SOCIAL JUSTICE

1. Introduction

• Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.
• In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfil their societal roles and receive what was their due from society.
• Social justice is a political philosophical concept originally centred around equality among people along various social dimensions.
• In economic terms, social justice usually seeks to elevate or degrade the economic status of various groups defined by group identity or demographic characteristics such as race, gender, and religion.
• In practice, social justice can be pursued through various peaceful or non-peaceful forms of activism or government policy.
• In socialist economies, social justice forms a foundational principle of economic policy.

2. What is Justice all about?

• All cultures and traditions have grappled with questions of justice although they may have interpreted the concept in different ways.
• Confucius, the famous philosopher argued that kings should maintain justice by punishing wrongdoers and rewarding the virtuous.
• Socrates reminds people that if everyone were to be unjust if everyone manipulated rules to suit their interests, no one could be sure of benefiting from injustice
• Socrates opines Justice involves the well-being of all people.
• Justice requires that we give due and equal consideration to all individuals.

3. Equal Treatment for Equals

• It is considered that all individuals share certain characteristics as human beings.
• Therefore they deserve equal rights and equal treatment.
• Apart from equal rights given to the people, the principle of treating equals equally would require that people should not be discriminated against on grounds of class, caste, race or gender. Eg- If a male teacher in a school gets a higher salary than a female teacher, then this difference would also be unjustifiable and wrong.

4. What is Proportionate Justice all about

• However, equal treatment is not the only principle of justice.
• There could be circumstances in which we might feel that treating everybody equally would be unjust.
  • For instance, would you react if it was decided in your school that all those who did an exam should get equal marks because they are all students of the same school and did the same exam?
• Everybody starts from the same baseline of equal rights, justice in such cases would mean rewarding people in proportion to the scale and quality of their effort.
• For justice in society, the principle of equal treatment needs to be balanced with the principle of proportionality.

5. Recognition of Special Needs

• The principle of justice which we recognise is for a society to take into account the special needs of people while distributing rewards or duties.
• This would be considered a way of promoting social justice.
• People with special needs or disabilities could be considered unequal in some particular respect and deserving of special help.
• Physical disabilities, age or lack of access to good education or health care, are some of the factors which are considered grounds for special treatment in many countries.
• It is believed that if people who enjoy very different standards of living and opportunities are treated equally in all respects with those who have been deprived of even the basic minimum needs to live a healthy and productive life, the result is likely to be an unequal society, not an egalitarian and just one.
  • Ex- In our country, lack of access to good education or health care and other such facilities is often found combined with social discrimination on grounds of caste.
  • The Constitution therefore allowed for reservations of government jobs and quotas for admissions to educational institutions for people belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
• Pursuing equality of treatment by itself might sometimes work against giving due reward to merit.
• Emphasizing rewarding merit as the main principle of justice might mean that marginalized sections would be at a disadvantage in many areas because they have not had access to facilities such as good nourishment or education
• Different groups in the country might favour different policies depending upon which principle of justice they emphasize.
• It then becomes a function of governments to harmonize the different principles to promote a just society.

6. Principles of Justice

1. equal treatment for equals,
2. recognition of different efforts and skills while determining rewards and burdens,
3. Provide of minimum standard of living and equal opportunities to the needy.

7. What is just distribution all about?

• To achieve social justice in society, governments might have to do more than just ensure that laws and policies fairly treat individuals.
• Social justice also concerns the just distribution of goods and services, whether it is between nations or between different groups and individuals within a society.
• If there are serious economic or social inequalities in a society, it might become necessary to try and redistribute some of the important resources of the society to provide something like a level playing field for citizens.
• Therefore, within a country social justice would require not only that people be treated equally in terms of the laws and policies of the society but also that they enjoy some basic equality of life conditions and opportunities.
• The well-known political philosopher, John Rawls has argued that there could indeed be a rational justification for acknowledging the need to provide help to the least privileged members of a society.

8. What is John Rawls's Theory of Justice all about?

• If people are asked to choose the kind of society in which they would like to live, they are likely to choose one in which the rules and organization of society allot them a privileged position
• But such perspectives cannot form the basis of a theory of justice for a society.
• He argues that the only way we can arrive at a fair and just rule is if we imagine ourselves to be in a situation in which we have to make decisions about how society should be organized although we do not know which position we would ourselves occupy in that society.
• Rawls describes this as thinking under a ‘veil of ignorance’.
• He expects that in such a situation of complete ignorance about our possible position and status in society, each person would decide in the way they generally do, that is, in terms of their interests.
• But since no one knows who he would be, and what is going to benefit him, each will envisage the future society from the point of view of the worst-off.
• It will be clear to a person who can reason and think for himself, that those who are born privileged will enjoy certain special opportunities.
• Rawls therefore argues that rational thinking, not morality, could lead us to be fair and judge impartially regarding how to distribute the benefits and burdens of a society.

9. Pursuing Social Justice

• A society would be considered unjust if the differences between rich and poor were so great that they seem to be living in different worlds altogether, and if the relatively deprived have no chance at all to improve their condition however hard they may work.
• In other words, a just society should provide people with the basic minimum conditions to enable them to live healthy and secure lives and develop their talents as well as equal opportunities to pursue their chosen goals in society.
• Various methods of calculating the basic needs of people have been devised by different governments and by international organizations like the World Health Organization.
• But in general it is agreed that the basic amount of nourishment needed to remain healthy, housing, supply of clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage would constitute an important part of these basic conditions.
• Providing people with their basic needs is considered to be one of the responsibilities of a democratic government.

10. Debate concerning Free Markets versus State Intervention

• The description of a free market opines that people should be free to compete with each other to gain the greatest amount of benefit.
• Those with merit and talent would be rewarded accordingly while the incompetent would get a lesser reward.
• However, not all free market supporters today would support unregulated markets.
• Many would now be willing to accept certain restrictions, for instance, states could step in to ensure a basic minimum standard of living for all people so that they can compete on equal terms.
• But they might argue that even here the most efficient way of providing people with basic services might be to allow markets in health care, education, and such services to develop.
• It might also be necessary for the state to give special help to the old and the sick who cannot compete.
• But apart from this, the role of the state should only be to maintain a framework of laws and regulations to ensure that competition between individuals remains free of coercion and other obstacles.
• Supporters of free markets maintain that a free market is the basis of a fair and just society.
• One of the arguments put forward in favour of market distribution is that it gives us more choices but regarding basic goods and services what is important is the availability of good quality goods and services at a cost people can afford.
• Another argument often heard in defence of free markets and private enterprise is that the quality of services they provide is often superior to that provided in government institutions. But the cost of such services may put them out of the reach of the poor.
• The result may be to deny, rather than extend, opportunities for those who are relatively weak and disadvantaged.

11. Conclusion and the way forward

• To ensure social justice the state should step in to see that basic facilities are made available to all the members of a society.
• In a democratic society disagreements about issues of distribution and justice are inevitable and even healthy because they force us to examine different points of view and rationally defend our own views.
• Politics is about the negotiation of such disagreements through debate. In our own country, many kinds of social and economic inequalities exist and much remains to be done if they are to be reduced.
• Studying the different principles of justice should help us to discuss the issues involved and come to an agreement regarding the best way of pursuing justice.