Delphic Maxim 5: Be overcome by justice
The challenge I’ve set myself — in order to get in the habit of writing regularly — is to respond to each of the Delphic Maxims for 15 minutes every morning, and the paste it unedited into Medium. The Delphic Maxims were carved on stones around the Oracle at Delphi in Ancient Greece. They’re a kind of guidelines for living your life. Now, just because an ancient culture made these prescriptions for life doesn’t mean that they’re still relevant today. A lot of young men (Jordan Peterson fans) worship Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. And there’s a lot that’s admirable about Stoic philosophy — but there’s also a lot that’s missing or dated. And even more importantly: any ethical guide to life is of its time. There might be some principles you can carry forward — and definitely with each translation some of that work gets done — but in the main, life has changed dramatically over time.
So let me attempt to unpack the Delphic Maxims and translate them, in my own terms, for a contemporary world.
5. Be overcome by justice
In Plato’s Apology, he recounts the story of Socrates defending himself when on trial. Socrates is accused of corrupting the youth of Athens — he’s a radical who compels them to ask ‘dangerous’ questions (a bit of a timely lesson for people today as well). Socrates is resolute in his defence, and ultimately when given the chance to recant he chooses not, facing instead his death. He is overcome by justice, though I’d say this is an ‘unjust’ justice (you might want to reach back to the second maxim for a discussion of the ‘unjust laws’ and our obligation to — perhaps — disobey them).
What does it mean to be overcome by justice? A superficial reading might regard this as being overcome by the need to seek justice, which borders on the need for vengeance or restitution. But that is a superficial reading, because justice isn’t simply about making amends when a crime has been committed. After all, I don’t think ‘justice’ can stand as a legitimately good concept if it isn’t tempered with mercy (though that’s a system of ethics that I’ve likely inherited from my Catholic education — and quite happily so).
We need a more expansive view of justice, and this is where the idea of social justice comes into play.
Today you see a pretty asinine debate between ‘social justice warriors’ and ‘right wing nut jobs’ (abbreviated on Twitter to SJWs and RWNJs). Social Justice has somehow come in for critique, used as a pejorative for some sort of touchy feely weak ‘lefty’ vibe. But I think this is a cheap criticism, it completely misunderstands the point of justice that repairs social inequality.
Social justice at its core is an expansive view of justice: it is an understanding that justice is about fairness, not revenge; it is about repairing and maintaining good social relations, not penalising people for the sake of order; it is about healing and mercy, not just about rehabilitation and closure. Often some of those things go together, of course, but a view of justice that focuses solely around punishment is a fairly toxic, thinned-out view indeed.
Now I’m not saying people need to become crusaders for social justice here. What I am saying is that being overcome by justice means allowing that expansive view of justice — the sense of justice as paired with fairness, mercy and healing — to inform your view of the world. It generates a reasoned, calm and kind approach to the world, but one that still allows you to challenge injustice (criminal, social, economic, whatever) in a dispassionate and logical way.
This is why Socrates’ stance is more just than the law that compelled him to drink hemlock: his actions stem from this expansive view, he is overcome by justice because of his care for the people of Athens.
Being overcome by justice is the quality of caring about the society of which you are a part. For your own sake, as well as for the sake of everybody else.
