Cosmic justice, human limitations, and impartial legal procedures

The introduction gives us a useful distinction: A discusses Thomas Sowell's views, while B is written by Sowell himself. That doesn't tell us whether the two writers agree. We'll find out as we read.

A starts by defining cosmic justice as perfect justice. An omniscient being—one that knows everything—could consider every relevant fact and give each person exactly the rewards and punishments they deserve. The standard is much higher than doing our best with the information available.

Can human courts meet that standard? The writer says no. We don't know every relevant fact, understand every causal relationship, or even know definitively what cosmic justice would require. The conclusion follows immediately: our legal systems shouldn't try to deliver it.

I can see the problem. Before deciding exactly what someone deserves, we'd have to understand the person, their circumstances, and how all those circumstances fit together. But I also want to be careful about where this argument goes. Not being able to make a perfect judgment doesn't mean we can't make any useful judgment. Are we supposed to abandon the legal system because it isn't omniscient?

The second paragraph gives a more limited alternative. Even if we somehow collected every relevant fact, we might not be capable of calculating how each should affect our decision. That's a second limitation: having all the information and knowing what to do with it are different problems.

Inputs are the background factors that go into someone's situation and conduct. Outputs are the consequences. The writer says we should judge primarily by outputs because perfectly weighing all the inputs is beyond us. So the conclusion isn't to stop judging altogether. It's to limit what our judgments try to account for.

My main point for A: Human law cannot deliver cosmic justice and should judge primarily by consequences rather than trying to weigh every background factor.

Now B starts with a contrast. Cosmic justice isn't simply a better version of traditional justice. They use different standards. Traditional justice asks whether a process was fair: were the rules fair, and were the judge and jury impartial?

That produces an important distinction between process and outcome. A fair procedure could still reach an incorrect verdict. Conversely, a biased trial would still be unfair even if it ended without an innocent person's conviction. A fortunate outcome doesn't fix an unfair process. Under the traditional definition, justice concerns how the decision was reached.

So far, Sowell has explained the difference. Now “foolishly” tells us how he feels about pursuing cosmic justice. He thinks it tries to remedy every unmerited disadvantage, beyond discrimination by particular people or institutions.

The murder example makes that criticism concrete. A traumatic childhood may be considered before sentencing, although the victim usually had nothing to do with that childhood. Sowell questions why that background should bear on the punishment. The next sentence supplies his practical objection: if punishment deters crime, reducing it to compensate for the murderer's disadvantages could weaken deterrence and expose innocent people to more crime.

We don't have to agree that childhood should be excluded from sentencing. The job is to understand his argument. Nor does he say childhood cannot influence someone's behavior. His concern is the use of that background to reduce punishment and the consequences he thinks could follow.

My main point for B: Traditional justice requires impartial procedures, while the pursuit of cosmic justice tries to correct broader disadvantages and can undermine punishment's deterrent purpose.

Both writers oppose trying to administer cosmic justice. Their emphasis differs, though. A asks what humans can know and judge; B contrasts two kinds of justice and illustrates a practical cost of pursuing the cosmic kind. Keeping that distinction is more useful than reducing both to the same statement that cosmic justice is bad.