Utilitarianism: Distributive Justice

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Political utilitarianism seems rewarding at face value. After all, its main goal is to utilize the government to promote felicity and benefit the people. However, it is not as encouraging in terms of distributive justice. While the employment of utilitarianism as a tool to analyze the State’s decisions can provide justice to many people, ultimately it disregards the benefit of individual people and can lead to distribution that is both unjust and imbalanced.
Based on its core philosophy, utilitarianism seems promising in its ability to ensure justice is administered to the most people. The State’s role, according to the ideology, is to promote the utility of the people by passing laws that lead to the best consequence for the maximum population. …show more content…
From a utilitarian standpoint, a series of inhumane and unjust actions can be taken as long as the result of the actions lead to the most gain. Is it truly justified to potentially harm a small group of people in the interest of a certain advantage for the many? Would that not be a violation of the rights of the members of the smaller group? Additionally, the benefits may not be distributed equally or even reasonably amongst a population, for the utilitarian philosophy only regards the total benefit, not whether a certain group earns a disproportionate amount compared to all the others. As a result of this, under the utilitarian views, some people can enjoy significant gains after a certain legislation is passed while the rest only receive an inappreciable benefit, so long as it represents the maximum advantage. Evidently, there are considerable flaws with political utilitarianism that make it unnecessary and potentially dangerous for the State to …show more content…
Where the utilitarian standard would favor the maximum total utility, the “difference principle,” as it is titled, would favor the most benefit for all groups of people, most importantly the disadvantaged. In this way, everyone has the ability to gain significantly from the actions of the State in a balanced manner. John Rawls’ political philosophy provides a healthy role for the State, especially in distributive justice. It ensures that everyone is entitled to justice and basic freedoms, regardless of their social status, race, age, or gender, and calls for equal opportunity, including for government office. The Basic Structure, which includes the State as well as major institutions and factors that shape society, can function only under the condition that the State is fair to all people and upholds the two principles of justice. Therefore, the means required to achieve a certain end will all have to be justified, as John Rawls’ theory is not a type of consequentialism. The government has the ability to benefit everyone and protect their entitlements to justice in John Rawls’ conception of the basic structure, which, unlike the utilitarian system, provides the maximum benefit and ensures justice for
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