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What is Justice? What does Rawls say about Justice?
- Getting what one deserves.
- Rawls state "justice is the forst virtue of social institutions. We have a right to it.
- Rawls states Justice is fairness
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What do Libertarians say about freedom?
- Freedom is the only social Virtue
- Friedman and other Libertarians regard freedom as the preeminant social virtue, as being superior in importance to equality and evrything else.
- Conflicts with equality.
- To work toward equality involves taking assets away from people who have justly aquired them.
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How do Libertarians feel about the state?
- State should be kept to a minimum and the only legitimate function is to enforce contracts and perhaps ru the military.
- Is not reflected in any capitalist society.
- Libertarians believe government should not be able to tax us.
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What is the entiltement theorty of justice and who proposed it?
- Nozick
- If a piece of property eas not privately owned and you aquired it justly, or if it did not exist and you created it in a just manner, you are entitled to it and no one has the right to take it from you.
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How does Nozick and libertarians feel about the redistribution of wealth for equality purposes?
No means of economic distribution is morally justified. The problem with redistributing wealth according to Nozick is that in order to achieve equality you have to take from some people and give to others which violates their rights.
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What does is lockes libertarian point on rights.
- No one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, health or posessions.
- Liberty is all about the individual.
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What is Rawls's first principle of justice is fairness?
First principle....Each person has the same absolute claim to equal basic liberties.
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What is Rawls's second principle of justice as fairness?
Second principle....Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions
1 are to attached offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity
2 are to be the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society (the difference principle)
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What is utilitarianism and who proposed it?
- Maximum possible happiness of society as a whole
- John Stuart Mills and Jeremy Bentham
- It is a normative theory (what it should be not what it actually is)
- All that matters to utilitarinism is the total amount of happiness even if it is unevenly distributed
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What is the leberal feminist postition?
women be given equal and the same right as men these rights then protect the liberty and status of women as equal persons under the law
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Samuel Johnson....A decent provision for the poor is the truest test of civalisation.
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Income
Wages + salaries
also rent, interest, dividends, profits
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Wealth
Value of things a person owns
property, business assets, cars, investments, cash deposits
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The poverty line
- Relative-set according to everyone else’s incomes
- will increase as incomes increase
- Absolute-a fixed dollar amount
- calculated by what someone needs to survive
- usually increased in line with inflation
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Types of welfare
Economic
Social- income security, health, social/public housing, education and services
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Why have welfare?
Preservation of the capitalist system
Concern for injustice within the capitalist system
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What is the common good?
"certain general conditions that are...equally to everyone's advantage“ (Rawls)
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What are some obstacles of the common good?
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•different ideas about what constitutes the common good
- •different relative values
- •‘free riders’ – those who choose not to participate but still benefit
- •individualism
- •unequal sharing of burdens
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What are some criticisms of the welfare system?
- assistance makes situation worse eg “sit down” money
- encouraged self-interest- rights and responsibilities
- social division- beneficiaries vs tax payers
- social exclusion
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Individual Rights
Designed to preserve and protect the autonomy of a person
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Group rights
designed to preserve and protect an individuals inclination for communal attachments and associations
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Affirmation action
the positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have historically been excluded
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What are the positive arguments for affirmation action
- assists in promoting equal opportunity
- increases ethnic or other forms of diversity
- a means to compensate for past persecution or exploitation
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Against affirmative action
- A form of reverse racism
- may lead to lower standard less competence, and inefficency in the tasks and skills necessary
- hinders reconciliation
- undermines the achievements of minorities
- an increase in racial tension
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Liberal feminism
- equality regardless of gender
- disadvantage based on gender is unacceptable
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Radical feminism
- rights arise out of a patriachal society, and therefore biased
- public/private dichotomy flawed -justice is not neutral
- notion of rights in terms of regulation vs caring
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Postmodern feminism
- connot exclude difference
- need to consider cultural and genetic differences
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Genocide
- a) Killing members of the group
- b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction part or in whole
- d) imposing measures to prevent birth within the group
- e) Forcible transferring children of the group to another group
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Impunity
the exemption from accounability, penalty, punishment or legal sanction for perpetrators of illegal acts
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Structural impunity
the institutional structures of the state
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Strategic impunity
specific procedure and structures adopted to prevent criminal investigation and prosecution
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Political/psychological impunity
manipulation of fear, distrust and isolation among citizens
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