? from Dilemmas of Loyalty: Solidarity and Belonging, in the
French Resistance, the bomber pilot received an order and finds out that the target was his home
village. Even though, this also connects to our first rule of doing no harm, the bomber pilot
decides to tell the truth about him not being the one to kill some of his people. Yes, it doesnt
sound like a good thing to do, but he was honest enough to say that he could not possibly be the
one to end the life of those people in his home village. This also connects to our text of Their
Eyes Were Watching God, as Janie never told Tea Cake about her going to see the doctor for his
medication and her not being honest, ended causing Tea Cake to believe he was cheating on her.
It would have been better if she was honest and told him the truth about the situation, that way
Tea Cake wouldnt think otherwise.
The seventh most important rule to live by is: Be responsible. This rule is also something
that is important. Being responsible from the littlest things to very huge important issues can help
you out from certain situations that are you involved. In the excerpts from Justice: Whats The
Right Thing To Do? from Dilemmas of Loyalty: Solidarity and Belonging, in the Family
Obligation part, it talks about the responsible we have in certain situations. For example, it talks
about you being a parent. Imagining that you see two children drowning and you could only save
one. You then find out that its your child and the child of someone else. Who would you
choose? Most parents would obviously choose to save the life of their child because it was their
responsible, once that child was born, to take care of him/her. In the text it says, Some argue
that this responsibility arises from consent by choosing to have children, parents voluntarily
agree to look after them with special care. With this being said, being responsible when placed
in a situation is extremely important.
The eight most important rule to live by is: Protect and Defend. This rule is very general
but can be very important when being in a certain situation, like someone getting raped, robbed,
or anything else that is important. But, more importantly, you will do this to protect and defend
yourself as well. In the excerpts from Justice: Whats The Right Thing To Do? from
Obligations: What do we owe to other people?, it says, They include the duty to treat persons
with respect, to do justice, to avoid cruelty, and so on. In this quote, it talks about our duty to do
justice, and doing justice is where you would protect and defend the person that is in trouble or
do it for yourself if you can. An example of this is from Their Eyes Were Watching God. In this
novel, Janie was having problems with her husband, Tea Cake. Tea Cake believed that Janie was
cheating on him and because he was going crazy with the idea, he was thinking about killing her.
In order for her to defend herself from almost dying, she killed him first. Now, this could end up
inflicting with rule #1, which is to do no harm. Yet, in this case, Janie was defending herself
from Tea Cake and by that, she had to do what she had to do.
The ninth most important rule to live by is: Have Trust. This rule has to tie up with being
honest. Having trust can be something extremely important because that can cause someone from
having problems and issues with a person for whatever reason it is. Having trust is knowing that
things could happen, but knowing that the person is going to be honest with you, comes from
you having trust with that person. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake did
not have trust for Janie and that caused him to go crazy about the idea that she might have been
cheating on him. With this, he was going to kill Janie but Janie decided to defend herself and that
caused him to get killed. Tea Cake could have prevented this if he could have had trust with
Janie and didnt think about things that werent going on. So, from this, we see how if you have
trust, this can help you out from thinking about things otherwise.
Last but not least, the tenth most important rule to live by is: Learn to Love Yourself.
Now, this rule can be hard in situation because people see themselves and some of them cant
learn to accept how they look and who they are, which can cause them to not give themselves
self-love. Yet, I believe that this rule is important because that can help you out in situations and
is something that is important for a human to do with themselves. For example, in the novel of
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie didnt realize that she needed to love herself, so she kept
relying on her husbands, and when they stopped giving her love as she wanted, she started to feel
differently. With this, if you give yourself the love, you wouldnt much expect the love of
someone else, but as well, you would learn your value.
Some people would say that most of my rules are not ethical because some of them
conflict with other rules. For example, since rule #1 is about doing no harm, some of these rules
can conflict with the other. But, in the excerpts in Justice: Whats The Right Thing To Do?, in
Obligations: What do we owe to other people?, it states, They include the duty to treat persons
with respect, to do justice, to avoid cruelty and so on. So, if violence is something you cant do,
but you have to do justice and that involves having to hurt someone to protect yourself like in
rule #8, then that is when you would have to do something, even if that means you would have to
bend the rules a little for a certain good reason.
After all of this, here we can see and view how these 10 rules to live by are important to
life. These rules teach you how to become better and live a more peaceful life than you can.
From these rules, you can learn a lot, and that can teach you to learn more about yourself as well.
From these rules, we learn about doing no harm, self-love, protecting yourself, being respectful
and responsible, and so on.