The Ancient Tension Between Justice and Mercy Defines Modern Politics — And Most People Don't Even Know It
Justice, mercy, humility — most people prioritize only one, but ancient wisdom teaches that we need all three. Conservatives identify with justice, liberals with mercy, and almost no one is humble.
“Uphold justice and love mercy and walk humbly,”1 says the ancient Book of Micah, because we need all three. But most people have an unbalanced approach. They prefer justice over mercy, which leads to politically conservative viewpoints and voting; or mercy over justice, leading to politically liberal viewpoints and voting. And no one seems especially good at humility during election years.
Justice and Mercy
This divergent approach to morality (justice vs. mercy) is well documented. Just for instance, George Lakoff makes the case in his superb Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. (More additional reading appears below.) And our preferences seem to be so deeply rooted in who we are that most people are blind even to the clear merits of different approaches.
For example: A woman sneaks into the US to get a better life for her child. There are two obvious considerations: Is it fair to let her stay (justice)? Is it compassionate (mercy)? The answers are as obvious as the questions. No, it’s not fair, and yes, it’s compassionate. But most people, before they even finish reading the sentence, cling so firmly to either justice or mercy that they have difficulty recognizing that two dynamics are at play.
Most people cling so firmly to either justice or mercy that they have difficulty recognizing that two dynamics are at play.
Here’s a real-life example: A beggar girl approached me in India a couple of years ago. With my American mentality, and having by chance having just withdrawn a couple hundred dollars from an ATM, I gave the girl the equivalent of a dollar or two — a huge sum in India. I did it out of kindness. A local friend of mine was furious, even accusing me of ruining his country, because, he said, it wasn’t fair. Mercy vs. justice.
It’s not that I don't value justice, or that my friend isn’t kind. After a discussion with my friend I even saw his point. And he was a local. Surely he knows more about his country than I do. But I would still do it again. It’s just who I am.
I saw similar dynamics with an immigrant man and immigrant girl I spoke to in Sweden, and with a taxi driver in Hong Kong whose traffic fine I paid.
The Pew Research Center even found in 2022 that most Democrats think most Republicans are immoral and vice versa (“Republicans and Democrats increasingly critical of people in the opposing party”). We should not be surprised, considering how strongly we identify with justice over mercy or mercy over justice.
Good News
But there is good news.
We don’t completely disagree. No one is against justice. No one is against mercy. We just prioritize them differently. The apparently huge gulf in modern politics is, it would seem, really just a matter of priorities. And unlike fundamental differences, which can be impossible to bridge, disagreements over prioritization can usually be overcome.
Humility
And this brings us back to Micah: “...and walk humbly.” No one has a monopoly on truth. Everyone can make a mistake.
Some years ago a teacher I was supervising sat in my office and for nearly an hour spewed the most ridiculous political nonsense. She worked for me and my job was to support her. I couldn’t yell back, “What idiot hired you?” (It is a bitter nuance that I had hired her myself.) I had to listen empathetically. So I sat there, interminably, accosted by inanity and trying to appear sympathetic to lunacy.
Afterward I went to a colleague for moral support. In respone to the story, he smiled and said, “You know, it makes you wonder what we’re sure of that’s wrong.” Humility.
“It makes you wonder what we’re sure of that’s wrong.”
Ancient sources agree.
Plato explains why he is wiser than a man he meets:
“But while I do not know, I do not even think that I know. In this respect, then, I seem to be a little wiser than him.”2
(Plato is ironic and pretty funny here. He prefaces this by saying that the man “seemed wise to many other people and to himself.”)
Plato also says:
“No one of repute believes that a human willingly errs, nor that they willingly do shameful or bad things.”3
Ovid’s Medea says:
“I see a better course and approve, but I follow the worse course.”4
Sometimes we all make mistakes even knowing there’s a better way to do things.
Confucius also emphasizes human fallibility:
“A noble person’s mistake is like an eclipse of the sun or the moon. The mistake draws attention from everyone, correcting the mistake draws admiration from everyone.”5
Now is a time to strive for admiration in this regard.
Moving Forward
The ancient texts seem to suggest:
If you naturally prioritize justice, try to pay more attention to mercy.
If you naturally prioritize mercy, try to pay more attention to justice.
And whoever you are, try to pay more attention to humility.
Reading
Lakoff, G. (2002, revised 2016). Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Analyzes metaphorical models—"strict father" for conservatives, "nurturant parent" for liberals—that underlie political ideologies.
Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Explores how moral foundations shape political beliefs, with conservatives emphasizing authority and liberals focusing on empathy.
Hibbing, J. R., Smith, K. B., & Alford, J. R. (2013). Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences. Examines biological factors influencing political leanings, highlighting conservatives’ physiological responses to threats and liberals’ empathy.
Tuschman, A. (2013). Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us. Discusses evolutionary roots of political divisions, connecting justice and mercy preferences to adaptive strategies.
Schreiber, D., et al. (2013). Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. Published in The Journal of Politics. “Liberals and conservatives exhibit different cognitive styles and converging lines of evidence suggest that biology influences differences in their political attitudes and beliefs.”
Frimer, J. A., et al. (2013) Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Common Moral Foundations When Making Moral Judgments About Influential People. Published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “The moral codes of liberals and conservatives do differ systematically; however, their similarities outweigh their differences. Liberals and conservatives alike rely on care, fairness, and purity when making moral judgments about influential people.”
Pew Research Center (2021). Growing share of Americans say they want more spending on police in their area. Highlights Republicans’ support for increased police funding vs. Democrats’ preference for reallocating funds to social services.
Pew Research Center (2022). Republicans and Democrats have different top priorities for U.S. immigration policy. Examines partisan divides on border security and pathways to citizenship.
Pew Research Center (2022). Republicans and Democrats increasingly critical of people in the opposing party. Finds that 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats view the other party as more immoral than other Americans.
הִגִּיד לְךָ אָדָם מַה טּוֹב וּמָה יְהוָה דּוֹרֵשׁ מִמְּךָ כִּי אִם עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת עִם אֱלֹהֶיךָ. Micah 6:8, 8th c. BCE. More fully, “You have been told what is good and what God demands of you: to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι: ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι. Plato, Apology 21d, 4th c. BCE.
Οὐδεὶς τῶν σοφῶν ἀνδρῶν ἡγεῖται οὐδένα ἀνθρώπων ἑκόντα ἐξαμαρτάνειν οὐδὲ αἰσχρά τε καὶ κακὰ ἑκόντα ἐργάζεσθαι. Plato, Protagoras 345e, 4th c. BCE.
Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 7, line 20, 1st c. CE.
子貢曰：「君子之過也，如日月之食焉。過也，人皆見之；更也，人皆仰之。」Confucius, Analects 19.21, c. 500 BCE.
Wow, this is painfully relevant these days...makes me wonder about a possible correlation between how threatened someone feels (and/or is, but more importantly, feels) and their leaning more towards justice vs. mercy. Feeling threatened may challenge both considerations, I suppose. Thanks, as always, for this thought provoking and clear discussion.
I found this thought-provoking. I agree with you on the importance of balancing justice and mercy--and on the importance, and difficulty, of humility.
It seems, however, that we have different understandings of what justice is. It seems to me that the existence of extreme wealth and extreme poverty is in itself unjust, caused by systems set up to enrich the powerful and exploit the powerless. I think that it is unjust to allow money and goods to flow freely across national borders while severely restricting the right of people to move--this also gives rise to extremes of wealth and poverty, and I see no justice in turning the hypothetical woman and child of your story away at the border.
I suppose, however, that I am somewhat left of liberal. I want to undo the economic and political systems that entrench inequality. It seems to me that this would be both just and merciful.