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Rawls on the topics of fairness
Rawls on the topics of fairness
Rawls on the topics of fairness
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If I could wave a magic wand and apply Rawls’ veil of ignorance on a group in society, I would choose lawmakers. Applying Rawls’ veil of ignorance to this group is the best strategy to live out Rawls’ theory by helping the most people become equal. It is so crucial that the people who are ultimately governing our society are doing so in the best interests of all people. As a result, I think that the laws being made would be less targeted at groups of people but rather society as a whole. Rawls veil of ignorance is a thought process in which we think as if we did not know who we are and what we identify with. This principle would allow everyone to enjoy the maximum liberty possible and have an equal opportunity to prosper. If there were any
advantages or disadvantages they should be faced by everyone. Using Rawls’ theory, we can more fairly decide how society should be structured. Lawmakers are people who write and pass laws that govern a society. Though these people are typically elected in a democratic society, they often have self-interests that they do not express until elected into office. They are then able to use their elected power to write new laws and amend current laws to tailor them to what they personally believe. Though there are checks and balances to most, but not all, systems of government, it is important to realize the affects Rawls’ theory would have. By applying Rawls’ theory to these members of society, I believe that the way laws are being written will begin to offer the equal opportunity Rawls’ believes we should have. Lawmakers will begin to look at situations from a perspective of how to offer the most people equal opportunities to be successful. Considering current events, for instance, rather than creating laws that allow for only certain people to be gun owners based on simple factors such as age, we can begin created more generalized laws. Sure, we should still consider factors such as a person’s mental state but age is merely a number yet can be so limiting. Similarly, there are restrictions on how old you must be to have a credit card, drink a beer or buy a lottery ticket. These are only a few examples of how lawmakers are targeting only specific groups of society, rather than focusing on society as a whole.
Professor Leila Ahmed, active Islamic feminist, in her article “Reinventing the veil” published in the Financial Times assumes that there is a connection between “advancement” and veiling, which means that unveiled women are advanced and vice versa. In addition, she supports that it led to increasing rate of violence. She questions why women wear veil, that is considered as “symbol of patriarchy and women’s oppression”. However, research changed her position towards wearing veil. Firstly, she states that wearing veil was essential for women, because it could be beneficial and influence to how people treat women, in terms of job, marriage and free movement in public. Secondly, her assumption was explained while interviewing women, who stated
The paper titled “White Ignorance” written by Charles Milles talks about ignorance within the white race and how it is a multidimensional entity; it’s mentioned there should be a sociology of ignorance. The boundaries for what is deemed as white ignorance is laid out in the paper. These boundaries serve as reminders to the reader that ignorance is not limited to only white people, and that not all whites are ignorant. White ignorance builds itself beyond refutation, to the point where anything outside the ordinary norms of white supremacy over other races is ignored. Writers seeking to expose the blindness that comes with this type of ignorance have come up with examples to try to show their point of view. One such writer by the name of Herman Melville wrote a novel called Benito Cerono, in
Many minority groups describe racism and other forms of discrimination as being more than just prejudiced towards people based on certain characteristics. Prejudice plays a large role in what is considered to be racism, but it also consists of having a dominant position in society and power to institute and take advantage of their racism. This dominant group of people have the most power, the greatest privileges, and what’s considered to be the highest social status. They use their power to provide themselves with (easier) access to resources like housing, education, jobs, food, health, legal protection, and et cetera. On the other hand, the subordinate group of people are singled out for unequal treatment and are regarded as “objects” of collective discrimination. They are provided with inferior education, food, jobs, healthcare and et cetera.
make a person think that not all laws are good for the group in society and
Barker (2014, p.1) suggests that the law may be defined as a rule of human conduct, imposed upon and enforced among the members of society in which laws are inaugurated to ensure that social order continues. As a result, laws ensure that members of society may live and work together in an orderly manner by following the same rules. However, laws have different affects on individual members in society and from this point of view, this essay will focus on how laws in society affect individuals in minority and disadvantaged groups.
Throughout modern American culture certain laws passed by the majority have been considered unjust by a wise minority. However, with the logical and emotional appeal of hard fought battles, voices have been heard, and the minds of the majority can sometimes be converted to see the truth. Thoreau, after spending a night in jail and seeing the truth hidden behind the propaganda of the majority, became convinced that he could no longer accept his government’s behavior of passing laws that benefit the majority with degrading the minority. It’s quite ironic that by the government imprisoning Thoreau he became freer then ever before. He was able to see how the government turned peaceably inclined men into controllable machines. Thoreau saw how the government dealt with its citizens as only a body, while completely disregarding the sense, intellect, and moral beliefs of its people. In his essay “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau stated that “a government ruled by majority in all cases cannot be based on justice.” He further believed that “under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also prison.” This point made by Thoreau can be seen as the truth throughout history. A just man never sits by quietly watching the majority degrade the minority to suit their own immoral purposes. Like Thoreau, another just man who stood out from the quiet minority was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King was, as well, willing to suffer for his views to put an end to racial segregation, and was arrested on numerous occasions for holding strong in his believes and spreading his message throughout the minds of all God’s children. King often cited conscience as a guide to obeying just laws and disobeying unjust ones. In an essay written by King titled “A letter from Birmingham Jail,” King clearly defines the interpretation of the differerence between the two kinds of laws. “An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is a difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.” To further understand this King quotes from St. Augustine himself who once stated “any law that uplifts human personality is just.
In Joan Scott’s book The Politics of the Veil she argues that contemporary understandings of Muslims and their place in French society are rooted in a longer history of racism and colonialism that reaches back to the 19th century. The controversies of wearing a veil in France have root causes dating back to French colonial. Scott traces back through time to examine the initial history between these two nations. She addresses the causes through her themes of racism, individualism, secularism and sexuality in which she intertwines to give light on the veil controversies.
Rawls’ thinks that the modern liberty is the kind of freedom modern individuals are able to enjoy. He states that there are two things that are appropriate to democratic society, and they are justice and tolerance. Rawls presents us with two principles of justice that the citizens have to follow in order to be truly free; they are equality of rights and inequality benefits least advantaged member of society. In order to be completely free and exist in the society all you need to do is follow these two basic and most important rule. Furthermore, Rawls mentions that there is so much diversity in our democratic society, that we are more of society of strangers. You are free to do whatever you please and free to take responsibility for yourself, you are your own validation. With that he also brought out, since the institutions follow the two principles of justice, citizens can put their trust in them. In Rawls sense, as long as we follow the two principles of justice then, citizens are completely free to do whatever they wish to
“We simply cannot say we live in a country that offers equal justice to all Americans when racial disparities plague the system by which our society imposes the ultimate punishment,” stated Senator Russ Feingold.
...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.
...r the minority according to Mill (Falikowski 79, 80). Thus, the interests or moral principles of a minority could be ignored, since they are a minority, even if they are important. For example, the AIDS patients were a minority in society, so their interests were not considered in laws about drugs (Dallas Buyers Club). Hence, if the laws do not evolve fast enough, they could interfere with people’s natural rights; they could become unjust, will be out-dated, and not consider the interests of the minorities.
This oppression and discrimination is experienced through several forms of oppression including violence, racism classism and sexism not only at a personal level but also at the structural level. This high risk population is vulnerable for internalizing the oppression as an accepted norm. Mullaly believes that “people may be given certain rights but still be unable to exercise their rights due to particular social constraints based on class, gender, race and ethnicity.”
Rawls provided us with framework that outlines the principle of justice. Rawls starts his theory by describing “the original position” (Munson, 2012, p. 881) and the “veil of ignorance” (Munson, 2012, p. 881) stating that a group of people with different levels of intelligence, different abilities and with different talents that are unaware of their sex, race, position in society, and more cannot gain advantage over others since they do not know the circumstance of others or themselves. This leads to justice being described as fairness. Rawls has two principles, the liberty principle and the distribution principle. The liberty principle states that everyone has equal rights to liberty as long as it does not encroach upon the liberty of others. The distribution principle states that social goods are to be distributed in a way that benefits the least advantaged the most and allows offices and positions to be held by anyone under equal opportunity. Under the liberty principle, this case may be found to be unjust. These infants are unable to make decisions on their own, but they still have basic liberties. By ordering for the infants to not be feed or given water, the father and doctors are encroaching upon the basic liberties of the infants. But Rawls could argue that we have duties to those that cannot make decisions for
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...
...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.