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Name – Aditya Singh Course - B.A.-L.L.B. (H), 1st^ Year CONCEPT OF JUSTICE INTRODUCTION Justice primarily means equal and justified treatment to all the people of the society or be it a country. Justice plays an important role in shaping a society/country. Justice may have different interpretations for different people. It may be of different types. All the people residing in a society, state or country have every right to demand justice in case they feel their right, which is guaranteed by the constitution itself, has been denied or infringed. There are many aspects and scopes where the meaning of justice is still controversial. The need of the hour is to simplify and redefine Justice keeping in mind the interests of each and every people and looking at every scope and aspect of it. The concept of Justice is a vexed and controversial topic of political science and is old as the political science or political theory. 1 Justice as defined in Cambridge dictionary is “fairness in the way people are dealt with.” Justice to one may mean injustice to other. Justice lacks a precise definition. It can be said, it acquires different meanings according to the people, situation and aspect etc. (^2) Barry observes: In ordinary speech generally we talk of justice and injustice where the words do not refer to the desirability or otherwise of the state of affairs or particular income (^1) Justice – meaning, available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org (last visited on 24th (^) October, 2019) (^2) Norman P. Barry, An Introduction to Modern Political Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 4th (^) edition, 2000)
and wealth distributions but to the rules and procedures that characterize social practices and which are applied to the action of individuals who participate in those practices. KEY FEATURES OF JUSTICE Justice bases itself on mutual relationships of persons living in society. Values and Traditions of a society plays a huge role in determining Justice. Equal rights, opportunities and facilities to all in a fair way are some aims of Justice. Justice is a primary value and is inseparably related to other values like Liberty, Equality and Property. Social Justice, Economic Justice, Political Justice and Legal Justice are some different categories of Justice. TYPES OF JUSTICE Social Justice Social Justice signifies that all the people in the society are equal and discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, creed, sex, color or status does not prevail. Concept of Social Justice has been explained by various scholars in different ways. Some hold that Social Justice is to allot to each individual his/her due share in social sphere. Others hold that distribution of social facilities and rights on the basis of law and justice constitutes Social Justice. Economic Justice Economic Justice requires that all citizens should have adequate opportunities to earn their livelihood and get fair wages as can enable to satisfy their basic needs and help them to develop further.
RAWLS’S THEORY OF JUSTICE
(^5) John Rawls (1921-2002), a contemporary American philosopher, in his celebrated work A Theory of Justice (1971) has pointed out that a good society is characterized by a number of virtues. Justice is the first virtue of a good society. In other words Justice is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a good society. Rawls is an even-handed because he concedes ‘equal’ liberty for all. He bases his theory on Distribution Principle. Availability of basic or primary goods to all – equal rights, equal opportunities and some income are the key concepts of his theory. He accepts equality as a cardinal principle and insists that only inequalities shall be required to be justified. Rawls is primarily concerned with offering a justification for a particular form of liberal democracy that is justifiable to all. NOZICK’S THEORY OF JUSTICE (^6) Robert Nozick (1938-2002), an American philosopher in his Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) sought to advance an alternative to Rawls’s theory of Justice. Nozick, in his thorough analysis of distributive justice intends to draw the attention of his readers to politics which is popularly called liberalism. Theory of Justice by Robert Nozick is primarily based on rights. The rights come from the concept of entitlement. His theory bases on principle of transfer or justly acquired things. He believes that things should be freely transferred in a just manner, i.e. Principle of Initial Acquisition. He focuses on rectification of things unjustly acquired or transferred. (^5) O.P. Gauba, An Introduction to Political Theory, 488(Macmillan Publishers India Ltd., 6th (^) edition, 2013) (^6) O.P. Gauba, An Introduction to Political Theory, 492( Macmillan Publishers India Ltd., 6th (^) edition, 2013)
(^7) In his book Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick seeks to defend the notion of the state against philosophical anarchists, who argue that state can never be justified. Nozick thinks that whether distributions of income, wealth etc. are just depends entirely on their history. CONCLUSION On reading the entire topic, we are left with the impression of Justice being a normative concept with presence in spheres such as ethics, religion, philosophy, jurisprudence etc. We also observe that why it has been very difficult for the previous political thinkers to produce a specified definition for Justice. Political values like rights, equality, liberty, fraternity and justice are interconnected with a bond, whereby one cannot exist without the other. Hence Justice can be said to be the reconciler and synthesizer of the great political values. (^7) John Hoffman and Paul Graham, Introduction to Political Theory, 92(Dorling Kindersley India Pvt. Ltd., 2010)
