An introduction to philosophies of justice

In this course, we will inves,gate contemporary theories of jus,ce, beginning with a review of the major schools of thought before turning to various topics related to jus,ce. Debates over jus,ce relate to ques,ons about rights, en,tlement, desert, and obliga,on-namely, what do we owe each other? How we answer these ques,ons have enormous effects on the nature of our poli,cal society, for good or ill. This is a survey course, meant to familiarize students with the most influen,al contemporary theories of jus,ce so that they can become well-versed in modern academic discourse about the topic and can apply those insights to wider poli,cal debates. It is meant to introduce students to a wide array of views, allowing them to develop their own concep,ons of jus,ce and be beYer situated when evalua,ng others. If, as John Rawls observed, jus,ce is "the first virtue of social ins,tu,ons," then grappling with this topic is the first duty of the ci,zen.

2020

This chapter introduces the idea of distributive justice. It identifies several different views of what characterizes distributive justice, as opposed to other types of justice and to nonjustice-based moral demands. The preconditions of distributive justice, its primary sub ject and its object, and its normative significance are discussed. The chapter then sug gests that bringing the diversity of usages of the concept of distributive justice into view helps cast light on some of the many contemporary debates about distributive justice and its limits. This chapter also introduces and outlines the different topics covered by the dif ferent sections and chapters of the book.

Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society

Justice, Theories of The question "What is justice" is the first problem addressed by Plato's Republic. It has remained a central question in all moral, legal and political thought. There are narrow and broad uses of the terms 'just' and 'justice.' In its narrowest sense, justice is close to lawfulness, and a just act is a legal one, meaning primarily that it is not illegal. Another narrow use is procedural, with the sense that certain decision-making procedures deliver a product that a state calls justice. In its broader senses, which are of the greatest interest to philosophers and other theorists, justice is thought of as an attribute either of acts, including transactions and decisions; of conditions, including rules and laws; or of entities, including persons, gods, societies and states. Aristotle held that the creation and maintenance of justice was the most important task of the state. A just state was ruled in the interests of the whole population, while an unjust state was ruled in the interests of its ruling class. Aristotle distinguished between distributive and commutative justice. The first deals with the distribution of rights, benefits, costs and responsibilities within a class, for example, among citizens of a state, among family members or among stakeholders in a corporation. The second, now widely known as retributive justice, deals with the treatment of individual persons or interests, for example, in a transaction or in meting out punishment. This second way of thinking about justice involves consideration of what people deserve according to some standard, such as law or precedence. Poetic justice, in which one unexpectedly gets what he or she deserves, is a notion of retributive justice. The distributive notion of justice involves, as Aristotle has it, treating equals equally and unequals according to their relevant inequality so that, for example, juveniles and adults are accorded differing rights and responsibilities with regard to alcohol, marriage, driving and voting. Injustice would clearly arise from treating a member of one class according to the rules laid down for the other class. Today theorists are unlikely to assert that there are two distinct conceptions involved in our thinking about justice, though most will agree that we have notions about justice that can be at odds with one another. Each of several employees might deserve all of the bonus dollars available in a given year, but it might still seem more just to divide the money among them. In that case, the desire for a kind of distribution is apparently at odds with the desire to give what is deserved. Some contemporary theorists emphasize the notion of distributive justice while others emphasize individual rights, and thus the retributive notion of justice. The concept of social justice takes justice as the attribute of a society in which a certain pattern of distribution is roughly realized throughout its most important institutions. In order to discover the right distributions, John Rawls attempts to produce a hypothetical social contract. His basic idea is that a contract made under certain constraints will guarantee justice. Discovering these constraints involves assuming a "veil of ignorance"we choose social arrangements from behind this veil by supposing that we must enter the world our policy choices create, though we are ignorant about how we will enter it, meaning that we might enter it in any condition of wealth or poverty,

Theorists have long debated whether John Rawls' conception of justice as fairness can be extended to nonideal (i.e. unjust) social and political conditions, and if so, what the proper way of extending it is. This paper argues that in order to properly extend justice as fairness to nonideal conditions, Rawls' most famous innovation*the original position*must be reconceived in the form of a 'nonideal original position'. I begin by providing a new analysis of the ideal/nonideal theory distinction within Rawls' theoretical framework. I then systematically construct a nonideal original position, showing that although its parties must have Rawls' principles of ideal justice and priority relations as background aims, the parties should be entirely free to weigh those aims against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions. Next, I show that the parties ought to aim to secure for themselves a special class of nonideal primary goods: all-purpose goods similar to Rawls' original primary goods, but which in this case are all-purpose goods individuals might use to (a) promote Rawlsian ideals under nonideal conditions, (b) weigh Rawls' principles of ideal justice and priority relations against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions, and (c) effectively pursue their most favored weighting thereof. Finally, I defend a provisional list of nonideal primary goods, and briefly speculate on how the parties to the nonideal original position might deliberate to principles of nonideal justice for distributing them.

Queen's University, 2015

In contemporary debates about justice, political philosophers take themselves to be engaged with a subject that’s narrower than the whole of morality. Many contemporary liberals, notably John Rawls, understand this narrowness in terms of context specificity. On their view, justice is the part of morality that applies to the context of a society’s institutions, but only has indirect application to the context of citizens’ personal lives (unlike the rest of morality). In contrast, many value pluralists, notably G.A. Cohen, understand justice’s narrowness in terms of singularity against a plural background. On their view, justice is one fundamental value amongst a plurality of fundamental values. The purpose of my thesis is to establish that the pluralist conception of justice’s narrowness is (a) theoretically significant and (b) true. To establish its theoretical significance, I argue that proper attention to the ways in which different understandings of narrowness inform the work of contemporary egalitarians explains a considerable amount of disagreement between them concerning the content and scope of distributive justice. On the one hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in the manner Cohen and other pluralists do, i.e., understand a conception of justice to be a conception of a particular fundamental value, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context are compelling. On the other hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in a contextual manner, i.e., understand justice to comprise one or more all-things-considered principles adopted for the institutional context, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context prove implausible. To establish the truth of the pluralist conception of narrowness, I argue first, that the contextual understanding is only plausible if fairness should be understood procedurally instead of substantively; and second, that substantive fairness cannot be eliminated, as specifying the content of procedural fairness requires a substantive criterion. The upshot is that justice’s narrowness is best understood in terms of singularity against a plural background, rather than in terms of context specificity.

South African Dental Journal, 2019

Justice is regarded as the greatest and most fundamental moral virtue, overarching and taking precedence over all others. Equally, however, Justice remains the most contentious moral, ethical, political and social issue of our time. Hence any attempts to define and describe Justice accurately, scientifically and exhaustively, will have limitations, which supports the multidimensionality of the nature and meaning of the concept. Justice is derived from a Latin word "jus" meaning right or law. It therefore follows that a just person obeys the law (lawful) and does what is right (morally, ethically). Synonymously, Justice means fairness, that is giving to persons what is due to them. 1 Philosophical enquiries on the concept of Justice as described below interrogate the nature and or character of Justice, and its application specifically in a political society. This elucidation of Justice will provide the basis for application of this complex concept to health care and oral health in particular. To capture this concept fully, this paper, which is a prelude (part one), will explore and define the construct of Justice. The second paper will provide application of the concept to oral health care. Plato and Aristotle are undoubtedly the most celebrated and influential early philosophers, credited for shaping much of the Western moral thought. These scholars conceptualised Justice and brought to the fore its essential form. They jointly defined Justice in terms of its characteristics or quality that makes all things that are just, just. Plato and Aristotle defined Justice as a component of general virtue, that is the particular excellence of a thing, or something possessed by a thing or some quality of a thing that enable the thing to do what it does very well. 2,3 Following this discourse, these scholars were able to construct and understand Justice and its implication in achieving its inherent purpose. The exploration of Plato and Aristotle's philosophy will assist us to understand the general and specific nature of Justice. That is, understanding fully the quality of Justice that allows the individual and society to do what they are meant to do very well: to live in harmony. In his celebrated work, The Republic, 4,5 Plato defines Justice as a critical virtue necessary to establish societal order. At a personal level Justice embodies personal order that is individual goodness and obedience of laws. According to Plato an individual is just insofar that he can achieve: i). wisdom or Justice of the mind ii). temperance or Justice of the senses iii). courage or Justice of the heart These individual dispositions are characteristics that enable Justice to be achieved. At a societal level Justice is synonymous with piety, which symbolises a relationships with god(s) and the laws governing the Republic or State.

LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES LAW REVIEW

In this Article I will attempt to explain how and why punishment can be justified. I will develop a retributionist, or lex talionis, theory of punishment, including related principles of proportionality. I will not follow the order of some theorists who derive principles of punishment from a theory of rights or from some other ethical or utilitarian theory. Instead, I will follow the opposite approach in which justifying punishment itself defines and justifies our rights.