JUSTICE – AN URGENT NEED FOR A BROADER PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In modern times a discussion on justice has narrowed down to a discussion on the desired attributes of a social order. This has resulted into understanding justice as a legitimate demand of the citizens from their governments. In such discourse on justice the necessary conditions for justice to be realized are often ignored. It is ignored that the demands of citizens from their governments, whatever they might be, cannot be met in the absence of a certain type of moral personality they should bear for their demands to be met. Justice as a quality of social order is not possible without a culture of justice in the personality of its citizens. Therefore, a discussion on justice need to focus not only on the desired attributes of the social order and legitimate expectations of its citizens from their government, but also the desired traits of its citizens’ moral personality and their legitimate expectations from each other. And that is what this paper attempts to show.