Fact Sheet: Justice

📘 Fact Sheet: Justice

🌟 Meaning

Out of 4 foundational normative values, Justice is most intuitive, that is, we as human beings have a nature or God-given sense of what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust.

Justice implies something which it is not only right to do and wrong not to do, but also which someone can claim from us as one’s moral right.

It denotes fair, virtuous, and moral act, arrangement, or distribution. In matters of distribution, it implies giving each person his due — fair share to all.

📖 Definitions

• Plato: Justice as harmony of soul and each individual/class performing duty to best of abilities.
• Aristotle: Justice as virtue, proportional equality (equity) as distributive justice.
• John Rawls: Justice as fairness in distribution of resources, awards, honours, and political offices.
• Robert Nozick: Entitlement theory — just distribution if holdings are acquired and transferred fairly.
• Amartya Sen: Justice as fair procedure (Niti) vs justice realized (Nyaya).
• J.S. Mill: Justice as perfect obligation.
• David Gauthier: Justice as mutual advantage.

⚖️ Types of Justice

• Procedural Justice (Niti): Fair and transparent rules, consistent with liberalism.
• Substantive/Distributive Justice (Nyaya): Fair distribution of goods and services, social justice, equality of status and dignity.
• Retributive Justice: Proportionate punishment to crime — “Justice as Requital”.
• Restorative Justice: Repairing harm caused to victim, reintegrating offender.
• Commutative Justice: Fairness in exchanges and compensation.
• Global Justice: Justice beyond borders of nation-states.

📚 Rawls vs Nozick

John Rawls (Theory of Justice, 1971):

• Justice as Fairness — distribution of primary goods.
• Two Principles:
  • Liberty Principle: Equal right to maximum liberties for all.
  • Equality Principle: Inequalities justified only if they benefit least advantaged (Difference Principle).
• End-state theory, welfare state, distributive justice.

Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974):

• Entitlement Theory — distribution just if acquisition & transfers are fair.
• 3 Principles:
  • Just initial acquisition
  • Just transfers
  • Justice in rectification (in case of unfair acquisitions).
• Libertarian approach, procedural justice.

📝 Important Facts for UGC NET

• Aristotle first gave idea of distributive justice (proportional equality).
• Plato: “One man, one work”; justice = performing one’s duty.
• Justice as 1st virtue of society — John Rawls.
• Nozick: Libertarian, entitlement, rectificatory justice.
• St. Augustine: “If justice is taken away, the state becomes a band of robbers.”
• Thinkers of Global Justice: Charles Beitz, Rawls, Nussbaum, Sen, David Miller.
• Michael Walzer: Complex Equality (Spheres of Justice).
• Ronald Dworkin: Justice as Equality of Resources (Sovereign Virtue).

📌 Past UGC NET Questions

• Thinkers of Global Justice reject state-led institutions.
• “Justice as requital” → Retributive justice.
• Robert Nozick — Entitlement theory, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).
• Plato’s Republic — Central concern: Justice.
• John Rawls — Justice as fairness, original position, difference principle.
• Thomas Pogge — Global Justice.
• Rawls’ Law of Peoples — Global Justice.