Overview · Why Justice Matters

Just as we intuitively understand what love means without being able to spell out all its shades, we have an intuitive grasp of justice too. Both stir passionate responses. But the two diverge in scope: love is private, justice is public. Justice concerns life in society — the way public life is ordered, and the principles by which social goods and social duties are distributed among different members of society. That is why questions of justice sit at the centre of politics.

4.1 What is Justice?

Every culture has wrestled with the question of justice, even if their answers have differed. In ancient India, justice was bound up with dharma; maintaining a just social order was viewed as the primary duty of kings. In China, Confucius taught that rulers should keep justice by punishing wrongdoers and rewarding the virtuous. And in fourth-century BC Athens, Plato turned the question into philosophy in his great dialogue The Republic.

4.1.1 Plato, Socrates and the Young Sceptics

In The Republic, Plato stages a long conversation between Socrates and two young friends, Glaucon and Adeimantus. Glaucon throws a sharp challenge at Socrates: people who twist the rules to suit themselves, dodge taxes and lie cleverly seem to do better in life than the honest and just. If you are smart enough not to get caught, isn't being unjust simply more rewarding than being just? You may have heard people in your own neighbourhood express the very same suspicion.

Socrates' reply has an elegant simplicity. If everyone were unjust, if everyone bent rules to serve themselves, no one could be sure of benefiting from their cleverness. Nobody would be safe; everyone would lose. So it is in our own long-term interest to obey the laws and be just. But Socrates pushes further. He insists we must first understand what justice means before we can say why it matters. Justice, he argues, is not simply doing good to friends and harm to enemies, nor is it pursuing one's own interest. Justice involves the well-being of all. Just as a doctor's calling is the well-being of the patient, the just ruler must be concerned with the well-being of the people — and that means giving each person his due.

4.1.2 What Has Changed Since Plato

The idea that justice means giving each person his due survives in modern thinking. But our understanding of what is "due" to a person has shifted. Today, what is owed to a person is closely tied to what is owed to him or her as a human being. According to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, every human being possesses dignity. If all persons have dignity, then what is due to each is the chance to develop their talents and pursue their chosen goals. Justice requires that we give due and equal consideration to every individual.

4.2 Equal Treatment for Equals

Modern societies broadly agree that all people are equally important. But it is not a simple matter to decide how to give each person his or her due. The first principle is the principle of treating equals equally. Because all individuals share certain basic features as human beings, they deserve equal rights and equal treatment.

Equal treatment also means people must not be discriminated against on grounds of class, caste, race or gender. They should be judged on the basis of their work and actions, not on the group to which they belong. If two persons from different castes do the same kind of work — whether breaking stones or delivering pizzas — they should receive the same kind of reward. If one is paid one hundred rupees and another only seventy-five rupees for identical work because of caste, that is unjust. If a male teacher is paid more than a female teacher for the same job, that too is wrong.

4.2.1 Plato's Just Society — Each Doing What They Are Suited For

In The Republic, Plato pictured the just society as a body in which three classes co-operate, each doing the work for which it is naturally fitted. Rulers govern wisely. Guardians defend the city courageously. Producers — farmers, craftsmen, traders — supply its needs through honest work. Justice, for Plato, is each part performing its proper function and not interfering with the others. When every person and every class does what they are best suited for, the city is just and harmonious.

4.3 Proportional Justice

Equal treatment is not the only principle of justice. There are situations in which treating everybody identically would itself be unjust. Imagine your school decided that, since all students sat the same examination, every student should receive the same marks. Most of us would protest immediately. We would feel it is fairer if students were awarded marks according to the quality of their answer papers and the effort they had put in.

So, while everyone should begin from the same baseline of equal rights, justice in such cases means rewarding people in proportion to the scale and quality of their effort. People should get the same reward for the same work — but it is fair and just to reward different kinds of work differently if we take into account factors such as:

If we apply these criteria honestly, we may find that several kinds of workers in our society are not paid wages that take such factors into account. Miners, skilled craftsmen, and people in dangerous but socially useful professions — like policemen — may not always be receiving rewards that compare fairly with those earned by some others in society. For justice in society, the principle of equal treatment must be balanced with the principle of proportionality.

4.4 Recognition of Special Needs

The third principle of justice is the recognition of special needs. A society promotes social justice when, in distributing rewards or duties, it takes account of the special needs of some of its members. People may be equal in basic rights and dignity, yet very unequal in the conditions in which they live and the obstacles they face. Equal treatment alone — and even fair proportional reward — may not be enough to ensure that all enjoy genuine equality in society.

4.4.1 Who Has Special Needs?

People with special needs — disabilities of various kinds — can be considered unequal in some particular respect, and so deserving of special help. But it is not always easy to get agreement on which inequalities should be recognised for special assistance. Some commonly accepted grounds in many countries include:

• Physical disabilities — visual or hearing impairment, mobility limitations.
• Age — the very young and the elderly need protection and care.
• Lack of access to good education or health care — circumstantial deprivation, often inherited.
• Membership of historically marginalised social groups — particularly where past discrimination has cumulative effects.

If people who enjoy very different standards of living and opportunities are treated identically in all respects with those who have been deprived of the basic minimum needed for a healthy and productive life, the result is likely to be an unequal society — not an egalitarian and just one. In our country, lack of access to good education and health care is often combined with social discrimination on grounds of caste. The Constitution therefore allowed for reservations of government jobs and quotas in educational institutions for people belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

4.4.2 The Blindfold Paradox

The familiar statue of justice wears a blindfold. Why? Because she must be impartial — not influenced by the wealth, caste, religion or gender of those who come before her. But here lies a paradox: if she is blindfolded, how does she see the special needs of people? The answer of modern political theory is that impartiality and the recognition of special needs are not in conflict. Impartiality means treating people without prejudice, not pretending that real differences in their condition do not exist.

4.4.3 The Hard Trade-Off — Harmonising Three Principles

Our discussion shows that governments may sometimes find it difficult to harmonise the three principles — equal treatment for equals, recognition of different efforts and skills in determining rewards, and provision of a minimum standard of living and equal opportunities for the needy. Pursuing equality of treatment by itself may sometimes work against giving due reward to merit. But over-emphasising merit alone may put marginalised sections at a disadvantage in many areas because they have not had access to good nourishment, education or medical care. Different groups in the country may favour different policies depending upon which principle of justice they emphasise. It then becomes the function of governments to harmonise the different principles to promote a just society.