Theories of Social Justice

In order to begin to understand and analyze Dr. Peffer’s Theory of Social Justice, we want to first look at the five main principles. These principles are a Modified look at John Rawls’s “Two Principles” of Social Justice (1971). These five modified principles include The Basic Rights Principle, The Maximum Equal Basic Liberties Principle, The Fair Equality of Opportunity Principle, The Modified Difference Principle, The Social and Economic Democracy Principle. First of all, The Basic Rights Principle addresses the very fundamental issues of Security and Subsistence Rights. The Security Rights are described as the institutional responsibility to uphold the physical integrity and protection against threats such as murder torture. Psychological threats are also included which I believe is a great and underestimated point since that is often the more detrimental kind of abuse. The concept of Psychological threats is very hard to apply internationally due to the fact that proof of harm becomes completely subjective. This subjective nature makes it hard to be universally applied. In terms of these states and societal groups not engaging in these ‘extra-juridical’ activities, I cannot say I fully agree. I believe that in certain circumstances where the Security Rights of one person who is has violated that of others, can and should be sacrificed to ensure the security rights of others. A common example would be the interrogation of a known suspect with information pertaining to mass violation of Security Rights (i.e. serial killers and terrorists). In this example I believe it to be perfectly acceptable to carry out whatever is needed (whether that is physical or psychological torture) to prevent the malicious act of others willing to disregard another’s Security Rights. For this reason I believe that each and every person deserves this Security Right until they negatively affect, directly or indirectly, that of another person. The second Basic Right addressed