Constraints to Greater Justice in Our Collective Lives

¶ … Obstacles to Achieving Greater Justice in Our Collective Lives

Today, major disparities continue to exist between the rich and poor in terms of money, political and health care access as well as treatment by the criminal justice system. Although these types and other fundamental inequalities have existed through history, the fact that these disparities remain firmly in place in the 21st century suggests that they are intractable to change unless aggressive steps are taken to overcome them. To this end, this paper reviews the literature to identify the greatest obstacles to achieving greater justice in our collective lives today, including class, race, gender, and ability as well as the potential for a combination of these to represent the greatest obstacle. An examination concerning how people acculturated to view these categories that interfere with meaningful change to achieve greater justice from various perspectives in the future is followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning these issues in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Despite what many people might believe otherwise, the United States is characterized by several classes, including lower, middle and upper-classes, as well as subdivisions within these categories. Each of these classes is defined by how much money people make which is frequently a function of ability, but also race and gender which have an effect on the types of opportunities that are available to people. If the U.S. was a true meritocracy, it would enjoy the best leadership possible, but the historical record confirms that this has not happened with the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson as president. Although progress has been made in overcoming these constraints, many individuals remain marginalized from mainstream American society due to one or a combination of all of these factors. Blacks and women continue to earn less than white males for the same type of work, and people who are disadvantaged economically have correspondingly fewer opportunities available to them. Many Americans grow up without learning about the impact that these differences in opportunities have on their fellow and assume wrongly that with hard work, anyone can succeed. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that a combination of these factors represents the greatest obstacle to achieving greater justice in our collective lives, but what is justice?

According to Black's Law Dictionary, in jurisprudence, justice means "the constant and perpetual dispositions of legal matters or disputes to render every man his due" (864). By contrast, "commutative justice" refers to "obligations as between persons and requires proportionate equalities in dealings of person to person" (864). Other types of justice include distributive justice which concerns "obligations of the community to the individual, and requires fair distribution of common advantages and sharing of common burdens" and social justice which concerns "obligations of individual to community and its end is the common good" (864). Taken together, the foregoing definitions indicate that the concept of justice is broad and depends on the context in which it is used. Therefore, achieving "greater justice" could include an across-the-board improvement in all of the foregoing areas, or improvements in one or more of these factors.

The search for theories that can promote greater justice is certainly not new. For instance, Lloyd reports that, "Throughout the pages of human history, philosophers have arduously endeavored to formulate a comprehensive theory of justice that explains the proper relationship between individuals and society, as well as the proper relationship of individuals among one another" (229). There have been some theories advanced in recent years that taken the exigencies of life in the 21st century into account that may help see the way forward, though. For instance, Michael Sandel calls for "a communitarian or civic republican alternative" and "a reinvigoration of the republican strand and intimates a republican constitutional theory" (Fleming and McClain 510). These alternatives, though, are not really viable in a nation of three hundred million-plus citizens, and there is a need for a superior theoretical approach. Identifying the optimal approach to achieving greater justice is clearly a daunting enterprise, but an examination of Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, and Kant's categorical imperative can provide some fresh insights.

Maximizing the utility of social resources such as health care and education would represent the optimal approach to achieving greater justice from a Utilitarianism perspective because these goals have been historically cited as being desirable goals for the majority of Americans. For example, Lloyd reports that from a Utilitarianism perspective, "The system of justice that emerges will necessarily be predicated upon the subjective preferences of the majority" (230). Conversely, Libertarians would likely advocate for greater access to employment opportunities and the political arena as being the best approach for achieving greater justice.

It is noteworthy that both Utilitarianism and Libertarianism are congruent with the goals of improving social justice which include collective obligations concerning the common good, but not everyone agrees that these are effective theories for achieving greater justice. In this regard, Lloyd argues that, "In the end, both Utilitarianism and Libertarianism fail to adequately respect the inherent dignity of the human person, and therefore result in systems of ethics that divert man from his ultimate end" (231). Likewise, the democratic process also places inordinate amounts of power in the hands of a few in ways that alter what is perceived as the will of the majority. For instance, Russello points out that, "Capitalism dominates democratic politics and allocates power to those few who set the public agenda and manufacture popular consent" (50).

By contrast, Kant's categorical imperative would indicate that if people were allowed to pursue their natural instincts without restraint by nosy government agencies and administrative bureaucracies that inhibit altruistic behaviors, greater justice would be the natural outcome. In this regard, Manos advises that simply put, "Kant's categorical imperatives consist of 'doing the right thing,' or a form of moral law. In Kant's construct, humans' natural instinct is to act in a moral or 'good' way; if all humans follow their instincts for goodness, their actions could lead to an absolute, universal moral law" (35).