Justice Changes: Hammurabi

In the introduction to the chapter in the textbook, the line which mentioned that notion that justice is an ever evolving, fluid, and developing aspect of history struck me. How was justice, a component of history, something that would change and never stay somewhat consistent? The fact that it had a direct relationship with law and human rights, though, justified the notion that justice is an ever-changing concept in history as laws and human rights have progressed just as much and as fast as history of humans has. Makes sense, right? There were these set of “truths” which were developed, established, and executed all depending on the society which inhabited them, but right there shows historical proof of how justice changed and was an ever-moving, constantly fluid process throughout history. Justice, in the sense of thinking about it like how someone bases their actions and thoughts off of in order to “justify” them for themselves and others as determined by their system of justice and their “truths” which they held, would move along the rapidly evolving path as society has/would in history as different sets of “truths” as defined by different groups of people which would require some system of justice to govern not them, but their lives. In this case, as a side note, religion could also play a large role if religion played a part in the community/society which these set of justices or truths were being acquainted with. Religion provided things such as incentive, reward, or justification for one’s thought processes, actions, and life; in some cases, justice could be derived from one’s religion itself as it provides the required/yearned for structure that determined justices of people in history. Regardless of religion, though, justice could be defined individually or more communally or on a larger scale that applies to a bigger group of people, sometimes executed by a government force, which is what and when we see history come up and is made. Justice, though, could also be defined by the individual and one could live in accordance to such a set of truths, as long as they are not (breaking a law!) under a larger power like a government and is therefore obliged and committed to living in accordance to that larger scale set of truths which defines justice for not only one person, but for multiple, usually millions of people who are under that exact jurisdiction of the enforcement. Now, when talking about Hammurabi’s Code of Law, it was obviously regarding to a set of truths which define justice for many people, specifically those who existed within the Babylon Empire--which was enormous! That’s why Hammurabi is such a large character in history of law and justice, because he was the first one to apply a system of justice and enforce it among so many people in order to establish some sense of civility and order within his realm. This Code of Law caused a large shift in the way things ran in history (even though this is really, really early history!), as the laws were so expansive, general, and applied to every single individual within the Empire, law/order, but more importantly, justice, revolve around everything somebody said, acted, executed, etc. Life was redefined by this expansive set of laws which set the guidelines which were to be followed, and therefore, reformed how people operated and lived in accordance to. In this way, we see justice being something that has further changed as it began as a prevailing notion which people were acclaimed to live by, or attempted to live by; with the Code of Law, justice was required and enforced on the people, and it was served. Instead of anything else influencing the way people acted on behalf of a/their set of “truths”, Hammurabi’s Code of Law established those set of truths (not religion, not (strictly speaking) government, not their environment, and not the individual!). Justice was the central and an integral component of life as the law enforced such. So, in this way, laws (not so sure about rights yet) are merely a way to establish, apply, and enforce justice in society. Hammurabi did exactly that with his Code of Laws, as they redeveloped the fundamentals of society in order for everything in life to revolve around one thing: justice. Hammurabi was just one individual and event to change justice, setting it on its way to be further evolved.