We live in a relational and moral universe

I think she is right. Of
course particular relationships may be disordered and twisted. The point is not
that they always accomplish their purposes in the development of strong
individuals, families, and communities. It is this: even when they fail, our
response is not to campaign for the elimination of relationships. Instead we
work to repair them to the extent possible, and to restore the individuals in
them who have been harmed.

I believe that we also
live in a moral universe. While many laws are the result of the influence of
special interests, there are certain core values to which we commonly assent. This
is the familiar distinction between actions that are mala prohibita (wrong because it is prohibited) and those that are mala in se (wrong in and of itself).

Let me illustrate. The
reason that homicide rates are a good way of comparing crime among countries is
that murder is the highest-reported crime in virtually all countries and murder is against the law – it is
acknowledged as wrong – everywhere.

The legal definition
of murder may vary, and certainly enforcement does. In some countries
governments or other powerful forces murder with impunity. But the argument is
never made that murder is right. At most, it is that it is necessary to
accomplish a greater good. And even then, future generations and international
law frequently end up challenging that justification.

Why is this important
in the context of restorative justice? First, acknowledging a moral universe
gives us a framework in which to speak of justice and injustice. Injustice is
wrong and needs to stop. Those who benefit from it need to be held accountable
and those who were harmed should be cared for (e.g., Bernie Madoff’s fraud).

There is a difference
between death by natural causes, by murder, and by negligence. In all three
there is death and the loss that this causes. But when death is the result of
willful or negligent acts, there is further injury: the reality that but for
the actions of another it would not have taken place. That is an additional
injury to the survivors, and to the entire community, because the act should
never have happened.

Second, it allows us
to judge behaviour without drawing final conclusions about the character of the
people who did the deed. In The Gulag
Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about a lesson he learned in
prison, “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line
separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor
between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through
all human hearts.”

We can assess the
actions of others but we do not – should not – need to determine whether those who
do wrong are good or evil. Some peoples’ lives appear to be so intertwined with
either good or evil that we call them saints or monsters. These are, of course,
exceptional conditions; most of us act with some combination of both.

But within every saint
is the potential to do wrong; in every monster lies the potential to do good.
This is why restorative justice is so effective as a means of moral education. The
injustice the parties discuss is connected to a broad, communal sense of
justice but is also particularized into the specific circumstances of that
crime.

We need not concede
moral judgment to retributivists. Retribution is one form of response and of
moral education. Our argument is that restorative processes are better at
producing a just response, at holding offenders accountable, and at teaching
values.

If we lived in a
universe that was only moral, then retribution might be an effective response.
But because the universe is also relational, justice must be relational. I
believe that restorative justice achieves better results than conventional
criminal justice because it recognizes both attributes.