Week 6 - Justice Flashcards
Pre Class: Idea of Lady justice
Dates back to ancient Greece
Balancing scales… impartiality and obligation of the law to weigh evidence presented in court
Sword: enforcement and respect
Blindfold: recent addition (16th c), critique of the legal establishment at the time
- To say the law was being abusive/ ignorant to the needs of the people
- Has now gained new meaning of impartiality
What is justice?
Perpetual debate over justice is a debate between an ideal and a practice
Dates back to plato and aristotle who offered fundamentally different but foundational philosophies
Plato’s republic: justice as a form of individual harmony within the state
A just state will produce a just individual
Plato’s proposes 4 parts:
- Human soul: reason, spirit, appetite
- Justice occurs when these parts are in harmony and reason is ruling over spirit and appetite
- A right between the individual and the state - Society has 4 parts: rulers, philosophers, warriors, producers
- Works when each part performs its role without interfering with the others - Allegory of the cave: prisoners have been kept in dark cave since birth and they are positioned in such a way that all they can see is the cave wall in front of them, puppeteers cast shadows on the wall, prisoners believe these shadows are the entirety of reality
- In this allegory one prisoner escapes and sees that ultimately there are objects, etc
- Ultimately, the prisoner goes back to the cave but other prisoners do not believe him because they have only seen the cave
- Plato says the pursuit of justice is the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and wisdom and that once found you have an obligation to share it with everyone - Justice is an ideal form
To summarize Plato’s concept of justice:
- Justice occurs when the 3 parts of the human soul are in harmony
- There must be a ‘right’ relationship between the individual and the state
- There must be a pursuit of knowledge
Justice is an ‘ideal form’
Aritstotles view of justice is more practical and grounded in realities of human behaviour… 4 parts:
- Distinction between 2 types of justice: dstributive justice (distribution based on needs of community) and corrective justice (addresses injustices from transactions, restoration of balance through legal means)
- Virtue: a just person is someone who acts in accordance with virtue and moderation, justice is the middle ground between having too much and too little of something (ie: a middle class person)
- Justice is inherently tied to the polis, justice impacts state-society relationships, tied to the common good… a just society will promote the well being of its citizens
Plato concerned with your soul, aristotle with your body (that you actually experience justice) - Wisdom: you don’t just know what justice is but it is tied to specific situations (not specific rules), requires wisdom to discern between different contexts
All thinkers who follow plato/ aristotle fall along these lines
St. augustine’s concept of justice (6 themes)
Siding with plato, very influential thinker on justice
A monk: deeply intertwined with his christian beliefs
6 themes:
1. Justice is fundamentally linked to god
- To be just is to be like god and to obey god
2.There is a natural law, which is a reflection of God’s Eternal law
- This natural law provides a moral framework that governs human behaviour, helps individuals discern right from wrong
- A just city is the city of god and an unjust city the city of man
- City of god a community of christians living together according to defined principles
- City of man a secular community governed by immorality
- To be just we must turn the city of man into the city of god - Justice is tied to both love and charity
- Highest form of justice rooted in love, love for god and love for your neighbour
- Justice not only about following rules, but you also must love the natural law (must love others) - Humans are inherently flawed and prone to justice
- We can only achieve true justice through grace (mercy of god) which allows us to act justly, despite our nature being unjust - There is an earthly justice and an ultimate justice
- Like plato, justice an ideal
- Earthly justice (in city of man) is imperfect because humans are flawed
- Ultimate justice can only be true in heaven
Hobbes concept of justice (6 elements)
- State of nature
- A condition where individuals act out of self interest
- State of war of all against all
- Life characterised by fear and chaos, no one to establish authority/ order so there is no justice - The social contract
- To escape the anarchy of human nature we enter the social contract
- We relinquish certain freedoms in return for order and security
- Justice arises from this contract as it produces societal norms - Convenants or agreements
- Justice is fundamentally about keeping convenants/ agreements
- An action is just if it aligns with the agreements made within the social contract
- Justice is not inherent but is defined by the laws given by the sovereign
- Justice does not just exist (like it does for plato), for hobbes justice is created in relation to the laws of the sovereignty (justice is created and relative) - Moral relativism
- What is just in one society may differ in another depending on the agreements that were made - Dependance on the authority of the sovereign
- The sovereign hold absolute power to enforce laws and maintain order
- Justice is dependant on the authority of the sovereign - Means to security and peace
- Power is invested in a sole authority for the purposes of security and peace
- For hobbes, we pursue justice to secure peace
- Maintenance of order and peace necessary for stable/ secure society
Kant’s concept of justice (6)
6 concepts:
1. True justice arises from an adherence to moral law
- In the categorical imperative: one should act according to maxims that can universally applied (not relative, but global… what is right in x must also be right in y, z)
- We should not see individuals as a means to an end, but as ends in themselves (the only way to protect their autonomy and dignity)
- There are two types of justice; legal and moral
- Legal: based on civil law, pertains to societal laws, moral: based on ethical principles, focuses on ethical implications of our actions - Justice is retributive
- Punishment a necessary response to wrongdoing
- Argues that punishment should be proportionate to the crime but justice demands that kind of accountability - Justice must be universal
- Just actions must be judged on whether basic principles could be accepted universally
- Without exception
- The fundamental concept of equality (not equity) - Justice means treating people as ends and not means
- A kingdom of ends: a hypothetical community where individuals act according to the principles of morality
- Not engaging because of what they can do for you - Mutual respect and ethical consideration - Civil society and legal frameworks are essential for justice
- Individuals must come together to form laws that reflect moral principles
Rawl’s Justice as Fairness:
A just society must be structures in such a way that individuals would agree on the principles of justice from a hypothetical original position
In modern societies power lies within the people, so if we have the power to decide what justice is how will we agree?
In ancient cultures, there was a central power giving authority, in the absence of this we cannot impose one view of justice over another
Because we can’t coerce we must deliberate → issue is that we will deliberate from our different positions
Our differences are a massive problem for justice: they blind us to the injustices to others
Veil of Ignorance:
FIXES RAWL’S JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS
Obscures our personal characteristics, ensures that none of us has an unfair advantage in deciding the principles that will govern society
A thought experiment that encourages us to select principles that would be just for everyone as they must consider own positions without self interest
Institutional Justice: Establish justice from an objective point of view (justice as fairness)
Problem: we are not objective beings → why this is an ideal theory of justice
A tool to help us think through forms of justice which could become institutions of justice
Rawls Primary Goods
Primary goods refer to the basic social goods that are necessary for individuals to pursue their own conception of the good life, these include;
Basic rights and liberties
Opportunity (fair access, etc)
Wealth and income
Social bases of self respect (assurance of being treated fairly within society)
In this theory Rawls argues a just society should distribute these goods in a way that benefits the least advantaged individuals in society
Aims to create condition where all individuals have means to produce their own goals
Critique: Sen says we should emphasise capabilities
Sen’s Capabilities approach:
Shifts goal from distribution of resources to the actual opportunities individual 4 concepts:
1. Functionings and capabilities
2. Agency (individual agency emphasised, recognises that different people may value different things, justice should enable different ways to gain the ‘good life’)
3. Well being (looking at resources available, societal conditions of individuals available to individual in certain contexts)
4. Contextual sensitivity (approach sensitive to cultural contexts, recognises that capabilities may vary, what constitutes a good life in one society may not be applicable against all societies)
5. Equality (all individuals should have a fair opportunity to develop their capabilities, importance of addressing structural inequalities)
Focus on real opportunities
Young’s Five Faces of Oppression
Young an influential thinker on oppression → oppression as systemic constraints
- 1. Exploitation
- A social process that leads to unequal distribution of resources
Occurs when labour/energy of one group utilised to benefit another group, this concentrates power in the hands of a few and constrains many
Bringing about justice where there is exploitation requires reorganisation of institutions, alteration of division of labour, similar measures of institutions/structural/cultural change
- Marginalisation
- Highlights ways in which certain groups are systematically excluded
Barriers prevent groups from participating in society, become socially and economically disadvantaged
That autonomy marginalises society → at some point in our lives we will all be dependent on someone, this dependency should not disqualify us from being seen as autonomous human beings (this is a feminist model of justice)
Dependency should not be a reason to be deprived of opportunity or respect - Powerlessness
- Lack of decision making power and exposure to disrespectful treatment due to ones societal status
- Inhibits individuals from developing their capacities and having their voices heard
- Associates many injustices with powerlessness
- For Young, these first 3 relate to power and oppression due to social division of
labour (who works for whom, who does not work, content of work defines social position relative to others) → structural and institutional relations delineate people’s lives - Cultural imperialism
- Concerns the dominance of one cultural group over others, where the experiences
of marginalised groups are rendered invisible and stereotypes are perpetuated
- Establishes a norm that elevate the dominant groups culture above others
- Paradox of experiencing oneself as invisible while also being marked as different
- Violence (Brunneggers) Everyday Justice
- Looking at justice/injustice through the lens of everyday
- Justice not an abstract theoretical ideal, but something that emerges in our everyday lives
- Shaped by interactions and contexts
- Justice must be understood in relation to our everyday experience
- Justice capes: conceptualisation of justice as a dynamic justice, allows us to see justice as fluid and evolving and deeply embedded in social relations
- Relationality of justice: justice is not experienced in isolation, justice emerges through the interactions among people, and between people and institutions
- Encourages us to explore justice beyond legal frameworks → law does not automatically lead to just outcomes, justice also interacts with norms, culture, etc - Brunnegger highlights that the experiences of injustice play crucial role in explaining people’s interpretations of justice
How do we fix injustice?
Institutional reforms
- Critically examine and modify existing institutional practices that perpetuate exploitation, marginalisation and other form of injustice
- Revising laws, policies, and organisational structures
- Cultural and normative change - Changing societal attitudes and norms is essential to dismantling societal barriers - Individual and collective agency
- Grassroots movements and collective action are powerful mechanisms for advocating change
- Through collective action individuals can challenge injustices
- Ie. civil rights movement
