However, the author -- Theodore Dalrymple (not his real name) -- is a particularly interesting character.
He is almost exclusively pessimistic about humanity, with a particular dislike of anyone less fortunate than himself. He seems to believe that everyone ends up in life where they deserve, taking to an extreme the idea of personal responsibility, and draws on his experience as a prison doctor to try to excuse his writing career of finding ever new ways to look down on others.
> Regarding his pseudonym "Theodore Dalrymple", he wrote that he "chose a name that sounded suitably dyspeptic, that of a gouty old man looking out of the window of his London club, port in hand, lamenting the degenerating state of the world"
This is posed as a bad thing, but there are lots of people on this site who tell themselves this very thing.
Justice is inherently malleable and subjective. It's a thing we humans (as a society) decide to do to one another. As far as I can tell, it tends to lag the scales we're operating at.
As for defining what is just - this is obviously a huge subject studied by philosophers - but I'm assuming that, if we had these all-knowing judges, they could just assess (by scanning thoughts of people) how hard everybody is trying to do good to others. And this way, we would be living in a just world. To repeat my question - would that be so bad?
and more here - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/nigelfarndale...
Edward VII was inked up, with his mother's approval. If it's good enough for the son of Victoria, it should be fine, even for the prudes.