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Justice
In orienting oneself to the concept of justice,
three perspectives must be examined: the
individual perspective concerned primarily
with personal rights; the group perspective
concerned primarily with furthering the good
of all through furthering the interests of the
group; and the institutional or societal
perspective concerned primarily with the
establishment and maintenance of principles
and rules of law which in turn allow for its (the
society's or institution's) very origin and
continued existence.
• Most discussions of justice center on legal
justice, where the concern is to explain
and justify the rules and procedures as
they apply to the rights of individuals,
groups, and institutions. Equally important
is the concern with justice as understood
in moral terms. The trial of Seaman
Holmes (United States v. Holmes, 1842), a
crew member of the American ship William
Brown, serves as an example of both
views of justice (legal and moral).
• The following is a brief summary of the accounts
of the trial: The ship struck an iceberg and sank
in the frigid waters of Newfoundland. Thirty-two
passengers and nine crewmen crowded into a
leaky lifeboat. Grossly overloaded and leaking,
the lifeboat nevertheless held up throughout the
night and into the next day, when it began to
rain. The seas became progressively rougher
and the rain heavier. Late that evening, it
became apparent that something must be
thrown overboard to lighten the load.
• Crewman Holmes ordered the other crew
members to throw some of the passengers
overboard, which they did. The next
morning several more passengers were
thrown overboard despite their protests.
Early in the morning of the third day the
weather cleared, the lifeboat was picked
up by the ship Crescent, and all the
passengers who had not been thrown
overboard were saved.
• Once adrift in the leaky lifeboat, the ocean
had thrown them back into the state of
nature where lawlessness is the norm and
adhering to morality would probably cost
one's life. The moral duties that make
sense when people live in a well-governed
social state become meaningless. In a
state of nature where the agreements of
an established orderly society no longer
existed, he did not violate his moral duties
to the passengers.
• Mr. Holmes' unsuccessful defense was based in
part on Hobbes' (1651) social contract theory.
The theory acknowledges that there are morally
significant differences between living in an
orderly society and living in a state of nature and
that these differences have implications for what
must be done to preserve one's life. In an
orderly society, people have agreed to adhere to
moral norms in their relationships with each
other, and the agreement to abide by these
norms is enforced by society.
• At Holmes’ trail the prosecution argued:
• He had a duty to look after the well-being
of the passengers
• Holmes argued:
• That in a state of eminent peril, all men are
reduced to a state of nature and therefore
there was no distinction between
passengers and crew.
• The question is when doses morality in the
state of nature allow or at least legitimize
actions that are considered not okay??
• Knowing that others will usually behave morally
toward him or her, it is safe for him or her to act
morally toward others. A state of nature is an
uncivilized state because there are no
agreements to keep people from harming or
killing one another. Therefore, there is no
morality in a state of nature and everyone
legitimately can and will do whatever is
necessary to preserve his or her own life. Once
people move out of a state of nature and into a
social state, a governing force has been created
and the terms right and wrong all acquire a
meaning based on the rules the society
enforces.
• However, if the agreement ever breaks
down (e.g., war, revolution, or absence of
government) and people are once again
fighting each other for their lives, they
have returned to a state of nature and can
no longer be expected to act morally. In
other words, morality makes sense only so
long as a social contract exists and there
is force sufficient to compel everyone to
keep his or her agreements.
• Act utilitarian - Consider that lying is not good
but telling a lie may bring about the good for the
greater number than not lying.
• Rule utilitarian - view that an act is right if the
rule dictating the act maximizes happiness for
the greatest good for the greatest number.
Hence the rightness or the wrongness of an
action is not directly determined by the
consequences of the act rather by determining
whether or not the act would be right according
to established rules that maximize the happiness
of the greatest number.
• Justice
• It can be argued that we must have justice
in order to preserve the community. With
this in mind we can consider three
perspectives put forth in our text book:
• The individual perspective concerned
primarily with personal rights
• The group perspective concerned primarily
with furthering the good of all via furthering
interests of the group
• The institutional or societal perspective
concerned primarily with the establishment
and maintenance of the principles and
rules of law which allow us the society or
institution to continue to exist.
In orienting oneself to the concept of justice, three
perspectives must be examined
:
• the individual perspective concerned primarily
with personal rights;
• the group perspective concerned primarily with
furthering the good of all through furthering the
interests of the group; and
• the institutional or societal perspective
concerned primarily with the establishment and
maintenance of principles and rules of law which
in turn allow for its (the society's or institution's)
very origin and continued existence.
John Rawls in his theory of justice set forth two positions of
social justice:
• each person in a society has an equal right to
the maximum liberty compatible with the same
amount of liberty for everyone else. [similar to
All men are created equal] however, it is also
permissible if it is reasonable that one can
expect that or the advantage of the society that
certain conditions can exist were inequality may
exist. Consider the Social Contract that we have
with our society and government.
Formal constraints of the concept
of right
•
•
•
moral principles should apply to classes or
categories rather than specific individuals.
principles must be universal in application and
must hold for everyone by virtue of their being
moral persons.
moral obligations that come into conflict with
other kinds of considerations our moral
obligation should prevail [our self interest]
•
•
the function of these principles rule out
egoism [ones self interest]
publicity ie this is a public action…..
• Can you come up examples that can
support and not support Rawls theory of
justice?