Marcus Cicero: The Defense Of Injustice

This essay has to be one of the most thought provoking essay’s I have read. I think that it was very clever how they made an argument for injustice when it was really proving why justice is so important to society. I think this essay was about how justice is constantly changing throughout time and it is almost impossible for everyone to act just when everyone has a different perception of justice. An example of this is how the Spartans believed that any land they touched with their spears belonged to them. The Athenians believed that any ground that produced olives or grain was their property. The statement that justice changes over time is obviously true. We see that even nowadays when our government ended slavery and gave women the right to vote. As Cicero mentions, “Justice is not one static thing, it changes over time and in different places because its not like a rock, tree, or color.” Another interesting comparison was wisdom and justice. Cicero states, “wisdom, prompts us to increase our resources, to multiply our riches, to enlarge our frontiers.” If we were to abide by wisdom we would be acting unjustly because that would constitute in conquering people. The point here is that if we were to act justly than the world would be a much different place than it is today. Over history there is always people conquering lands and building empires and that is how we evolve and become more advanced. No ones perception of justice will be the same and if that day just so happened to come then we can live in a just world. Where everyone is following the same laws and acting justly. Until that day, everyone will act how they feel is just and not even care about any other group of people.