Justice

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

Like "peace," the term "justice" means different things to different people. Scholars distinguish between at least four different kinds of justice: retributive, restorative, distributive, and procedural justice. Retributive justice refers to punishment for wrong doing. The punishment is intended to take away any advantage the wrong-doer might have gained from the malfeasance, plus it is intended to deter future wrong doing, either by the original perpetrator, or by others. Restorative justice also seeks to restore balance after a wrong occurs, but it does so by requiring the wrong-doer to repair the damage he or she has done to the victim. Thus, while retributive justice conceives of transgressions as crimes against the state (punishable by fines or jail time, which don't help the victim), restorative justice conceives of transgressions as crimes against individuals. The purpose of restorative justice is therefore to "restore" the victim to "wholeness," and to restore the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. Offenders are encouraged to understand the harm they have caused their victims and take responsibility for repairing that harm. Distributive justice focuses on distributing benefits and resources fairly. So just as all people at a birthday party should get an equally sized piece of cake, distributive justice focuses on the fair distribution of wealth, income, power, opportunities, etc.

However, there is much disagreement on how to determine what is "fair." Some people argue for "equality" -- which means everyone should get the same amount (as in the cake example). Equity, on the other hand, means everyone should get an amount of benefit that is equivalent to the amount of benefit that they put in — so how hard they work, how much they have contributed to the betterment of society, or whether or not they baked the cake). Still others argue that people should get what they need. Hence the poor or otherwise disadvantaged should get more of society's goods; and the rich should get less, because they need less. Lastly, procedural justice means that the procedures used to make a decision are fair, and are properly followed. Rules and laws must be impartial, and must be consistently applied in order to generate unbiased decisions. Those carrying out the procedures should be neutral, and those directly affected by the decisions should have some voice or representation in the decision-making process. These requirements, together with distributive justice, are the ones that seem to be most in dispute right now, as people argue that laws and, particularly, regulations are unfair and are unfairly applied. This is leading to a considerable number of intractable