JUSTICE

CPS 3103 – Topic 11

 Meaning of Justice
• Justice is a moral or normative concept; there is no consensus as to what it
really means. What is considered just by one person may be considered
unjust by another person.
• However, justice refers to what is considered to be morally good. In a
similar vein, what is unjust is considered to be morally bad
• Justice denotes a particular kind of moral judgement-one about
distribution of rewards and punishments
 Meaning of Justice…Cont.
• In a nutshell, justice is about giving each person what is due to him or her.
Thus, it is about fairness and how to achieve it
• In common parlance, justice is used to mean fairness, rightness, or simply
that which is morally right
• While some analysts argue that justice should be achieved through
punishment, others are of the view that justice should be achieved through
payment of damages
 Difficulties in Defining Justice
• There are problems in defining justice due to the individualistic nature of
the concept; what may be just for one person in one particular situation
might be considered unjust for another person in some other situation
• There are hardly any agreed upon principles which define justice or
injustice
• Various political theorists give their own understanding of the concept
• There isn’t any one way of defining justice; how it is defined is
conditional upon the specific situation and the prevailing laws
 Difficulties…Cont.
 Example: To capitalist/liberal democratic countries justice consists in the
protection of civil and political rights. To socialist/communist countries,
on the other hand, justice consists in the protection of economic, social,
and cultural rights
 Types of Justice
• Various types of justice can be identified:
i. Procedural Justice
ii. Distributive Justice
iii. Retributive Justice
iv. Restorative Justice
v. Criminal Justice
 Types of Justice…Cont.
vi. Social Justice
vii. Economic Justice
viii.Environmental Justice
ix. Corrective Justice
x. Global Justice
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Procedural Justice
• Emphasizes the idea of following a fair and unbiased procedure when
dealing with those who have offended others
• It requires that one must be given an opportunity to defend oneself, and
that courts should be impartial in making decisions
• It rests on the notion that an accused person is innocent until proved guilty
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Distributive Justice
• Addresses the question of allocation of resources, assets, privileges, and
power within the society
• It puts stress on fair and equitable allocation of the resources, assets,
privileges, and power
• According to John Rawls (1971), a society is considered just when
resources are distributed in such a way that they benefit the least
advantaged members of the society
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Retributive Justice
• Derives from the term ‘retribution’ which means to seek punishment, or
vengeance
• This type of justice is intended to punish those who have committed
wrongs
• Those who seek retributive justice are considered to be bitter and want to
see to it that someone gets a punishment that is in proportion the
seriousness of the wrong they have committed
 Types of Justice…Cont.
• Although retributive justice is primarily intended to seek vengeance, it can
also deter crime, especially when the punishment is of greater severity
• The main problem with this type of justice is that it can lead to endless
cycles of violence because of its “tit-for-tat,” or “eye-for-an-eye” kind of
emphasis.
• This works against harmony in society
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Restorative Justice
• Focuses on paying for wrongs committed in the past
 Example: Compensating descendants of slaves for problems occasioned
by slavery such as inter-generational poverty.
• Under restorative justice, the offender is required to make up their crimes
to make the victims and society at large feel a little better
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Criminal Justice
• Primarily concerned with maintenance of social order so as to protect individuals.
 It does through crime deterrence and punishing offenders
• It also focuses on rehabilitation of offenders and their re-integration into the society
• Delivered by security agencies, courts, probation department, and prisons
• The overriding goal is to ensure that criminal procedures and laws are applied
equitably, and without partiality
• It protects individual rights against arbitrary exercise of power by the government
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Social Justice
• Incorporates both procedural and distributive justice
• Seeks to establish equity and fairness in the society
• Also focuses on the elimination of any kind of discrimination
 Such discrimination may be on the basis of ethnicity, race, gender,
religion, sexual orientation, etc.
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Economic Justice
• Deals with the question of fair distribution of economic resources in the
society
• Emphasizes the idea that individuals should be given equal access to the
basic needs in life, no matter what their economic, political or social status
is
• Favors a situation in which everyone in society has equal chance to take
part in, contribute to, and reap from, the benefits from the economy.
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Environmental Justice
• Puts stress on the idea that everyone has the right to a clean and healthy
environment
• Holds that some people are affected by environmental pollution than
others
• Takes the position that the biggest contributors to environmental pollution
should bear a greater responsibility to cushion those who are most
vulnerable to environmental degradation.
 Types of Justice…Cont.
Global Justice
• Deals with justice at the international level
• Emphasizes the idea that individuals should be treated fairly irrespective
of their nationality
• Everyone, regardless of their nationality, should have the same rights, and
opportunities
 Types of Justice…Cont.
• Global justice is delivered at the international level through the UN, and
international courts and tribunals
• Global justice is based on the idea that more developed countries have an
obligation to help their less developed counterparts from poverty and
other problems
• This is based on the belief that developed countries have partly
contributed to the problems facing the developing countries through
colonialism and neo-colonialism
 Types of Justice…Cont.
• It should be noted that implementation of this type of justice is
problematic because it may impinge on state sovereignty, and hence is
likely to face resistance from states
 States are mainly concerned with the pursuit of their national interests in
their relations with one another
 Thus they will oppose anything that may go against those interests