...Rawls vs. Nozick In this essay I will explain the main theories Rawls and Nozick have on distributive justice and the role of the government in economic life, I will analyze and compare them and eventually indicate my preference. I will start with John Rawls and his thoughts in a theory of justice. Rawls strive to determine how we can make a society as just as possible. Rawls derives two principles; liberty principle and the difference principle. It is the latter I am going to analyze more closely. He also gives a theoretical device that he calls “the original position” and “the veil of ignorance” this device is ment to help us in the way that we picture our self behind a veil. We do not know the basic things about ourselves like our sex, age, financial status etc. This device is to help us be totally neutral in the sense that we do not know our status in society. After putting our self in a status quo if you will, we can now decide on what us just for the whole society. Rawls derives then the difference principle; to put this is Rawls own word the difference principle is: “Then the difference principle is a strongly egalitarian conception in the sense that unless there is a distribution that makes both persons better off an equal distribution is to be preferred.”(Rawls - theory of justice. 84/85) So in other words, the inequalities in a society can only be justified if it benefits the person that is least off. This is the main subject the debate between nozick and...
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...Tyler Cannon Peter Trumbull Business Ethics 28 September 2012 Nozick & Rawls When trying to decide how to set up a basic, just society, there are two modern theories; the theories of justice from both John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Each theory has its ups and downs and can both be argued as just, or unjust. John Rawls’ theory starts with the “original position,” in which people make decisions or legislate laws behind what is called a “Veil of Ignorance.” Behind this “veil,” Rawls deprives us of any knowledge of our own attributes under which we know everything we need to about human nature generally, but nothing about ourselves – this includes gender, position, assets, professions, etc. The “veil” allows us to be objective and impartial and choose principles of basic fairness. We choose to lessen the downside of the society as a whole. Rawls uses a thinking experiment in which one puts themselves in a hypothetical reality where one is in the “original position.” Through this, individuals can decide how to set up a society by establishing principles of justice to be governed by. His thought experiment can be translated in a way where if we didn’t know what our positions in society would be, we would be more concerned for everyone equally. Basically, if it is possible for us to be in the least-advantaged status of a society, we will be a lot more concerned for the overall general welfare. If everyone starts off in the same position, it makes agreement between...
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...philosopher John Rawls claims that justice is to ask what principles we individuals would agree to in an initial situation of equality. His reason for that was because different people would favor different principles depending on their interests, religious views, backgrounds and social positions. He also reasoned that the two principles which we would not choose are going to be utilitarianism and libertarian. On the contrary, he believes the two principles of justice will be from the hypothetical contract which will firstly provide equality for all the citizens in terms of speech and other factors. The other principle involves social and economic equality. To understand Rawls principles of hypothetical contract, we should know that actual contract carry moral weight insofar as they realize two ideals which are autonomy and reciprocity. The author, Michael Sandel argues consent is not a sufficient condition of moral obligation as it does not guarantee fairness of an agreement and is not enough to create a binding moral claim. Sandel further states that “despite our tendency to read consent into every moral claim, it is hard to make sense of our moral lives without acknowledging the independent weight of reciprocity.” Rawls idea of hypothetical agreement as described by the author ensures equality. The veil of ignorance ensures equality of power and knowledge and that no one can take advantage. Rawls mentions that the several theories of justice are unfair as these systems such...
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...Presentation of Rawls Back track: original position is "to set up fair procedure to which any decisions that are made will be just." He attempts to use "pure procedural justice" as a basis of theory Two principals are First : each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all." Knowing utilitarianism pertains to maximizing happiness ; Rawls believes this to be an alternative. He believes utilitarianism can negatively effect individual rights because maximizing happiness for an individual may involve removing certain rights from other individuals. Everything you heard is his answer to how happiness to a degree can be achieved since utilitarianism is one of the most scrutinized theories because in many cases, i believe promotes Liberalism in some sense. His alternative incorporates making decisions under uncertainty and maxim. They work hand in hand because the maximum of uncertainty should be appealing to all in charge of decision making. they are all equal in the fact that none should feel embarrassment or shame to another. No one is higher than another. Rawls continues after talking about the veil of ignorance, by speaking of the rationality of parties. Rawls begins...
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...© Michael Lacewing Ra wls a nd No zick on jus tic e RAWLS: JUSTICE AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT John Rawls’ theory of distributive justice (A Theory of Justice) is based on the idea that society is a system of cooperation for mutual advantage between individuals. As such, it is marked by both conflicts between differing individual interests and an identity of shared interests. Principles of justice should ‘define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social co-operation’. (p. 4) Justice is the most important political value and applies to the ‘basic institutions of society’ – the political constitution and the institutions that regulate the market, property, family, freedom, and so on – because it is intimately connected to what society is and what it is for. If society is a matter of cooperation between equals for mutual advantage, the conditions for this cooperation need to be defended and any inequalities in social positions must be justified. And so the principles of justice, Rawls thinks, must be ‘the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association’ (p. 11). Justice, then, is fairness. What are the terms of the ‘social contract’? What principles of justice would we agree to in this situation? For our agreement to secure a fair, impartial procedure, we need to eliminate any possible bias towards, say...
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...John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John rawls John...
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...Theory of Justice Analysis Michael Lemke 532 February 20, 2012 Scott Schoellkopf Theory of Justice Analysis People need to know what crime analysis is to ensure that the current justice analysis is in place to discuss the theory of justice. An emerging field in law enforcement is crime analysis. A criminal justice agency new to criminal analysis may have difficulties in determining its main focus. Crime analysis is the breaking point for people who commit acts in violation of laws. Philosophy and ethics comes into play to deal with fairness in the theory of justice analysis. This paper will begin with an explanation of some of the principles in how the theories differ from traditional utilitarianism. The second part of this paper will continue with the explanation of how modern criminal justice agencies and other entities define justice. This paper will conclude with how security defines justice. The state of nature from the political theorists of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau states that men were under the assumption of only thinking about themselves, and they did dedicate themselves to their own interests. “Hobbes proposed an autocracy that protects its citizens through its very existence, leaving them no enforceable rights; Locke advanced a liberal regime in which life, liberty, and property are kept safe from governmental discretion, as they are seen as natural human characters; and Rousseau saw politics itself as a remedy for the discontents of private...
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...Organizational Ethics The Issue of Online Data Reselling In 1995 the percentage of the population that used Internet was 0.4 %, while in June 2012 that portion have grown with 30 %, amounting 34.4% of all human population. Current statistics are citing gigantic numbers of the quantity of data that users generate - 2 000 queries on Google and 48 hours of video uploaded every minute are just some of the examples of the humongous size of information created online. This data is valuable due to the increasing number of e-commerce businesses employing the Web as their main platform for exchanging goods for value. Moreover, online data has become a topic of interest for marketers, researches, advertisers and publishers trying to gather as much information as possible in order to improve target advertising and deliver tailored content to their clients. Hence the information of a single browsing user is highly demanded due to the fact that it can provide insights into different online behaviors and optimize online campaigns. In 2006, the EU calculated that the value of open data in Europe (i.e. releasing all government information for free) would be € 27 billion (Dekkers) that is € 55 per European citizen. With a valuation of around $ 100 billion, the value that Facebook holds in 2012 is roughly $ 120 (€ 90) per active member. (NY Times) Personal data online is tracked by cookies, which are small pieces of code placed on the browser that remember the user and its information with...
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...Plato 2. Epicurus 3. Cicero 4. Aristotle 1. The topic of the proper distribution of burdens and benefits is known as 1. Distributive justice 2. Retributive justice 3. Economic welfare 4. Laissez-faire economics 1. Who made the violation of one’s moral rights the defining characteristic of injustice? 1. John Stuart Mill 2. Adam Smith 3. Karl Marx 4. Robert Nozick 1. Rawls’s theory of justice is 1. A libertarian theory 2. An egalitarian theory 3. A utilitarian theory 4. A retributivist theory 1. Justice for Mill was ultimately a matter of 1. Luck 2. Promoting social well-being 3. Property rights 4. Enforced equality 1. Brandt defends the equality of after-tax income on 1. Libertarian grounds 2. Deontological grounds 3. Utilitarian grounds 4. Egalitarian grounds 1. Libertarians assume that liberty means 1. Freedom 2. Noninterference 3. Equality 4. Liberation 1. Nozick begins with the premise that people have 1. Certain basic moral rights 2. Equality of income 3. Equality of opportunity 4. Certain basic positive rights 1. Nozick refers to the firm restrictions that rights impose as 1. Side constraints 2. Lockean constraints 3. Side bars 4. Liberty constraints 1. Nozick calls his theory of justice the 1. Welfare theory 2. Lockean theory 3. Absolute theory 4. Entitlement theory 1. Locke held that individuals are entitled to 1. The products of a welfare state 2. What they can acquire 3. What they possess 4...
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...BUS 309 WK 7 Quiz 6 Chapter 7 - All Possible Questions To Purchase Click Link Below: http://strtutorials.com/BUS-309-WK-7-Quiz-6-Chapter-7-All-Possible-Questions-BUS3097.htm BUS 309 WK 7 Quiz 6 Chapter 7 - All Possible Questions 1. Of the 18,000 objects orbiting Earth, how many are rubbish? 1. 12,000 2. 14, 100 3. 16,500 4. 17, 100 1. When was the Clean Water Act passed? 1. 1965 2. 1972 3. 1979 4. 1982 1. What proportion of U.S. waters fail to meet the 1972 standards for being safe for fishing and swimming? 1. 1/3 2. 2/3 3. 3/4 4. 4/5 1. How many pounds of hazardous materials enter the air each year? 1. 20 million 2. 90 milllion 3. 2 billion 4. 9 billion 1. Which gas is responsible for the greenhouse effect? 1. H2SO4 2. H2O 3. CO 4. CO2 1. How many tons of animal manure does the US generate each year? 1. 900 million 2. 1 billion 3. 1.4 billion 4. 2 billion 1. Which virus is responsible for the decline of the wolf population in Yellowstone Park? 1. Retrovirus 2. Herpesvirus 3. Parvovirus 4. Ebolavirus 2. The belief that natural resources are free and limitless encourages 1. Conservation 2. Preservation 3. Wasteful consumption of them 4. Waste management 1. Which industry exemplifies Hardin’s point about the tragedy of the commons? 1. Car manufacturing 2. International fishing 3. International steel production 4. Clothing manufacturing 1. How many gallons of water does it take to make an automobile? 1...
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...A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls Tier III 415A Home Page A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. This outline of an extended book review is based in large part on notes composed by Darrell Huwe. I have attempted with limited success to understand Rawls' book - please do not regard this as being in any sense an authoritative summary of Rawls' thought. I personally find this book particularly difficult to penetrate, perhaps because my training is in the physical sciences rather than philosophy, and I generalize quite beyond the evidence when I suspect that others also find it less than accessible. I hope that this review is helpful. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an article, "The Enduring Significance of John Rawls", by Martha Nussbaum. John Rawls died at age 81 on November 24, 2002. Dick Piccard General Conception All social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored. Social Contract John Locke: Free people need to agree on some ground rules in order to live together in harmony. Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham: Act so as to maximize good (pleasure) in the aggregate. Later twist: minimize pain. From either perspective, your actions are judged good or bad depending on the consequences they have for you and...
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...Natural Law Theory & Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics, & Recent Theories of Rights: Rawls & Nozick. Natural Law Theory: Natural Law theory in ethics is not to be confused with the laws of nature as put forward by physicists or other natural scientists, but they are related and do overlap. In moral domains, we are not concerned to give a mathematical, experimentally based theory of ethics or justice, but we are concerned with the general order of nature and how human life is nestled in and depends on that order. For example, life (& its preservation) depends on observing the necessities and limitations of nature, how we are dependent on food, shelter, parents and a community and the satisfying of other natural needs for life to exist, continue and prosper. The most prominent philosophers & political thinkers in this line of thought include the following: ancient - Plato, Aristotle, & later Cicero & other Roman statesmen; medieval - St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas & other thinkers in the Judeo-Christian tradition; modern - John Locke, & of course Thomas Jefferson & the “founding fathers” of the American republic. According to almost all of these authors, the natural order ultimately depends upon a first ordering principle that established the relation between man and nature. That first principle is commonly referred to as God or Creator, as indicated, for example, in the opening of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. One line of reasoning introduced by Plato is based...
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...As natural earth grown resources become usurped by thousands of companies competing in the market place, a shift towards making more sustainable synthetic solutions finds its way into consumer products. Monsanto a leader in the dairy product industry developed the Bovaine Growth Hormone (BGH) to help cow’s produces more milk. This product is marketed for farmers to buy and use it on cows to increase profit potential. To make this all happen Monsanto got every necessary approval including the FDAs’ to bring this product to market. With minimal research data collected the product was able to pass testing either because Monsanto misrepresented the findings of the safety of BGH or the FDA did not appropriately evaluate the potential safety concerns that may arise. Thus we have in society large corporations pushing aside possible human health concerns in order to make a considerable return on investment. Well according to a Kantian perspective this does not justify the means to an end nor would this pass under a “veil of ignorance” according to John Rawls. Canada had found conflicting results with those reported from the studies and banned the use of BGH as a result of their findings. So in turn, Fox News reporters Jane and Steve decide to do an expose of this story. In the process of writing it up Monsanto sends a letter saying that Fox News station would face ‘dire consequences’ if they aired the story. The threats eventually were able to crack senior management at Fox and they...
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...A Theory of Justice Rawls In 1985, John Rawls published his essay A Theory of Justice in which he defined social justice by applying social contract approach and introducing a hypothetical state – the Original Position with veil of ignorance. First of all, Rawls believed that the principles of justice should help society to govern its structure and protect the rights of everyone in the society. Then Rawls proposed the idea that justice can be called “fairness”. Since he claimed that the principles of justice should be decided in advance in order to regulate the society more efficiently, a group of chosen people must determine the set of principles of justice. Given the importance of such task, there is no doubt that the group of chosen people ought to have the knowledge in relative fields and the capacity to think rationally in order to make the best decisions, if not for anyone else, at least for themselves. In this case, we refer to the participant with rationality a rational agent. If we assumed that every party were a rational agent, we are, in fact, acknowledging that rational agent would determine the principles of justice with the purpose of maximizing benefits for him and for people with similar background based on the given status quo and specific traits of society he is currently living in. Hence, if we only choose people who are rational, we would face two problems including constant argument, which would fail to deliver any reasonable agreement when rational...
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...Egoism: This theory looks at an action in light of these consequences for only one entity, the person deciding whether an action is ethical. In other words, if an action is good for me, then it is ethical. The plus of that theory is that it is easy to apply--you need only look at a proposed action, figure out the consequences for you and if they are good then the action is ethical. The minus of the theory is that it obviously leads to many conclusions that most would agree are not ethical. Suppose you have a baby food plant and have some rotten fruit If it would be economically feasible to use that fruit (amount in profits vs. amount in lawsuits and lost public relations) then it would be absolutely ethical to use that fruit. Apply that example to out of date medications in the third world and you can see that it might be hard to make a straight-faced argument that this theory promotes what most think of as ethical outcomes. Think VERY carefully before you use this theory to justify any conclusion in today's business world. Libertarianism: This theory is a little more nuanced. You are still looking at only one aspect of the situation and that is how it upholds or promotes liberty, but you need to look at how the action upholds or promotes liberty for all those who might have rights. This theory looks at whether an action violates anyone's' liberty and liberty is defined as the right to property you have legally acquired and the right to be free from the unwanted or unagreed-to...
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