Justice, Equality, and Fairness

"In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?" - Saint Augustine 

A few days ago, while I was travelling by local transport, I met a felon. I mean, this is perhaps the reason why the ‘well-to-do’ and the ‘educated’ classes seldom take the mass transit. Anyway, we picked up a conversation that not only kept me off from falling asleep, but also made me rethink about justice system of our society.

This man, seated besides me, was put in prison for two years, after he was convicted for a crime related to drugs. Well, you may now wonder, what is wrong with a system in which, a guilty is brought to books. So, here is the flip side. He was raised in crime prone, poor neighborhood. Secondly, his trial was fast and having no money, he could not hire a good lawyer, who would have helped him get a reduced sentence. And what has this period of serving the sentence done to him now? For beginners, he is not even interviewed, let alone hired, by most employers. He manages to survive by doing odd jobs, and feels that he isn’t given a fair chance to reform and rejoin the society.

Pondering through this conversation, few questions struck me. The first one, what if he could afford fees to hire a good lawyer? Does the justice system favor the wealthy? And if this is a reflection is justice system of a country like the US, which claims to stand for justice, is justice really fair? Finally, if this is not fair, how would a perfectly just society look like?

As I’m not trained in political science or moral philosophy, I did some research and most of my points are based on the works of two of the greatest minds of our times, in these fields, John Rawls and Amartya Sen.

Rawls in his book, A Theory of Justice, introduces a concept called ‘Justice as Fairness’. Claiming, justice-as-fairness to be political, and not metaphysical, he explains the two fundamentals it comprises of, a) Liberty and b) Equality. Liberty is fully understood, only if the  circumstances bring in the right awareness. And equality is hurt by several factors beyond ones control. Say, whom you are born to, or how much you could afford to pay, are unacceptable forms of inequality. These factors indirectly give a license to the high and mighty, to treat justice as a system, skewed in their favor.

Amartya Sen’s book, The Idea of Justice, helps in understanding how a perfectly just society would look like. In one sentence, it would be a society in which almost everything would be worked by a reasoned social agreement, to mutual content. And as human nature is flawed, a pragmatic goal should be, enhancement of justice and reduction of injustice, from this world.

‘How could this become a reality?’, is a million dollar question. I don’t know the answer for this question, but would not hesitate to guess that giving up on the sense of entitlement, emphasizing on moral education and ethics, rather than social status, could certainly help. Another open question I would like to leave you with is that ‘is this trend of people trying to accumulate wealth, making the system of justice, slightly unfair?’