Social Justice

John Rawls对社会公正的看法，简要地介绍他正义的原则。第一个原则确保所有人，包括他们的财富，社会地位，对社会的贡献，和他们的天赋，都享有平等的政治自由和个人自由。第二个正义原则是允许的不平等分配社会商品，如收入和财富，现在已对所有人开放。

John Rawls’ views on social justice are briefly presented as his two principles of justice. His first principle a justice insures that all individuals, however their wealth, social status, contributions to the society, and their talents are, are granted equal political liberties and personal liberties. On the other hand, his second principle of justice permit the unequal distribution of social goods, such as income and wealth, in so far as these unequal distributions are in the interest of the least advantaged and be attached to positions and offices open to all. Therefore, what Rawls theory distributes is limited to six social goods: income and wealth, liberty and power, opportunity and respects. According to Rawls, this is his thin theory of the good. Different from other theories making effort to distribute satisfaction or happiness, which might subject them to endless calculations and complexity, his theory of justice is humble to claim that in so far as people have his six social goods, social justice is fulfilled. However, the luck egalitarian, Dworkin, claims that Rawls theory, so-called “Justice as Fairness” is unfair, since his second principle does not take into account choice versus luck. Therefore, for Dworkin, Rawls is spoiling idlers by compensating them money they do deserved. In addition, Rawls is also unfair to compensation those risking their money and health to achieve luxury or unrealistic goals, which would in turn lapses themselves into the least advantaged of the society. Based on these criticisms on Rawls, Dworking provide a theory similar to insurance system. According to Dworkin, the distributions of goods are based on the judgment of whether people’s disadvantages are caused by luck or by choice. If people’s disadvantages are caused by irresistible force, such as natural contingency, they deserve the compensation from the “insurance pool”. However, if people choose to do nothing or be addicted to luxury hobbies, such as alcohol and drug, and leaving themselves to be the most disadvantaged group of the society, they have no claim on the governmental compensation. Dworkin’s theory explains one of our moral intuitions: people are only responsibility for what they’ve chosen and done. However, if his theory applies to the society, it might cause a lot of costs. Before compensating disadvantages, the first step for Dworkin is to identify which disadvantage is caused by choice and which one is caused by luck. However, it might cost a lot to build such a system of identification. What if people want to be a free-rider by pretending to be disadvantaged by irresistible forces? In addition, this system of identification is presupposing that everyone is a free-rider and will cause suspicion among the society. Last but not least, what if some people have toil to work but still be the least advantaged of the society? That means they have to prove that they are the most untalented and stupid before they are eligible to gain the compensation from the government, which will be a big self-humiliation and shame.

However, according to Sen, these two theories are limited to the equal distribution of resources and it is not enough. Sen claims that though disabled individuals have equal resources, they are less likely to enjoy them than ordinary people, since they lack the ability to enjoy those goods, or, their disability necessitate much higher distribution of resource if they are to have equal happiness as others. Therefore, Sen presented his theory focusing on improving people’s capabilities, however unclear his definition of capability is. For Sen, what justice concerns is not whether the inequality is caused by choice or by luck, but to eliminate existing inequality of people’s capability to develop themselves. 

Procedural justice focuses on the fairness of the processes. If the process designed for making decision is public and transparent and acceptable to every, the outcome produced by this procedure, whatever it is, is just and no one has any claim to complain. Distributive justice emphasize on the outcome of the distribution, rather than on the processes. As far as I am concerned, I agree with the procedural justice and more likely to agree with Rawls’ theory. Since his two principles of justice are derived from a fair procedure--people in the original position with the veil of ignorance are on fair position—therefore his principles are themselves justice. These two principles of justice in turn act as fundamental rules to build fair procedure in distributing people’s primary goods. Truly, as is criticized by Dworkin, it is possible that different people use these primary goods in different way and have different level of happiness. However, to guarantee equality of happiness is not Rawls’ concern and he did not think he should concern that. For Rawls, in so far as people have their primary goods, they should be responsible for their choices of whether to use them to satisfy their expensive addiction or educational needs. Therefore, in this sense Rawls’s theory is compatible with Dworkin’s theory, since choice and responsibility are also taken into account by Rawls. In addition, Rawls theory is also compatible with Sen’s theory. Since according to Rawls’ difference principle, the “disabled people” in Sen’s framework are the “most least disadvantaged” people and they would have access to much more primary goods than those “ordinary least disadvantaged people” so that they are possible to enjoy equal level of happiness, if they want. Therefore, in this sense, Rawls’ theory might produce similar result or social policy as Sen’s, though they have different grounds and justifications.