Justice
How We Say It
jus·tis
Where It Comes From
Latin justitia — righteousness, equity. From justus — just, righteous. From jus — law, right. Justice and law were not synonyms in Latin — justice was the principle, law was the instrument. The gap between them is still the central problem of jurisprudence.
How It's Been Used
Three competing systems all use the word: retributive justice (punishment), restorative justice (repair), distributive justice (fairness of outcomes). Criminal justice, social justice, and economic justice describe different problems with the same word — and policy debates are often really disputes about which definition applies.