The Symbols of Justice

Justice is often symbolized by Lady Justice, and her three symbols--a blindfold, a sword, and a balance. The blindfold, a relatively recent edition to the image, represents objectivity before the Law. One criticism of this feature is that it fails to distinguish between the theft committed by a poor mother in order to feed her children, and that of the same amount by someone who is well-to-do, simply for the thrill of it. The sword represents retribution, but to some it stands for revenge. The distinction between retribution and revenge is that former entails reward as well as punishment, thereby exposing the fundamental hatefulness of revenge, and, hence, of the sword. But the more general problem with both the blindfold and the sword is that given the balances, they are superfluous. Still, there is more to Justice than one balancing act. In the American jurisprudential system there are two types of process--Civil and Criminal. The first adjudicates between persons, but the second weighs between the rights of the State and those of a person. Here is perhaps one of the legacies of the first, and maybe definitive, theory of Justice, Plato's, as presented in The Republic. One of the central demonstrations of that work is that in an unjust society, a just man, e. g. Socrates, will appear unjust. For that reason alone, the blindfold and the sword are not merely superfluous, but potentially themselves unjust.