Justice and Fairness
Justice and Fairness
Justice and Fairness
USMAN CHAUDHRY
Justice and Fairness
Disputes among individuals in business are often interlaced
with reference to justice and fairness.
◦ Unequal distribution of rewards/benefits and burdens in the society
When matters are especially serious in nature, we tend to use the word.
“justice”
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Distributive Justice
Concerned with the fair distribution of society's benefits and
burdens.
Equals should be treated equally and unequals treated unequally.
◦ In the brown lung hearings, for example, it was pointed out that if federal law helped workers
afflicted by black lung, then it was only "fair" that it also help workers afflicted by brown lung.
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Distributive Justice
• Justice as Equality – Egalitarian
• Justice based on Contribution – Capitalist Justice
• Justice as Freedom – Libertarianism
• Justice based on Needs and Abilities – Socialism
• Justice as Fairness
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Distributive Justice
Justice as Equality: Egalitarianism
All benefits and burdens should be distributed according to the following
formula:
Every person should be given exactly equal shares of a society's or a group's
benefits and burdens.
Political equality: Equal participation in, and treatment by, the political
system.
Economic equality: Equality of income, wealth, and opportunity.
But, people differ in their abilities, intelligence, needs, desires and all other
mental and physical features.
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Distributive Justice
Justice Based on Contribution: Capitalist Justice
Benefits should be distributed according to the value of the contribution
the individual makes to a society, a task, a group, or an exchange.
Most widely used to establish salaries in American companies
Puritan ethic: Every individual has a religious obligation to work hard
at his calling.
Productivity: The amount a person produces. The greater the quantity
of a person’s contributed product, the more that person should
receive.
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Distributive Justice
Justice as Freedom: Libertarianism
The only distribution that is just, is one that results from free individual
choices. Any distribution that results from an attempt to impose a certain
pattern on society will therefore be unjust.
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Distributive Justice
Justice as Fairness: Rawls
Different considerations should be taken into account- political, economic,
minimum standards of living etc. A comprehensive theory capable of drawing
these considerations together and fitting them into a logical whole is needed.
Principle 1:
Principle of equal liberty The claim that each citizen's liberties must be protected from invasion
by others and must be equal to those of others. e.g., right to vote, freedom of speech etc.
Principle 2:
• Difference principle The claim that a productive society will incorporate inequalities, but takes
steps to improve the position of the most needy members of society.
• Principle of fair equality of opportunity The claim that everyone should be given an equal
opportunity to qualify for the more privileged positions in society's institutions.
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Retributive Justice
Refers to the just imposition of punishments and penalties on those
who do wrong: A just penalty is one that in some sense is deserved
by the person who does wrong.
If people do not know or do not freely choose what they are doing, they
cannot justly be punished or blamed for it.
Fairness when blaming or punishing persons for doing wrong…
◦ for example, if we were to ask whether it would be fair to penalize cotton mills
for causing brown lung disease among their workers, with the assumption that
they did not their mills would cause brown lung disease.
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Retributive Justice
Concerns the justice of blaming or punishing persons for doing wrong.
A debated phenomena.
The question is of the conditions under which it is just to punish a
person for doing wrong.
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Compensatory Justice
The third category, concerns the just way of compensating people
for what they lost when they were wronged by others.
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Compensatory Justice
Traditional moralist have argued that a person has a moral obligation to
compensate an injured party under three conditions;
1. The action that inflicted the injury was wrong or negligent (careless driving)
2. The person’s action was the real cause of the injury (banker defrauds a
customer)
3. The person inflicted the injury voluntarily (burning someone’s property)
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The Ethics of Care
An ethic that emphasizes caring for the concrete well being of
those near to us. An ethic that requires caring for the concrete
well being of those particular persons with whom we have
valuable close relationships, particularly those dependent on us.
◦ Malden Mills incident…. (opposite to the Utilitarian view)
Communitarian Ethics
An ethic that sees concrete communities and communal relationships as
having a fundamental value that should be preserved and maintained.
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Integrating Utility, Rights, Justice, and
Caring
The Basis of Moral Judgments
Evaluation of social costs and benefits
Respect for individual rights
Just distribution of benefits and burdens
Caring for those in concrete relationships
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