The justice that humans have between each other is nothing more than mimicking the natural concept of consequences.
Regardless of the attempts of people to build justice into their social systems, nature has its own justice that exists because it exists, not because someone proves that it is worthwhile or makes people happy.
However, it is important to note that good choices make the chooser happy, and very good choices make lots of other people happy (referring to the type of happiness Plato spoke of, not the type television wants you to believe in).
Because of this, people have had a tendency to enforce good choices on each other to ensure that communities and nations can have some progress toward happiness, branding this system "justice." When the justice system works properly, the community or nation actually does increase in happiness.
To address the concern about justice being "worthwhile" in the absence of its benefits, you should look at the inverse.
To fight against natural consequence (the self-existent justice) is more effort than accepting it and adjusting your life in accordance with it. How far would humanity have gotten if we had chosen to ignore the law of gravity? Rather, once we figured out the truths and consequences related to it, we have made entire systems designed to work with and around this law. In this specific example, Justice is served to those who ignore the law of gravity by removing from them the privilege of contributing to the gene pool.
So perhaps justice doesn't need to prove itself worthwhile, but it is very nice that it happens to bring happiness.
Regardless of the attempts of people to build justice into their social systems, nature has its own justice that exists because it exists, not because someone proves that it is worthwhile or makes people happy.
However, it is important to note that good choices make the chooser happy, and very good choices make lots of other people happy (referring to the type of happiness Plato spoke of, not the type television wants you to believe in).
Because of this, people have had a tendency to enforce good choices on each other to ensure that communities and nations can have some progress toward happiness, branding this system "justice." When the justice system works properly, the community or nation actually does increase in happiness.
To address the concern about justice being "worthwhile" in the absence of its benefits, you should look at the inverse.
To fight against natural consequence (the self-existent justice) is more effort than accepting it and adjusting your life in accordance with it. How far would humanity have gotten if we had chosen to ignore the law of gravity? Rather, once we figured out the truths and consequences related to it, we have made entire systems designed to work with and around this law. In this specific example, Justice is served to those who ignore the law of gravity by removing from them the privilege of contributing to the gene pool.
So perhaps justice doesn't need to prove itself worthwhile, but it is very nice that it happens to bring happiness.