Q: "is justice a thought or a process" Flashcards
Intro:
CLAIM: Justice should be thought of as an ideal and a process.
Rawls would argue that justice is both an ideal and a process. Rawls argues that justice is the “first virtue” of societies, and through the veil of ignorance method concludes that justice should be thought of as fairness. Rawls argues that from this conception of justice, because people are operating within principles they agreed upon in the veil of ignorance, they would be both free and equal.
Rawls argues that utilitarianism ought to be rejected because the principle of utility is incompatible with the conception of social cooperation among equalist for mutual advantage - i.e it is too egoist. If we accept
Sandel argues the veil of ignorance cannot work as we cannot genuinely be unbiased and objective. Riffing of Nietzsche’s attack on Plato.
Hayek: liberty 1st; Rawls’s argument is incompatible. Social justice is empty and meaningless. Orwell.
CLAIM: Justice should be thought of as mainly a process, because ideal redistributive justice is incompatible with the inalienable right to liberty.
Nozick argues that justice cannot be thought of as an ideal, because that would violate natural property rights and natural liberty rights. Distributive justice is not acceptable therefore.
What type of freedom are we looking at? Problems with overvaluing freedom.
Taxation is theft… Entrenching social inequalities.
CLAIM: Any approach to justice as an ideal isn’t founded on anything. Rather, justice can only be thought of as a process.
Utilitarianism. Justice should not be based on ideals for Bentham or Mill because these are “nonsense on sticks”. Rather, justice should work as a process of quantifying.
