who among the following said equals are to be treated equally and unequals uneqully injustice arises when equals are treated unequally and also when unequals are treated
Answers
The principle of justice is deeply rooted in Western thought. Traditionally, it reflects our belief in the idea of “fairness.” Aristotle observed that there are basically two spheres of justice: “justice in retribution” and “justice in distribution.” Retribution embraces the familiar notion “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” otherwise known as the principle of proportionality. That’s why, when we punish those who harm others, we have a moral obligation to see to it that the “punishment fits the crime.” Justice in distribution carries with it the idea that there are better and worse ways to distribute pleasures and pains amongst the community. It says that we ought to get “no more nor no less than we deserve.” Hence, we suffer from an injustice when we either get more or less than we deserve. Of course, we don’t often complain when we get more of a good thing than we deserve or when we get less of a bad thing than we actually deserve.
When philosophers and economists talk about distributive justice, they usually distinguish between various classes of things that are subject to just or unjust distribution. One such distinction differentiates between human wants or desires, on the one hand, and needs, or primary goods, or resources, on the other. Biologists and economists tend to gravitate toward the concept of "resources." If Charles Darwin was right, we can expect a biological world characterized by scarce resources and competition between organisms to possess those resources. For human beings and some animals, possession of resources generally brings pleasure and the lack of resources, pain. Nature distributes resources based on "natural selection;" (John Rawls calls it the “Natural Lottery”) the strong get the resources and the weak generally do not. Is that fair? Is Mother Nature fair in her dealings with human beings? The principle of distributive justice comes into play when we humans decide collectively not to live under Darwinian rule, but instead, decide to redistribute resources and the pains and pleasures associated with them, based on justice.
First of all, the principle of justice in distribution is only applicable under conditions of scarcity. When everyone has as much of something as they need or want, they usually do not complain of injustice. In making moral decisions concerning both retribution and distribution we invoke the formal principle of justice, which states that "equals should be treated equally and that unequals should be treated unequally," or in other words, "one ought to receive no more nor less than he/she deserves." This formal principle obviously leaves us in the dark concerning which individuals are, in fact, equals and how much pleasure or pain they deserve. Material principles of justice link the formal concept to the real world. There are several material principles that are often invoked on behalf of certain favored distributions. The principle of merit says that we ought to distribute things so that the best people get the most and the worst people get the least. Obviously, some things are best distributed on the basis of merit: superbowl rings, doctoral degrees, drivers licenses, and merit scholarships. The principle of equality states that at least some things in life ought to be distributed equally. Under normal circumstances, we usually divide up a pizza based on this principle. The principle of need states that resources ought to be distributed to each person according to individual need. Hence, rather than divide up that pizza equally, we might decide to give most of it, or all of it, to a friend (or stranger) who hasn’t eaten in a week. We usually try to distribute things like health care, welfare checks, and some scholarships based on need. The distributive principle of social utility holds that we ought to distribute at least some things in such a way as to maximize a favorable balance between pain and pleasure in the whole community. Hence, we might decide to immunize all inner-city children in Cincinnati against certain diseases, regardless of merit, equality, or need, in order to minimize the long term social costs associated with treating them for preventable diseases later on.