Justice and Fairness

Introduction
Justice and Fairness are essentially comparative.
They are concerned with how one groups'
treatment comparers to the way another group is
treated, particularly
• when benefits and burdens are distributed.
• When rules and laws are administered.
• When people are punished for the wrongs
they have done or compensated for the
injuries they have suffered.
 Continue..
The term justice and fairness are used
almost interchangeably
The word justice for matters that are
especially serious
The concept of fairness is more
fundamental
If a society is unjust to many of its
members, then we normally condemn that
society, even if the injustice secure more
than utilitarian benefits for every one.
 Continue..
Standards of justice do not generally
override the moral rights of individual.
Justice is based on individual moral rights.
The moral rights to be treated as a free and
equal person
 Justice and Fairness are usually divided into
three categories
Distributive Justice: The first and basic
category, is concerned with the fair
distribution of society benefits and burden.
Retributive Justice: Imposition of
punishment and penalties on those who do
wrong.
Compensatory Justice: A compensation for
the people for what they lost when others
wrong them.
 Distributive Justice
Questions of distributive justice arise when
different people male claims on society's
benefits and burdens and all the claims are not
satisfied.
The central cases are those where there is a
scarcity of benefits-such as jobs, food, housing,
medical care, income and wealth.
The fundamental principle of distributive justice
is that equals should be treated equally and
unequal treated unequally.
 Forms of Distributive Justice
• Justice as equality: Egalitarianism
• Justice based on contribution: Capitalist Justice
• Justice based on needs and abilities: Socialism
• Justice as Freedom: Libertarianism
• Justice as Fairness: John Rawls
 Justice as equality: Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism hold that there is no relevant
differences among people that can justify
unequal treatment.
All burdens and benefit should be distributed
according to the following formula
Every person should be given exactly equal
shares of a society’s or a group benefits and
burden
 Justice based on contribution:
Capitalist Justice
The Society’s benefits should be distributed
in proportion to what each individual
contributes to a society or to a group.
Simply benefits should be distributed
according to the value of contribution the
individual makes to a society, a task, a group
or an exchange
Justice based on needs and abilities:
Socialism
The first proposed by Louis Blane (1811-1882)
and then by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and
Nikolai Lenin (1870-1924) is traditionally
taken to represent the socialist view on
distribution. The principle can be phrased as
follows;
Work burden should be distributed according
to people abilities, and benefits should be
distributed according to people’s needs.
 Justice as Freedom: Libertarianism

Libertarianism holds that no particular way of

distributing goods can be said to be just or
unjust apart from the free choices individual
makes.
Justice as Fairness: John Rawls
Rawls theory is based on the assumption that
conflicts involving justice should be settled by
first devising a fair method for choosing the
principle by which the conflicts are resolved.
Principle 1 is called the principle of equal
liberty
Principle 2 is called the principle of fair
equality of opportunity