Back in 2020, just as the pandemic decided to kick-off, I did the Reflexivity course at the Centre for Leadership Development at the Salvation Army’s Booth College of Mission. I chose as my topic “What is Justice?”, hence the title of this post, and the subject of those last few posts from 2020. The following is most of the report I wrote for the course. It is full of holes, there are many themes left undeveloped, probably a multitude of errors, but it is what I managed to cobble together in the first of what is turning into a long line of seriously Covid-disrupted years. I have edited it lightly to remove one or two sections that don’t seem relevant, but otherwise, it remains intact.
The report:
Abstract
In this article I start with the experience of running Puāwai, the first dedicated bail house in New Zealand, and observe what happens to defendants caught up in New Zealand’s criminal justice system. I then ask what is justice? I explore this question through an examination of classical philosophical systems including Confucianism, Daosim, Mohism from ancient China, and the ideas of Plato, Paul, and the Social Contract from the Western tradition.
I reach the conclusion that the common theme among all these philosophical traditions is that justice is about relationships. An ideal justice is a state in which all members of a society enjoy healthy relationships with each other and with society; injustice is brought by a breakdown in these relationships; and justice is achieved by a restoration of these broken relationships.
Introduction
There are roughly 1000 inmates in Rimutaka Prison. Around one third of them are on remand – they are still stuck somewhere in the trial process, possibly convicted but awaiting sentence, perhaps more likely charged, but with no suitable address to be bailed to.
At Puāwai we work in a “justice-adjacent” space. Our clients are caught up in the criminal justice system – mostly as defendants working their way through the trial process, but a small number on home detention. But we focus on those still in the trial process – they have been accused, arrested, charged, but not yet convicted. By law they are innocent – at least, for the time being. As we walk with our clients through this situation they’re in, we start to wonder –
- Is there actually a system in this merry chaos?
- Is justice being done?
What is bail? The Community Law Manual[1] defines it thusly:
Bail is release from court or police custody on the condition that you will appear in court when next required.
How do you get bail?
Section 7 of the Bail Act 2000[2] sets out the rules for granting bail. In general, a defendant is bailable as of right unless they have committed certain serious crimes, or they have previously been convicted of a crime punishable by death or imprisonment. Even then, under subsection 5, with certain exceptions, a defendant must be released under certain terms and conditions unless “the court is satisfied that there is just cause for continued detention.” Section 8 of the same act goes on to set out what the court must consider in order to determine whether there is just cause for continued detention. It is a long list, but includes considerations of both the defendants’ and the victims’ rights, as well as protections for the integrity of the trial, and public safety.
Which is all well and good and perfectly reasonable – generally speaking, a defendant should be granted bail unless there is a good reason not to.
But how does this apply in reality?
Newsroom reported on November, 13 2020 that 36% of the current prison muster are on remand – that is, not yet sentenced. Some of those remand prisoners have been convicted and are awaiting sentencing; many are still somewhere in the trial process and may not even be convicted. Some prisoners are spending three years on remand, while the average number of days a prisoner spends on remand is 77.2 days, which is a 42.7% increase on the average stay on remand of a decade ago[3].
As shocking as these statistics are, and they do strongly indicate breaches of government’s legal obligations to be tried in a timely manner under the Bill of Rights Act[4], such a big picture review does not shed much light on the lived experience of those caught up in the criminal justice system.
Defendants stand bewildered in the dock as lawyers and judges negotiate the defendants’ fates in what may as well be a foreign language. Lawyers are chronically overworked, and may or may not have the time to explain court proceedings to their clients. Even if they do have the time, they do not necessarily have the skills to explain to the defendants what has just happened, and what their next court date will be about.
Bail bonds come out misspelled and poorly thought through, giving many examples of the “Law of Unintended Consequences”. One common phenomenon in Porirua District Court is bail conditions banning the defendant from crossing an arbitrary line drawn on a map – in order to prevent a defendant contacting his alleged victim in Porirua, the defendant may be banned from travelling north of Ngauranga Gorge, effectively cutting him off from work opportunities in the Hutt Valley.
There are human failings – a defendant on Electronically Monitored Bail might need to open a bank account in order to receive his benefit. One operator on the EM Bail team might allow him to go to a bank, as it is a requirement of a government department. Another operator might say no, because the defendant’s bail conditions do not allow him to go to the bank. One foreign citizen might manage to contact his embassy, as is his right under international law, and then have his case, and his return to his home country, expedited, while another accused of a similar crime does not manage to contact his embassy and spends months in remand with no progress on his case.
People’s lives are upended and they’re dumped into a kind of limbo. On top of the issues they brought with them into the system – issues that may well have contributed to them finding themselves in this situation – they may well find themselves cut off from family and supports, work, community. They do not know how long this situation will last, and often have little understanding of the system they are caught up in. Too often we hear of people pleading guilty just to get the whole ordeal over and done with.
And the real question is –
– What is justice?
You would think that is an easy question to answer, given how often questions of justice are discussed in the media. Doesn’t everybody know what justice is?
Do we?
I’m not convinced that we do.
Methodology
I set about trying to find an answer to this question through a combination of observation and reading. Observation meant observing what happens to our clientele at Puāwai as they work their way through the court process, listening to their stories, noting their experiences. Reading took a variety of forms – reading Acts of Parliament, such as the Bail Act, the Crimes Act, the Sentencing Act, the Human Rights Act, the Bill of Rights Act. Reading also meant reading classic works of philosophy, their more modern interpretations, and modern scholarship on the subject of justice.
Why go to the classics? Because the “Justice” is a concept humans have been struggling with since time immemorial. Why go to both Chinese and European classics? The European classics inform us how our modern, Western systems and philosophies have evolved. The Chinese classics provide a different perspective. Not only can looking at things from a radically different perspective give us fresh ideas, that radically different perspective can also act as a mirror, casting our own ideas and assumptions in a fresh light.
I started trying to find a definition of Justice, something closer to the Ideal than the shadow on the wall of Plato’s cave that we usually muddle by with. Then I will try to compare this ideal with the reality of what really happens. Perhaps then we can explore some ways to make this reality match a little bit more closely with the ideal.
Findings or Discussion
The obvious place to start when you need a definition is the dictionary. Merriam-Webster has a nice, friendly website, which gives us these definitions of Justice[5]:
- the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments
- the administration of law
- the quality of being just, impartial, or fair
- the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action
- conformity to this principle or ideal
- the quality of conforming to law
And what is just? Merriam-Webster’s two most relevant definitions[6] are:
- acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good : RIGHTEOUS
- legally correct : LAWFUL
There are three themes that leap out from these definitions: What is legal; what is fair; and what is moral.
I will start with a quick look at what is legal. Justice is defined by law. Parliament debates bills. If passed, they became Acts, which are then signed by the Governor General or Queen to become law. But Parliament is building on hundreds of years of tradition passed down from England and our own cultural, social, political, and legal evolution here in New Zealand. So it is not as simple as saying “Parliament makes the law”. In any case, it is not difficult to think of examples of laws that are manifestly unjust. Apartheid and the Nazi period in Germany are perhaps two of the most notorious examples of unjust law. The Chinese Poll Tax is an example from New Zealand history[7] in which a law has targeted members of a particular ethnic, racial, or national group for special treatment of a fundamentally unjust nature. In a 2016 article in the Legal Beagle blog on Public Address[8], Graeme Edgeler points out that Sections 30 – 36 of the Maori Community Development Act[9] remain in force, allowing, among other things, the car keys of Maori to be seized – an example of how New Zealand still has law, although largely forgotten, allowing for members of one particular ethnic group to be treated as less equal than others. There are plenty of other laws whose justice is up for debate – the debates this year over the referenda on marijuana law and euthanasia providing two perfect examples. And yet it is law that defines our justice system and its operation, and it is the laws related to crime, punishment, and the rights and responsibilities of the accused and the convicted that seem to draw the most debate over what is or is not just.
The Western philosophical tradition is quite strong on the legalistic definition of justice. Bertrand Russell describes Plato’s idea of justice thusly:
It consists, we are told, in everybody doing his own work and not being a busybody: the city is just when trader, auxiliary, and guardian, each does his own job without interfering with that of other classes.[10]
Russell goes on to give a bit more context:
Before philosophy began, the Greeks had a theory or feeling about the universe, which may be called religious or ethical. According to this theory, every person and every thing has his or its appointed place and function. This does not depend upon the fiat of Zeus, for Zeus himself is subject to the same kind of law as governs others. The theory is connected with the idea of fate or necessity. It applies emphatically to the heavenly bodies. But where there is vigour, there is a tendency to overstep just bounds; hence arises strife.[11]
And there is what Paul wrote in Romans 2:12-15:
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)
So we can see that the two great sources of the Western philosophical traditions – Classical Greece and the Bible – agree that there is an overarching law governing the universe. The difference between the two being that while the Greeks seem a bit vague on the source of that law, the Bible makes it clear that God is the author of that law. And we can infer from both that a just society is one in which everybody is in submission to that law.
The Bible is, of course, a vastly more complex work than a few verses lifted from Romans show, and this complexity opens up a lot of room for interpretation. For example, it was St Augustine of Hippo who, through his interpretation of Romans, formulated the concept that through Adam all people are born in a state of total depravity. There are, of course, other interpretations of scripture, but Augustine’s version of Original Sin has proven quite popular over the millenia. Martin Luther and John Calvin were fans, and there are echoes of it in every populist politician who tries to prove their “tough on crime” credentials by shouting “lock ’em up and throw away the key!”
To sum up, Law is ordained from on high. Justice is obedience to the Law. Injustice stems from people breaking the law, and people are bound by their very nature to break the law.
Ancient China offers up a very different view, one put forward by the Confucian philosopher Mencius – that people are basically good by nature. What makes people good or bad is not their nature, but the environment they are raised and educated in. This is set out in the opening lines of the Three Character Classic[12]:
Men at their birth
are naturally good.
Their natures are much the same;
their habits become widely different.
The character translated here by Herbert Giles as “habits” implies study and knowledge. These habits that become widely different are habits that are learned. And education is a key point here – for Confucians, although people are good by nature, the goodness does not come out naturally; it is developed through education. Confucians have traditionally shied away from too strict an application of law, preferring to take a situational approach to questions of right and wrong. Mainstream Confucianism has also taken the opposite approach to St Augustine of Hippo’s strict interpretation of Paul’s discussion of human nature. Confucians would agree, however, that absent a good environment and sound education, people are bound to break the law.
Another common theme in the dictionary definitions is morality or righteousness. We can define justice as being what is morally upright or good, or righteous. But who defines what is morally upright or good? What is righteous?
Throughout history and around the world every culture has had its own version of morality or righteousness. In each culture these ideas of morality and righteousness have constantly evolved – and continue to do so. We can all think of examples of things that are considered moral now that were not when we were children; or things that were considered immoral when we were children but are now accepted.
So is there a universal definition of morality or righteousness? Is there a constant that remains true across time and culture?
Wikipedia has an extremely useful list of variations on the Golden Rule[13] from a wide variety of religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions. Around the world and throughout time, cultures have summed up morality as being reciprocity, utu[14], treating others the way you want to be treated, or, not treating others the way you don’t want to be treated.
This is a good, simple, easy start. But human societies don’t like simple or easy, and each culture has built on this foundation in its own particular way to create its own image of a good, just, moral society.
I’m going to start with ancient China, specifically with three philosophical traditions – Confucianism, Daoism, and Mohism.
To try and find a Confucian understanding of justice, I want to look briefly at two core Confucian values, ren (仁), benevolence or humaneness; and xiao (孝), usually translated as “filial piety” – respect for one’s elders and superiors. Benevolence is treating others the way you expect to be treated – with respect for their innate humanity. Xiao becomes easy to understand when you understand that Confucianism is at its core an ethical system based on correct relationships. It is a hierarchical system – children obey parents; subjects obey rulers. But xiao is not absolute, blind obedience. The Xiaojing (孝经 – Classic of Filial Piety) explains xiao, and includes this on “Filial Piety in Relation to Reproof and Remonstrance[15]“:
The disciple Zeng said, “I have heard your instructions on the affection of love, on respect and reverence, on giving repose to (the minds of) our parents, and on making our names famous. I would venture to ask if (simple) obedience to the orders of one’s father can be pronounced filial piety.”
The Master replied, “What words are these! What words are these! Anciently, if the Son of Heaven had seven ministers who would remonstrate with him, although he had not right methods of government, he would not lose his possession of the kingdom. [……] Therefore when a case of unrighteous conduct is concerned, a son must by no means keep from remonstrating with his father, nor a minister from remonstrating with his ruler. Hence, since remonstrance is required in the case of unrighteous conduct, how can (simple) obedience to the orders of a father be accounted filial piety?”
In other words, a truly “filial” child will tell their parents off when they do wrong. A truly “filial” subject will tell their ruler off when the ruler does wrong.
Fortunately, this comes with an understanding that people will correct their errors, as in the Analects 19.21[16]:
Zi Gong said, “The faults of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. He has his faults, and all men see them; he changes again, and all men look up to him.”
Or, a just society is a society in which people show benevolence to each other, people understand their proper place in the world, people know their responsibility to speak up when their social superiors do wrong, and people correct their mistakes when they are made aware of them.
The Daoist view is quite opposed to the Confucian view. The Daoists start with their own version of the Golden Rule, as explained in Chapter 49 of the Daodejing[17]:
The sage has no invariable mind of his own; he makes the mind of the people his mind. To those who are good (to me), I am good; and to those who are not good (to me), I am also good; – and thus (all) get to be good. To those who are sincere (with me), I am sincere; and to those who are not sincere (with me), I am also sincere; – and thus (all) get to be sincere. The sage has in the world an appearance of indecision, and keeps his mind in a state of indifference to all. The people all keep their eyes and ears directed to him, and he deals with them all as his children.
Which probably needs further explanation. In Chapter 38 of the Daodejing[18] we read:
Thus it was that when the Dao was lost, its attributes appeared; when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared.
And in Chapter 19[19]:
If we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, the people would again become filial and kindly. If we could renounce our artful contrivances and discard our (scheming for) gain, there would be no thieves nor robbers.
In other words, it is the imposition of values such as filial piety, etiquette, and benevolence that causes disorder and injustice.
This, of course, needs further explaining. Zhuangzi’s story of the Marquis of Lu welcoming a seabird as an honoured guest might help[20]. The seabird landed in the State of Lu, and the Marquis went out to greet it. He took it to the ancestral temple, prepared a sumptuous feast, and treated it as an honoured guest. The seabird died. Why? What’s appropriate treatment for an honoured human guest is not particularly healthy for a seabird. What’s the point? The proper way to honour a guest is to meet that guest’s needs. Or, trying to force a rigid set of rules on all people without regard for their individual needs creates disorder and injustice.
Or, a just society is one in which the ruler does not enforce rigid, artificial rules, but treats all the people well and sincerely, accepts each person as they are, and meets their particular needs.
The Mohists were also opposed to the Confucians, but their opposition took quite a different form to that of the Daoists. The Mohists also saw Confucian ethics as the cause of disorder and injustice, not because the Confucians were trying to impose rigid, artificial rules on people, but because they drew distinctions between people. That is, the Confucians advocated for degrees of love and loyalty, depending on the closeness of relationships – i.e. more love to the members of one’s immediate family, less to strangers; more loyalty to the ruler of one’s own state, less to rulers of other states. It is this drawing of distinctions that leads to injustice, as we read in the Mozi[21]:
Now among all the current calamities, which are the most important? The attack on the small states by the large ones, disturbances of the small houses by the large ones, oppression of the weak by the strong, misuse of the few by the many, deception of the simple by the cunning, disdain towards the humble by the honoured – these are the misfortunes in the empire.
The Mohists taught instead jian’ai (兼爱), universal love. This stems from an egalitarian ethic common in Mozi’s social class[22], which Mozi then expanded to encompass the whole of society. Further in the same chapter of the Mozi we read[23]:
When we try to develop and procure benefits for the world with universal love as our standard, then attentive ears and keen eyes will respond in service to one another, then limbs will be strengthened to work for one another, and those who know the Dao will untiringly instruct others. Thus the old and those who have neither wife nor children will have the support and supply to spend their old age with, and the young and weak and orphans will have the care and admonition to grow up in. When universal love is adopted as the standard, then such are the consequent benefits. It is incomprehensible, then, why people should object to universal love when they hear it.
The Mohists taught that a just society is one in which we stop drawing artificial distinctions between people – my family/not my family; my city/not my city; my state/not my state – and instead love all people equally.
And in the different approaches of the Confucians and Mohists we see the third theme emerge – what is fair. Both Confucians and Mohists argued for correct relationships, but where Confucians argued for hierarchy and distinctions between people, the Mohists argued for a flat, equal society.
The Mohist argument comes to resemble an idea that has had a powerful influence in Western political philosophy, that of the Social Contract. In answering the question “Why should people voluntarily choose to have such an absolute authority over them?” Fung writes:
The answer, for Mo Tzu, is that the people accept such an authority, not because they prefer it, but because they have no alternative. According to him, before the creation of an organized state, people lived in what Thomas Hobbes has called “the state of nature.”[24]
Actually, in Europe, Social Contract ideas can be traced back to the Classical period. For example, Russell writes that Epicurus’ idea of Justice “consists in so acting as not to have occasion to fear other men’s resentment.”[25] – in other words, Epicurus taught that we should treat each other kindly and justly so that we will have no fear, and therefore be able to attain ataraxia – the state of untroubledness.
It is with Enlightenment philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau that the Social Contract went mainstream. Hobbes argued that before the creation of government, people lived in a “state of nature”. With no government, people’s rights are not limited, and people strive to preserve their own interests at the expense of others. This results in war of all against all, and a life which is, to quote Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short.” The social contract arises when people agree to give up their rights and submit to a central authority – a ruler or government. The role of this central authority is to reign in the worst excesses of individual rights so as to maximise everybody’s welfare.[26]
A contract is normally an agreement between two people to which both parties have freely given their consent. How does one consent to the social contract? One could argue that by moving to a country, one freely consents to be bound by the social contract in force in that country. But what of the country one was born in to? If we were born in New Zealand, then at no point in our lives has anybody sat down and explained to us the Social Contract or asked for our consent to be governed by the government of New Zealand. I’m not talking about elections, here, to be clear. At no point has anybody asked us for our consent to be ruled by the system of governance we have in place in New Zealand. And the same applies to every other country. The Social Contract is presented to us as a fait accompli.
There is, however, in New Zealand history, a good example of a contract freely entered into for the governance of the country – The Treaty of Waitangi. It is far from a perfect document, the problems arguably starting with the differing texts of the Treaty and their interpretation[27]. Over the past 180 years attitudes towards and understandings of the Treaty and its place in New Zealand society have evolved, but the experience of Māori with policing and the criminal justice system shows that there is still a lot of work to be done before we can honestly claim that Māori enjoy an equal status before the law. As Police Commissioner Andrew Coster admitted in an article in The Spinoff on June 18, 2020[28]:
While I believe New Zealand’s style of policing is different to that we see in many other countries, we have to acknowledge that criminal justice outcomes for Māori in particular are appalling.
In the same article Coster goes on to argue:
In policing, and in criminal justice generally, we are frequently operating as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We do not get to control who comes off the cliff. This is a function of a range of disadvantage, whether social, economic, health or education – and often a combination of all of the above.
In the incidents we are called to, whether reports of crime or disorder, mental health crises, or tension in families, our people must deal with what’s in front of them. Sadly, Māori are over-represented in many of the challenging situations that we send Police to resolve every day.
Justice is not simply about obedience of the law, and injustice is not simply breaking the law. Injustice stems from deeper problems, and crime is simply a superficial symptom of those underlying injustices. One could apply a Mohist argument that modern New Zealand society clearly still draws artificial distinctions among people, and therefore fails in its application of universal love, along ethnic lines. One could also argue that there is a breach in the social contract, in that the government is failing to protect the interests of large segments of the population.
I’m no closer to a definition of justice, but I have found something: The key to all of these theories, the common theme running through them all, is relationships. Injustice happens when there is a breakdown in these relationships. If you punch me, you will be charged with assault, but you will have done that because our relationship has degraded to the point where you felt physical violence was the only means left with which to express yourself. That is a breakdown in an interpersonal relationship. A young man who makes a career of breaking into cars and stealing their contents clearly does not feel he belongs in mainstream society. That is a breakdown in the relationship between the individual and society. When a rebellion breaks out in a country, there is a breakdown in the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, to the point where a significant segment of the population has withdrawn its consent to the social contract, or, in Confucian terms, feels the ruler no longer enjoys the Mandate of Heaven – different terminology, but it amounts to the same thing.
Conclusion
We can approach the topic of justice from different angles. We can define justice by what is legal; by what is fair; or by what is moral or righteous. Each approach has its shortfalls.
We can argue that justice is defined by law – the law defines what is just and what is unjust. However, the existence in history of laws that were fundamentally unjust, the fact that manifestly unjust laws are still in force, and the continued debate over what is just and unjust show the weakness of this approach. Philosophers such as Plato and Paul have appealed to a higher authority – Law is defined by a higher power such as God – but theological debates are just as fraught and constantly evolving as legal debates. Law is best viewed as an attempt to formally codify what is fair, moral, or righteous.
What is fair is just as difficult to pin down as a truly just law. It seems to depend very much on a definition of what is moral or righteous – a Confucian would consider it perfectly fair to show more love to one’s own family than to a stranger; a Mohist would abhor that drawing of distinctions and argue that ‘fair’ means showing equal love to all people. What is fair is perhaps best seen as an expression of what is moral.
Morality and righteousness may seem at first glance to be concepts as slippery as fairness or truly just law, but they all fall back on a variation of the Golden Rule as their basis – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The differences in the definitions of what is moral or righteous between the different religious and philosophical traditions arise from the expansion of the Golden Rule and its application to the complications of life in the real world.
The common theme running through all those religious and philosophical traditions, and the common theme we see in the myriad individual stories of those caught up in the criminal justice system, is relationships. Those relationships are interpersonal, but also between the individual and their family, community, and wider society. Those relationships are also between the individual and the state, between communities, and between communities and the state. When those relationships are healthy, justice happens. When those relationships break down, we see injustice. The key to justice lies in restoring those relationships to a healthy state.
[1] Bail: Being released while your case is ongoing, Community Law Manual, https://communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual/chapter-33-the-criminal-courts/how-criminal-cases-beginpleading-guilty-not-guiltybail-and-name-suppression/bail-being-released-while-your-case-is-ongoing/
[2] The Bail Act 2000, on New Zealand Legislation, http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2000/0038/latest/DLM68903.html
[3] Three years waiting in prison without being sentenced for a crime, Laura Walters, The Spinoff, https://www.newsroom.co.nz/three-years-waiting-in-prison
[4] Section 25(b), New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225527.html
[5] Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/justice
[6] Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/just
[7] Poll Tax Imposed on Chinese, New Zealand History, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/poll-tax-imposed-on-chinese
[8] Edgeler, G; New Zealand’s Most Racist Law, Legal Beagle; https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/new-zealands-most-racist-law/
[9] Maori Community Development Act 1962, New Zealand Legislation, http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1962/0133/latest/whole.html#DLM3262830
[10] Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945), 113
[11] Russell, History, 114
[12] Three Character Classic; trans. Herbert Giles, https://ctext.org/three-character-classic#n90564
[13] Golden Rule, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule
[14] Utu, definition 3, The Māori Dictionary, https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=utu
[15] Filial Piety in Relation to Reproof and Remonstrance, Classic of Filial Piety, trans. James Legge, https://ctext.org/xiao-jing/filial-piety-in-relation-to-reproof
[16] Analects 19.21, trans. James Legge, https://ctext.org/analects/zi-zhang#n1594
[17] Daodejing Ch. 49, trans. James Legge, https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing#n11640
[18] Daodejing Ch.38 https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing#n11629
[19] Daodejing Ch.19 https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing#n11610
[20] Perfect Enjoyment, Zhuangzi, https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/perfect-enjoyment#n2834
[21] Universal Love III, Mozi Book 4, https://ctext.org/mozi/universal-love-iii#n682
[22] Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1991), 250
[23] Universal Love III, Mozi Book 4, https://ctext.org/mozi/universal-love-iii#n684
[24] Fung, Philosophical Writings, 255
[25] Russell, History, 244
[26] Russell, History, 550
[27] What Does the Treaty Say? New Zealand History, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/treaty-faqs#WhatdoestheTreatysay
[28] Andrew Coster, ‘We Need to Examine Our Attitudes’: Andrew Coster on policing and racial justice, The Spinoff, https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/18-06-2020/police-commissioner-andrew-coster-we-must-make-sure-we-are-not-part-of-the-problem/