Theory of Justice Analysis paper



Theory of Justice Analysis paper

Introduction

This paper aims at discussing the theories of justice, the guiding principles behind justice theories and how these past theories differ from traditional utilitarianism and finally look into how modern criminal justice agencies are incorporating justice and in which context.

Discussion

Theory of Justice

Limbaugh (2010) considers multiple definitions for justice and states that justice can most accurately be defined when a victim of any crime, is handed down by the courts and the legal system a certain justifiable punishment to the wrongdoer. According to Rawls (1999) justice is the first and the most fundamental virtue of social institutions similarly to how truth is of our systems of thought. Justice can also be considered as the importance of having rights, equality and fairness. Every society has a particular economic framework which has its separate laws and institutions and policies the economic framework was as a result of the changing political processes, there have been countless arguments over which framework is the most appropriate which would result in distributions which are morally preferred which gives rise to the concept of distributing justice. Distributive justice is therefore considered to be the most appropriate method of providing moral guidance for the political processes and the structures which have a direct impact on the distribution of economic benefits (SEP, 1996).

It was based on this factor that justice theories were adopted; there are three major theories of justice which will be discussed within this paper namely the modern theory of Utilitarianism, Rawls's theory of Justice as fairness and Nozick's Libertarianism.

Modern Utilitarianism

The concept of modern utilitarianism is based on the traditional concept of utilitarianism the only major difference is that this theory is based on cost benefit analysis. This is based on the principle that whenever the government takes on any new project or regulation and if the expected benefit of any project is greater than the expected costs then such a project or regulation is justified, the biggest drawback of this theory is that one person benefit cannot be compared accurately with another person's cost. The theory also believes that if a project undertaken by a certain group of people benefits another group of people then every person is happy (Fritz, 2004). Modern Utilitarianism has given rise to communism which is considered to be the worst theory of justice.

Rawls theory of justice as fairness

Rawls concept of justice is completely different from the concept of Utilitarianism which considers morality is completely separate from justice. The principle upon which the theory of justice presented by Rawls depends on is known as the original position according to this principle Rawls considers that there should be a group of people who decide on matters of justice, the people who will be appointed will be learned people who understand what's best for people and re completely unbiased and their only concern is ensuring the betterment of other people. The people from the original position will want the even distribution of goods and for that purpose ...