> Does any one know the difference between justice and fairness.

I doubt it. I mean, I think everyone likely has a vague idea that there *is* a difference, and of what it might be, but I don't think anyone can truly say for certain - and irrefutably - what that may be.

Plato, through his mouthpiece Socrates, frequently explores the nature of such things as Justice. Socrates, the wisest man in all of Athens (according to the god Apollo, anyhow, and 'e don't lie), does not know what justice is. All of Socrates' interlocutors, whether as initially brash as Euthyphro or as smooth as Gorgias, untimately fail to define it (or whatever component of areté is currently being explored). As such, I find it hard to believe that anyone nowadays truly knows what justice is (though if anyone *can* prove me wrong, I shall stand corrected). Since justice is not truly understood, I don't believe any "how does it differ from..." can be truly informative.

Fairness has a similar problem - it's difficult to define what "fair" is. However, I have trouble accepting that, unlike justice, there is a universal standard of "fairness." Fairness appears to be a more subjective quality, and I suppose one could pick that out as *a* difference, though not "the" difference.

Brunnen-G's example from Les Miserables is an interesting choice, but I believe it to be flawed. First, she says it's "fair" that Valjean doesn't go back to jail, since he's a good guy. But is that fair to the people from whom he stole? Similarly, she says that justice is for Valjean to be sent back to jail, since that is "the LAW." But are we to believe that justice is nothing more than doing what is according to the law?

Dar "Xenophonia" ien