Human Morality and Social Justice

Human Morality and Social Justice
In the words of the great philosopher, Joseph Addison, a person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality. Analyzing this thought and seeing the world around us, one can easily say that such persons do not exist anymore who are beneficial to the world in any way as all of us have seemed to lose a virtue known as humanity which distinguished us from the animals.
Human morality though sophisticated and complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion. We, the human after living for such a long time have finally reached to the conclusion that we can succeed in any of our endeavors if and only if we work together. The concept of morality makes us realize that in spite of all of our achievements in life, we are ultimately perishable beings which gives us a feeling that we should lead a life incorporated by such values that it becomes worthwhile.
But unfortunately, in the recent times our society has grown in such a way that we have begun to evaluate individuals on the basis of their economic status. Due to this fact, the society has been polluted by such crimes which have made a certain sect of the society which commit them, unfit to live with the rest of us. But we have established a system under the belief that those individuals can be rectified if they are given a punishment according to the crimes which they commit so that they may realize their mistakes and start leading their life on a correct path. Unfortunate circumstances although have lead to development of such mentality among us that we do not mind adopting paths which are not correct or rather inhumane without any remorse. Even though we continue to make new laws and amend old ones to make the punishments suitable so that we may achieve our dream of living in a society which is crime-free, we are often taken aback by the magnitude of inhumanity of crimes being committed nowadays. The recent rape case in Delhi puts both, human morality and social justice under question. If we study the mentality of those who committed this heinous crime, we come to know the overall mentality of people around us and also makes us see as to what the world has come to in recent times. When one comes to think of the reasons which could have made any human being do such a thing to another of his own kind, it makes us question the society we have built around us. Have we been unable to develop the society into even such a stage that it ensures that an individual at least has sufficient standard of living so that he may feel contended and does not resort to such methods of taking out their frustration.
We observe that every day after any of such crimes are committed our politicians come up to make laws to punish the people who commit them but the question that arises in our mind is why didn’t they come up with these laws before the crime took place so that it could have been avoided instead. What is necessary to make people see that the path of crimes is wrong to complete their motive of leading a respectable and contended life is education. To inculcate good values in us and to make us better human beings who can distinguish right from wrong, education is necessary. Even the people, who survive in hand-to-mouth conditions not having gone to school due to financial limitations, learn the characteristics of behavior of an individual as the society requires. It makes us think of the reasons which could have made those rapists do such a thing that they are not anymore identified as humans in the mind of anyone. This makes us think of whether the concept of our morality has faded from our minds and whether the social norms are strict enough to stop us from committing such sins.
To prove the lack of the efficiency of the laws of our judicial system in maintaining the sanity in our minds, another recent incident may be viewed. The Indo-Pak border which is always an extremely sensitive area was witness to some unnecessary firing from both sides. The situation was under control this time but what happened thereafter shook everybody who heard about it. The body of two of the Indian soldiers who were killed in the firing were captured by the Pakistani troops. What followed put humanity to shame. One of the soldier was beheaded whereas the face of the other was mutilated to such an extent that he could not be recognized. The question again rises in our mind whether the firing had any purpose. Even if it was a result of the tension between the two nations, the way the corpses of the soldiers were treated after their death was nowhere humane. Even since the times of the wars mentioned in epic Mahabharata and Ramayana, a code was maintained wherein the corpses were buried with respect and after a day had passed in battle, both the armies would sit together peacefully and would not even talk aggressively at that time.