The Issue Of Distributive Justice

"The same law of nature that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too." (Locke, 20). According to Locke, there are three limits to how much property one can acquire. First, deals with taking so many items, that they spoil from being hoarded and not used. "Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy." (Locke, 21). The second says that one should not be a glutton and leave an abundance for others to take from when one acquires their property. The third and final limit says that one should only take only as much as you yourself can use or improve upon. If any of these limits are exceeded, the productivity of everyone suffers. However, the invention of money, according to Locke, can trump these three limits. This is because goods will not spoil since they can be sold, and workers can be hired for wage labor to collect more goods than any one person alone could.

During this paragraph the reasons behind why I chose the pictures I did will be discussed. One of the more symbolic images in the picture is the balanced scale. The scale is called the scale of justice and it is something Lady Justice holds as a personification of moral balance. On the scale are a heart and a brain to represent how I use both equally to make moral decisions.

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.

In Distributive Justice, Robert Nozick aims to clarify the processes of distribution that can be reasonably upheld in a free society. To do so, he examines the origins of how people legitimately come to own things and applies the least intrusive set of guidelines that can be doled out in order to guarantee the most justice possible, while also respecting individual liberty. Nozick provides the Entitlement Theory, which specifies that so long as there is justice in the acquisition and transfer of holdings (things one owns), there is no injustice or infringement upon liberties of others and the parties involved are entitled their holdings. In the event there is an injustice committed, he provides the third topic of “ the rectification of injustice in holdings.” Establishing how individuals may legitimately acquire holdings is crucial to a discussion on the liberty and rights of individuals in a free, yet cooperative society. In order to further clarify how individuals originally come to own things in society, Distributive Justice later analyzes John Locke’s Theory of Acquisition. A diminishing number of unowned resources as well as the inherent problems in a free market convolute the issue.

In the United States, there are real imbalances in our wealth and wages. If these variance are the fundamental reason for political inconsistency, then these private imbalances should be decreased in order to move toward a political system where power is dispersed among all citizens. Changes in the distribution of riches and income will not change through the economy but should be established through different sorts of public policies on the state and federal level.

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 main reason so many people have become aware of the unjust system is because of the laws that have been imposed in certain districts. As if the registries are not open to the public, some governments seek more ways to broadcast a person's registry. A judge in a small town of Texas, ruled that sex offenders must post warning signs in the front yard of their homes reading "Danger! Registered Sex Offender Lives Here!" Not only did the judge expect these to be put on their yards but placed on their cars as well. Judge J. Manuel Bañales argued his case because although in Texas the registry is in the newspapers and online he says many people do not look at these. People against Bañales disagreed and said that if the people of the neighborhood

After a crime has been committed, many people including the offender, victim, and community are left in despair. There are several ways to handle the aftermath of a crime which primarily involves the criminal justice system known as retributive justice. Retributive justice seeks to punish the offender, likely resulting in probation or incarceration. However, there are other ways of handling the response to crime that can aid the retributive process and criminal justice system or sometimes avoid it all together.

If one particular individual (or family) was given all the resources available to help them thrive and another individual lacked basic necessities, how is this fair? Similarly, if 1% of the American population owns a vast majority of our society’s riches compared to the other 99% who work hard and still have a hard time making it, how is this fair? Income inequality is when there are recognizable problems as far as redistribution of wealth within our society yet the people (i.e., the “1%ers”) who could make the biggest difference in fixing these problems fail to. That is not to say that the current solutions do not help but realistically, more should be done to correct these issues. Per Blau (2014), “if businesses do not pay their employees adequate wages, these workers cannot buy enough to keep the economy

The retributive justice worldview concentrates on punishment of the offender. Retribution glances back at the offense and looks for proper and proportionate correctional response. Crime prevention through rehabilitative mediation is not one of the objectives of the punishment for criminal behavior. Similarly, restoration of the victim and the community is additionally not at the front line of retributive justice. Retributive justice is offender centered and is likewise government dominated. The process itself could be said to be as essential as the punishment allotted to the offender. In any occasion, the requirements of the state and the subsequent punishment to the offender are the most imperative parts of the official state reaction to criminal conduct. This center comes to the detriment of victims and the

Everyone has his or her own ideas of how wealth should be distributed properly. Some people believe wealth should be left to family, left for public services, or become the property of others. Others believe that people should not have excess wealth, resulting in non-existent class distinctions. An alternative view is that wealth is not distributed; instead, the wealthy continue to grow wealthier while those in poverty can not escape it and fall further into a life of poverty. The beliefs discussed above come from three different writers. Those writers include Andrew Carnegie, Karl Marx, and Robert B. Reich. These writers all have different opinions on how wealth should be distributed properly.

“the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians and philosophers. It is of interest to everyone, and that is a good thing.”-Piketty

In this video, it clearly shows that the white cops are harassing the black teenagers. The whites are not even being questioned but the cops are torturing the blacks. One of the white teenager said in a separate interview that he felt very shocked because the cops were not questioning him but they were questioning and beating the blacks. This video relates to the article because both show the inequality in the justice system.

What is misrepresentation? Well, the basic definition of misrepresentation states that it is “the action or offense of giving a false or misleading account of the nature of something” (). In the novels Nectar in a Sieve and Born on the Fourth of July, I was introduced to the idea of misrepresentation, which correlates with the theme of injustice, through the construction of the tannery and the glamorization of the Vietnam war. The lives of both of the main characters from each novel were drastically altered because of false entities that were disguised as supposed opportunities.

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)