SİYASAL DÜŞÜNCE

Multi-dimensionality is one of the main features of the contemporary understandings of social justice. It emphasizes the fact that whether a society is just or not cannot be assessed based on one single variable or unit of evaluation.

However, when we look at the multidimensionality of the idea of justice, we notice that it has at the top two main dimensions that should not be overlooked. The first is the “justice as criminal” and the second is “justice as social” (Newman and Yeates, 2008, p.13). While the former one usually focuses on juridical arrangements and their implementations, the latter one mostly focuses on issues related to distribution such as distribution of power, resources, rights and/or entitlements, and income as well as ethical justifications of how distribution of these goods ought to be conducted. Therefore, the latter one is frequently referred as “justice beyond the courtroom” (Cochrane and Walters, 2008, p.157).

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. All of the statements in the options related to the contemporary understandings of social justice are correct.

Multi-dimensionality is one of the main features of the contemporary understandings of social justice. It emphasizes the fact that whether a society is just or not cannot be assessed based on one single variable or unit of evaluation. However, when we look at the multidimensionality of the idea of justice, we notice that it has at the top two main dimensions that should not be overlooked. The first is the “justice as criminal” and the second is “justice as social” (Newman and Yeates, 2008, p.13). While the former one usually focuses on juridical arrangements and their implementations, the latter one mostly focuses on issues related to distribution such as distribution of power, resources, rights and/or entitlements, and income as well as ethical justifications of how distribution of these goods ought to be conducted. Therefore, the latter one is frequently referred as “justice beyond the courtroom” (Cochrane and Walters, 2008, p.157). It is usual to observe that the latter one, namely distributional or social justice and its ethical background, plays a prominent role in defining the content and scope of the former one, namely the criminal or judicial justice, although such a hierarchical positioning between these dimensions may not always be as effective as it is claimed. For example, the argument that everyone’s private property should be secured and anyone cannot seize other’s private property need to be first of all proposed, developed and ethically justified within the dimension of social justice. Following this, necessary legal arrangements to protect individuals’ private properties are proposed, developed and introduced. Without its philosophically ethical underpinnings are formed, any issue concerning legal arrangements within the scope criminal justice cannot be maintained. In other words, inviolableness of one’s private property in legal arrangements cannot be proposed, developed and socially sustained without an ethical and philosophical justification regarding why one’s private property is untouchable. This demonstrates the lexical priority of social or distributional justice over the criminal or judicial justice although such priority is not easily observable in all regulations that are amended by the ruling authority

As also understood from the information given, the statements in the options I, III and IV demonstrate the lexical priority of social or distributional justice over the criminal or judicial justice, so the correct answer is D. The statement in the option II refers to the alternative term for “justice as social”.

Both in classical and contemporary ages, the idea of social justice is discussed in relation to various concepts such as rights, desert, merit, rule, covenant, consent, free-will, freedom, fairness, choice, well-being, poverty, inequality and so forth. The idea of justice that can be traced back to the ancient world is seen as a virtue of man and society in ancient Greek philosophy (Adelson, 1995, p. 29; Jackson, 1986, p. 8). Such an understanding of justice can easily be observed in the Republic, a well-known work of Plato, in which the central issue is “justice” discussed in relation to the concept of “virtue”. In some of the very first dialogues between the fictional characters, justice is considered as a virtue and discussed in relation to actions of individuals in this work of Plato. In the dialogues that are mostly configured in a form of Socratic method of reciprocal talks, justice is granted as one of the most appreciated excellences of human beings and identified as the virtue of individual (Forde, 1997, p. 659; Demos, 1964, p. 396). Plato’s attempt is, however, to reach a societal understanding of justice through these dialogues.

According to Plato, each group and individual play roles to meet the needs of the whole (Campbell, 2010, p. 7) in a well-ordered society that is a perfectly arranged society, where all institutions and groups are organised to perform a particular function. Such an understanding of society, where individuals and societal organisations are given roles to satisfy particular duties and actions can in fact be considered as an early reference to what we call in modern societies as “division of labour”. To justify why human beings are in need of living together in a well-ordered society, where every one of them is assigned with certain responsibilities to perform a particular action in line with their skills, two facts are reminded. The first one is that any individual cannot keep living on her own in a world where quite a number of natural and man-made dangers exist. The second one is that life is less difficult, more comfortable and prosperous by living together as a society.

As also understood from the information given, the correct answer is E. All of the statements related to the origins of contemporary ideas of justice in the options are correct.

As a philosopher who paved the way heading towards one of the most influential theories of social justice, namely utilitarianism, David Hume is today given a prominent place in not only discussions regarding social justice, but quite a number of different subjects too. According to Hume, justice is a device to ensure the sustainability of social order.

It can be said that Bentham and Mill gained a more systematic form to the initial perspective of Hume who considered the just and good action in relation to its possibility of leading to increase the public utility. The question of how the utility should be assessed is answered through an emphasis on the happiness in the utilitarian account. This means that justness of an action, a decision, or a policy is evaluated to the extent of happiness that it yields for the society. In other words, in utilitarian account of justice, utility is translated into the form of happiness and social justice is evaluated according to the happiness of society. Therefore, it can be said that increasing overall public utility is considered as increasing public happiness in the utilitarian account. In line with such a perspective that considers utility as happiness, utilitarian model of social justice of Bentham and Mill advocates the proposition of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people” (Campbell, 2010, p. 116). This demonstrates its majoritarian characteristics. In other words, instead of focusing on every individual’s level of happiness, it advocates to focus on overall happiness of society. This, as can be seen as a maximalist approach that claims “rules of justice have to lie in the way that they promote the greatest possible quantity of happiness” (Ryan, 1993, p. 12). Bentham, for example, argues that “approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness (Bentham, 2005 [1789], p. 11-12). In this context, utilitarianism considers justice in accordance with the aggregative interest of the society. Hence, it is considered as aggregative theory of justice (Miller, 1976, p. 32).

According to the utilitarian approach to the idea of social justice, a just society is associated with the perspective that the common interest of the society is taken as the prevailing criteria in decision, actions, or policies of the ruling authority.

The modern form of utilitarian logic, in essence, does not much differ from its classical definition that is mostly discussed in line with Bentham and Mill’s works. The focal point of justice, in other words, the essence of justice in the contemporary utilitarian perspective is also the aggregate utility.

As also understood from the information given, all of the statements related to utilitarianism in the options are correct, so the correct answer is E.

The difference between the utilitarian and libertarian accounts of social justice is based on the priorities of each conception. Libertarianism highlights the importance of certain inalienable rights of individual whilst utilitarianism attaches priority to the aggregative interests of society with a perspective putting the individuals’ rights at the second row.

Although the contemporary form of the libertarian view on social justice has been greatly inspired from the works of classical liberals such as Adam Smith, it can also be argued for that the classical utilitarian view has also borrowed from the works of founding fathers’ of classical liberalism such as as that of Adam Smith.

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

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.