Justice

Cards (17)

  • (Greek) Justice as harmony: a just society is one which everyone fulfills their roles so that society runs smoothly -> violating place in social order is unjust (even if its a place you don't want to be)
  • Justice as equality: everyone should get the same kind and amount of stuff
  • Needs-based justuce: everyone shouldn't get the same, because our needs aren't the same
  • Merit-based justice: giving unequally based on what each person deserves
  • Rawls - Justice as fairness: any inequalities in a social system should favour the least well-off, because this equalizes society
    • essential human rights: we are entitles to have basic needs fulfilled - negative and positive rights
  • retributive justice: the only way to be satisfied is to make a wrongdoes suffer in proportion to the same way they made others suffer
  • wellfare maximization: no good to be found in vindictively causing pain to wrongdoes but some form of punishment is still in order (ie. rehabilitation and detterence)
  • restorative justice: amends over revenge
  • "justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is to systems of thought."
    • the same way you would judge an idea beased off of how true it is, we should judge the legitimacy of our social institutions based on how just they are
  • distributive justice:
    • people work togeather (society) -> "surplus value" (primary social goods) created from efficiency -> where does this surplus value get allocated, and how should it be distributed?
  • primary social goods
    • income, power, wealth
    • rights, liberties, oppertunities
  • inequalities should exist within a society
    • an inequality is just as long as its based on some sort of work or effort that somebody has put in
  • original position:
    • veil of ignorance: not knowing anything about your life in this society when redesigning society - how would rational, impartial human beings create society
    • Maxamin rule: give the least advantaged the best situation possible in comparison to all other potential societies
  • Rawls was not a fan of socialism, argued that it achieved equality at the expense of everyone
  • Justice as fairness:
    • social and economic inequalities must be to everyones advantage
    • such social and economic inequalities must be attatched to positions that are equally open to all
    • protecting against a system with different classes
    • no position in society is reserved for a specific person or type of person
    1. legal barriers
    2. birth status barriers
    3. talent and effort to excel barriers ** if this is the only inequality within a society than it is true equality of oppertunity
  • difference principle: remove inequalities within a society as much as we can until the removal of further inequalities would cause harm to the least advantaged
    • efficiency principle: idea that we should find people in society that need help, and help them as much as we can until helping them would cause harm to someone else