Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Anselm on Justice and Injustice

T: Remember also that we've already agreed that once justice has been lost, nothing but the obligation to justice remains in him beyond what he had before he received justice.
S: Right.
T: But before he had justice, he was not unjust and did not have injustice.
S: No.
T: Therefore, either there is no injustice in him and he is not unjust once justice has been lost, or else injustice and being unjust are nothing.

This is Anselm in "On the Fall of the Devil." I think that the point that he's making here is that you require principles of justice and morality in order to criticize one for failing to live up to those norms. When one completely lacks the norms of ethics, one can't be criticized for failing to live up to those norms.

I believe that this is related to the point I've made about things being epistemically optional. One cannot be criticized for failing to live up to the epistemic norms before one has accepted epistemic normativity in some way.

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