Distributive Justice: Fraedrich And Ferrelly

Introduction: Bernie Madoff was a well-respected financier, his company Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC was very well known and even helped launch the Nasdaq stock market. Madoffs company was well trusted and he even had celebrity cliental such a Steven Spielberg, Kevin bacon, and Kyra Sedgwick. Madoff came from a low income family however, he was able to start his company from getting a $50,000 loan from his in-laws and he using money that he had saved from side jobs such as lifeguarding and installing sprinkler systems to found his company. The successfulness of Madoff’s company came from the company’s ability to adapt to change and us modern day computer technology. As his business grew he stated employing family members to help “His younger brother, Peter, joined him in the business in 1970 and became the firm 's chief compliance officer. Later, Madoff 's sons, Andrew and Mark, also worked for the company as traders. Peter 's daughter, Shana, became a rules-compliance lawyer for the trading division of her uncle 's firm, and his son, Roger, joined the firm before his death in 2006”(Bernard Madoff Biography 2016) Unfortunately on December 11th 2008 Bernie Madoff became well known for a whole new reason. He had been accused of performing an elaborate Ponzi scheme and he had been reported to the federal authorities by his own sons. A year later he admitted to the investigators that he had lost $50 billion dollars of his investors’ money and pled guilty to 11

In The Republic, the great philosopher Plato attempts to reveal through the character and dialogues of Socrates that justice is better when it is the good for which men must strive for, regardless of whether they could be unjust and still be rewarded. His method is to use dialectic, the asking and answering of questions. This method leads the audience from one point to another, supposedly with indisputable logic by obtaining agreement to each point before going on to the next, therefore, building an argument.

Madoff clearly did not have any views of ethics or social responsibility towards his investors. All he cared about was the green dollar signs. I think that his sons took a major stand by outing him to the public officials. To me, it showed that at least all ethic values were not lost with this family. Madoff’s sons are the ones the investors should thank for giving them justice.

Throughout years in the criminal justice system, women being incarcerated has increased drastically. Since the amount of women offenders increased above male offenders, equality is sought out. There is an expand amount of gender disparities in federal cases. With women seeking equality through justice over the decades, changes should be made within the justice system to provide impartiality, acknowledge the gender difference and it’s importance.

Procedural justice, is concerned with making and applying decisions according to fairness. Rules must be impartially followed and consistently applied in order to create an unbiased decision. Those carrying out the procedures should be neutral, and those directly affected by the decisions should have some voice or representation in the decision-making process such as a jury and its witness testimonies. Procedural justice amounts to four basic actions such as treat people with respect, listen to what they have to say, make fair decisions, and explain your actions. Social justice, is the largest and most important form of justice to most societies. Social justice is about assuring the protection of equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities,

The administration of punishment should serve the offender and should be in the form and severity that is necessary for the meeting of the objective.

Synopsis A childhood friend summed up the driving force in Bernie Madoff’s life: “Bernie wanted to be rich.” As a youngster growing up in New York City, Bernie realized that Wall Street was the greatest wealth creation machine the world had ever known. So, after graduating from college in 1960, he set his sights on joining the exclusive fraternity that ran Wall Street by organizing his own one-man brokerage firm, Madoff Securities. Madoff was one of the first individuals to recognize that computer technology provided the means to “democratize” Wall Street by establishing a system that made securities trading much more efficient and much cheaper. In the early 1970s, Madoff and several other individuals

Three types of parties that were impacted by the actions of Mr. Madoff were his individual investors, charities and his employees. Mr. Madoff plead guilty to defrauding investors in his massive Ponzi scheme. He committed many crimes of tort against these people. He was able to gain investors and intentionally misled them. He took their money and deposited into a Chase bank account and then paid returns to previous investors

In his Article, “The Range of Justice”, Gerald Gaus Explains that there will likely never be one vision of a “just society” Due to this, Gaus concludes that instead individuals have the responsibility to learn tolerance towards others whose views may be different than their own. This “moral maturity” is essential to understanding that we live in a diverse society that will likely never come to share a single conception of what is best for society as a whole, and to understand that they may be forced to live under policies and/or practices with which they may not agree.

Judge Denny Chin presided over the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme case where Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. “The penalty sparked a burst of applause in a courtroom packed with victims of the fraud.” (Frank). Mr. Madoff ruined hundreds of lives that put their life savings and trust in his hands. Bernie expressed remorse after fraud victims address their concerns in the courtroom in regards to massive Ponzi scheme. Friends and family were not there to support Madoff in his day of sentencing and remain inadequate of further information of details about the fraud. Bernie Madoff is believed to have betrayed everyone including his two sons who work for the investment firm. Rich and poor people alike shared in this despair after all of their

First this essay will demonstrate how Rawls’s theory will affect the society and its structure in terms of basic social institutions, wealth distribution and major economic limits and opportunities. Then, the essay will demonstrate the same for Nozick’s theory on distributive justice. I will then describe, in which society I would prefer to live in and why.

“That picture does not do you justice,” a phrase many of us have heard from friends or family. Known to be commonly used to make people feel better about a picture that shows them as rather unattractive. Though justice and fairness do share similarities, justice can also show itself as being unfair, as told by Bitar “In the United States, the right to have and raise a family is a fundamental right grounded in the 14th Amendment,” where it states anyone can claim their parental rights, even “rapists”. Bitar also mentions “A victim of acquaintance rape in North Carolina became pregnant and carried her child to term. (3) The man she accused of raping her threatened to assert his parental rights unless she agreed not to file charges against him,”

The following section of this study will dissect the two opposing tax systems and analyze them through the lenses of two major ethical theories, Universalism, and Rawls’ Distributive Justice Theory. Both theories will discuss the three ethical questions presented in the beginning of this paper and present which theory most closely aligns to the principles of each theory.

Over the decades, the concept of justice has been continually evolving. This is occurring based upon different moral or legal interpretations. Evidence of this can be seen with observations from Burke (2011) who said, "Few things are of more importance to a society than its concept of justice. This is because it is justice that provides criterion for the legitimate use of force. In the name of justice people are detained, arrested, handcuffed, put on trial and punished. This concept is used to provide every society with some kind of social order. Over the last 200 years, a revolution has taken place with these principles. Our idea of it is what we employ, when dealing with ordinary individuals in daily life including: making agreements, paying bills, resolving disputes and putting criminals in jail. This is a concept that is as old as recorded history and it is familiar to people everywhere. What makes it so unique is that these ideas are constantly changing which focuses on society as a whole and how people are interacting with each other. " (Burke)

The cry for equality of opportunity for the underprivileged and weaker sections of the society is being increasingly heard these days and this demonstrates the importance of notion of distributive justice in modern consciousness. Distributive justice embraces "the whole economic dimension of social justice, the entire question of proper distribution of goods and services within thesociety". It demands equality in the distribution or allotment of advantages or burdens. The advantages or burdens which are to be distributed are of numerous kinds such as wages, taxes, property, punishments, individual or social performances or rights and duties as allocated and apportioned by the legal system. Distributive justice aims to strike a balance in the socio-economic structure of the society to bring equipoise between the conflicting desires, interests and claims of the individual citizens. Justice P.N. Bhagwati succinctly explains distributive justice as under:-