Political Liberalism And The Concept Of Justice

Abstract

Politics have shaped the future that lies within the state with the lead and help of either the president, leader or their own prime minister. The constant debate in achieving a perfect society with s progressive state have been questionable ever since the renaissance period has started. In this Philosophical term paper, the main goal here is to see the relevance in the modern century of the said theory with the importance of the fundamental elements of political liberalism and the concept of justice formed by the author, John Rawls. Keywords: Politics, Equality, Liberalism, Justice

Introduction

Political Liberalism as to someone who have been in to the world of journalism, newscasting or even politics, may define it as to the revised and renowned version of a political system in a certain state or country. This book, specifically in the lecture one of the Mr. Rawls have answered the two fundamental questions with regards to a democratic country having equal rights, equality and liberty. Political liberalism as for the author is the result of the inevitable long-run of powers of human reason at work within the background of the institution. One of the main goals of the whole book itself is the recommendation of principles as a way of fairly removing disagreements in a pluralistic society. A pluralistic society is the one where the society have different set of beliefs, religion and other aspects. However, the book has focused more on the democratic states and not to those who either follow totalitarianism, authoritarianism or soft authoritarianism.

As the society revolves around different types of people with various types of leaders, one cannot deny that the progression of politics has became either renowned for a better purpose or have been perverted by corruption or capitalist way in which instead of benefitting the state, it is more on for his or her own sake only. In order to fully understand the concept of political liberalism, the book have established a stable definition of justice in a democratic state and later analyzed what political liberalism can do. In this paper, the main goal of this is to see the relevance of definitions, ideals, and his concept of political liberalism formed by the author. Joined and relating it with his two fundamental questions about justice in a democratic state and the boundaries instilled with it.

Statement Of The Problem

One of the main targets of the paper is to address the two-fundamental question in order to first define the concept of justice in a democratic state and to furthermore define the boundaries or toleration of institutions. The first two problems are identified in the book and the following is the possible loop hole because of connecting such theories in the modern world.

1. What is the most appropriate conception of justice for specifying the fair terms from one generation to the next?
2. What are the grounds of toleration or boundaries considering the inevitable outcome of free institutions?
3. Can the Philippines follow and base the ideal system for a democratic system with equal rights and liberty of the society?
4. Will the fundamental ideas help the democratic country analyze what should be done and not in shaping a country that have experienced such corruption and capitalism?

The Fundamental Elements Of Political Liberalism

Political culture of a democratic society as stated by the author should be bound with differences formed by the society who have lived in the state for the past few years. Such differences may include the religion, beliefs and moral doctrines that they follow. Now, in relation with this, how can a democratic country or state establish a society wherein there is equal rights and liberty all at the same time?

This is where political liberalism came into light. Political liberalism is the result of such powers with the human reason at work enduring the free institutions the society have given. Even though it may sound hierarchal to the definition of it, one of its targets here is still to contribute in the making of just and stable society with free and equal citizens, despite, the differences of religion, philosophical beliefs and moral doctrines.

John Rawls have classified the political liberalism through the main differences of the citizens in the certain society. The first one being the religion, people may either believe with the teachings of the catholic church, Born Again, Muslim or Buddhism and such. The second one is the philosophical views of the world, wherein one of them can be a firm believer of the Confucianism principles, one in which the Chinese society follows, or others can be to Buddhism or some other possible views around. The last one is the moral conception of goodness. One in which, no one can identify the accurate definition of being morally good without the help of religion. Laura Schlessinger’s belief that morality is impossible without belief in God (Pew Research Center, 2007), and in many countries this attitude is far more prevalent. In a series of compelling recent studies, Gervais and colleagues (Gervais, Shariff, & Norenzayan, 2011) have demonstrated strong implicit associations of atheists with immorality. Although these associations are stronger in people who themselves believe in God, even atheist participants intuitively view acts such as serial murder, incest, and necro bestiality as more representative of atheists than of other religious, ethnic, or cultural groups (Gervais, 2014). In here we can see that morality and goodness cannot be defined without having the certain belief and religion you were raised to. In other words, there are no correct definition of moral goodness because it is bound with a certain belief that not everyone agrees on.

Supposing all these differences, the author have stated, these differences leads us somehow away from the ideal society he aims to achieve. Going back to the two fundamental questions, in order to answer it, the author have first addressed the concept of democracy in which he have figured that there is no certain agreement on how such institutions should be arranged or organized if they have followed the fair terms of cooperation between citizens freely and equally. In other words, justice as defined and analyzed by Rowls is the fairness of terms and rights even though you have a position in the country, or even if you are in the higher or elitist class, one must still follow the terms, and no one should be superior of the other. To give a specific definition of how justice should work, justice should be the reflection of how the institution should value liberty and equality in their own state. Hence, if a democratic country has a social class or hierarchy, one can tell through the concept written in this book that the justice system of a certain country is somehow politically or economically biased.

In relation with that, given the definition of how justice should be, one can also answer the second question in the statement of the problem above. The concept of justice has somehow been related to the famous quote that have been followed the Philippines ‘Ignorance of the law, excuses no one” found in the Article. 3 of the Civil Code of the Philippines. This presumption in Philippine law is based on convenience, public policy and necessity. It is derived from the Latin maxim “ignorantia legis neminem excusat. ” However, this rule only refers to the existence of a law, not to mistakes regarding its application or interpretation. In other words, every person in Philippine jurisdiction is presumed to know that a law regarding a conduct exists, even though in reality, he has not read or even heard about the law before. If a person violates a law, even though in truth he does not know that such law exists, such ignorance of its existence is not a valid legal defense and will not excuse him from the legal consequences of the law’s violation. However, if a person made a mistake borne out of a difficult question of law as to its interpretation or application, such ignorance constitutes an excuse and is a valid legal defense (Jurado, 2016) Additionally, the political liberalism is the key answer to toleration to philosophy itself, because it helps us see the boundaries of how we should act towards others and the fact that all of us have a foundation background to such instances, especially religion. One must be sensitive enough to know when to stop and to identify things that should not be tolerated.

The Idea Of A Political Conception Of Justice

Given the foundations above, Professor John Rawls have proceeded in combining such definitions in the field of politics. The next topic given is the political concept in the field of justice. Political conception of justice can be divided into three main characteristic features. First one is the moral conception, one in which should be applicable to the “basic structure” of the society as they label or mainly the ones who handle the state itself in promising the democratic type of society. However, the author also explained that the basic structure of the society is limited to the state itself and should have no more relationships with the other states, which is by far impossible in the modern century. Furthermore, Terry Hoy of the Simpsons College have made a paper about the Political Liberalism of the said author. In the paper, he also stated that Rawls also believes, that justice as fairness is not to be interpreted as a Hobbesian mosus vivendi; in which it is an agreement allowing conflicting parties to coexist peacefully. In a nutshell, he believed that there should be no outside noise entertained in order to have the basic structure of society which is in contrast with the Hobbesian ethics as stated before. However, if that is the case, how can we say that a society is just if we do not consider some of the concerns from the outside realms?

The people have passed through many generations already, one in which most of the people who lived in the modern world have come to experience the two-fold realities of life. Especially the generation z or as they say the youth today. According to Yolisa Mkele a columnist from the Sunday Times of the United States of America, she had a chance to interview Mr. Dion Chang, a trend analyst and founder of Flux Trends, which has been conducting research into Generation Z over the past few years, said that 'Generation Z are hyper aware of social injustices, they are the post-9/11, post-Great Recession generation and they don't want to make the same mistakes as their parents. I call them the self-correcting generation. '. One in which is somehow inapplicable to the belief of Rawls, because he is only concerned with the state itself. The people today have wakened up from the reality that there are a lot of countries around, especially in Asia, who have been progressing with higher number of digits in their Gross Domestic Product or the GDP compared to which either their own country or even so, in the United States of America.

The second component of the said feature is the mode of presentation or as the author labeled as the freestanding view. One in which a person must be able to discover the difference of the concept into the perspective of a political concept or as to a doctrine. However, these two are a complete opposite of each other, one can easily identify if a person have used the lens of the political concept in which your are freely allowed to voice out your own opinions and stand without the help of the history or other background that will be able to help you strengthen your point. The other one being the doctrine, in which most of these are based on historical facts and evidence-based facts. Moreover, these two lenses can be joint together in where a society can use it as a way of regulation.