SİYASAL DÜŞÜNCE - Deneme Sınavı - 2

It can be said that Rawlsian model of social justice has dominated discussions on social justice during the last four decades. Different from the utilitarian and the libertarian models that seek for equality in subjective well-being of happiness and entitlements respectively, it seeks for fairness to solve the problems of the wealth distribution. It does so by drawing on some hypothetical devices of impartiality that Rawls terms as the “original position” (Rawls, 2003, pp. 15-9) and the “veil of ignorance” (ibid. 118-23).

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Rawlsian approach to social justice is associated with its institutional perspective. In Rawls’ approach, justice is considered as a “virtue of institutions” (Rawls, 2005 [1971], p. 586) whilst the libertarian view considers it as “virtue of individuals” with the purpose of defining just action in the realm of individual’s rational choice. However, Rawls claims that this view cannot cope with the complexities of modern society.

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. All of the statements related to the utilitarian model, the libertarian model and Rawlsian model of social justice in the options are correct.

Rawls’ idea of justice as fairness is a comprehensive political idea of justice that has taken a great interest from quite a number of political scientists in our era. Among others, Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate economist and philosopher, also discussed on the Rawlsian idea of justice extensively and pointed out several criticisms.

First of all, Sen criticizes Rawls with giving priority to the liberal rights over the economic ones. Sen asks, “why should we regard hunger, starvation and medical neglect to be invariably less important than the violation of any kind of personal liberty?” (Sen, 2009, p. 65). He continues, “it is indeed possible to accept that liberty must have some kind of priority, but total unrestrained priority is almost certainly an overkill” (Ibid). Second, Sen points out that the Rawlsian model of social justice is a transcendental one (Sen, 2009, pp. 8-10; 2008, pp. 336-7) that makes it difficult to apply on the face of everyday problems of injustice. Third, he also criticizes Rawls’ focus on the means of good living instead of on the “actual living that people manage to achieve” (Sen, 1999, p. 73; see also Sen, 1992, p. 84). This criticism is in fact the primary criticism of Sen to Rawls.

Sen claims that Rawls’ model is substantially sensitive to the inter-end variation in line with pluralistic liberal conception of justice, yet it falls short of taking inter-individual variation into account (Sen, 1992, pp. 85-6).

Based on the criticisms above, Sen proposes a different analytical framework to assess social justice. This framework is known as the capability approach in the literature. Suggesting that the individuals’ capability, or freedom, should be the basis of assessment regarding justice, Sen provides a promising way to overcome the problem that is related to people’s differentiated social and personal characteristics leading to inequalities in achieving a good life. Sen’s capability approach to justice claims that the primary objective of social arrangements should be based on the expansion of people’s capabilities or their substantive freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings that they attain value (Alkire and Deneulin, 2009, p. 31; Alkire, 2005, p. 122; Alkire, 2008, p. 28).

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. All of the statements related to Amartya Sen’s criticisms to Rawls’ idea of “justice as fairness” in the options are correct.

In one of the more recent works of Sen, five different conversion factors that influence individuals’ capability level to convert their possessions into something valuable are classified. These conversion factors can be defined as the entities to help or hinder the translation of commodities into functionings (Grasso, 2002, p. 5). According to Sen, personal heterogeneities, environmental diversities, variations in social climate, differences in relational perspectives and distribution within the family can be seen five primary sources of human diversity which influence people’s ability to convert their holdings into something valuable for them (Sen, 1999, pp. 70-1; 2009, pp. 255-7).

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. According to Amartya Sen, all of the conversion factors in the options can be seen primary sources of human diversity which influence people’s ability to convert their holdings into something valuable for them.

Freedom or capability-based inquiry of social justice, in fact, can be traced back to the works of classical figures of philosophy such as Aristotle as well as more contemporary ones such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Isaiah Berlin, and Charles Taylor.

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E.

It may not be wrong to stress that Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth are developers of the one of the most influential ideas towards justice in 21st century even though this is a quite new idea in comparison to other theories of justice discussed above. Fraser and Honneth share the same claim that an adequate understanding of justice should include both redistribution of wealth and recognition of different identities. They consider that the idea of justice focusing on only economic welfare is reductionist since there has been an increasing demand for recognition of different identities such as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious groups, and so forth. Although they both agree that recognition and redistribution are indispensable parts of social justice, Honneth gives a fundamental emphasis to recognition and treating redistribution as a derivative subject, while Fraser perceives both recognition and redistribution as co-fundamental subjects which do not have priority over each other (Fraser and Honneth, 2003, p. 3). Fraser’s approach is based on the concept of “bivalent collectivity”. Drawing on this concept, she refers to people who suffer from both unjust socioeconomic distribution and cultural misrecognition. We can see a sort of Weberian interpretation in Fraser. Honneth constructs his perspective based on the identity model of Hegel.

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. All of the statements related to Fraser and Honneth in the options are correct.

The correct answer is B.

The correct answer is C.

The correct answer is D.

The correct answer is A.

The correct answer is E.

The answer is A.

The answer is C.

The answer is B.

The answer is D.

The answer is E.

It was Aristotle’s work where the criminal justice was distinguished from the social justice first time in the history of political thought that we know.

In the corpus of Roman Law, it is the first time in the history of political thought that justice was defined in relation to individual’s rights. This normative definition is followed by two further principles of the Emperor Justinian’s (A.D. 483-565) “Justinian Code” which states “the precepts of what are rights are these: to live uprightly, to do no harm to others, to render to each person what is his right”.

In utilitarian account of justice, utility is translated into the form of happiness and social justice is evaluated according to the happiness of society.

The first problem is with the consequentialist essence that proposes to advocate focusing on outcome in a sense that if the action, decision or policy yields happiness or not ignores the process in a sense that how this outcome is achieved. The second problem is associated with its welfarist characteristic that advocates focusing on a subjective well-being of individual, namely their happiness, to assess if the action, decision or the policy proposed is just or not. The third problem is concerned with the aggregative characteristic which advocates focusing on sum-total output instead of focusing on how much each person gets from total the total output.

It would not be, in this regard, a complete mistake to claim that libertarian model of justice does not primarily sustain the discussion in general realm of liberal rights including freedom of speech, equal rights in elections, right to assemble and so forth, but particularly around the rights of individual possessing or owning the private property and her/his command over the properties that they ought to be entitled to hold. Therefore, justice, according to the libertarian scholars, is a term that is mostly associated with the economic liberty, individuals’ commands over their property and freedom from taxation regimes.