“The greatest challenge to Rawls’s theory from racial/ethnic minorities could well be his insistence on basing overlapping consensus on the “basic institutions” of U.S. society: appreciations and understandings developed by the dominant group in society, but without taking into consideration oppressed peoples. Liberty, equality, and the common good are indeed important values. However, the issues is, What do they mean in the twenty-first century in a heterogeneous society integrated by others besides Euro-American males?”
In the aforementioned passage from her document “John Rawls on Justice” Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz’s sheds light on the major flaw in John’s Rawls’s “social contract theory” for establishing “Justice” in our society. She asserts
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that his ideas are jaded, inapplicable in reality and incapable of achieving its goals unless significant changes are made: addressing the current U.S. demographics and its mutated understanding of “liberty”, “equality”, and the “common good” and eradicating the “veil of ignorance” and including the perspectives of minority groups to better address the issues of injustice in our society as the major ones. Hence, an objective standpoint in providing justice will, in fact, inhibit the creation of a framework for providing justice, and subjectivity of human experiences have to be incorporated while building this new framework. Before I delve into further analysis of this topic, however, a few key terms and ideas ought to be defined and explained for a proper understanding of my perspective on this subject matter. What is justice?
Why does it matter? Why do humans harp on the topics of justice and equality consistently? The answers to above mentioned questions aren’t easy to formulate, and they open up a door to greater questions about morality, humanity and so forth. Humans live in a cooperative society. The aim of this body of organization is to advance as a whole and individually simultaneously. John Rawls’ states this goal of human society in Distributive Justice published in 1979: “We may think of the human society as a more or less self-sufficient association regulated by a common conception of justice and aimed at advancing the good of its members.” Hence, our society is shaped by an idea of justice – one that is applicable to all members of this society, and this set conception of justice promotes the advancement of the society and the individuals living in …show more content…
it. However, when individuals are left behind for a myriad of reasons, our society fails to achieve its set goal – fails to provide justice. Several conflicting factors could result in the retardation or termination of this process of mutual advancement: human selfishness, capitalistic influence, systematic oppression and such. When this conception of justice vanishes from the minds of people and goes out of practice, our society becomes unjust and unequal. Robert Reich portrays a vivid picture of this “unjust and unequal America” in his documentary “Inequality for All.” The problems of educational, food and environmental injustice are rife in our society. The wealth gap is evident, but goes unquestioned. Income inequality is stark yet undisputed. The rich continue getting richer at the expense of the poor, and the poor are left to live a life of deprivation and indignation. This growing inequality, life-altering issues of injustices are immoral and unconstitutional. America’s foundation firmly rests on the idea of creating a society that grants its citizens certain natural rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights are inviolable and inalienable rights people acquire at birth. Everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by virtue of being a human being and an American. However, in today’s America, these natural rights are no longer guaranteed nor safeguarded to the minority population by the state. The dominant majority of America – white Euro-American males enjoy relatively greater chances of accessing this right, whereas women and other minority groups fare way worse than the former group. The state is plagued with a condition that manifests itself in many ways: dire poverty, income inequality and issues of injustice, and these minority groups are the most vulnerable and susceptible group to atrocities inflicted by the problems of poverty, inequality and injustice. In Robert Reich’s “Inequality for All” we see a Hispanic family of four struggling to meet their needs on a daily basis; the family has a single bread-winner, the father hasn’t managed to get a job since getting laid off some time ago.
The mother of the family has twenty-five dollars in her checking bank account, her kids haven’t had healthy nutritious food for a while and her husband, if he gets a lower-paying job, the family’s financial position will become more precarious. He juxtaposes the condition of this family with that of a guy who owns a pillow making business. The guy makes more than enough money to live an opulent life (more than $10 million and less than $30 million) – the amount of money he makes could feed several families like the one portrayed in the movie. A CEO makes 475 times the money an average worker makes in America. The people working for federal minimum wage ($7.25) barely make enough to fulfill their basic needs – the government has failed to set up a wage limit that could make someone’s life livable, without causing deprivation of basic
needs. Inequality isn’t bad. In a capitalistic society, there is an incentive for the hard-worker to labor, make money and ascend the socio-economic ladder. The idea is simple: work hard and reap benefits. Everyone has an equal chance to succeed. Everyone has a right to life, liberty and property. However, in reality, in a trickle-down economy, the wealth doesn’t trickle down as the wealthy who are awarded a tax break, do not spend money as lavishly as it is predicted of them: “To Summers and Balls, tax cuts for the rich do not inexorably result in more economic activity, but create a growing income gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. The rich tend to save more of their disposable income and growth slows down. Ha-Joon Chang, the popular economics writer from Cambridge University, is another veteran critic of the idea. “The trickle-down argument crucially depends on the assumption that, when given a bigger slice of national output, the rich will use it to increase investments”, he has written. He describes this as “an assumption that has not been borne out by reality”, and goes on: “Once you realise that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are: a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer.” Because of this critical flaw: the assumption that awarding the rich a tax-break will help build our economy, the wealthy are at a comparative advantage to the poor – who already make less than it is required to fulfill one’s basic needs -- are taxed at steep rates and hand in a significant chunk of their money to the government. The wealthy get to amass money and become richer at the expense of other people who continue becoming poorer.
The gap in wealth between the rich and the poor continues to grow larger, as productivity increases but wages remain the same. There were changes in the tax structure that gave the wealthy tax breaks, such as only taxing for social security within the first $113,700 of income in a year. For CEOs this tax was paid off almost immediately. Free trade treaties broke barriers to trade and resulted in outsourcing and lower wages for workers. In “Job on the Line” by William Adler, a worker named Mollie James lost her job when the factory moved to Mexico. “The job in which Mollie James once took great pride, the job that both fostered and repaid her loyalty by enabling her to rise above humble beginnings and provide for her family – that job does not now pay Balbina Duque a wage sufficient to live on” (489). When Balbina started working she was only making 65 cents an hour. Another huge issue lies in the minimum wage. In 2007, the minimum wage was only 51% of the living wage in America. How can a person live 51% of a life? Especially when cuts were being made in anti-poverty and welfare programs that were intended to get people on their feet. Now, it seems that the system keeps people down, as they try to earn more but their benefits are taken away faster than they can earn. Even when workers tried to get together to help themselves they were thrown
Equality is not something we get to have when we come into this world. It is something that is being fought for and will continue to fight for as long as people think of themselves and do not think of the consequences that may occur from their own actions. In the book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco they narrowed in on what structural violence is. The different examples of injustices that were occurring around the countries. Lastly explains the ways the oppressed used there actions, words, and ideas to fight the injustices. Injustices are all around world many of which still have a lot of control to this day and take a toll on the less able. Allowing large corporations to dictate what will be said and done.
Here one might think Rawls has missed the point. For what is problematic about his liberalism, it might be argued, is that it will prove non-neutral in its effects on doctrines and ways of life permissible on its own account of political justice. But Rawls has not missed the point. Rawls’s liberalism does not rest on a commitment to the value of, nor does it require, a social world maximally diverse with respect to comprehensive doctrines or ways of life willing more or less to accept liberal principles of political justice. Of course, Rawls’s liberalism would be in serious trouble were it to lead to a social world only weakly diverse. But so long as Rawls’s liberalism permits a healthy degree of diversity, to claim that its non-neutral effect on some comprehensive doctrine or way of life is unfair is to presuppose rather than establish the correctness of some competing conception of justice.
John Rawls divided up his theory into four distinct parts; the first part consisted of his belief of primary goods, next is the formation of principles of justice, third is the institutionalization of society, and finally the last part of his theory is the actual workings within society . The general concept of Rawls’s theory is, “all primary goods must be distributed equally unless the unequal distribution of any of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored” . In order to analyze this correctly Rawls’ terms must be defined; according to Rawls a primary good are “things that every rational man is presumed to want. Goods normally have use regardless of a person’s rational plan to life is” . Some examples of a primary good are: basic rights, opportunity, and income to name a few. With the unders...
...gations that the individuals in the society have towards each other. Rawls indicates that there are public institutions that are present in a just and fair society. He considers the following types of systems that include Laissez-faire capitalism, welfare-state capitalism, property-owning democracy and liberal democratic socialism. Although he indicates that only property owning, democracy and liberal socialism are the ideal systems that satisfy the principles of justice. With reference to the twentieth century, Rawls says that institutions within the United States society play a major role in causing injustices. For example, the extremely expensive campaign systems alienate every individual who is not very rich from running for public office. In addition, the expensive health care policy issue restricts the best care to those who can only afford it. (Rawls, 2001).
Over seventy years ago a man by the name of Gunnar Myrdal published “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), which focus on thinking that relates to race and politics in America. Mr. Myrdal was commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation to investigate “the Negro problem,” right here in the United States of American. This Swedish gentleman was chosen for a few reasons, some being that his country was assumed to have little to no history of
...s that mean Rawls will account for skin color as a primary good? It could be argued that the benefits received and enjoyed by those white peoples are due to their lack of color and thus, color would then become a standardized form of primary good. But accounting the color of one’s skin as a natural asset them presumes that the worst off in society are always colored while the elite are always white peoples. While this is a vast generalization of the concept, it holds true as the principle seeks to subvert those who use natural talents to succeed. The color of one’s skin is both a natural talent and one that can be exploited for maximum gain. But it does not factor in the reality that shifts in the social sphere can make that advantage into a burden. Furthermore, there is a significant generalization of labelling the success of individuals based on skin color alone.
John Rawls and Robert Nozick both provide compelling and thought provoking theories regarding the values of liberty and equality. Rawls focuses on both liberty and equality while Nozick theorizes exclusively on liberty. The ideas of Rawls and Nozick have multiple strengths as well as weaknesses which allow for debate and comparison between the two theories.
Rawls states that for this system to work, all citizens must see themselves as being behind a "veil of ignorance". By this he means that all deciding parties in establishing the guidelines of justice (all citizens) must see themselves as equal to everyone paying no mind to there economic situation or anything else that they could keep in mind to negotiate a better situation to those qualities. For example, if everyone in this society has an equal amount of influence toward the establishing of specific laws, a rich man may propose that taxes should be equal for all rather than proportionate to ones assets. It is for this and similar situations that Rawls feels that everyone must become oblivious to themselves. Rawls believes that the foundational guideline agreed upon by the those in the original position will be composed of two parts.
During the film they interviewed a struggling Costco employee who makes $21.50 an hour and can barely afford to support her family. It also features Nick Hanauer, the very compassionate billionaire who witnesses that his feather pillow company relies on a middle-class customer base. “Even the richest people sleep on one or two pillows,” he says. It is nice to know that some of the wealthy understand that they need a strong middle class and there are some that know they don’t spend even close to what they make a year. They will put a lot of this money into a savings account. Most rich people are saving too much of their money that it’s not making the economy trickle down like it
Individual liberty is the freedom to act and believe as one pleases. It is a widely controversial issue when it comes to the power of the government policing over individual�s freedoms. In this paper, I am going to compare two well known philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Rawls. In part one, I will explain the political and social positions taken by each philosopher. I will explain how Thomas Hobbes is associated with the �social contract theory,� and how John Rawls� theory of government is a �theory of justice.� In doing so, I will describe their different viewpoints on the government and its power over the people. In Part two, I will describe the differences between Hobbes and Rawls. I will argue that Rawls position on the government is the most reasonable, and I will explain why I believe so. In part three, I will explain my own theory and viewpoint with the example of sex laws, including prostitution. With this example, I will tell how and why I believe individual liberty is important. In part four, I will explain how someone might disagree with my position. I will explain how conservative individuals would argue that the government should regulate sexual activity to protect the greater good of society. Finally, I will conclude with discussing the power of the government and individual liberties in today�s society.
Rawls’ primary goal in designing the original position is to describe a situation that he believes would achieve the most extensive liberty and fairness possible to all the parties involved in his hypothetical social contract (Rawls, 1971). Rawls believes that in order to achieve this level of fairness, it must be assumed that the parties involved are situated behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ (Rawls, 1971). This veil of ignorance deprives all of the parties of all knowledge of arbitrary facts about themselves, about other citizens, from influencing the agreement among the representatives (Rawls, 1971). For example, “no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like.” (Rawls, 1971, 137) Rawls argues that if rational people found themselves in this position, they would al...
John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice holds that a rational, mutually disinterested individual in the Original Position and given the task of establishing societal rules to maximise their own happiness throughout life, is liable to choose as their principles of justice a) guaranteed fundamental liberties and b) the nullification of social and economic disparities by universal equality of opportunities, which are to be of greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society , . Rawls’ system of societal creation has both strengths and weaknesses, but is ultimately sound.
...e achieved when the Liberty and Difference Principle are enacted with the veil of ignorance. On the contrary, Nozick argues that Rawls’s theory is exactly the sort of patterned principle that infringes upon individual liberty. As an alternative, Nozick provides his unpatterned principle as the ideal distribution of goods in a society. To me, Rawls’s argues his theory in a manner where his principles of justice are not only difficult to achieve, but ultimately are exceedingly deficient in providing general utility. The veil of ignorance has proved to be almost impossible as well as unethical. The Difference Principle in itself is unable to justly distribute property since it clearly violates an individual’s liberty. Since Rawls’s method of distributive justice is rendered unreasonable and inefficient, it leaves us with a clear answer derived from two disjunctions.
& nbsp; Take Home Exam # 1: Essay-2 John Rawls never claimed to know the only way to start a society, but he did suggest a very sound and fair way to do so. He based his scenario on two principles of justice. His first principle of justice was that everyone should have the same rights as others.