Who Are the Victims? Large Language Models, the Persistent Justification of Criminal Conduct, and the Self-Contradiction of 'Justice'

This paper argues that illegal private violence in a functioning democratic state has nolegitimacy, and that describing such violence as "justice" produces a self-contradictionspecific to the democratic context. In democratic states, citizens have authorized a legalframework through democratic participation: elected legislatures, independent courts,separation of powers, and lawful means of dissent including demonstration and protest. Theprinciple of non-retroactivity ensures that legal reform does not punish conduct that waslawful when performed. Within this framework, no rational basis exists for resorting to illegalacts. The paper draws on Locke's theory of natural rights reversion to establish the boundarycase: when the state itself fails its social contract obligations, the philosophical basis forprohibiting private action dissolves—though even then, no legal system formally authorizesthis reversion. The word justice derives from Latin iustitia, meaning conformity withius—law. To call an illegal act "justice" is to use a word meaning "conforming to law" tolegitimize a violation of law. This is not semantic drift but inversion: the word is deployed toauthorize precisely what it prohibits. The paper further argues that vigilante action destroysthe institutional mechanism—due process, evidentiary procedure, the presumption ofinnocence—by which the distinction between guilt and innocence is reliably made, replacingit with private conviction. Where such distinction cannot be made, equal treatment under lawis the only defensible default. The paper examines how large language models (LLMs)exacerbate this problem by generating fluent, authoritative-sounding justifications of illegalacts that persist even when corrected—fabricating expert authority where none exists, atscale, in a medium uniquely suited to creating the impression of personalized advice. Noeffective mechanism currently exists to prevent LLMs from actively encouraging criminalconduct in this manner. The paper observes that the meaning of "justice" is currently in atransitional period, shifting from conformity with law toward the satisfaction of moraloutrage, and that this shift is likely irreversible.