Social Justice

Paper Summary:

The paper analyzes the concepts of rights, deserts and needs, which, when balanced according to the social and moral norms of the day, create social justice. The paper then examines the disagreements that arise on the application of these concepts and thereby the difficulties in promoting a fair, balanced idea of social justice.

From the Paper:

"In his book, Social Justice, David Miller emphasizes three concepts: rights, deserts, and needs (17). He points out that there is a distinction between legal and moral rights. Legal are those granted to us through government and our social contract to it. A legal right would include the right to a publicly funded education, or state provided legal defense. Moral rights, on the other hand, are rights not defined legally, but those with which we as society deem justified by moral standards. Unlike legal rights, moral rights are harder to define. There is no objective way to judge standards of morality. What might seem ethical to one individual could be completely unethical to another, so the defining of moral rights is more of a balancing act of the two."

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