All six exercise questions from the NCERT textbook Political Theory, Chapter 4 “Social Justice”, in the English edition’s own wording, with a full answer for each. The questions printed inside the chapter (Let’s Think, the two cartoons and Let’s Do It) are answered at the end. Try answering them yourself first, then check.
1 Giving Each Person Their Due
Q. What does it mean to give each person his/her due? How has the meaning of “giving each his due” changed over time?
Answer: Giving each person his/her due means giving every person what is rightly owed to them. In Plato’s account, just as a good doctor is concerned with the well-being of his patients, the just ruler or the just government must be concerned with the well-being of the people, and ensuring the well-being of the people includes giving each person his due. This idea has been central to our understanding of justice since Plato’s time, but what a person is actually “due” has changed considerably.
Today, our understanding of what is due is closely linked to what is due to each person as a human being: following the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, every human being possesses dignity, so what each person is due is the opportunity to develop their talents and pursue the goals they choose for themselves.
2 The Three Principles of Justice
Q. Briefly discuss the three principles of justice outlined in the chapter. Explain each with examples.
Answer:
1. Equal treatment for equals: all individuals, as human beings, are entitled to equal rights and equal treatment, so there should be no discrimination on grounds of class, caste, race or gender. Example: if two people from different castes do the same work, such as breaking stones, they should receive the same pay, a difference between one hundred rupees and seventy five rupees purely because of caste would be unjust.
2. Proportionate justice: sometimes treating everyone exactly alike would itself be unjust, because effort, skill and risk differ. Example: awarding exam marks by the quality of the answer and the effort put in, rather than giving everyone identical marks, or paying miners and policemen in a way that reflects the risk of their work.
3. Recognition of special needs: society should account for people’s special needs, such as disability, when distributing rewards or duties. Example: giving Suresh, a visually impaired student, extra time in an exam, or reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs and education.
3 Special Needs versus Equal Treatment
Q. Does the principle of considering the special needs of people conflict with the principle of equal treatment for all?
Answer: No, these two principles do not conflict, they complement each other. The principle of recognising special needs does not contradict equal treatment, it extends it, because the principle of treating equals equally already implies that people who are not equal in some important respect should be treated differently.
Giving Suresh, a visually impaired student, extra time in a mathematics exam does not break the principle of equal treatment, it actually applies it properly, since that extra help is what brings him level with the rest of the class. In the same way, reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes does not weaken equal treatment, it compensates for inequalities created by historical discrimination.
4 Rawls’ “Veil of Ignorance”
Q. How does Rawls use the idea of a veil of ignorance to argue that fair and just distribution can be defended on rational grounds?
Answer: Rawls argues that the only way to arrive at fair and just rules is to imagine ourselves in a situation where we must decide how society should be organised, without knowing what position we will occupy in that future society, that is, which family we will be born into, an “upper” caste family or a “lower” one, rich or poor. He calls this state of not knowing the “veil of ignorance.”
Behind this veil, each person will still reason out of self-interest, but since no one knows who they will turn out to be, everyone will reason from the position of the worst-off, thinking “what if I myself am born into the most disadvantaged section?” So they will want rules that guarantee reasonable opportunities to the weaker sections, while also making sure the better-off are not made worse off, since they too could end up privileged. Fairness, in this account, is the outcome of rational self-interest, not of morality or generosity.
5 Basic Minimum Needs and the Government’s Responsibility
Q. What are generally considered to be the basic minimum requirements of people for living a healthy and productive life? What is the responsibility of governments in trying to ensure this minimum to all?
Answer: The basic minimum requirements generally agreed upon are: the basic amount of nourishment needed to remain healthy, housing, a supply of clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage. Various governments and international organisations such as the World Health Organisation have developed methods for calculating these needs.
Providing people with their basic needs is considered one of the responsibilities of a democratic government, so that every person can live a healthy, secure life and develop their talents. However, ensuring these basic conditions for all citizens, particularly in a country like India with a very large number of poor people, can place a heavy burden on the government, which is why there is ongoing debate about the best way to achieve this, through free markets or state intervention.
6 Justifying State Action for Basic Minimum Conditions
Q. Which of the following arguments could be used to justify state action to provide basic minimum conditions of life to all citizens?
(a) Providing free services to the poor and needy can be justified as an act of charity.
(b) Providing all citizens with a basic minimum standard of living is one way of ensuring equality of opportunity.
(c) Some people are naturally lazy and we should be kind to them.
(d) Ensuring basic facilities and a minimum standard of living to all is a recognition of our shared humanity and a human right.
Answer: The correct arguments are (b) and (d).
(b) is correct because without a basic minimum standard of living, people cannot compete on equal terms at all, so this is the first condition for real equality of opportunity.
(d) is correct because the chapter makes clear that guaranteeing basic needs is not a matter of charity or pity, it follows from Kant’s idea of human dignity and our shared humanity as a human right.
(a) is incorrect, since framing it as “charity” turns a right into optional kindness, while the chapter treats it as a matter of justice.
(c) is incorrect, since it blames poverty on personal laziness, while the chapter ties disadvantage to social and historical discrimination such as caste.
7 In-text Questions
The chapter also asks questions inside the text: in its Let’s Think and Let’s Do It boxes and in its two cartoons. They are answered below in the order in which they appear in the book, in the English edition’s own wording.
Q. Examine the following situations and discuss whether they are just. In each case discuss the principle of justice that might be used in defence of your argument.
- Suresh, a visually impaired student, gets three hours and thirty minutes to finish his mathematics paper, while the rest of the class gets only three hours. Just. The principle is recognition of special needs: his disability puts him at a disadvantage in writing the paper, and the extra time only brings him level with the rest of the class. It extends equal treatment rather than breaking it.
- Geeta walks with a limp. The teacher decided to give her also three hours and thirty minutes to finish her mathematics paper. Not just, as it stands. A limp does not slow down writing a mathematics paper, so it is not a special need relevant to this task. Giving her the extra time breaks equal treatment for equals, since in the respect that matters here she is equal to the rest of the class. (Special help is due only for those inequalities that actually affect the task.)
- A teacher gives grace marks to the weaker students in class, to boost their morale. Not just. Marks should reflect the quality of the answer paper and the effort put in, which is the principle of proportionate justice; grace marks reward students for something other than their work. Weaker students may deserve special help, such as extra classes, but not marks they did not earn.
- A professor distributes different question papers to different students based on her evaluation of their capabilities. Not just. Students taking the same examination must be judged on the same paper, by equal treatment for equals; different papers make the marks impossible to compare and let the examiner’s opinion decide the result in advance.
- There is a proposal to reserve 33 per cent of the seats in the Parliament for women. Can be defended as just, by the principle of recognition of special needs: women have been under-represented in Parliament, and a reservation helps give them a fair share in political decision-making, in the same way as the Constitution’s reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Opponents argue that it departs from equal treatment, which is why it is a matter of debate.
These answers are discussion answers: the book asks you to argue your case. What matters is naming the principle (equal treatment, proportionate justice, or special needs) and using it correctly.
Q. “Why is the statue of justice blindfolded?” “She is blindfolded because she needs to be impartial.” “Of course she needs to be impartial. But I wonder how then does she see the special needs of people?”
Answer. The blindfold stands for impartiality: justice should not be swayed by who a person is, which is the principle of equal treatment for equals. The second speaker’s doubt points to the third principle, recognition of special needs, which requires seeing people’s different circumstances, such as disability or a lack of access to good education or health care. The cartoon sums up the chapter’s point that governments might find it difficult to harmonise the principles of justice: pure impartiality can overlook special needs, so a just government has to balance the two.
Q. Why do they say, justice delayed is justice denied?
Answer. The cartoon itself gives the answer: because if a decision in a dispute is delayed too long, the injured person may not receive any benefit from the judicial proceedings. What would be the use of getting a decision in one’s favour after one is dead? Justice is meant to give each person his due; a remedy that comes too late to help the person who was wronged gives him nothing in practice, so a long delay is as good as a denial of justice.
Q. Various calculations of the minimum requirements of food, income, water and such facilities have been made by government agencies and U.N. agencies. Search in your school library, or on the internet, for any such calculations.
Answer. This is a research activity. Look for official measures of minimum needs, for example the poverty line worked out by the Government of India from the cost of a minimum basket of food and other essentials, minimum wages notified by the government, and the standards of international organisations like the World Health Organisation for nourishment or for the water a person needs each day. Note who made each calculation and what it includes. Then connect it to the chapter: there is general agreement that the basic amount of nourishment needed to remain healthy, housing, supply of clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage form an important part of the basic conditions of life, and providing them is considered a responsibility of a democratic government.