What is justice? It is really hard to determine what is just due to its subjectivity. An ongoing debate orbits around whether should justice be based on weight of contributions or on need. Should rewards and benefits be granted to the most productive or to the ones that need it the most? Another important aspect of justice are the procedures through which decisions are reached about people. This is called procedural justice and it involves 3 important issues; arbitrariness, the violation of special basic rights, and whether special overriding social needs are present. Another significant aspect to take into consideration regarding policies is their efficiency. An efficient policy grants the greatest benefit to the people and the state at the lowest cost. A government is in charge of deciding the policies of the state and must take into account the factors of justice and efficiency. There are 4 different modes through which a government reaches a decision; incremental, radical, authority, and market.
When determining what is just and what is not, a number of factors come into play. However they can be narrowed down to two main opposing ones; should justice be based on need, or should it be based on the weight of contributions. The problem with relying on weight of contributions in order to dictate how to distribute rewards is that quite often luck is more participative than virtue. Since contribution involves this element of luck it makes it uncertain how much should be rewarded, as well as it ignores the questions of need. As a consequence, justice cannot be based solely on a single one of these factors, because they are mutually exclusive.
Just like there are issues when determining what exactly is just, there are issues with the procedures of justice through which decisions are reached about people. Three issues that are often linked with procedural justice are: whether governmental action is arbitrary, whether special basic rights are violated, and whether special overriding needs are present. Government action is arbitrary if the people do not know what to expect before the decision is made and on what grounds it was made. Decisions that single out particular individuals for punishment or reward are arbitrary. The second issue that arises when looking at procedural justice is the violation of certain rights that are considered absolute. These include rights such as the right to survive, the right of free speech and the right to privacy. Most people agree that these rights are not indeed absolute. Regulations and exceptions, exist, and sometimes ought to exist. However those rights are categorized by society as being of top priority, so that it would take something unusual for them to be compromised. Finally there is the idea that in order for justice to prevail over most of the people, the state has to be less just to some people. That is, there may be overriding social needs that enter into considerations of justice.
A factor that is equally as important as justice when determining a policy, is efficiency. An efficient policy brings the greatest benefit at the least cost. The problem is that usually neither the benefits nor the costs of a policy are easy to calculate. The effects of a policy are difficult to measure and compare. The costs and benefits of a policy are not always clear, a variety of effects exist called unanticipated consequences. Any judgement of the efficiency of a policy must take into account all its costs and benefits, not just the intended costs and benefits. Many of the consequences of a policy are difficult to foresee. As a result, it is equally as complicated to determine the efficiency of a policy as it is to determine how just the policy is.
Once the state is ready to implement a policy it can do so in one of four ways. The decision making mode is incremental when changes in policy are exerted little by little. A small change in policy is carried out at one time, the state waits to observe the results. Subsequently another small change is made. There is caution in the face of uncertainty and complexity. A radical mode of decision making is implemented when there is more concern on losing an opportunity than on costly errors. When the mode of decision making is governmental authority the policy is made by the government telling people what they may or may not do. There are two main problems with authority based policy. It does not get things to the people that will value them the most, and there is a lack of incentives to encourage the optimum usage of resources. When the market mechanism carries out the policy, the government leaves choice up to the people. It largely relies on supply and demand. The problems with market based policy is that wealth and income are distributed unequally, it is not very effective in producing collective goods, and it does not take into account externalities of individual transactions.
Justice is a complex issue. It involves a number of factors that are often in conflict and need to be balanced. The government reaches decisions about people through processes, but these processes are often coined as arbitrary or raise the question about the violation of special basic rights, and the presence of overriding social needs. Regarding a policy, the role that justice plays is crucial, as well as the role that efficiency plays. The essence and the purpose of a policy is directly linked to both justice and efficiency. When concocting a policy governments have to take both of these factors into account, and once they have reached a decision and enforce it, they may do so in one of four modes; incremental, radical, authority, or market.
No comments:
Post a Comment