Distributive Justice In Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics

915 Words4 Pages

Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophers the world has seen in ancient Greek philosophy. He has contributed to the fields of logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was Plato’s disciple and he was undoubtedly influenced by Plato’s works although the influence was mostly negative. His very popular work is called Nichomachean Ethics; it is a collection of all his works on ethics. It consists of 10 books. Book V talks about Justice and fairness He has propounded various theories on justice, equality, equity and morality. Some of his theories are applied in the contemporary world as well. Aristotle in this book discusses the concept of distributive justice and …show more content…

Distributive justice and Corrective justice: Distributive justice involves dividing benefits and burdens fairly among members of a community, while corrective justice requires us, in some circumstances, to try to restore a fair balance in interpersonal relations where it has been lost. Distributive justice deals with the …show more content…

It looks into civil injuries. It recognizes the imbalance caused due to one party or more in the society and aims at restoring the balance exactly how Aristotle explained in his theory of corrective justice. Proportionate equality: Aristotle’s proportionate equality talks about equitably allotting things among all members of the society. It is to treat equals equally and unequal unequally. Aristotle’s concept of justice was giving equals equal treatment, unequals unequal treatment. Individuals should be treated the same, unless they differ in ways that are relevant to the situation in which they are involved. When factors speak for unequal treatment or distribution, because the persons are unequal in relevant respects, the treatment or distribution proportional to these factors is just. For instance, John and Mary work in an office and John works for 8 hours while Mary only works for 5 hours. Here, John deserves to be paid more as he is doing more work than Mary. But if John and Mary were working the same hours, then they both deserve equal payment. In the contemporary world, this can be equated with affirmative action. In India, the government takes an initiative to help the economically backward and weaker sections of the society. It is