In today’s world, everyone seems to cry for justice. The poor want justice, the rich want justice, the disabled want justice and the citizenry want justice from their governments. This begs the question: what is justice? Well, justice means different things to different people, and there in no universally acceptable definition of the word. This is because justice has a social dimension to it, and different cultures have their own parameters for assessing justice. Nonetheless, there are some common aspects people look for when defining the realms of justice. For example, people want to see equality, fairness, equity, and protection of their inalienable rights. In this sense, justice broadly refers to the concept of moral rightness anchored on the principles of equity, equality, fairness, rationality and law. The process of administering justice must also take into account the inalienable rights of the people and equal treatment before the law. Above all, the process of administering justice must ensure that people are not discriminated on the basis of their gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, age and religion. Although Rawls came close to creating a uniform platform for determining the principles of justice, his theory still missed some fundamental parameters of justice.
The truth of the matter is that justice is subjective in nature, and it can be defined in various ways. This arises from the fact that the moral concepts that justice purports to protect are dependent on subjective individual preferences. Individual preferences, which may come from observation and experimentation, then take over the definition of moral concepts, without applying any moral yardstick on them. This is because there is no one who filters the individual preferences to eliminate any irrelevant or illegitimate interests. As a result, the moral concepts which govern justice are relative to the persons making them such that they coincide with their individual preferences. There are also attempts to rationalize the individual preferences, with the view that what is “morally” good will be good for everyone in the long run. However, this is subjective again because self-interest is assumed to coincide with morality, and the self-interests are assumed to be identical in the long run. What this means is that it is impossible to come up with an acceptable term of justice, which everyone agrees with, thus compelling the need for a non arbitrary method of choosing the principles of justice for us.
Over the years, several political theorists and philosophers have tried to come up with universal principles governing the administration of justice, but such attempts have not been fruitful because they have omitted some essential aspects of justice in one way or another. Some of them have argued for the use of traditional precedents when administering justice, but this raises another issue of whether the social traditions themselves are just. Therefore, what is needed is a means of determining whether the social systems or the rules of justice governing the society are just. One of the political theorists who tried to come up with such a method is John Rawls, who came up with the A Theory of Justice in 1971. What is interesting about Rawls’s theory is that he recognizes the problem of self-interest, and advocates for the creation of some kind of a barrier to protect the justice system against any form of favoritism.
Rawls develops the principles of justice by assuming an original position. This is an imaginary device in which he stands behind the “veil of Ignorance”. According to Rawls, the Veil of Ignorance is a position whereby an individual does not know anything about his place in the society, race, social class, etc. The ignorance of these details makes Rawls to be in a position whereby he can postulate principles which are fair to everyone. In this original position, claims Rawls, an individual would adopt an informed strategy, of his own conceived society, which does not discriminate. This makes the individual to become a self-interested rational person driven by the need equality and fairness for all.
In the original position, the self-interested rational person (who in this case is Rawls) would choose two principles: the principle of equal liberty and the difference principle. The first principle, the principle of equal liberty, advocates for basic liberties for all. These liberties include the freedom of speech, the freedom to own personal property, the freedom of association, etc. this principle is largely egalitarian because it advocates for the distribution of extensive liberties among all the people. The second principle, the difference principle, postulates that social and economic inequalities should be arranged in a manner such that:
- They benefit the most disadvantaged people in the society
- Offices and positions are open to everyone as per the spirit of equal opportunities to all
The first part of the second principle is meant to benefit the least advantaged people within the society, while the second part of the principle is egalitarian and offers to distribute opportunities and positions equally. The interpretation of the second principle is quite tricky, but it is meant to give the society leeway to establish projects that give some people more power and income, as long as the projects make the lives of the worst off better, and without blocking the privileged positions.
Rawls’s A Theory of Justice was met with a lot of criticism from different scholars, and it seems that there debate is not going away any time soon. The idea of the original position, which is the central feature of the theory, has also been attacked with equal measure. According to Rawls, and his defendants, the original position is only meant to be an impartial tool for examining the fundamentals of justice. “The Veil of Ignorance” deprives the observer of biased historical and personal perspectives, and this allows for the administration of impartial judgment. Therefore, the original position is not a bargaining platform for making proposals and counterproposals, as some might think. It is only meant for parties to deliberate and agree on the conceptions of justice which are rational to them and serves their specified interests. In this regard, the original position serves as a selection process, with the parties involved making their own rational interests. Since the aim of the original position is to provide independent decisions, it is justified. Nonetheless, another argument arises as to whether Rawls is independent himself. The truth is that he is not. This is something that he even admits himself, and therefore, his arguments are incomplete.
Proponents of Rawls’s original position also defend his arguments using the rational choice theory. The rational choice theory argues that in making a choice, people play it safe and choose the alternative that leaves them with an outcome which is better off than the worst outcome of all other alternatives. Another argument which supports the original position is the strains of commitment principle. Since the parties involved have to choose principles of a well-ordered society, they are then forced to choose principles, which they can accept themselves, and principles which they can endorse and comply with. Therefore, the people cannot willingly support laws that are detrimental to themselves. They have a commitment to fulfill, and the original position gives them that opportunity to make such laws. However, this argument has been termed as fallacious because people cannot think of justice by delinking themselves from the values and aspirations that define who they are. This is ironical, since the same values and aspirations enable us to determine what justice means.
Criticisms of Rawls’s theory are not centered on the artificial original position only, but also extend two constructs upon which his two principles are anchored. Critics of the egalitarian model, for instance, have raised an alarm over Rawls’s overconcentration on primary social good. One of those critics is Amartya Sen who argues that the emphasis should not only be on the distribution of the social goods, but also on the effective use of those social goods to make people’s lives better. As Sen argues, what justice entails are the choices that improve human lives, and this means that justice is all about fairness and improving people’s lives. All the other complex and abstract constructs of justice, therefore, do not form the primary drive of justice. In simple terms, what Sen rejects is Rawls’s idea of two principles, although he admits that fairness is important. Amartya Sen introduces another angle to justice, by focusing primarily on the economic functions. While this is true to some extent, Sen overlooks other vital elements of justice.
The idea that there could be a central system of choosing an acceptable principle of justice is just a mirage. The various philosophies and political theories presented by the past scholars have all been wanting. John Rawls came close to achieving that, but his theory was still fallacious. For example, the idea of original position is still arbitrary. It does not make sense for people to delink themselves from the values and aspirations that make them who they are, all in the name of eliminating self-interest. The truth of the matter is that it is the people’s values and aspirations that determine the kind of justice they want. Therefore, justice cannot be conceptualized in utopia. It has to be real. Moreover, even Rawls is not independent in coming up with the two principles; in fact, the two principles are a realization of his ideas, and his self-interests. In light of this, it is important to appreciate the values that make each society unique, and no egalitarian ideas of justice should be forced down on them.
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