explain the culture justice
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“Justice” is the principle guiding questions of entitlements. Justice is conventionally
conceived under three headings: as distributive, retributive, and restorative (or
corrective). Distributive justice refers to the just distribution of (material or non-
material) goods, resources, and so on. Retributive justice refers to the proper way of
punishing wrongdoing. Restorative or corrective justice addresses the issues of what
compensation (if any) is required for those who have suffered a wrong and what
sacrifice (if any) is required of those who have perpetrated a wrong or sustained a
benefit not shared by others.
“Culture” has specialist uses in various disciplines (e.g. anthropology, archaeology,
cultural studies, literary studies). Its most common meaning is the totality of associated
material artifacts, symbols, stories, traditions, and other bodies of knowledge, belief
systems, and values distinctive to a people, developed and transmitted from one
generation to the next. As such, cultures are key life-support systems for the fulfillment
of human needs.
“Cultural justice” may be interpreted in various ways. It may refer to culturally specific
conceptions of what is just. Alternatively, it may refer to deciding what constitutes
justice between members of different cultural groups. Recently, much academic debate
has revolved around a more specific question, namely, how the state should act justlytowards minority cultures within multicultural societies where the institutions of the
state reflect the culture of the majority. A further possible demarcation is between
instances where culture is the marker of distinct groups who face injustice on issues
such as access to resources or discrimination. They may also experience situations
where culture itself is the subject of injustice, such as when their culture’s beliefs,
values, or practices are suppressed by the members (or dominant institutions) of another
culture, whether or not that suppression goes along with other kinds of injustice.
1. Justice as Cultural
In the most basic sense, all conceptions of justice are cultural: our culture is the source
of values, beliefs, traditions, and other bodies of knowledge from which we draw our
views as to what is just. Members of a culture may, of course, dissent from their
culture’s dominant traditions and formulate alternative visions of justice, but they still
draw on their culture’s (and perhaps other cultures’) intellectual resources to do so.
Cultures tend to endorse notions (perhaps numerous and competing) of what sources are
appropriate in forming a conception of justice. For example, some cultures, and some
strands within some cultures, may suggest that the best source of information about
what is just is the revealed will of God. Other cultures, or other strands within a culture,
might hold that the secular operation of human reason is a more reliable method. Both
are equally “cultural” notions.
The observation that one’s notions of justice are intimately related to one’s culture is
sometimes attacked as “cultural relativism”: the belief that all cultures, or cultural
norms, are morally equivalent. But one can make the observation that notions of justice
are grounded in culture without embracing relativism: some cultures’ notions of justice
may be right and others wrong. However, any attempt to persuade others of a judgment
about the rightness or wrongness of a particular cultural notion of justice implies first
persuading them of the validity of the criteria on which the judgment is made. For
example, imagine someone who believes that we know what is just by divine revelation.
Imagine that she also believes herself to have a clear understanding of what divinely
ordained justice entails. Imagine she meets another who shares her general theological
views, both about the nature of divine revelation and about its appropriateness as the
source for knowledge about what is just, but whose particular theological commitments
lead him to a different conception of justice. Their argument will be about how they
arrive at their respective interpretations of the content of divine revelation as regards
knowing what is just. But if either of those two sets out to persuade a person who not
only has a different conception of justice but who believes that we know what is just by
the secular operation of human reason, they will argue over both the substance of what
is just and the appropriate methods and criteria for reaching a valid conclusion about
what is just.
Much philosophical writing on justice has consequently been concerned with the quest
for an extracultural “Archimedean point” from which universally applicable judgments
can be made. The most influential recent effort is John Rawls’ conception of “justice as
fairness,” which derives liberal values from a thought experiment asking what principles
the founders of a society, blind to their eventual social status and condition, could
rationally endorse.
conceived under three headings: as distributive, retributive, and restorative (or
corrective). Distributive justice refers to the just distribution of (material or non-
material) goods, resources, and so on. Retributive justice refers to the proper way of
punishing wrongdoing. Restorative or corrective justice addresses the issues of what
compensation (if any) is required for those who have suffered a wrong and what
sacrifice (if any) is required of those who have perpetrated a wrong or sustained a
benefit not shared by others.
“Culture” has specialist uses in various disciplines (e.g. anthropology, archaeology,
cultural studies, literary studies). Its most common meaning is the totality of associated
material artifacts, symbols, stories, traditions, and other bodies of knowledge, belief
systems, and values distinctive to a people, developed and transmitted from one
generation to the next. As such, cultures are key life-support systems for the fulfillment
of human needs.
“Cultural justice” may be interpreted in various ways. It may refer to culturally specific
conceptions of what is just. Alternatively, it may refer to deciding what constitutes
justice between members of different cultural groups. Recently, much academic debate
has revolved around a more specific question, namely, how the state should act justlytowards minority cultures within multicultural societies where the institutions of the
state reflect the culture of the majority. A further possible demarcation is between
instances where culture is the marker of distinct groups who face injustice on issues
such as access to resources or discrimination. They may also experience situations
where culture itself is the subject of injustice, such as when their culture’s beliefs,
values, or practices are suppressed by the members (or dominant institutions) of another
culture, whether or not that suppression goes along with other kinds of injustice.
1. Justice as Cultural
In the most basic sense, all conceptions of justice are cultural: our culture is the source
of values, beliefs, traditions, and other bodies of knowledge from which we draw our
views as to what is just. Members of a culture may, of course, dissent from their
culture’s dominant traditions and formulate alternative visions of justice, but they still
draw on their culture’s (and perhaps other cultures’) intellectual resources to do so.
Cultures tend to endorse notions (perhaps numerous and competing) of what sources are
appropriate in forming a conception of justice. For example, some cultures, and some
strands within some cultures, may suggest that the best source of information about
what is just is the revealed will of God. Other cultures, or other strands within a culture,
might hold that the secular operation of human reason is a more reliable method. Both
are equally “cultural” notions.
The observation that one’s notions of justice are intimately related to one’s culture is
sometimes attacked as “cultural relativism”: the belief that all cultures, or cultural
norms, are morally equivalent. But one can make the observation that notions of justice
are grounded in culture without embracing relativism: some cultures’ notions of justice
may be right and others wrong. However, any attempt to persuade others of a judgment
about the rightness or wrongness of a particular cultural notion of justice implies first
persuading them of the validity of the criteria on which the judgment is made. For
example, imagine someone who believes that we know what is just by divine revelation.
Imagine that she also believes herself to have a clear understanding of what divinely
ordained justice entails. Imagine she meets another who shares her general theological
views, both about the nature of divine revelation and about its appropriateness as the
source for knowledge about what is just, but whose particular theological commitments
lead him to a different conception of justice. Their argument will be about how they
arrive at their respective interpretations of the content of divine revelation as regards
knowing what is just. But if either of those two sets out to persuade a person who not
only has a different conception of justice but who believes that we know what is just by
the secular operation of human reason, they will argue over both the substance of what
is just and the appropriate methods and criteria for reaching a valid conclusion about
what is just.
Much philosophical writing on justice has consequently been concerned with the quest
for an extracultural “Archimedean point” from which universally applicable judgments
can be made. The most influential recent effort is John Rawls’ conception of “justice as
fairness,” which derives liberal values from a thought experiment asking what principles
the founders of a society, blind to their eventual social status and condition, could
rationally endorse.
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