Comparing John Rawls And David Miller's Theory Of Social Justice

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The purpose of this essay is to explain what social justice is. Below, I thoroughly summarize the

social justice theories of John Rawls and David Miller. By understanding the theories of these

two authors, the definition of social justice should become clear.

Social justice is defined as “ promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing

diversity.” It exists when “ all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to

equal treatment, support for their human rights and a fair allocation of community resources.” In

conditions of social justice, people are “ not to be discriminated against, nor their welfare and

well-being constrained or prejudiced on the basis of age, belief, race, religion, sexuality , or …show more content…

In addition, “equal opportunity and similar phrases

like “personal duty” have been used to diminish the prospective for realizing social justice by

justifying vast inequalities in modern society (Berry,2005). The most recent theories of and

scholarly statements about social justice explain the complex nature of the concept.

Two of the most well-known statements about social justice, each of which proposes its own

theory of social justice, is John Rawls'( 2001) Justice as Fairness and David Miller's (2001)

Principles of Social Justice. While neither of these theories can be considered a comprehensive

treatment of the subject matter, each theory provides a complex theory of social justice that

explains its meaning. Both theories of social justice are similar, so there is a notable overlap

between the main ideas of the authors; this is probably due to the fact that they are founded on

similar principles and based on previously proposed theories from important historical

philosophers. Below, the theories of John Rawls and David Miller will be thoroughly examined.

John Rawls proposes a theory of social justice commonly referred as “ justice as fairness.” …show more content…

Rawls

does not propose an unrealistically utopian vision of what is justice, but instead offers a theory of

social justice that is “realistically utopian” (Rawls,2001:4). Rawls theory of “ Justice as

Fairness,” can be summarized with two primary principles. They are:

“ Each person has the same indefensible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic

liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all.” [2]; and

Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be

attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of fair

opportunity[3]; and second, they are to be the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged

members of society.” [4 ] (Rawls,2001:42-43).

These principles are in order, which means the first principle should be achieved before efforts

to achieve the second principle are attempted. In addition, the first part of the second

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