I think at its most basic, justification is simply, "An answer to why I make my choice/conclusion".

Justification can be deductive or inductive. In general, I favor justifications that rely on as much deductive reasoning as possible, and where that fails, probability and possibilities for types of inductions. Generally justification that relies on pluasibilities, or "Things we can imagine as being possible, but we have not actually confirmed that they are possible" is not good enough.

For example: Consciousness lives on after we die. There is no fact or possibility (that it has been confirmed to have happened at least one time) but only plausibility. We imagine its possible, but we haven't actually confirmed that it is. This is not a good enough justification to believe the claim, therefore rationally we should not agree with it.

I only think its possible to 'justify' as far as 'it wasn't entirely arbitrary'. Beyond that, I think its not al that possible to 'justify' much at all. There's no objective moral to use.

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument?

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid? — Vera Mont

I don't. I have never been asked why I chose to do a particular thing in moral terms. I generally just do it (feel my way through) and, if pressed, can provide post hoc justifications.

Like all of us, I hold presuppositions or axioms: to promote human flourishing; not to cause suffering. But such principles and the justifications they can engender are interpretive and lack precision. I see morality as essentially a code of conduct that is an evolving conversation over time. It is never conclusively arrived at, is subject to continual revisions and has variations across communities.

Is justification the same as reason, apology, exculpation, defense, plea, rationale, rationalization, pretext, excuse - or something else? — Vera Mont

The word defence is what came to my mind.
A defence for doing something that would otherwise be wrong, or is alleged to be wrong. The justification would be valid if it gives sufficient reason for the wrong, or means no wrong occurred.

What criteria do you use when judging someone's justification for a policy or a course of action? Is it different from the criteria you apply to justifications for an isolated act? — Vera Mont

I think it is the same for an isolated act as for a course of action, policy etc. The criteria is that either the ends justify the means, or that the accusation that a wrong occurred is factually incorrect.

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument?

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid?

Examples from any area of experience would be helpful. — Vera Mont

The selling of drugs. A valid justification could be that (a) Selling drugs does not harm anyone, or, (b) Selling drugs is a net good (whether an overriding principle of adults to make their own decision, or, because the pleasures they bring people outweigh the sufferings). A strong justification could be an individual selling drugs to fund medical care for a dying family member.

A strong justification could be an individual selling drugs to fund medical care for a dying family member. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I think that would count as a mitigation or perhaps excuse. It doesn't justify the act; it only explains the motive.
To justify selling a particular drug (say, morphine) to a particular person (say, one who is terminally ill and looking for a way out, though suicide is illegal) because you believe that person should have a right to that drug would be a justification. IMO.

I would use justification and excuse synonymously.
It depends on your moral foundation - if you are consequentialist you would say the action of selling drugs is good if it leads to a net good outcome. In consequentialism the goodness or badness or an action is judged wholly by its consequences.
Mitigation would be used if we accept the action is wrong. It would be arguments that the individual/s that done the wrong were not fully to blame, or that we should be more lenient on them.

It would be arguments that the individual/s that done the wrong were not fully to blame, or that we should be more lenient on them. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Yes.

n consequentialism the goodness or badness or an action is judged wholly by its consequences. — Down The Rabbit Hole

In which case, selling drugs would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: which drug, to whom, under what circumstances; how did they use it, what affect it had. Doesn't that require a lot of usually unavailable information? How does the dealer justify it to a jury?

How does the dealer justify it to a jury? — Vera Mont

Very, VERY different question that shifts the entire conversation to a different goalpost (not sure you intended to do that - just being clear why its not addressed here).

Selling drugs is case-by-case. But, you can lump individuals as 'a case'. If someone is uscrupulously selling drugs in an area where by and large, impoverished children seek them you can round up all their cases under this banner to deal with the overall risk.
If a drug dealer was to claim they have a moral framework, i'd want to hear it and discuss it with them. I, in fact, was one of these dealers for some time.

Very, VERY different question that shifts the entire conversation to a different goalpost (not sure you intended to do that - just being clear why its not addressed here). — AmadeusD

All kinds of different situations call for justification. It might be defense of a philosophical argument in an academic setting; it might be a confrontation with a spouse or employer who questions a decision; it might be advocacy for an allocation of funds in a city council; it might be criminal trial.
I set no 'goalposts' - I asked a question about the definition and usage of a word we encounter every day and rarely examine.

But, you can lump individuals as 'a case'. — AmadeusD

No, you can't 'lump' individuals - they're all separate - and the plural of anything does not make 'a case'. You might be able to make a single case for a particular kind of situation, but you would first have to show how all the specific instances have enough commonalities to justify their being considered as a single case.

In which case, selling drugs would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: which drug, to whom, under what circumstances; how did they use it, what affect it had. Doesn't that require a lot of usually unavailable information? How does the dealer justify it to a jury? — Vera Mont

Per consequentialism, we could be justified in acting on what is most likely to produce the best outcome. We don't have to KNOW it will produce the best outcome. Doing nothing has consequences too.

Yes, it would have to be judged case by case. Usually we say selling drugs is a bad thing due to the harm it does, but it is baked into my scenario that it would fund treatment to save a family member's life. The harm would have to outweigh that. Which unless sold over a long period, probably won't - especially if its soft drugs like marijuana.

In which case, selling drugs would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: which drug, to whom, under what circumstances; how did they use it, what affect it had. Doesn't that require a lot of usually unavailable information? How does the dealer justify it to a jury? — Vera Mont

A sharp point. Therefore the pragmatic approach to notions of "correct action" is to recognise the need for a separation in terms of global constraints coupled to local freedoms.

Human social structure needs to form its own long-term behavioural norms – framed as generalised aspirations or balances. This get justified as a code of law or whatever. Some at large conversation tries to boil life down to livable maxims.

Then individuals should be free to act in whatever way they choose within those globally-understood bounds. A lot of those individual actions may in fact not matter. Like whether to wear a black or red tie. But if the occasion is a funeral, then some kind of justification might be needed for why a red tie was chosen. You forgot, red was your dead dad's favourite colour, whatever.

The strength of the justification only has to match the strength of the social constraint. A lame excuse is fine if the constraint sort of exists as a general dress code rule, but who really cares about dress codes anymore? The moral settings of society as it is today has pretty much agreed that this is an aspect of life that has slid right down the charts – compared to murder or drug dealing.

So the point is that justification is intrinsically social. Negotiation is to be expected as there is a balance always to be struck between the generality of social norms and the particularity of every individual's circumstances. And thus what we should expect living in a pragmatically moral social order is this balance between globalised constraints and individualised freedoms.

The community is rightly serving its long-run interests in terms of feeding, housing, reproducing its way of life – a way that has proven itself functional over a long period despite life's inevitable perturbations. And individuals are rightly serving their own local or short term self-interests within this generally acknowledged and regularly debated understanding of how to act.

When called upon, they must show that they too have thought about their actions in a socially-responsible manner. And within that call for justification there is still the natural latitude to try to get away with what you might be able to get away with even lame and implausible excuses. It is part of the game.

Just being sorry is pretending that at least you do acknowledge the social constraints to be something real and so you are still an active part of the community in question.

I set no 'goalposts' — Vera Mont

Ahem.

justify it to a jury — Vera Mont

This is a Neon Green goalpost, totally different to personal justification. That's my point. And it's correct.

o, you can't 'lump' individuals - they're all separate — Vera Mont

I don't think you've read my post correctly. When i say "lump individuals" I am talking about that individual's drug-dealing career as a 'case'. Not several individuals. Sorry if that was unclear.

Dealer A sells drugs 200 times. This is one of the unscrupulous dealers.
Those 200 times constitute a "case". There is no need to look at every sale. The risk factor is high enough to "justify" some kind of response (on this account) whereas a dealer who does not unscrupulously sell drugs may need a more thorough analysis. Again, this is just talking within your framework - I don't think either makes too much sense, myself. But that's to do with the inadequacy of cultural/social attitudes to drugs, so you can ignore that if you like.

Given the above clarification, the final line is nonsensical, understandably so, and so i've not responded to it.

So the point is that justification is intrinsically social. Negotiation is to be expected as there is a balance always to be struck between the generality of social norms and the particularity of every individual's circumstances. And thus what we should expect living in a pragmatically moral social order is this balance between globalised constraints and individualised freedoms. — apokrisis

I like this explanation. Will have to reflect on it.

Ahem.

justify it to a jury — Vera Mont
This is a Neon Green goalpost, totally different to personal justification. That's my point. And it's correct. — AmadeusD

True. in the specific case, as an answer to an example. Not a goalpost; not in the OP.

When i say "lump individuals" I am talking about that individual's drug-dealing career as a 'case'. Not several individuals. Sorry if that was unclear. — AmadeusD

I didn't understand it that way, though someone else might have. Okay. How does one justify a career in drug-dealing? I assume you take into account the drug and the customer-base.

whereas a dealer who does not unscrupulously sell drugs may need a more thorough analysis — AmadeusD

Hoe do you judge a dealer's scruples in retrospect, not having witnessed his sales? It's up to him or his advocate to offer a justification, explanation, excuse or mitigating circumstance.

Then individuals should be free to act in whatever way they choose within those globally-understood bounds. — apokrisis

Interesting. Makes morality sound like a problem of maximizing entropy under constraints.

True. in the specific case, as an answer to an example. Not a goalpost; not in the OP. — Vera Mont

You've sort of... nevermind.

Okay. How does one justify a career in drug-dealing? — Vera Mont

Please re-read my comments as I have thoroughly outlined how this could be done. We are third parties. The person themselves just needs to be honest. We can't make further comment.

Hoe do you judge a dealer's scruples in retrospect, not having witnessed his sales? It's up to him or his advocate to offer a justification, explanation, excuse or mitigating circumstance. — Vera Mont

This is, again, a legal description of a possible answer. I'm not doing that, though.
The justification is purely one toward the individual's moral compass. Personally? I would need to see which drugs, where, how often, whether there are any consideration of the wider social implications(locally) and whether or not the dealer is actually developing and moving forward in life. But, that's for them to assess.

My point is that justification is a nonsense. The above seems to suggest this, as we have to exclude an authority to which something is being justified (jury, judge, police, wife, children.. whatever) meaning instances of justification are actually just assuagement.

Interesting. Makes morality sound like a problem of maximizing entropy under constraints. — Apustimelogist

It is based on thermo-maths but of the "far from equilibrium" kind of a self-organising dissipative structure.

So it is the hierarchical model that an ecologist would bring to studying nature as a stable long-run biological enterprise. A system that has to live within its environmental constraints by balancing the complementary forces of global cooperation and local competition.

What criteria do you use when judging someone's justification for a policy or a course of action? Is it different from the criteria you apply to justifications for an isolated act?

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid? — Vera Mont

This is a massive question.

A justification for a policy can be more narrow and include less factors, whereas a justification for an isolated act can include anything. To justify a policy, we generalize principles, objects and actors but include only a few of these generalized things. Murder shall be punished. Simple policy, few objects needed, justification is enough objects and reasonings to show murder is bad so policy against it is good, or functional, and so justified, and we are done.

To justify an isolated act, we can use specifics and particular principles and objects, and we can use as many as we need to, as we want to.

If we ask how a justification is valid, we may be asking “what is a justification?” because a justification may be a validation.

Before applying this to morality, and justifications for policies or actual individual acts, we can apply it to simply knowledge. There is a definition of knowledge that says knowledge is justified true belief. This is a less colorful use of “justified” but maybe just as necessary to knowledge as justification is necessary to morality, to doing the right thing. To selling the right drugs to the right people for the right reasons.

Massive question. Thorny knot.

:up: :up:

What criteria do you use when judging someone's justification for a policy or a course of action? — Vera Mont

A two-step criterion: (1) performative self- consistency, if an action/policy is not, then the relevant, problematic inconsistency should be exposed and possibly reformed; (2) efficacious harm-prevention/reduction, if an action/policy is not, then It should be opposed and/or replaced with an evidently more efficacious alternative.

Is it different from the criteria you apply to justifications for an isolated act?

I don't know what you mean in this context by "isolated act".

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument?

I rely heavily on (to the best of my ability) non-fallacious, defeasible, sound reasoning.

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid?

Whenever a moral agent acts/doesn't act (re: harm) or a public/private institution enacts policies which affect the public (re: injustice) I think are grounds for requiring justification.

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument? — Vera Mont

To formulate an argument, logic, specifically the LNC. To formulate an argument is, after all, merely to construct a judgement, which is nothing but to think a relation of conceptions.

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid? — Vera Mont

The validity of a judgement is not the same as its appropriateness, in that the former is given immediately from its construction, insofar as the validity of a relation is determined by its logical possibility, but the latter is determined solely by its mediated correspondence to experience.

What criteria do you use when judging someone's justification….. — Vera Mont

I cannot judge another’s justifications, in that I cannot know which relations he has employed in his internal constructions. All that is available to me, is the affect he has on me, so all I’m doing, is judging the effect, which resides in me, not its cause which resides in him.

The justification is purely one toward the individual's moral compass. — AmadeusD

In a legal situation, it is not. One of the very common situations in which we find ourselves having to offer justification for our actions is the legal arena. Dealing drugs is very clearly against the law - unless you have a pharmacist's license. A court of law is where such matters are decided by other people. The hypothetical honest criminal may justify his action in his own mind. Different criteria are applied externally and internally.
This was a single example, with which I chose to deal on its own real-world terms.

There are many other, quite different situations in which people are required to justify their opinions and/or actions: in politics, interpersonal relations, business, education, academia, science, civil compliance, religion, intellectual argument, even in writing fiction. Each situation has its own place and terms.

Simple policy, few objects needed, justification is enough objects and reasonings to show murder is bad so policy against it is good, or functional, and so justified, and we are done. — Fire Ologist

Terrific summary!

Before applying this to morality, and justifications for policies or actual individual acts, we can apply it to simply knowledge. — Fire Ologist

That was my premise: we can - and do - apply it to everything. Not just moral and legal issues, but personal hyginene, opinions, financial decisions.

We constantly ask one another to justify an opinion or statement of fact or even taste in music.
Yet we assume we all mean the same thing when we ask for, offer and accept or reject a justification.

A two-step criterion: (1) performative self- consistency; if an action/policy is not, then the relevant, problematic inconsistency should be exposed and possibly reformed. (2) efficacious harm-prevention/reduction; if an action/policy is not, then It should be opposed and/or replaced with an evidently more efficacious alternative. — 180 Proof

Yess! Clear, coherent and logical.

I don't know what you mean in this context by "isolated act". — 180 Proof

I meant to distinguish the agenda of a publicly constituted entity, such as a board of education, from the idiosyncratic one-time behaviour of an individual - say, pissing in an alley.

Both of which are, of course, distinct from the most common situation in which we are challenged to justify our statements: classrooms and philosophy forums.

So, you never ask another poster to justify a philosophical position? You never ask a child "What were you thinking?" or a colleague "Can you explain why this report is two days late?" or a spouse "What'd you go and say that for?"
most people do. I try not to, but it's hard to resist.

Yes, sometimes I do ask for justifications, but these are asked from an interest rather than knowledge. This then gets me into a whole different class of cognitions and the logical grounds for them. In a matter of mere interest, I can be shown to be misguided but cannot be proven wrong, whereas in matters of knowledge I can be shown to be both misguided and wrong.

Yes it appears massive. Part of this is that very few (if any) human behaviors are purely positive (good) or negative (evil) regardless of context. Thus in order to determine the morality (or immorality) of this or that choice, detailed contextual effects should be weighed. That is, the cumulative positives and negatives summed to arrive at a final answer that determine whether the overall positives outweigh the negatives. In this usage, the positives are commonly labelled as "justifications" because of their role relative to the known (or imagined) negatives of the behavioural choice.

Is justification the same as reason, apology, exculpation, defense, plea, rationale, rationalization, pretext, excuse - or something else? — Vera Mont

I would describe it as picture painting. The reasons for doing so vary depending the criteria. Justification can be a statement, a reply or a discussion with yourself. Each is quite different and serves different purposes.

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument? — Vera Mont

Who I am talking to, what I want to say and how I may be wrong.

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid? — Vera Mont

Cynicism. This is true for my own justifications and others.

The simple truth is humans lie to themselves probably more than they lie to others. Watching how others justify themselves can help us understand some ways in which we fool ourselves.

Examples from any area of experience would be helpful. — Vera Mont

I have no reason to justify myself to you ;)

Is justification the same as reason, apology, exculpation, defense, plea, rationale, rationalization, pretext, excuse - or something else? — Vera Mont

Justification consists in giving reasons. There would seem to be an ineliminable normativity inherent in the very idea of giving reasons, whether to oneself or to others.

What criteria do you use when judging someone's justification for a policy or a course of action? Is it different from the criteria you apply to justifications for an isolated act? — Vera Mont

As I see it a policy or a course of action should be judged not just on moral grounds but in consideration of its likely effectiveness in achieving its aims. An isolated act would analogously be judged in terms of its consequences.

When justifying your own actions or statements, according to what factors do you formulate your argument? — Vera Mont

The central criteria here would be intention, honesty and good will with regard to statements, as well as consequences in relation to actions. Consequences may also be salient criteria in the case of statements, but it depends on context.

On what grounds do you decide whether a justification is appropriate and valid? — Vera Mont

On the grounds of relevance, coherency and consistency.

Strong justification: We should adopt a "pay as you throw," fee system for our city's garbage collection services. This gives people an incentive to produce less garbage. Since available landfill capacity near the city is running out, it is imperative that we try to minimize garbage production since prices will spike dramatically when the current landfill reaches capacity. All empirical data suggests that "pay as you throw," reduces waste and we can still give discounts to low income households to avoid any regressive taxation.

Weak justification: Brenda down at DPW doesn't like the idea of having to print out bills of all different amounts. It's easier to do a flat rate because you can just stuff the envelopes and take the afternoon off.

Terrible justification: The Mayor says that because Mercury is in transit he feels that we should immediately halt all rubbish collection and tell people to burn their trash as an offering to Apollo.

Obviously, the type of justification required depends on the area of discourse.

As to what a justification is, it's simply a reason given as to why an action performed was right or reasonable from the point of view of the person being justified. It is also sometimes an explanation of a way that it would be permissible from their point of view, implying the true justification but not stating it, usually due to not wanting to state an unprovable claim. The word is sometimes used in other contexts, but this is the most common.

We generally decide that a justification is valid if (provided the above assumption) it makes whatever action morally permissible from the person's point of view, making them justified.

However, due to the nature of many justifications, there is also an element of credibility to this (evidence, reliability, and how realistic the justification is are all factors in its credibility). For example, even if it is true, we might not believe that a man thought that his cat was a bird (and therefore had no problem dropping it off a staircase), but it might be true.
The better justification in this case, though, would be the mental illness the man likely possesses.

Right - o. This seems to just be a circle at this stage, ignoring all else outside of it.