...------------------------------------------------- Compensatory Discrimination in Light of Theories Of Justice INTRODUCTION In a civilized social system, law plays not only the role of guarantor of justice equality and liberty, but also as a tool for attaining the ends of justice. In this respect the modern democratic state has to adopt objective standards to protect the human rights of its citizens. Equality is one among those cardinal human rights by which the State is mandated to treat the equals equally and unequal unequally when it distributes its own benefits to the people. But who are equals and who are unequal is a thorny issue, for the limited resources are much valuable and required by the various group of people and they have to be distributed justly and fairly. In the Indian constitutional scheme, it had been envisaged by the framers that there should be equality of opportunity is for all citizens in public employments and such equality of opportunity a fundamental right of the citizens’.At the same time, the need for some beneficial treatment to the weaker sections of the society was also enshrined with that right. What is the basis of distribution of societal resources to certain sections? The thrust of this Chapter goes with the following enquiry. Is there any jurisprudential foundation for protective discrimination? If so what is it? This aspect is assessed from the angle of different theories of justice viz., social justice, distributive justice, equality and equal opportunity and social engineering...
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...According to Phelps (1987), Distributive justice concerns the nature of a socially just distribution of goods in a society. A society where related inequalities in outcome do not surface would be considered a society guided by the principles of distributive justice. The concept includes the available quantities of goods, the process by which goods are to be distributed, and the resulting distribution of the goods to the members of the society. Distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. (Phelps, 1987) Distribution in economics refers to the way total output, income, or wealth is distributed among individuals or among the factors of production. Factors included in this are labor, land, and capital (Atkins, Bourguignin, ed., 2000). In general theory and the national income and product accounts, each unit of output corresponds to a unit of income. One use of national accounts is for classifying factor incomes and measuring their individual shares, as in National Income (Atkins, Bourguignin, ed., 2000). But, where focus is on income of persons or households, adjustments to the national accounts or other data sources are frequently used. Here, interest is often on the fraction of income on the factors that might affect them such as, globalization, tax policy, technology, etc.. (Atkins, Bourguignin, ed., 2000) Governments continuously make and change laws affecting the distribution of economic benefits and goods in their societies. Almost all changes, from the standard tax...
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...against distributive justices it says that the patterned principles of distributive justice takes away the wealth from the upper class who worked long and hard for their success. Nozick gives examples as to how this would be done, he concludes that through the process of distributive justice many people will benefit off the success of others. The next premise for this argument says that by acquiring wealth from someone else’s labor is equivalent to taking their time. This means that the principles of distributive justice, directs people to work harder so that others may benefit. This premise means that distributive justice takes more from those who have achieved success and redistributes their success to someone who...
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...The Three Ethical Principles: Individual Rights, Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice Timothy Sexton Timothy Sexton, Yahoo Contributor Network Jul 25, 2008 "Share your voice on Yahoo websites. Start Here." MORE:Individual RightsUtilitarianism FlagPost a comment Ethics is an enormous field of philosophic study, but basically it all boils down to three general principles that can then branch off into various sub-groupings and variations on the basic theme. Ethical conduct in society, therefore, essentially comes down to three distinct values that take into consideration the rights of the individual, the rights of the masses, and the concept of distributive justice. Individual Rights. This principle of ethics relies upon the foundation that everybody in a society is entitled to certain guaranteed rights. The intrusion into this mode of ethics is based upon contradiction and conflict: my right to express my fact-based contention that George W. Bush is a criminal and should be forcefully removed by the people from his elevated position atop the hierarchy conflict with his right (often imagined) to be protected from any scrutiny. Or, to put it another way, everyone has the right to freedom of speech, but try crying fire right at the point that the Batman is riding toward the Joker on his cycle and let's see who gets kicked out of the building. Individual rights are often at conflict between the world of legality and the world of morality. For instance, it should be assumed...
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...Shaw and Barry distinguish two different forms of utilitarianism. What are these two forms? Briefly describe each. The first form of utilitarianism was a view by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They viewed utilitarianism as that a person’s actions are right if they create the most pleasure, and wrong if they do not. Both men believed that pleasure and happiness were equal and considered it the ultimate value. They thought of utilitarianism as self-interest. An understanding of this is that if someone gets pleasure out of something or it makes them happy then it is okay for them to do something. For example, if someone gets pleasure out of driving much faster than the speed limit, then according to Bentham and Mill it must be right because it is giving this person pleasure when really this person is breaking the law and it is not okay to do. The second form of utilitarianism is known as “rule utilitarianism” or called act utilitarianism. This form is like the view of Bentham and Mill in that it is still about pleasure, but not self-pleasure. This form is on a bigger scale that it is not just one person but many people that it is for. If the overall level of happiness or pleasure is greater than the pain or unhappiness then it is considered a good action. This form is appealing for businesses since there is usually a very large amount of people. An example of this would be a company that is reconstructing its way of working. Part of the companies plan may result...
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...Justice is another important ethical standard. Justice involves protecting individual rights, or preventing an injustice to an individual. Justice also requires us to compare cases to avoid discriminating or treating people differently who are alike in relevant respects. Succinctly, it means treating people fairly. Issues involving questions of justice and fairness are usually divided into three categories, that of distributive justice, retributive justice and compensatory justice. Distributive justice, a theory based on writings of John Rawls, perhaps the most basic category, is concerned with the fair distribution of society’s benefits and burdens. Rawls felt that everything must be done in an act of achieving fairness throughout. He also did not want anything to be done that may hurt or damage another person. For example, Rawls felt that throughout a society, every demographic should be allowed the same treatment and goods as any other. The poor should receive the same health care as the rich, etc. (Lamont, 2002). Questions of distributive justice arise when different people put forth conflicting claims on society’s benefits and burdens and all the claims cannot be satisfied. The essential cases are those where there is a insufficiency of benefits such as jobs, food, housing, medical care, wealth and income as compared with the numbers and desires of the people who want these goods. The other side of the coin is that there may be too many burdens, that of unpleasant...
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...© Michael Lacewing Ra wls a nd No zick on jus tic e RAWLS: JUSTICE AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT John Rawls’ theory of distributive justice (A Theory of Justice) is based on the idea that society is a system of cooperation for mutual advantage between individuals. As such, it is marked by both conflicts between differing individual interests and an identity of shared interests. Principles of justice should ‘define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social co-operation’. (p. 4) Justice is the most important political value and applies to the ‘basic institutions of society’ – the political constitution and the institutions that regulate the market, property, family, freedom, and so on – because it is intimately connected to what society is and what it is for. If society is a matter of cooperation between equals for mutual advantage, the conditions for this cooperation need to be defended and any inequalities in social positions must be justified. And so the principles of justice, Rawls thinks, must be ‘the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association’ (p. 11). Justice, then, is fairness. What are the terms of the ‘social contract’? What principles of justice would we agree to in this situation? For our agreement to secure a fair, impartial procedure, we need to eliminate any possible bias towards, say...
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...Consequentialism or Justice An important role in defining justice is the concept of right. Hooker (2011), " A consequentialist theory that presupposes both that justice is constituted by such-and-such and that justice is one of the things to be promoted does not explain why the components of justice are important.” (para. 12). This paper is a reflection of Team’s D thoughts about Chapter 5, “Consequentialism or Justice.” The consequentialism theory is a decision of an individual who will cause a greater good for all. An individual should take the complete relating information and consider every possible option that will provide a decision that will provide every person with greater good. The decision should not affect just one person, or a small group, but each client. At a sleepover party, a rule of not playing with fire should not be set for just one child. The rule should be set for every child in the house because fire is harmful. Every child will benefit from the rule. Distributive justice is the assistance that every human has an equal chance. It provides an ability to help make sure every person has goods equal to others, for the greater good. The goods are not meant to be materialistic, they are meant to be for safety and health for healthy living. The theory intersects with Tamara’s personal value because where Tamara lives, she sees a community that lives by social justice. Many in the neighborhood make informal contracts among each other and use the...
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...according to how well it lives up to this rule. 2. What do economists mean by the "declining marginal utility of money"? The declining marginal utility of money means that successive additions to one’s income produce less happiness or welfare than did earlier additions. This means that as one continues to add goods and/or services, those things will begin to net less happiness. 3. Robert Nozick presents his entitlement theory as a function of three basic principles. What are these three basic principles? Nozick’s three basic principles are as follows: 1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to the holding 2. A person who acquires a holding a accordance with the principle of justice transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding. 3. No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) application of 1 and 2. 4. Two main features of John Rawls's theory of distributive justice are particularly important. What are these two features? Describe them. The two features of Rawls’s theory are as follows:...
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...In the article titled “An Immigration-pressure model of global distributive justice”, Carvallero talks about how International laws concentrate opportunities in some societies while it limits them in others. Putting up boarders prevent those who are in less favored societies from gaining access. He argues that though each country should have their own discretion with immigration and illegal aliens, that same country should be obligated to help other countries of where the immigrants are coming from. (2006). Distributive Justice is defined as the proper distribution of things like wealth, power and rewards between different people. Distributive justice refers to what society owes it individual members in proportion to their needs and available resources. The principles around this concept implies that society has a responsibility to that...
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...different approach. There will always be organizations more concern about the financial interest of the shareholders than the consumer; however, there is now a growing interest among US companies to corporate social responsibility as a way to benefit both the community and the organization. This paper will briefly compare and contrast the various theories of economic Justice of Fairness, Distributive Justice, Utilitarianism, Capitalism and Morality, and Socialism; and reveal the one theory I believe to be the most practical; and the best theory of economic justice as it applies to the “fairness in hiring and promotions, and employees’ rights and duties.” Justice of Fairness includes components of the Principle of Liberty that every one deserve the right to basic liberties; and the Principle of Equality falls in line with the distributive justice for social and economic liberties to be arranged so that they are the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and fair equality of opportunity. Rawls’ point of view on the Justice as Fairness is to be fair and impartial in making decisions about fundamental principles of justice. In order to adopt this point of view is to insure impartiality of judgment, remove any knowledge of personal general...
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...Distributive justice is concerned with the reasonable designation of assets among differing individuals from a group. Reasonable assignment regularly considers the aggregate sum of products to be circulated, the disseminating system, and the example of appropriation that outcome. In Worldwide Distributive justice, Armstrong recognizes Distributive justice for the most part and standards of Distributive justice. Armstrong characterizes Distributive justice as the ways that the advantages and weights of our lives are shared between individuals from a general public or group. Standards of Distributive justice let us know how these advantages and weights should be shared or dispersed. Since social orders have a constrained measure of riches and assets, the subject of how those advantages should be dispersed much of the time emerges. The normal answer is that open resources ought to be circulated in a sensible way so that every individual gets a "decent amount." Yet this leaves open the subject of what constitutes a "decent amount." Different standards may decide of how merchandise are appropriated. Balance, value, and need are among the most widely recognized criteria. In the event that balance is viewed as a definitive paradigm figuring out who gets what, products will be appropriated similarly among all persons. (As such every individual will get the same sum.) Nonetheless, because of contrasts in levels of need, this won't bring about an equivalent result. Plausibility...
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...Introduction Ethical decision-making is a process where one decides on a course of action based on ethical and professional principles. The ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, justice and nonmaleficence are often brought into consideration in ethical dilemmas. Healthcare professionals often use these ethical principles as a premise to make morally sound judgements on care provision. Ethical dilemmas surface when these principles conflict with one another. The correct course of action is not clearly defined and the decisions made may be challenged. Decisions made on moral grounds are often intrinsically complex and intricate. This essay will cover the principles of distributive justice, autonomy, and beneficence. Drawing from personal experience, three individual case pertaining to each principle are provided to illustrate how each principle is either observed or breached. A conclusion is presented at the end of each case study to summarize the ethical reasoning and concepts discussed. A final conclusion will also be presented at the end of the essay to provide closure to the discussion. Distributive Justice Case Study: Dr Adams is a physician working in an acute medical ward. During his shift, he reviewed two critically ill patients. Patient A was an 80-year old lady with thrombocytopenia secondary to lymphoma with a low haemoglobin level. She had been receiving palliative care prior to admission. Patient B was a 50-year old man with an actively bleeding...
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...Throughout life, situations arise that require human beings to make decisions. The question of how one might decide upon such a decision is a difficult one. It is even more strenuous to make a morally right decision. Such an issue is not only seen in the personal lives of individuals, but in society as a whole. Distributive justice concerning access to basic healthcare has been a primary topic of discussion. The attempt to formulate moral principles in response to who obtains medical resources and why does not seem simple. However, some theories have aimed at answering these questions. Stein’s Utilitarianism alongside Nozick’s Libertarianism, for example, set out different plausible perspectives. Although some objections… Utilitarianism...
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...long been associated with social improvement. The two forms of utilitarianism are act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism, utilitarianism in its most basic version, states that we must calculate what the consequences are of a particular act in a particular situation, and what it will be for all those affected. And, if its consequences bring more total good than those of any alternative course of action, then this action is the right one and the one we should inform. Rule utilitarianism maintains that the utilitarian standard should be applied not to individual actions but to moral codes as a whole. The rule utilitarian asks what moral code, or set of morals, a society should adopt to maximize happiness. The principles that make up that code would then be the basis for distinguishing right actions from wrong actions. Same as any other theory, these theories can be thought to contain flaws- i.e. not being able to predict the future and this uncertainty can lead to unexpected results making the utilitarian look unethical as time passes because his choice did not benefit the most people as he predicted. What do economists mean by the “declining marginal utility of money?” In economics, marginal utility can be defined as a change in total satisfaction derived from the purchase of one additional or incremental unit of a specific good or service, all else being equal. The concept of...
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