...Justice- What’s the right thing to do?By: Michael J. Sandel | Chapter 2: Utilitarianism | Bentham's explanation of Utilitarianism is “the right thing to do is whatever will maximize utility.” (Sandel p.g.34) which means that the right thing to is always whatever produces the greatest amount of happiness and whatever is necessary to prevent unhappiness. Suppose you are walking and someone stops you to take a poll; they ask you if you rather have an animal center where you can pet animals, or if you would have a school for special children. Which would you choose? Most people would choose the school because there are children involved, but according to Bentham and his theory, there should be an animal center because it is what makes people happy. In our scenario, what makes people happy are animals therefore he would say to build a pet center because the people would be the happiest, hence maximizing utility. There is an objection in Bentham’s theory in his example of “the city of happiness”. In this example there is a girl in which she is locked away, where she should stay forever. In the city just outside of her home everyone is living a happy, joyous and life. In this room, the little girl is sad and miserable all the time, but because of her misery, the city can be happy. Is it wrong to have the girl locked up to maximize happiness throughout the city? Sandel goes to say “It would be wrong to violate the rights of an innocent child, even for the sake of the happiness...
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...Global Peace and Justice Begins at Home. Wars are everywhere. Wars define destruction. Not only does it destroy the Earth and whatnot but what a lot of us, naive people do not realise is that it also destroys the pure innocent minds of the little, chaste children. Many of us people misunderstand the concept of opening the minds of the kids to wars. The main reason why we do so is to make sure that the kids would not start any wars and let the peace on Earth sustain. Without realising the consequences, the erroneous thing that people do now is to open the minds of these children to the basic ways of starting a war. Global peace is a personal choice, hour by hour. Ask yourself, "Am I going to add to the fighting in the world? Or offer up something greater?" If you want to obtain peace, then start changing the world by changing the ways you teach these children. They are supposed to be playing hopscotch, filling in colouring books, having pets, playing hide and seek. What happened to that? I no longer see kids doing these things. Based on what I see on the Internet, parents are starting to neglect their responsibilities and instead of teaching their children good things, they are literally teaching them stuff like how to use a gun and how to use army knives. Despite the fact that these kids are still too small to be carrying out these type of activities, they are also too gullible to barely even think about the ramification of learning these stuff. Parents who train their...
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...Visualize a world with discrimination, no civil rights, inequalities, injustices, and, in general, no human rights. Without remarkable, outstanding individuals who fought for them, those prejudices would exist today. Those individuals, through dark and light times, demonstrated significant character to help others and try to get justice served. They took a stand and risk to fight for equality. Heroes are people who are inspiring, committed, and selfless. Dolores Huerta is a hero because of her inspiration for people to keep on fighting against injustices. For instance, Dolores Huerta created a foundation named Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). Through this foundation, she helps organize “people to run for office and advocating on issues of health,...
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...nature and how its effects can influence man to selfishly consider what he would need to do to secure his safety while John Locke presents a natural concept that assumes there is a universal thought of good that man is aware of. Attempting to justify the role of government or justice by understanding the state of nature can be somewhat accurate and can be considered for such purposes, but may fail to answer some aspects of society overall and leave other things unanswered. In regards...
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...(Describing the character of someone) Ethics - The principles of conduct governing an individual or group or the study of morality. Ethics allows us to identify principles of “right” and “wrong” that: Morality - The standards that an individual, group, or society has about what’s right and wrong. Morals guide our behavior, and help us to “do the right thing”. Two Types of Ethical Issues: * Ethical problem: a situation with ethical content requiring a choice between right and wrong. * Ethical conflict: a situation where a person must choose between competing principles of right (or competing principles of wrong) (more common) Code of ethics 93% Ethics committees 25% Training 52% Changes in structure 13% Other 11% If one really believed that ethics is subjective, logically he/she should never: * Criticize or commend any person, group, organization, nation, etc. on moral or ethical grounds.e.g., “That is wrong/bad/evil” or question anybody else’s behavior (for ethical reasons). Prescriptive ethics discusses what we “should” do (it “prescribes” certain behaviours). * Prescriptive ethics is about how the world should be, regardless of how it actually is. * Theories of prescriptive ethics provide us with tools to use in figuring out what to do when faced with an ethical issue. * We can use these tools to make ethically informed (and more ethically justifiable) decisions. You should always use more than one approach...
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...why Michael Sandel is a popular Harvard professor. He presents major ideas of ethics and political philosophy in a clear way, tied to important contemporary issues. Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, based on a famous course that Sandel teaches, offers a discussion of what Sandel regards as the three main competing views of justice. The first of these takes welfare to be the criterion of justice. What counts as just is what leads to the best consequences. Thus, supporters of the free market such as Milton Friedman praise the market because it leads to prosperity, in contrast with other economic systems. Why do we care [about prosperity]… The most obvious answer is that we think prosperity makes us better off than we would otherwise be — as individuals and as a society. Prosperity matters, in other words, because it contributes to our welfare. (p. 19) Another approach, which many libertarians will find familiar, takes freedom and rights to be fundamental to justice. What is essential, according to this way of seeing things, is to give each person what is rightfully due to him, even if following this course does not lead to the best consequences. The approach to justice that begins with freedom is a capacious school… Leading the laissez-faire camp are free-market libertarians who believe that justice consists in respecting and upholding the voluntary choices made by consenting adults. The fairness camp contains theorists of a more egalitarian bent. (p. 20) The...
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...The three stages of Justice Justice is where the good reap rewards, the bad reap punishment. Justice can be split into three major categories: political, personal, and supernatural. Social justice includes the legal system, personal justice is where a ones own ethics, and supernatural justice is like karma. Webster's dictionary describes justice as "The administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity." There are two influential people who argue opposite ideas and opinions on this. Sandel who believes justice is more “distributive” than punishing. While Immanuel Kant, proposed a different approach he stated that human beings should be respected because they can reason with others. Sandel does not believe there should be a political decision on justice because when there is free economic practice where both the buyer and the seller benefit this would allow for prostitution, buying of votes, and immigration. “First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.”(sandel) Kant concluded that...
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...Civil rights are the right for people to have their freedom and the rights to equality. There are basic laws and rules that you have to follow in many countries especially in America, if these rules don’t reach a certain standards or if the rule has been broken by anyone, they would suffer the consequence. However that’s not the point, the point is, most things that’s happening in the world today is injustice, including gender inequality, religious inequality, bullying and most important is racial discrimination also know as racism. Racism is being prejudice or discriminating a person of their color or what they are. Racism was a big problem in the world for years and now today the same problem is proceeding. Everyone has their own freedom...
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...Paper #3 Every child has their ideal career choice of what they want to be when they grow up. Their dreams and aspiration of what, and who they will become. Since I was eight I wanted to be a lawyer, although it wasn’t until a little later I decided on the type which is a district attorney. My first reason is I would like to be able to speak out for the people who are afraid and no longer can, also protect and make a difference in my community, lastly do what’s fair and right. Like other types of lawyers, district attorneys need to earn a law degree to become a licensed attorney in the state they wish to practice. In order to obtain a license a prospective attorney must pass the bar exam first. Some requirements must be fulfilled before receiving...
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...Steve Xiong Dave Althausen POLS 365Z October 12, 2015 Police Shooting In many cases, a man was slaughtered subsequent to displaying some sort of toy firearm, notwithstanding directing it at officers, a beyond any doubt welcome toward gunfire. Many individuals, at any rate, passed on in the wake of being stunned with electric immobilizers, some from pressure or stifling, and some from reasons that stay baffling. However, most were shooting. The slaughtering of an outfitted individual prompts dissents and is called unjustified, or the executing of an unarmed individual is viewed as advocated. Whether regular citizens believe the organizations of justice is integral to the idea of procedural equity. That is, the place the general population believes the success of the justice framework, it will present authenticity on those institutions. A noteworthy group of examination illustrates "open perceptions of the justice’s reasonableness framework in the United States are more critical in molding its authenticity than observations that it is effective." Where people in general have trust, it will authorize law authorization with authenticity; and when it does as such, it is flagging that the general population's ethical estimations of good and bad are adjusted to those of its police organizations. On the other hand, authenticity disintegrates when regular people are dealt with unreasonably and general society is left with the conclusion that police offices are not accountable....
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...time you may hear stories of abuse by the military justice "system". There are multiple destroyed and financially devastated families out there suffering heartbreak and loss at the hands of an uncaring, unfeeling and unjust process which makes a mockery of our Bill of Rights. Military justice for the majority is prefabricated according to the wishes of the local Commander, and the "trial" or "court-martial" is tantamount to a pre-ordained verdict of GUILTY. How could any court proceeding be considered fair when the "convening authority," by right of title, is given the power to select the judge, the jury and defense and prosecution attorneys? It may go "unsaid," but the implication is very clear - if the convening authority "sees fit" to bring about a court-martial, then the accused can be assumed to be guilty. What's special, or even topical, about A Few Good Men movie is it speaks to how military honor can be so readily suborned by the authoritarian impulse. And second, how the same honest pride - not to mention competence - is necessary to bring such posturing would-be tyrants to justice. The main issue the movie touches upon is military justice. A good marine abides by the following code: 1. Unit 2. Corps 3. God and 4. Country For this code to be at its effective best, it must be governed by truth and justice. What happens when truth and justice fail to be active participants of this code? Justice has been defined in many ways. But, this is a movie...
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...considerations and opinions surrounding the issue. Anthony Gifford’s article, “The Legal Basis of the Claim for Slavery Reparations”, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations”, and chapter nine of Michael Sandel’s book, Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? all dig deeper into this issue and take a look at the idea of slavery reparations from various different angles. One of the big questions to reflect on while considering the possibility of slavery reparations in America is: What can be done in order to begin resolving the issue of slavery reparations? The...
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...The great danger of doing what is right in one’s own eyes, is that you are setting yourself up for destruction, because you are not consulting god first, you are following your own understanding of how things should go. We are living in a world today where people going about there on righteousness, as a Christian we suppose to tell them the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is ever lasting life because our way is not gods way and gods way is not our way. When we are doing what’s we think is right in our own eyes we denied god, we don’t trust god to do what he say, so god let us go our way, soon or later things starts to crumble but he still loves us. He won’t us to understand him, and to do his will, being obedient to god is much better than sacrifice. Proverbs – 3: 5 say: trust in the lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding : Proverbs 3:6, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths, we can be ignorant of god’s righteousness, we go out seeking to establish our own righteousness, we need wisdom; knowledge understanding, which all of it comes from god. If you are going by what’s right in your own eyes, you will not treat people with love and kindness. You wouldn’t want to help them. You would act like you are in control of your own life. Yes this is still occurring in our society today. In our justice system, in our government, they think they are doing right in there own eyes. They should ask god for wisdom, knowledge...
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...“ To kill a mockingbird” by Harper Lee and “Antigone” by Sophocles are both dramas having to do with justice, the main characters in both dramas are struggling to bring justice to a society or situation that was lacking. In Sophocles’ drama, Antigone was trying to bring justice by burying her brother Polyneices against the kings, Creon’s, orders. While in “To kill a mocking bird” Atticus is an attorney in a case where race is a major issue and he is trying to save Tom Robinson from being convicted of a crime where there’s overwhelming evidence of his innocence. Both “Antigone” and “To kill a mockingbird’s” themes seem to revolve around justice which is proven when Antigone buries her brother and Atticus agrees to take on Tom Robinsons case. Another large theme in both dramas is the idea that women are somehow ‘lesser’ because of their femininity, a cause of this might be because of the era that the dramas are set in. Throughout “To kill a mockingbird” Scout does her best to avoid ‘girly’ things so that she can keep playing with her brother Jem, its only later in the novel that Scout begins to realize that being a girl is more about having positive traits than lacking them. This theme continues in “Antigone”, most pointedly when Ismene states “Bethink thee, sister, we are left alone; Shall we not perish wretchedness of all, If in defiance of the law we cross A monarch's will?--weak women, think of that, Not framed by nature to contend with men. Remember this too that the stronger...
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...Chief Justice John Roberts Language is the central tool of our trade. You know, when we’re looking at a statute, trying to figure out what it means, we’re relying on the language. When we’re construing the Constitution, we’re looking at words. Those are the building blocks of the law. Language is vitally important — whether it’s a lawyer arguing a case and trying to explain his position, whether it’s a legislator writing a law, whether it’s a judge trying to construe it. Another point is people develop a lot as a writer the more they read. And so whenever John Roberts has a lot of time to read, he improved a good bit as a writer. Roberts reads a lot, as other people do, of course, in high school and college. And the interesting thing is, people lose a lot of writing ability when they get to law school because you tend to read a lot of stuff that isn’t that well written. And you tend to stop reading other stuff that is well written because you don’t have time. Focused on some badly written cases from whenever or some badly written laws, first of all, and you’re not reading anything good. So you tend to start writing not as well as you might have earlier. Maybe law students ought to make sure they have time to read good things apart from the law throughout law school. Roberts talks a lot about the importance of being clear in your writing and to know what you are talking about. Surround yourself with all the raw materials — the record in the case, the important precedents...
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