Recently two incidents caught my eye. One is the publication of “The Story of Hong Gildong” by Penguin, adding a Korean title to the celebrated Penguin Classics. The other is the Go match between a human and a machine, which turned out to be a victory of artificial intelligence over the human mind at first, and then human victory over the computer.

The two memorable events incidentally made me brood over the question: “What is justice?”

Hong Gildong resembles Robin Hood in the sense that as the leader of outlaw bandits, he “steals from the rich and gives to the poor.” For that reason, Hong Gildong is a superhero in Korea just like Robin Hood, as he defies the social hierarchy and distributes wealth. Koreans are enormously fond of Hong because they believe he brings justice to the unjust Korean society.

What, then, is justice? Koreans’ perception of justice seems rather simple: equal distribution of wealth and ridding the upper class of their privileges. Undoubtedly, this resembles a socialist idea rather than a capitalist one because in a capitalist society, class-consciousness inevitably exists, as does the gap between the haves and have-nots. Perhaps then, it is socialism, rather than capitalism, that suits the Korean psyche.

The problem is that the Korean concept of “justice” could be labeled as “injustice” in other capitalist countries. By the same token, Hong Gildong can be charged as a criminal in modern society since he commits grand larceny, even if it is for a noble cause.

In 1971, the late French thinker Michel Foucault appeared on a Dutch TV show to discuss the relationship between justice and power with Noam Chomsky. While Chomsky believed in the conventional meaning and value of justice, Foucault came up with a more complex notion of justice that was not independent of power.

Foucault said, “If you like, I will be a little bit Nietzschean about this; in other words, it seems to me that the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power, or as a weapon against that power.”

Here Foucault implied that the notion of “justice” could be arbitrary because it was socially constructed by those who possessed political power. That means that what we perceive as justice could be seen as injustice when the regime changes. Then he went on to provide a dual perspective of “justice” by implying that “justice” could also be used by the oppressed “as a weapon against that power.” If so, “justice” can cut both ways. The same goes for “truth.” Foucault added, “I think it is too hasty to characterize our systems of justice as merely systems of class oppression; I don’t think they are that.”

Perhaps, that is why Michael Sandel does not provide a fixed answer to the question, “What is justice?” In his critically acclaimed book, “What is the Right Thing to Do?” In his book, Sandel suggests through numerous anecdotes that it is impossible to define “justice” and to answer the question, “What is right and what is wrong.” Interestingly, the Korean publisher switched the title of Sandel’s book to “What is Justice?” because obviously she thought the new title would appeal more strongly to the Korean mind. Thanks to the altered title, Sandel’s book became an instant best-seller in Korea.

Indeed, Koreans are less interested in asking “What is the right thing to do?” than in “What is justice?” because they think justice is not served properly in Korean society due to the status of the privileged.

The match between AlphaGo, the computer program developed by Google DeepMind, and Lee Se-dol, the renowned Korean Go master also led me to contemplate justice. Initially, the human Go master admitted his defeat. Now that is justice. On the contrary, our newspapers began, as usual, complaining that it was an unfair game because it was a match between one man and 1,200 computers. But the machine could have complained too, pointing out that it was an unfair match between hundreds of thousands human neurons and only 1,200 computers. Why do we find it difficult to admit defeat? Why do we always come up with excuses? That is far from “justice.” When Lee won the match later, the machine did not complain or come up with excuses. 

In contemporary Korean society, you can frequently hear a complaint, “That is against social and economic equilibrium. We demand justice!” As Foucault and Sandel point out, however, it is not easy to define “justice” because it can be arbitrary and elusive depending on who holds the power. What we perceive as “justice” can be “injustice” to others. We now live in a complex world.

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and the president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. -- Ed.