Answer to Question #312561 in Philosophy for JULAINE HENDRICKS

Question

“It has been seen that justice is an important moral concept on an individual level. On a

societal level it is an equally important moral concept used in evaluating actions of

society’s institutions.”

Examine the Five theories of Justice. 35 marks

Answer 1

Utilitarianism is a teleological theory because it makes the right thing depending on the good, or in other words, "what must be done" on the determination of the valuable goods. That is why it advocates that "what must be done must be done that maximizes the good for the majority". According to classical utilitarianism, the good is defined as the satisfaction of desire, whether it takes into account each individual or society, and therefore, a society will be all the more just the more capable it is of obtaining the greatest amount of satisfaction of the desires of the greatest number of individuals. Being (and this is what Rawls criticizes) indifferent to the distribution of such satisfaction, since utilitarianism does not take into account the people considered individually, but the utility of the whole; which can bring with it sacrifices and injustices for certain minorities. In this sense, utilitarianism can be considered as an egalitarian theory, since what it establishes as fair is what is considered as such by the majority; the problem of this utilitarian egalitarianism is the injustice it can generate, since anything considered as fair by the majority can imply unfair consequences for minorities, as in the case of the adoption of criteria which discriminate certain individuals because of their sex, race or religion.

Rawls thus seeks to show that the "theory of justice as fairness" establishes a more perfect and equitable way of justifying the basic structure of society and the principles that should govern it than utilitarian theories. For this he is establishing the parallels and differences between these and his theory of justice.

In an axiological sense, egalitarian justice considers that increasing social and economic equality through the redistribution of goods and income improves societies and increases the value of the state of the world.

Egalitarianism would benefit not only the most disadvantaged but also the richest since social and health problems affect everyone. Egalitarianism consists of considering every human being as equal, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc. In that sense, egalitarianism means recognizing the differences that exist in the other without discriminating against them. Therefore, every human being should have the same rights in society.