Justice Is about Desert, Not about Equality - Literature review Example

Justice is about Desert, not about Equality There has been a continuous debate over the meaning of justice. It has been understood by others to mean a moral permissibility that applies to fair distribution of benefits and burdens. However in this sense, it is illustrious by the entity to which it applies instead of a specific kind of a moral concern. In some cases it has been understood as legitimacy, the impermissibility or unfair disturbance by others. Justice is also concerned with the permissibility of the assessed actions by justice. According to Cohen (1997), justice is the constant will that perpetuates to accord every person the due he or she is entitled to. He argues that justice is a rewarding desert or merit as an in egalitarian, meaning that meritocracy is inherently hierarchical, thus, it is based on a false consciousness holding the view that some individuals are better than others. In a broad sense, justice can be deduced to mean the comparative fairness such as the gain of the same proportion of what an individual does. This notion which brings the essence of being due is ambiguous to what is owed to an individual as a matter of right and what is deserved. In certain circumstances, justice is morally understood as what we morally owe one another, as a matter of respecting one another’s rights and perceived to be the above notion that means fairness relative to what is understood to be due as a matter of right. In this sense, justice is sensitive to desert as a substantive matter whereby individuals are entitled to a right that they deserve but it has no necessary connection with desert. The desert-based theories of justice have contradicted and provided a challenge to the equality based theories of justice. Scholars have that some individuals may need to have more than others. The best distribution of out-come advantage, according to the desert theory is that there should be an equal and fair distribution of the benefits and burden among all individuals irrespective of the position held in the society. The form of egalitarianism should be compatible with the desert- theory of justice, even though egalitarianism is concerned with neutralizing the different effects of brute luck and not with equality outcome. According to Rawls (1999), the theory of distributive justice lies on the notion that a society is a system of cooperation for mutual advantage between people. It is manifest by the differences in the individual’s interests and an identity of a shared common interest. The principles of justice thus, mean the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of the social cooperation. Justice has been identified to be very important in the political constitution that regulates the market, assets, the household and freedom of people since it is connected to what the society is composed of and what the society needs. John Rawls has given a fundamental basis for philosophy based on liberal democratic constitutionalism that has a democratic idea of justice on the basis of a social contract among individuals. Justice means that if a society is a matter of cooperation between equals for mutual gain, then the conditions for the mutual advantage should be protected and that any inequalities in any social position to be justified. Rawls argued that the principles of justice should be that free and rational persons that are concerned to further their interests would accept in an initial position of equality that defines the fundamental terms of their association, this idea leads to the description of justice to mean fairness to all (Rawls, 1999). There are principles that govern justice, there should be an elimination of the bias between individuals in the society, an example of such differences may be the gap between the wealthy and the poor, Rawls stated that there should be an understanding and agreement of the principles of justice without emphasizing on the positions that an individual is placed in the society. This derive the point that, no one should be advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of the principles by the results of the outcome of natural chance or a contingency of a social nature and that no individual should have or design principles to favor his personal needs, so the principles of justice should be the result of fair agreement or bargain between all. The principles of justice is concerned with the items that are assumed to be needed by everyone including; wealth, position, liberties, respect, and rights and freedom. According to Rawls, individuals will come to an agreement to an equal distribution only if a certain amount of inequality will benefit everyone such as providing incentives that will increase wealth for all. Secondly, if a material well-being is secured at some limit then people will value their basic liberties, the political liberty, and freedom of assembly, speech personal assets, conscience and thought. The summary, according to Rawls is that – each person is entitled to equal rights to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties which are similar and compatible with a system of liberty for everyone and that the socio-economic inequalities should be arranged in the order of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged and attached to the positions held by individuals in the society under the prevailing conditions of fairness in equality of opportunity. The criteria of economic systems and justice can be evaluated by: the overall well being, the moral desert and preservation of liberty. The basic proponents of market capitalism, state socialism appeal to these same values, each seemingly appealing to people, rewards desert fairly and promotes liberty for all (Feinberg, 1970). The desert- based theory has been explained to describe justice as the case of a guaranteed income, those who advocate for peoples liberty should meet the objection that people only deserve resources by virtue of the work that they have done, and those who have not toiled for anything needs no reward. This contradicts the personal desert which is earned and relies on what an individual has done, and the human desert which every one is entitled to due to humanity. The human desert is based upon the human basic rights. For example, if a person believes that a child has a right to education, the contradiction in this right is that the child has not worked so as to earn a right to the education. The human desert can be explained to mean that a guaranteed income is deserved by individuals because being human they deserve decent level of income when resources are available to make this possible. Desert theory of justice means that an action such as the social structure is just when the benefits and burdens are fairly distributed among individuals. Justice can be well understood in an institutional environment, where the principles of desert are determined by the people’s expectations and norms within the institution. The desert theories proper are based upon the non-institutional desert which is understood in a justice determined sense where the principles of justice are determined by the desert principles and do not depend on them. In a non-justice determined sense where the principles of desert are followed by the justice principles and are relevant in the determination of what is just (Feinberg, 1970). Miller and David (1999) argued that, the views on desert are various and tend to determine the nature of deserving individuals. According to many authors, desert is build on the features of and has little to do with their characters or agency where some individuals are taken to be more deserving than others. Desert is based on what is related to agency. Other individuals argue that desert is based on the morality of an individual and independent on the choices made, for instance the reward of an effort and contribution are the basis of desert. Some individuals agree with the notion that desert is based on the choices that are desired by the agent. In a matter of brute luck, this may pose a disagreement, an example that has been given to refute this notion is where in the genes at birth, and individuals are different in their abilities in terms of efforts and contribution. Therefore, it complicates this idea of deserving more simply because of having favorable endowments. The individuals should not deserve any benefits or any burden given that they have not deserved any capacity. However, the desert-theory can be used as an objection by basing desert on how good an agent makes on his or her brute luck opportunities. For instance, having different agents with one talented more than the other, but all of them contribute the same percentage, these individuals should be judged as equally deserving. There has been a variation in the desert theories on what the deserved benefits and burdens are. There are specifics in the concept of well-being with possibilities such as goods, wealth and education (Feinberg, 1970). In conclusion, the desert theories are in many forms, the non-comparative, the comparative and a mixture of both forms. It has been argued that the non-comparative desert is concerned with an individual having what he or she deserve absolutely and is not related in any way to what other individuals deserve,. However, the comparative is based upon the benefits that each person gains in relation to what others obtain. It has a judgment that it is bad to give people what they deserve and not others even though deserving the benefit. The desert theories of justice has challenge to the egalitarian theories i.e. if the outcome desert theories is incorrect then the justice that requires the values of outcomes to be equalized is untrue, individuals that are more deserving on merit should have outcomes that are more rewarding. References Cohen, G.A. (1997). “Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 26: 3-30 Feinberg, Joel (1970). Justice and Personal Desert: Doing and Deserving. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press Miller, David, (1999). Principles of social justice.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press Rawls, John. (1999). A Theory of Justice . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Read More