Understanding of justice and its requirements

By understanding and defining justice, this enables us to understand the human perception of justice in the United States. Justice has a series of necessary steps of understanding to fully comprehend what justice may require. By going through the understanding of justice and injustice, the principles of justice, and human needs; we will grasp a full understanding of what justice entails. What is Justice and Injustice?

Justice

The conditions of justice require that all men and women be treated equal and therefore have the freedom to do as they please within the laws of the governing. That is such that all men and women should not be discriminated against for race, religion, property, or wealth. There are various beliefs of justice. There is fairness in justice, which is stated in John Rawls passage of A Theory of Justice that, “ One feature of justice as fairness is to think of the parties in the initial situation as rational and mutually disinterested”. This is the idea of how there should be equal judgments made of people no matter their background or who they are. Also, there is the Utilitarian belief that of the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people provides justice. However, because all humans feel and believe differently, it is hard to please all, and some will just never feel justice at all. Robert Nozick believes that all individuals have rights no matter who they are or what they have. “ A minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud or enforcement of contracts and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons’ rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified”.

What’s involved with Justice?

Freedom is justice, but in order to provide justice for the majority of people we need to have a government led by a respected leader. Without a government to rule justice, our freedom would be taken away with war. The government has the right to protect our freedom and all of us from harm by following the laws set for our protection. Injustice: Injustice in my belief is the lack of fairness and of our natural liberties given to all human beings by birth. It is stated in the U. S. Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson that, “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence). With injustice, it is a notion of taking these natural rights and stripping them from us. All men and women would be left without the freedom to live how they want to live, speak up for what they believe in, and decide the governing. With that being said there is a strong message that all men are created equal.

What is Required to Change Injustice?

“ The general conception of justice imposes no restrictions on what sort of inequalities are permissible; it only requires that everyone’s position be improved”. To change injustice, we must really focus on the idea of equality amongst each other. Ignorance plays a key role in why injustice still happens today. For we need to give everyone the ability to live how they want to live and be treated equally. For example, in our daily life, we experience how African-American people still get mistreated with police brutality and judged just because of the color of their skin. Women still get lower wages than men, for instance, Women’s professional soccer players get payed less than half what professional men soccer players earn. Today, equality is not socially displayed in the nature to abolish injustice. So, until that is changed, there will be injustice.

Principles of Justice

Equality: It would require all men and woman be treated with equal rights and the freedom to do as they please within the laws. People should be entitled to the equality of compensation for hard work and reach an equal opportunity. It is bound for people to be equal with each other in law and have an equal advantage to attain for a greater or equal income. He believes that inequality is not an issue and if people in a different environment have what they need to survive then there are no issues. This is not fair and is unjust. In different parts of the world, people’s requirement for living is different, therefore not everyone should be given exactly what everyone else has.

Freedom: Freedom is in which all men and woman should not be discriminated for: race, religion, what they know, what they own, or wealth. Freedom is to purchase or attain property, wealth, have a family, and have your own religious beliefs. Property, family, and personal religious beliefs are all of fairness in justice that it is what liberties of the current structure allow.

Government: “ Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so they are reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage”. In the government, people should be allowed the right to decide who they put in a position of power and to speak for what they believe in. Also, people should have the ability to receive positions in a political office to fight for what they feel is justice. Rawls states this by saying, “ While the distribution of wealth and income need not be equal, it must be everyone’s advantage, and at the same time, positions of authority and offices of command must be accessible to all”.

Human Needs Related to Justice

Happiness: Everyone has different needs and morals for happiness. “ By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure”. However, our actions are proportional to our happiness, if we make the wrong decisions, the outcome will produce unhappiness and the opposite is also true. As an example, if we are compensated for doing a good job, we will fill happy and our efforts are felt as justified. So as Mill states, “ Whatever makes the most people happy is justice”.

Views of Different Classes of People: There are different views on Justice from different classes of people. Communists believe power is justice and they believe, “ Justice requires the abolition of: Private property, the family, religion and the nation”. I disagree with this, in that justice is the freedom to have the ability to work as hard as you want, make as much money as you want, and be able to purchase the property that you want. We have the right to own our property and purchase what we need to suffice our needs without the concern of government. It becomes our responsibility to maintain or do away with our property, and this is felt as justice or our power of freedom. It also incorporates your own religious beliefs, a family to care for, and believe in a nation that listens to everyone. Everyone should be treated fair regardless of gender, age, race, or beliefs. For it is stated in A Theory of Justice that, “…each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others”.

Human Satisfaction: We can’t satisfy everyone, even if we were to give to the needy to help make people better off. Everyone has different views and will not agree on policies. So, we leave it up to the larger interest to act together to abide by the decisions that have been made. Thrasymachus believes that “ justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger”. This implies that the stronger we are mentally and wiser we are from our experience, we are more likely to seek and receive justice. Justice is satisfying the majority of the larger interest and to come together to abide by the collective decisions we agree upon and the equality we believe we should stand for. Through the understanding of justice and injustice, the principles of justice, and human needs; we come to the full understanding of what justice requires.