Justice in the society - Essay Example

Justice in the society Introduction A just society is a society that accommo s all individuals with all member of the society respecting the rights of each and every person. A just society does not permit any form of discrimination including racial discrimination or profiling. Each individual in the society has a task of ensuring that the society is just and that they are responsible for any form of injustices that occur. Both Young and Mills have discussed injustices in the society. However, Mill has focused more on racial discrimination with Young focusing on individual role towards bringing justice to the society(Young, 10). The paper will discuss justice and injustices in our society by focusing on the reading materials that are associated with Young and Mill. Justice in the society According to Iris Marion Young, the position of those individuals who have been disadvantaged in the society often seems like an issue that people have less ability to change and for which individuals do not bear responsibilities towards them. Many people think that the responsibilities to address social injustices often fall in the hands of charity organizations or the government. Iris Marion Young, in her posthumously published book, ‘responsibility for justice’, struggles with the question of how responsibilities for oppression and structural disadvantage can be conceived even at the global level. In her last book, Young develops an idea that seeks to counter the reduction of the responsibility concept to strictly individual responsibility for his own actions and to animate a sense of responsibility that is beard on connection other people in the society and beyond the actions of an individual as well as their direct effects(Young, 14). The two politicians that offered significant contribution to policy discussion around the issue of welfare include Lawrence Mead and Charles Murray gives a foil towards Young’s account. Young is against their assertion which stipulates that individuals are individuals are self sufficient in meeting their needs and that of the family. She believes that a responsible individual will often try to deliberate about various options before acting. A responsible individual should be worried about how the result of their actions may completely affect others. The author’s discussion of the social responsibility concept gives rise to both a riposte to neo-liberal attacks and individualism on welfare and public services in developed countries as well as a response to the global dilemma(Young, 15). Her project is to meaning of responsibilities at the level of the society. Her social responsibility reflections are significant given the ambivalent results of globalization and technology which as much as they decline the geographical distance often results to what might be considered as the ethical distance between a certain individual as well as their actions. Young believes that social structure in a given society should be considered as a subject of justice in which all the individuals in that particular structure have their own responsibilities that they are accountable for. She develops such an idea around a mother who struggles to discover affordable and adequate housing and is eventually reduced to homelessness. The author further believes that guilt is an inappropriate manner to describe structural injustices since structural injustice may occur out of collective acts and multitudinous individuals that aren’t unjust in themselves. Young supports social connection model which states that all those individuals that contribute through their action to various structural processes having unjust outcome are responsible for the injustices that may take place in the process(Young, 11). She believes that each individual in the society has a role to play to ensure that a just society is arrived at. Young proposes the four parameters that can be used to assess the responsibilities of an individual towards structural injustices; the interest they have in stopping the injustice, their power towards influencing relevant social processes, the privilege that they do receive from the unjust structure as well as the ability to draw on the existing organization in order to impact on the change process. She asserts that there are a number of ways in which individual seek to keep away from their social responsibility; denying that they are socially connected to a certain injustice, reifying social processes, claiming that rectification of social injustice is someone else’s job as well as insisting that their responsibility is towards those individuals that are close to them for example relatives. She stresses on the need for individuals to be responsible for the development of a just society(Young, 28). Even though they all talk about injustices that take place in our society, Charles W Mills, utilizes the idea of social contract to discuss that racially structured discrimination is considered a norm and not a deviation from the ideal. He however focuses on European’s racism and expansionism of the last 500 years. He demonstrates how this unacknowledged and peculiar has impacted on a system of global European dominations, how it brings into existence full person and sub-persons, whites and non-whites and how such may influence moral psychology and moral theory and how such systems are imposed on non-whites through violence and non-ideological conditioning. The author argues focuses more on racial discrimination by arguing that our society is in a continuous white supremacist state. Mills’ book outlines the racial contract between the times of subsequent colonization as the time of the new world conquest that was related to the slavery issues in the United States of America where one race discriminated another race(Mills, 16). The author believes that certain principles that are associated with a society that is considered just will develop limited applicability is a society that is characterized by racial injustices for reasons that are epistemological and metaphysical as well as meta-ethical and ethical. Racial injustices began long time ago at the time when Africans were being mistreated and used as slaves. The practice is however ongoing after a long period of time. Recent cases of racial profiling by the police in the United States of America have opened the wounds that reveal the suffering of Africans in the hands of the white people. The author focuses on critical theory or radical theory which begins from the fact of social oppression that is experienced in the world and is followed by what should be done in order to create a world or society that will be just to all the individuals. The writer advocates for the pluralization of liberalism. Liberalism should be considered part of the solution to the various social injustices related to the discriminations that targets various individuals based on gender, sexual orientation or the race of an individual. There are various types of liberalism that is of a concern(Mills, 26). They include racial liberalism versus non racial liberalism, patriarchal liberalism versus feminist liberalism, ideal liberalism versus non ideal theory liberalism as well as actual historical liberalism versus retroactive sanitized liberalism. Liberalism is important in the society as a result of freedom, equality and self realization of the individual. A just society is a society that lack any form of discrimination. Various reasons exist as to why racial justice is significant to the society. Racial injustice is a type of injustices that is still experienced in the current world and thus it is of interest for those particular reasons. Injustices should no longer be part of the society and individuals should be able to come up with strategies that will help deal with a lot of injustices that are encountered in the world. Racial injustices have encountered a lot of atrocities such as genocide, slavery and exploration as the time when equality among the people should have been established. Racial injustices have peculiar characteristics that tend to confront orthodox philosophical conceptualization of the justice’s subjects. Racial injustices have registered a negative impact towards most of the world population. According to Mills, racial justice has failed to receive increased discussions in the modern philosophy(Mills, 18). The obvious reasons for such a move are because of the conceptual whiteness of the discourse of political philosophy as well as demography of the profession. The assumptions, frameworks and narratives thought experiments and scenarios is often predicted on the euro-American experiences without paying attention to the distinctive experience and political history of the people of color in modernity that have been involved in colonization, slavery, genocide and expropriation. Racial injustices have to be stopped and the society should accept that all individuals have equal rights. The theory that addresses the various forms of injustices in the society is known as liberal theory. Liberal theory is the main international relations theory that lies in the liberal thoughts that emerge from enlightenment. Liberal theory aims at hindering all forms of discrimination in the society with the aiming of promoting a just society. Liberal theory allows individuals in the society to respect one another and be responsible for a just society. Mills believes that liberalism is important for any society as it hinders racial discrimination as well as other forms of discrimination that includes gender and sexual orientation(Mills, 24). Conclusion Both Young and Mills propose thinking about justice through distinguishing the intention of an individual as well as the structural factors that are involved. Young believes that a just society can be achieved when individuals become responsible for their actions. She states that individuals should cease from blaming one another and should be accountable for their own action(Young, 9). Mill on the other hand states that a just society is a society without any form of discrimination including racial discrimination. Work cited Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 1999.  Young, Iris Marion. Responsibility for Justice. Oxford University Press, 2011. Read More