Justice and a gold coin

1. If you were given a choice between justice and a gold coin - which do you choose? Apparently, most people would choose justice because its virtue governs our societies. It is the moral principle that underlies social progress. Upholding justice, Socrates was reported to have said: “Nothing is to be preferred before justice.”  

2. The above question is the subject of an Indian folk tale. An idiosyncratic courtier when asked the question by his emperor had chosen the gold coin instead of justice. His choice had made the other courtiers as well as the emperor himself dumbfounded. The courtiers who were envious of him for being the emperor’s favourite thought that he had had it for displaying such idiocy in front of the emperor.

3. The emperor was very disappointed in him so the courtier had to explain himself. According to him a person would ask for what he didn’t have. As regards justice, the courtier said that the emperor had made it available to everybody in the country. He further explained that since justice was already available to him and he was always short of money, so he said he would prefer the gold coin to justice.

4. The question would remain relevant indefinitely. It persists in the heads of those in positions of power. Like the emperor’s courtier, they might well prefer the gold coin to justice except that they do not need to explain themselves until their insidious disregard of justice come to light. A professor of philosophy, Paul Bloomfield, wrote: “Leadership without an inner moral compass reliably pointing toward justice inevitably ends in the abuse of power.”