Metaphysical Justice

They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles.
Benjamin Franklin

Since reality is absolute, any attempt to evade acting according to objective reality will result in unforeseen and likely unwelcome consequences. This is called Metaphysical Justice or "Reality sneaking up and biting you on the ass".

Metaphysical justice is a kind of justice. In other words, it is the method by which people get what they deserve. It doesn't require other people to enact the justice. Reality is fully capable of providing the result. To avoid confusion, this does not mean that some supernatural entity provides the justice either. No, this kind of justice is served by the Law of Identity.

When one acts according to a correct view of reality, the result will be predictable. If one aimed for a beneficial result, the result will be beneficial. This is because the trail of cause and effects one had decided on was correct. If, however, the view of reality is distorted, evaded, or just mistaken, the results will not occur. Along one of the causal steps, a different effect will occur. This unintended consequence will remove the beneficial result, and leave some other effect, harmful or not.

The justice portion of Metaphysical Justice is based on ones choice to act rationally, or irrationally. If one acts rationally, he will be rewarded by gaining the value which he is pursuing. If one acts irrationally though, one will not only lose the reward, but may be punished as well. This has the nice feature of encouraging rationality while discouraging irrationality. In this sense, reality is providing the justice for a moral/immoral act.


Copyright © 2001 by Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands