Wrong
Wrong is the opposite of right and consists of a violation of the legal order . What is right and what is wrong usually results from the law . The realization of injustice usually leads to a legal consequence , for example to an obligation to pay damages or to a criminal penalty.
Wrong in criminal law
The term "injustice" is of particular importance in criminal law : Injustice in the criminal law sense is the unlawful implementation of a criminal offense, i.e. not covered by a justification . Criminal injustice does not presuppose fault: Even a child who is not of age or a person incapable of guilt due to mental illness can commit criminal injustice (but not be punished).
However, from time to time it has to be considered differentiated according to legal area, whether an action means wrong. For example, behavior may not be punishable, but at the same time it may violate civil law norms and in this respect lead, for example, to an obligation to pay compensation, the negligent destruction of an object.
Legal injustice
The term “injustice” also plays a role in legal philosophy , especially when it comes to the question of whether there is “legal injustice” (see: On the Validity of Unjust Laws ). In the opinion of the German Federal Constitutional Court , a legal norm that obviously violates constituent principles of law is an injustice and does not become right because it is applied and followed.
Concept history
Aristotle saw injustice as part of ethics . He made a distinction between “injustice by nature” and “injustice by virtue of regulation”. Wrong, if done voluntarily, is an unjust act. Before it is committed, however, it is not an unjust act, just an injustice. The Aristotelian definition already anticipates the conflict that breaks out in Radbruch's formula .
In his Great Complete Universal Lexicon of All Sciences and Arts , which appeared between 1732 and 1754, Johann Heinrich Zedler made a distinction between injustice that was a crime and injustice that was not a crime. The latter includes if no punishment is set for breaking the law, but judicial help, or the nullity of the act undertaken is to be expected. Furthermore, Zedler differentiates injustice from malice and injustice from weakness and oversight. Both are different in degree.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship : “Nobody knows what he is doing if he is doing the right thing; but we are always aware of what is wrong. ”In doing so, he defined injustice as conscious injustice, while doing something that corresponds to the law remains unconscious. Goethe viewed injustice and right awareness as intuition . On the similarity of right and wrong, he wrote: “What am I studying? First of all, the distinctions (distinctions) and subtleties (subtleties), which have made right and wrong quite similar to one another: that is, I am studying for a doctorate in both rights. "
The Indian philosopher Shankara assumed that without the recognition of a god who set out in the scriptures revealed by him what to do and what not to do, man would not be able to distinguish between good and bad. From this he concluded: "What is exercised as a duty in a certain context of place, time and cause becomes an injustice under different conditions of place, time and cause."
See also
Web links
- Literature by and about injustice in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Deutsches Rechts-Lexikon , 2nd edition, Volume 3, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-36963-4 , keyword "Injustice"
- ↑ Federal Constitutional Court, judgment of February 25, 1975, Az. 1 BvF 1/74, 1 BvF 2/74, 1 BvF 3/74, 1 Bvf 4/74, 1 BvF 5/74, 1 BvF 6/94, BVerfGE 39 , 1 ff., Marginal number 187 ("abortion judgment")
- ↑ Lenckner / Eisele in: Schönke / Schröder: Commentary on the Criminal Code , 27th edition, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-51729-3 , Rn 51 before Section 13
- ↑ Federal Constitutional Court, decision of February 14, 1968, Az. 2 BvR 557/62, BVerfGE 23, 98
- ↑ Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics , Chapter 10. [Kinds of Law. Injustice and injustice]
- ↑ Debt or injustice. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 49, Leipzig 1746, column 1920–1922. P. 1920 ff.
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre , 7th book, 9th chapter.
- ^ Goethe's letter from Strasbourg to E. Th. Langer dated May 11, 1770.
- ^ Helmuth von Glasenapp in Faith and Rite of the High Religions in a Comparative Overview, page 118 (Fischer-Verlag 346), S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1960
