Justice

Question 1

The concept of justice

Answer 1

• Justice is an ideal that regulates social, economic and political relations between citizens, and between political communities
• John Rawls described justice as ‘the first virtue of political institutions.
o i.e. it is a virtue in that it is a moral desirable characteristic of political institutions, and it comes first because achieving justice is more important for political institutions than other considerations such as efficiency.
• Justice and injustice are present only in the action or inaction of moral agents.
• Justice concerns other-regarding actions

Question 2

Enforcing Justice

Answer 2

• One way that justice is distinct from other areas of morality is that injustice can justify coercive action. The demands of justice can permissibly be enforced.
• Like cases need to be treated alike

Question 3

Circumstances of Justice

Answer 3

• No one should end up worse off as a result of being wronged by another
• No one should benefit as a result a wrong done to another
• Marxist view of justice = under communism state withers away so there will be no need to make appeals to justice. People share the same goals so there is no injustice.
• We only need to worry about justice under certain conditions, conditions where ‘human cooperation is both possible and necessary’.
• These conditions are:
• Where there is moderate scarcity of goods, so that people need to compete and cooperate to achieve their ends. Benefits accrue from cooperation, but not everyone can get what they desire.
• Where agents are mutually vulnerable to one another.
• There is a plurality of outlooks and conceptions of the good life.

Question 4

Views on Justice

Answer 4

• Distributive justice = the principles that govern the benefits and burdens that come from social
• Rawls argued that fairness is the fundamental principle governing justice in a free society
• Utilitarians argue that society should be organised in a way that maximises utility
• Rawls argues that society should be organised to maximise fairness

Question 5

Justice and Society

Answer 5

• If we think of society as a cooperative scheme for mutual advantage, then principles of justice provide us with guidance on how to distribute the burdens and benefits that accrue from it.
• How burdens and benefits should be shared is the concern of distributive justice.
• Luck egalitarians aim to distribute resources so that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve wellbeing. This is a principle of distributive justice.

Question 6

Liberal Egalitarians and Justice

Answer 6

• John Rawls is the most famous and influential thinker about distributive justice.
• Rawls takes a resource-based approach.
• He argues that fairness is the fundamental principle governing justice in a free society.
• His theory represents an attempt to overcome the flaws he saw in utilitarianism.
• A fair society, according to Rawls, is one in which arbitrary distinctions affecting the distribution of goods are eliminated, and where there is a fair way of adjudicating between competing claims. Such a society has the following features:
• An equal set of basic and compatible liberties for all citizens (he draws on the negative conception of freedom).
• Inequalities are only permitted if the benefit the least well off and are distributed on the basis of fair equality of opportunity (quite similar to Cohen’s luck egalitarianism).
• He uses the Original Position/Veil of Ignorance thought experiment to model conditions of fairness.

Question 7

Right Libertarianism

Answer 7

• Libertarians place a higher value on freedom.
• Robert Nozick argued that Rawls is wrong to focus on the pattern of the distribution of burdens and benefits.
• Instead, he claimed that what matters is how the pattern was arrived at.
• If inequality arises as a result of people’s free choices in transferring goods over which they have a legitimate entitlement, then that inequality cannot be unjust.
• He uses the famous Wilt Chamberlain example to illustrate his entitlement theory.
• Nozick argues that redistributive taxation is akin to chattel slavery.

Question 8

Is communism Beyond Justice

Answer 8

• Marx advocated the abolition of private (non-personal) property and the equalisation of productive resources.
• Marx rejects the idea of justice - he says that communism is ‘beyond justice’.
• A communist society has no need for justice and rights because there is a harmony of interests (no competing claims) and a superabundance of resources. In other words - a communist society can only occur outside of the circumstances of justice (see Justice I).