Social Justice

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Political Science Class XI (Political Theory), Chapter 4.

Is it fair that a miner earns more, and a visually impaired student gets extra time?

Three things look unfair at first glance. A miner is paid more than an office clerk. A visually impaired student gets extra time in an exam. A male and a female teacher in the same school are paid exactly the same. Each looks like a different rule, yet each can be justified as just. This chapter explains why: it shows that justice is not one rule but a balance of three principles, and that a society has to keep adjusting that balance.

What has "justice" meant?

Justice is about how public life is ordered and how social goods and duties are shared among members of a society. That makes it central to politics. Different civilisations have approached it in different ways.

Glaucon's challenge. In The Republic, Glaucon argues that the unjust often seem better off than the just, because they bend rules to their advantage. Socrates answers that if everyone did this, no one would be secure. It is therefore in everyone's long-term interest to obey laws and be just. He adds that just rulers must be like doctors who care for their patients' well-being rather than their own profit.

Why it matters. Notice who is speaking: Plato wrote The Republic; Socrates is the speaker; Glaucon and Adeimantus are the young friends who challenge him. In this chapter's extract, it is not Cephalus or Polemarchus (they appear in the first chapter).

The meaning of "giving each person their due" has changed

For Kant, human beings have dignity, so what is due to each is the chance to develop their talents and pursue their chosen goals. Justice therefore requires equal consideration for all. The chapter turns this into three principles.

Under equal treatment, liberal democracies have developed three groups of rights: civil (life, liberty, property), political (vote and participation) and social (equal opportunity for education and livelihood).

Pause and predict: two clerks do the same job, but one is paid less because of caste. Which principle is broken?

Check your answer: Equal treatment for equals. Same work, same pay, and no discrimination on grounds of class, caste, race or gender.

Pause and predict: a deep-sea diver earns more than a surveyor who sits in an office. Does this break equal treatment?

Check your answer: No. This is proportionate justice: the diver's higher pay reflects the greater danger and skill. Equal treatment applies to people in the same position, not to people in different jobs.

Cause and effect: why the three principles can clash. Pursuing equal treatment alone ignores effort and need. Rewarding effort alone can leave the disabled or the historically excluded behind. Meeting special needs alone can be seen as unfair to those who do not receive support. For this reason a government has to harmonise the three, and the balance is what social-justice debates are really about.

Just distribution

Social justice needs more than equal treatment under law. It needs a basic equality in the conditions of life and in opportunities. The chapter gives two Indian examples: the Constitution abolished untouchability, and state governments carried out land reforms to redistribute resources from large landlords to those who till the land. Reservation for scheduled castes and tribes in jobs and educational institutions is an application of the special-needs principle, based on the reasoning that historically excluded groups cannot immediately compete on equal terms. How to distribute opportunities provokes strong feelings, and reservation is a clear example; the chapter asks you to understand the argument, not take a side.

Rawls and the veil of ignorance

How do we decide on fair rules? John Rawls, a twentieth-century American philosopher, proposed a thought experiment. Imagine you must design the rules of society without knowing your future position in it: your caste, class, gender, talents, religion or family. This is the veil of ignorance.

Since you might be born into the weakest position, rational self-interest leads you to design rules that give weaker sections reasonable opportunities in education, health, shelter and livelihood. Rawls expects rational thinking, not morality or benevolence. Nobody has to be a hero. His policies also have to benefit society as a whole; they should not weaken the better-off so far that it is bad for everyone.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Rawls supports rules that protect the worst-off and that benefit society as a whole. In reality: Rawls developed his view in A Theory of Justice (1971) partly as an alternative to utilitarianism, which judges policies by the greatest good of the greatest number. Rawls objected that such a test can sacrifice a minority for a majority's gain. Others have criticised Rawls from the opposite side, arguing that redistribution can intrude on individual property and choice. Why it matters: it shows that the veil of ignorance is one argument in a living debate, not the last word.

Pursuing social justice

Justice does not require absolute equality. Some inequality of reward is expected. But a society is unjust if the gap between rich and poor is so wide that the deprived have no chance to improve their situation. A just society must guarantee a basic minimum: nourishment, housing, clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage, so that people can lead healthy and productive lives and pursue their goals.

How should it do so? The chapter sets out the free markets versus state intervention debate.

Two views. For the exam: free-market supporters say competition rewards merit and is blind to background; critics say it favours the already privileged, so state action is needed. Another reading: political theorists also describe a middle path, in which markets handle most production while the state secures the basic minimum, and the debate is over where exactly to draw the line. Neither side in the textbook argues for no rules at all.

Two quotations are reused in exams. B. R. Ambedkar held that a just society is one in which the ascending sense of reverence and the descending sense of contempt are dissolved into a compassionate society. J. S. Mill held that justice implies something that an individual can claim from us as a moral right.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Equality separates identical treatment from equal treatment, the idea behind the three principles.
• Next: Rights explains how claims such as education and livelihood become rights the state must respect.
• Related: The Philosophy of the Constitution shows how justice shaped the Constitution's aims.