Justice is not relative

Can States Ignore the Supreme Court on Gay Marriage?

In class, we have had discussed the notion of justice as both a metaphysical concept and as a concrete manifestation occurring in law.  I believe that it is important to consider the metaphysical concept of justice first, and then apply it to the law.  It is not easy to create a solid outline of what is justice, however.  In Crito, we find an argument that justice is founded in reason.  This seems like a reasonable starting point in understanding the concept.  In Plato's The Republic, it is suggested by Thrasymachus that justice is the advantage of the stronger.  I reject that idea based on Socrate's assertion that about the just man being controlled by reason.  Hobbes' state of nature is a great example of an unjust society that has succumbed to chaos, and is dominated by the strong.  Part of banding together and creating a social contract means protecting the weak; people who are as human as the rest of us and have the same basic human rights that extend to every person.  In our class discussion, many people argued for ethical relativism.  This is a problematic belief to hold.  For example, Ted Bundy used ethical relativism to defend his actions during his trial.  This is what he said, as cited by Louis Pojman in the article "A Critique of Ethical Relativism":

"Then I learned that all moral judgments are "value judgments," that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either "right" or "wrong." I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself - what apparently the Chief Justice couldn't figure out for himself, that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any "reason" to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring the strength of character to throw off its shackles. ... I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable value judgment that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these "others"? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a hog's life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as "moral" or "good" and others as "immoral" or "bad"? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self."  

It is difficult to reconcile holding a belief that would give a serial killer reason to believe that his actions were as just as eating ham.  There is much to critique about ethical relativism, though it is an attractive idea that allows one to hide behind it rather than tackle the difficulties of defining an objective system of morals.  It is especially attractive when one considers how one might go about defining an objective system, because in that case it is easy to argue for the existence of a higher power who would be able to dictate right and wrong.  Which, in my opinion, is another cop out.  One can be moral and just without having to subscribe to any sort of spirituality, as we see with Socrates in Crito.
This brings us to the law, which in America is a sort of objective system of justice that is independent of the church.  Our courts make the ultimate decisions about what justice means, and write opinions which defend their judgments.  The Supreme Court is the most important interpreter of the law, as it determines what is just for every citizen.  However, there are some who decide that the Court has made the wrong decision- that perhaps they have misinterpreted the meaning of justice.  One recent example of this is found in the rejection of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage.  One judge in Alabama argued that judicial restraint was the best way to handle the issue, and refused to adhere to the Supreme Court's decision.  We also see Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee arguing against the adherence of the law.  This, however, is quite wrong.  As Socrates argues in Crito, the law has shaped us as a people, and it is the law that protects us from falling into the state of nature.  We owe it to the law to abide by it.  The Supreme Court's interpretations have ended many injustices being committed against the weaker.  By rejecting the law, we weaken it and lose something very valuable.