Quote:

            “The concept of justice I take to be defined, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role” (Rawls 9.)

 

Comment:

             This particular quote comes from the end of the section entitled “The Subject of Justice.” Within this section Rawls discusses possible ways of attempting to defined the concept justice and what it means. He addresses that it is part of the way organized society runs and is able to function. Though Rawls also addresses in the earlier part of the section that there are many dimensions and levels to society in which justice can be applied in different ways. The quote above is Rawls’ attempt to define this term of justice. I decided to write about this quote, because I was able to touch upon some of these ideas within my midterm project. Within my project I discussed how I believe the concept of justice to be very abstract and depends on the person who is defining it. I mean to say that my idea of justice could be different from my neighbor’s idea of justice. This is due to the complex differences of each individual belonging to a society.  

              Rawls also touches upon the idea of societal justice early on in this section. He calls social justice as “the basic structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties…” (Rawls 6.) For the most part I agree with this statement, however I would like to say that I believe justice to also be dependent on social norms. For example, my first thought after reading this section was back to “Between the World and Me” and our discussions about the mistreatment of black Americans throughout our history. Though the laws declared abuse and discrimination toward black Americans to be unjust, it would seem that the collective society deemed it just by looking the other way. We see this again in “12 Angry Men” when the jury is ready to convict the young man solely based on preconceived prejudice. To that end I would like to say that I think justice to be defined by a mixture of societal views and institutional views.

 

Question:

            At what point should social institutions define justice? And at what point should the citizens of society define its sense of justice?