Introduction to Philosophy

Achieve Test Prep: Philosophy

Chapter Ten: What is Social Justice? Learning Objectives After completing Chapter Ten, you should be able to: 1. Discuss the elements of a just society 2. Discuss the different types of classical theories regarding society 3. Discuss the different theories regarding justice and their contribution to philosophy as a science Elements of a Just Society How would you go about creating a society based on the principle of justice? Although your political interest and involvement may typically focus on specific social issues, healthcare, government spending, educational issues, and foreign policy, political philosophy requires you to question the system as a whole. In developing your ideal society, you have to answer many of the following questions: question of justice which looks at how we can be fair to all citizens in terms of wealth, opportunity, and power known as distributive justice and how should people who have violated society’s laws be treated known as retributive justice, questions of laws, questions of public interest, questions of duty, questions of rights, questions of freedom, and questions of power and influence. The responses to the questions listed above form the basic ingredients of a community and because these questions can be answered in many different ways there have been many different kinds of social/political communities in human history. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers and other thinkers have constructed theories to explain the nature of society and to recommend how an ideal society ought to be constructed. Social and political philosophers are normative as well as descriptive, because they embody values that they believe should be reflected in an ideal society. This parallels the way moral theories are designed to both describe the way individuals behave and also how they ought to behave. Political philosophers involve applying moral values to the concept of larger social communities, defined by their common culture and political institutions. Concepts such as justice, fairness, rights, duties, equality, and political freedom are essentially moral concepts that characterize our personal relationships with one another, these moral concepts need to be defined, justified, and critically evaluated. The ultimate goal is to develop an in depth understanding of core concepts so that you are in a position to develop your own integrated vision of what an ideal society ought to be. This will be a vision that we can use to inform our own actions as we work to make the society we live in more enlightened and more morally sound. In pursuing this utopian goal, we might aspire to be an ideal observer which is someone who is knowledgeable, imaginative objective, and consistent. Such an approach encourages us to conceive of a society that ensures justice for others as well as ourselves.

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