J STI E I S Cl ETY

Belinda Carpenter
Matthew Ball

THE FEDERATION PRESS

2012

Published in Sydney by
The Federation Press Pty Ltd
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Carpenter, Belinda J
Justice in society/ Belinda Carpenter; Matthew Ball.
Includes index.
978 186287 895 2 (pbk)
Justice, Administration of- Australia.
347.94

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11

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE:

STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

1 Introduction
o

As we noted in the introduction, two stories about justice dominate in

any discussion about Australian society. The first emphasises the ideas of
freedom and equality as crucial to a just society. In this story, Australia is
characterised as a classless society, where those who succeed do so on the
basis of their own merits. Supported by legislation that advocates equal
opportunity and punishes discrimination, this story suggests that members
of Australian society are free to choose the lifestyle they desire and are
only hampered by a lack of natural abilities and a poor work ethic. The
second story offers a contrasting perspective. It highlights the continuing
oppression and inequality that characterises Australia and undercuts access
to justice for many, emphasises the constraints placed on members of our
society that prevent them from achieving their desired lifestyle, and points
to the patterns of success and failure in areas as diverse as political participation, criminal victimisation and educational achievement.
While these stories appear diametrically opposed, they do in fact share
three assumptions: that justice and injustice are easily identifiable; that all
people, simply by virtue of being human, have an inherent moral worth that
must be respected; and that treating all people equally is the basis for a just
society. In this book, we want to explore the similarities and differences
between these two dominant stories of justice. It seems to us that there are
elements in both of them that are useful for helping us understand this very
complex issue, but we would also like to suggest some ways of thinking
outs ide of these stories as well. In order to do so we will be utilising the
work of a range of prominent thinkers across the disciplines of political
philosophy, sociology, histmy, anthropology and psychology to challenge

12

JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

some taken-for-granted ideas about justice and injustice in society, and to

offer some new directions for thought and debate.

2. Justice and injustice are easily identifiable

The first narrative we want to explore in these two stories about justice is
the idea that justice and injustice are easily identifiable, and that we have
a shared agreement about what justice actually entails. Any dictionary will
tell you that justice means 'faitness', and includes ideas about deserved
treatment, reasonable conduct and impartial authority. Justice as fairness
encompasses a number of assumptions that are shared by both stories. First,
fairness requires rules that are open and honest; second, fairness requires all
people to be treated equally; and, finally, fairness requires that unreasonable
behaviour will be punished. It is expected that if followed without prejudice
or bias, a fair process such as this will lead to just behaviour, just institutions
and a just society.
So, for example, in the criminal justice system, it is argued that the
courts allocate penalties to those found guilty of crimes in an appropriate
and consistent manner such that the punishment should fit the crime. There
is a strong expectation that punishment will be impartial, which means that
personal characteristics such as wealth or status should have no bearing
on the finding or on the penalty imposed. 'Do the crime, do the time' is
the mantra of a fair criminal justice system, and variations in sentencing
between people charged with the same offence raise suspicions of injustice.
For the most part, then, the criminal justice system appears, at least at
first glance, to be operating within fair and consistent principles and lends
suppmt to the first story that justice is about freedom and equality. If you
choose not to follow the rules you will be punished, but you will only be
punished in the same way as everyone else who breaks that tule.
However, there is another way of thinking about the criminal justice
system that challenges the ideals of fair processes and principles. This is
a narrative about the over-representation of certain groups in the criminal
justice system and the unjust impact of criminal justice processes on certain
groups. In all modern Western societies, including Australia, the prison
population most often comprises the poorest, most disadvantaged and
oppressed members of that society. In Australia, this means that Indigenous
Australians are 13 times more likely to end up in prison than non-Indigenous
Australians (HREOC 2008). Moreover, in such a system, there are large
differences between crimes that are serious in tem1s of the harm they cause
society and crimes that are taken seriously by the criminal justice system.
Consider tax evasion and welfare fraud, for example. Both of these activities
can be defined as theft from the state, and yet the laws regulating them are
enforced in different ways, and carry differing penalties. These differences

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE: STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

13

illustrate the inconsistent ways that the criminal justice system responds
to identical crimes committed by differently advantaged groups. As such,
this narrative on the criminal justice system appears to support the second
story of justice- that it is unachieved, and that oppression and inequality
persists - at least for certain groups in the community.
Additionally, when we consider the justice of our society, the emphasis
is on fair rules, equal treatment and impartial authority. For example, equal
opportunity legislation is now in place in all Western liberal democracies to
guard against discriminatory employment practices. We no longer advertise
certain positions for men or women, and we cannot require a person of a
certain age, ethnicity or religion to perform a particular job. This does not
mean, of course, that we will all earn the same amount of money. A just
society will still contain rich and poor. Rather, what is important is that those
who do earn more have gained that high status position in a 'fair race'. We
hold firm to this idea of a fair race and argue vehemently that those who are
the most successful deserve the highest rewards because they have earned
it through fair processes and hard work. Once again, this narrative supports
the first story that freedom of choice to work hard and use one's natural
abilities will result in high status positions - a just reward for sacrifice and
delayed gratification.
Yet, much like there is an alternative narrative about the criminal
justice system, there is another way of looking at justice in our society.
This is premised on the idea that there are enduring constraints on people's
freedom to act, even though people may not be aware of them. What this
means is that while we all experience our lives as individuals and feel that
what happens to us is the result of our abilities, choices and good or bad luck,
a great deal of our life is shaped by social patterns of behaviour that operate
at a collective rather than individual level. People may seek the same goals,
but not all reach them because the amount of available prizes is limited. In
this case we compete with each other and the outcome may be only partially
dependent on our individual efforts. We might seek a position in a large
company only to find that there are 50 applicants, all of whom have the
required qualifications. Whether we are successful in gaining that position
then becomes dependent upon the judgment of others. This means that every
individual is born into a society of institutional practices that structure their
potential for action. Depending on the family into which you are born, for
example, you will learn a range of practices and skills that give you (more or
less) capacity to influence the actions of others and achieve your own ends.
So, this story argues that some people in society are more likely to achieve
success than others based on the family they are born into and, if that is the
case, then we do not, at present, live in a just society.
The last area that needs some attention in our quest to identify what
constitutes justice and injustice in Australian society relates to the role and
purpose of welfare in a just society. It has been argued that one of the marks

14

JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

of a just society is how it treats its most disadvantaged. In Australia, this

was recognised through the establishment of the welfare arm of the government after the Second World War. It is also the basis for differing levels
of taxation and means-tested support for goods and services as diverse as
pharmaceuticals, child care and public transport. Since this seems to be
suggesting that a just society needs to treat some people differently to others
in order to be fair, it is important for us to consider how the two stories of
justice engage with this idea.
With an emphasis on freedom and equality, the first story does not
accept that offering state-supported assistance is a necessary prerequisite
to achieve a just society. In a just society, it is appropriate that only a few
receive welfare support, and this generally includes the disabled and the
elderly. The justification for the former is that they may not be able to
compete in the 'fair race' for positions, while the elderly might have a claim
based on their contributions to society through taxation during their working
life. However, while these few groups 1night be justified in receiving extra
support, fot others, especially those on unemployment benefits or single
parent pensions, the judgment is harsh and uncompromising. 'Welfare
cheats' and 'dole bludgers' figure prominently in talk-back radio and current
affairs television, since they challenge the premise of a fair society in this
stmy of equality and freedom. For, if such people have been offered the
same opportunities as everyone else, they only have themselves to blame
for their failure and should not be able to claim public money to support
themselves.
In contrast, and if we continue with the idea that not everyone has the
same opportunities to achieve, we could argue that welfare assistance is
crucial for the most disadvantaged in our society. In this second story, our
life chances - our capacity to access the good things in life and avoid the
bad- are, to a large extent, beyond our control. Moreover, this inequality is
patterned over time such that our economic situation is unlikely to change
between generations. The lack of social mobility in Australia means that the
probability of success and failure in life is the result of historical and social
relations as much as (or even more than) individual actions. For example,
your economic position influences the amount of education your children
are likely to receive. It also shapes the standards of medical care enjoyed by
yourself and your family, and therefore your life expectancy - life chances
in the literal sense of the term. The higher classes in our society are better
fed, better housed, better educated and live longer than their less fortunate
fellow citizens. In this way ofthinking about justice inAustralia, taxation is
important in redistributing wealth, and welfare support is crucial for those
who lack the life chances to change their station in life.
So we seem to have two different and yet similar stories about justice.
In emphasising equality and freedom as the prerequisite for a just society,
the first story appears to have ignored the social, economic and cultural

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE: STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

15

constraints on people's freedom. How useful is it to have the freedom to go

to university if your family cannot afford to send you there? Similarly, by
emphasising the constraints on freedom to change your station in life, the
second story has overlooked, for example, the greater diversity of people
currently accessing tertiary education.
However, these two stories do have some ideas in common. They
tend to adopt shared understandings of justice and assume that there is a
universally-applicable understanding of what is just and unjust that we can
use to inform the boundaries of our social interactions. Justice is assumed
to have a concrete definition, and it is to be found somewhere between
total freedom and total constraint. But the disciplines from which we have
accessed this information are primarily political philosophy and sociology.
These disciplines are historically and culturally partial, since both are products of European Enlightenment thought that came into existence from the
18th century. This means that there is nothing inherent in these two stories
of justice that makes one necessarily better than the other.
Furthermore, many different political systems justify their government of a nation through claims to justice. If the notion of justice can be used
to support as well as oppose different kinds of social arrangements, then
justice itself has no inherent qualities. It becomes, rather, a tool deployed
as part of the knowledge and power relations that shape social interactions
and institutions. This does not mean that justice is a meaningless concept.
It would be a rather pointless book if this were the case! Rather we would
contend that if a claim to justice can be mobilised to support divergent
political arrangements (as it is currently able to in Australia, England, the
United States and any other country you can think of), the inherent truth
of justice that sees 'our' modern, liberal, democratic conception as better,
more insightful, more informed and more just is open to, if not outright
challenge, then certainly some further exploration. One important aspect
of these shared understandings of justice is the idea of the inherent moral
worth of each member of society. This concept is both the impetus for a
just society, and its organising feature. It is to this idea that we now turn.

3. All people, by virtue of being human, have an

inherent moral worth
The importance of a just society, where all members are treated with dignity
and respect, is based on the idea that all human beings have value and
importance and are therefore worthy of our concern. In these ideas about
justice and injustice, it is the concept of human rights that comes to the
fore, since it is based on the assumption that all humans, simply by virtue
of their being human, have an inherent value and worth. The preamble to
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the

16

JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, begins with the

following: 'Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and
inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of
freedom, justice and peace in the world ... '. Such a shared understanding
of the moral worth of all human beings places limits on what it is to treat
someone as a human being. Such limits might include protection against
blatant violence and a commitment to satisfying a person's most basic needs.
In our first story of justice, the inherent moral worth of a person is
based on two related narratives- that humans are both rational and moral in
their nature. The idea of rationality is based on a metaphysical view about
the nature of humanity, which suggests that what distinguishes hwnans
from other beings in the universe is their autonomy- that is, their capacity
to make decisions and change things in the world in accordance with their
will. What this means is that the most fundamental feature of all human
beings is that they possess the ability to choose between one course of action
and another, and this stems from the fact that human beings have free will.
The second idea, that we are moral in nature, takes the idea of free will one
step further and maintains that the most fundamental feature of all human
beings is that they possess the ability to choose between good and evil, a
genuine ability to choose to do what is right. We owe many of these ideas
to Immanuel Kant ( 1724-1804) and they are inherent in the workings of
our criminal justice system. Generally speaking, we understand criminal
behaviour to be the result of a rational decision to break the law. We also
assume (rightly) that the vast majority of us will choose to act within the
moral guidelines of our society by following its rules. Thus, those who
are found guilty of a criminal act deserve to be punished. Our criminal
justice system assumes that human beings have free will and that they have
chosen, in spite of their inherent moral nature, to break the law. Moreover,
as rational and moral people themselves, while they may not act within the
law, they should nonetheless still be respected as persons through a fair trial,
appropriate legal representation and detenninate sentencing.
The second story, however, argues that we learn the moral guidelines
of our society through our interaction with society. This is called the process
of socialisation. When individuals, through socialisation, accept the rules
and expectations of their society, we say they have internalised the social
order of that society. Returning to the idea of criminal behaviour, we can
argue, following this second story of the creation of an individual through
their interactions with society, that the choice to commit a criminal act may
not be as simple as a fiee and rational choice. For example, if, in our society,
we teach young men that the mark of a man is to demonstrate physical
prowess through fighting, and, following this, a young man accidentally
kills his opponent during a fight, is that a criminal act? Outside a nightclub
it most likely is, but in a boxing ring, it most likely is not. So the response
to an act is tempered by society depending on the context in which it occurs.

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE: STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

17

Moreover, we also know that risk taking is a large part of the socialisation
attached to masculinity, but risk taking is also a large part of criminal behaviour. It certainly is one explanation for the over-representation of young men
in the criminal justice system, as compared to young women. Thus, in this
story, our inherent moral worth may be the basis for our humanity, but it is
not the only reason that we act the way we do.
In society more generally, how do these contrasting ideas about free
will and social order help us think about justice and injustice? The ideal of
democracy gives us some insight. Democracy literally means 'rule by the
people' and while it has its origins in ancient Greece, the modern form of
democracy, popularised from the 18th century and the basis of Australian
and most other forms of democratic government, is liberal democracy.
Underpinned by the two narratives discussed above- that humans are moral
and rational beings but also that humans have an inherent desire for social
order -liberal democracies are said to be founded on the idea of 'the social
contract', where human freedom is traded for social security. Democracy is
thus a compromise between these two organising features of freedom and
constraint, free will and social order.
In the first story, the rights associated with your inherent moral worth
are most clearly realised through your freedom to pursue those goals.
Democracy is thus first and foremost about freedom, because to let others
determine goals for you without your participation is tantamount to becoming a slave. In this instance, freedom is bargained for the benefits of social
order, but there are strict limits placed on the role of the state in the affairs
of the individual. This approach in political philosophy is termed liberalism.
For John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), a prominent liberal philosopher, the only
valid 'interference' into the personal liberty of the individual by the state is to
ensure that each person contributes a share to the running of society through
taxation. This was exemplified in the mantra of the American Revolution
(1775-1783)- 'no taxation without representation'- and can also be clearly
seen in the preamble to the American Declaration ofIndependence in 1776:
'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'. In modem
democratic nations like the United States and Australia, a pre-eminent status
is placed on freedom, based on the belief that an individual will make use
of the democratic process to access their inalienable right to pursue their
goals of happiness and wellbeing.
However, in the second story, there is an emphasis on the other
element of the social contract in a democratic society -protection and
security. In contrast to the first story, where equality is gained through
freedom, here it is argued that freedom can only be gained through equality. Such debates certainly have currency in Australian society. Take the
example of freedom to engage in the political process, for example. This

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JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

is an important political right in modern democracies, but such political

participation is dominated by men. Do we assume, as a consequence, that
only male members of society choose to pursue such a goal, or are there
barriers to political participation for women? In this story, freedom ofchoice
does not guarantee freedom to act on those choices. Most commonly we
think of being limited by the amount of money at our disposal, but there are
also symbolic resources. We may be refused entry to a club, or etnployment,
because of the manner in which our qualities are judged, for example on
the grounds of race, sex, ethnicity or age. Of course, this occurs in more
covert ways than overt discrimination, which is illegal. For example, if part
of the selection criteria for a position is the ability to carry a heavy weight a
long distance, this might mean that older candidates, or many women, are
excluded as a consequence. If a certain club has a dress standard of formal
wear, that may mean that people of a certain class, who cannot afford the
appropriate attire, will not be allowed entry. Alternatively, access to a club
may depend on past achievements - acquired skills, qualifications, length
of service or the manner in which we have been brought up to speak. In this
way, our freedom to act in the present, irrespective of the legislation and
policies in place to protect our equal opportunity, is informed by our past
circumstances and accumulated experiences.
Like the discussion of justice above, these two stories seem to be
offering diametrically opposed understandings of human actors. In the first
story, the inherent moral worth ofhmnans supports a political process that
prioritises freedom, while in the second story, hill11ans need equal access
to all rights in order to pursue happiness. Thus the themes of freedom and
constraint, so crucial to organising the parameters of justice in Australian
society as we saw above, also feature in the ways in which we understand
the relation between elements of ourselves that are purported to be inherent,
and their role in the creation of a just society.
Nevertheless, and despite what appear to be diametrically opposed
ideas about the relations between the individual and society, freedom and
constraint, free will and social order, both stories agree that the protection
of human rights is paramount to a just society. They are able to agree on
this because both stories share an assumption about human nature- that it is
inherently good, and expresses an inherent moral worth. Such an approach
is evinced when we assume that those who commit terrible crimes are somehow abnormal. It is also in this understanding of the self that suggestions
for producing a just society are based. Designs for arranging social relations
and shaping societies in a just way invariably utilise an understanding of
the inherent worth of human beings, and rely on the assUlllption that they
are inherently good.
However, this very idea- that we 'have' a 'self' which forms the
reference point for our experiences - is historical and cultural rather than
inevitable, despite what these stories might suggest. It is based on a specific

_____ J

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE: STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

19

way of understanding that suggests a human essence - an apparently

unchanging and natural or inevitable self that is inherent within us. It also
encourages us to believe that we have a 'deep' or true self that can emerge.
Think about practices such as keeping a journal, dieting, maintaining physical health, abstinence or self-reflection - each of these are practices that
assume an inner self that is to be drawn out, denied, liberated, cared for or
expressed. This assumption about the self is dominant in our society and
fuels a market in self-help books, is the basis for 'scientific' understandings
of the self in psychology, and is the focus point of liberation politics and,
indeed, liberal philosophy. Importantly, as we will explore in the next two
chapters, this understanding that there is a natural self that is inherent within
us is a particularly Western construction and has not existed even within
Western cultures throughout all periods of history.
This understanding of an inherent self is also the basis upon which
many approaches to justice are grounded. And what could possibly be
wrong with using a universal understanding of humanity to support calls
for justice? It turns out quite a lot, in fact. Take the exatnple of human
rights- again, the clearest expression of these ideals. The idea of universal
human rights has been under siege since the incorporation of such rights into
international human rights documents and institutions, so much so that it
took 28 years to ratify the initial declaration of these rights with two binding
human rights conventions. These conventions have also been criticised for
the priority they give civil and political rights over economic, social and
cultural rights. Many developing nations are annually criticised for their
citizens' lack of political participation. However, these same nations counter
by arguing that a desire for political participation assumes full bellies, and
access to medical care- that basic social and economic rights need to be
realised prior to citizens gaining an interest in the parliamentary process.
That said, revolutions have been fought and won by arguing that all human
beings have equal value and impmiance and are therefore equally wmihy
of concern and respect- recall the cry of the French Revolution: 'liberty,
equality, and fraternity'. It is with the idea of equality that we must now
engage.

4. Treating people with equality is the basis for a

just society
Inherent in discussions of justice is the idea of equality. Generally, as noted
in the previous discussion on the inherent moral worth of humans, we start
from the assumption that all people are equal. But what does it mean to
state that all people are equal? It certainly does not mean that we are all
identical. Men and women are not identical but it does not then follow that
one is superior to the other. So we generally assume that equality occurs

20

JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

despite our differences. People are equal even if not identical. Following
on from this, we then assume that the measure of a just society is to treat
everyone equally and we make the initial assumption that this means treating everyone the same. The criminal justice system is one example of this in
action, as we have seen. However, as our discussion of welfare support and
grades of taxation showed, a just society can also treat people differently.
So, is justice about treating people the same or treating them differently?
With regard to the first story, which emphasises freedom and rights,
the answer would be that all people have equal moral worth and should be
treated the same, unless there are relevant reasons not to do so. Relevant
reasons might include taking a disability into account in the time required to
complete an exam, or taking away your right to vote if you are imprisoned
for a serious crime. In both of these cases, there is a relevant reason not to
treat people the same, when they might otherwise expect to be treated as
such. In this first story, equality is based on the principle of consistency.
The desire is to achieve a fair starting point for people - a level playing
field- so that some people are not disadvantaged in terms of employment,
access to housing, or educational achievement. In this story, inequality and
injustice only occur through discrimination at an individual or group level.
By making laws and policies which make such discrimination illegal through equal opportunity legislation for example- it is argued that equality
should prevail and that your social position will be gained by individual
achievement rather than by birth. It is accepted that individual positions are
unequally rewarded, and what is crucial is fair access and opportunity. This
is because, although Australia does not claim to be equal, it does claim to
offer equal opportunity to all in the competition for unequal positions. In
this story, society is unequal, but inequality is fair because the processes
that have produced it have been just.
The second story, which emphasises the constraints on free will
through social order, is critical of the continued existence of inequality
in Australian society and argues that this demonstrates that Australia is a
fundamentally unjust society. This is not, however, to argue that inequality
per se is the issue. In a fair competition there will always be winners and
losers. Rather, this second story is concerned with the patterned nature of
social inequality, and argues that such patterns point to the fact that the 'race'
is not fair- that there is not a level playing field in society. By identifying
the tangible differences in life chances between different groups of people,
this story argues that only certain people benefit from the social, political
and economic resources available within nations and communities. We have
already noted this in relation to political participation, which is patterned
in terms of gender, and over-representation in the criminal justice system,
which is patterned in tenns of race. Rather than placing their faith in equal
opportunity legislation to address these inequalities, for example, adherents
of this second story emphasise the importance of the redistribution of valued

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE: STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

21

social goods in order to remove inequality and create a fair society. This
does not mean that all have identical amounts of money and property, but
rather that economic inequality should be kept within reasonable limits
_ that the gap between the richest and the poorest should not be too great.
Moreover, economic equality is not an end in itself; rather, it is a means to
other valued goals like protecting the dignity of people. This is based on the
recognition that economic inequality can lead to the humiliation, exploitation and oppression of those at and near the bottom. It is also the case that
economic resources are not infinite. If those at the top accumulate too many
such resources, there is the real possibility that there is not enough left for
those at the bottom. So, this story argues that treating people differently is
crucial for a just society.
In real terms, how is this equality to be achieved in society, and how
is it to be protected? Most often this is the responsibility of nation-states.
The legal rights given to you as a citizen enact your human rights, which,
as we have discussed, are based on the idea that all humans are equal and
should be treated as such (discussed in Chapter 12). This occurs, for example, through a Bill of Rights in the United States and France, or through
common law and legislative acts in Australia. Legal rights are specific to
each country and, as a consequence, are historically, socially and culturally
specific. This means that individuals in one society might have rights that
people in other societies do not have.
In the first story, the implementation of universal citizenship for all
those born in a country gives access to the plethora of rights available, and
therefore to justice. In Australia, the formal rights of citizenship, protected
by the constitution and the law, are civil and political rights. Civil rights
are those of individual freedom and the liberty of the person, and include:
freedom of speech, thought and faith; the right to justice; the right to
own property; and the right to choose one's work through entering valid
contracts. Political rights involve the right to participate in the exercise of
political power as an elector, parliamentary member or local councillor.
In the first story, citizenship guarantees these formal rights and presumes
equality in these areas as a consequence because, while historically the
legal rights associated with citizenship have been restricted to advantaged
white men, these have been gradually expanded over the 20th century to
provide women, people of colour and the poor with full access to those
rights. However, in the evolution of citizenship, it has always been argued
that equality of citizenship rights does not extend to the economic sphere.
Indeed, in the first story, a precious liberty is the right to become economically unequal, to accumulate property. Thus, citizenship, in the first story, is
the right to be both equal and unequal- a political equivalence in citizenship
and an economic difference in property acquisition.
In the second story, the assumption that the formal rights of citizenship ensure equality for all is questioned. What is argued instead is that

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JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

citizenship rights simply provide people with capacities or opportunities

for action. Civil rights may provide a capacity for you to acquire property,
but not the right to possess it. Moreover, simply having equal opportunities
to acquire property has little impact on its distribution, as research on the
growing inequality in Australia is able to demonstrate, and which we will
discuss in more detail in Chapter 4. In the second story, social, economic
and cultural rights are considered far more important to equality and justice
than civil and political rights. The establishment of the welfare arm of the
Australian government after the Second World War did give a modicum of
support to this idea that social rights are an important element of citizenship,
and that they are crucial to any society that is attempting to be socially just.
Health, education and social security payments are included in the third
and most recent element of citizenship, but they are not included as formal
rights. They also come with negative value judgments about those who
need to access them, and they are constantly victim to economic cutbacks in
both people and material resources. The power of the first story- that social
rights are more about individual freedom to pursue one's goals- seems to
overwhelm the claims of the second story - that social rights are crucial to
a just society - and this may be why social rights are understood more in
terms of charity than justice.
So in these two stories of equality and justice, we find, once again,
what appear to be diametrically opposing views on the role of equality in
society, what it means, and how it is to be protected. While the first story
articulates an idea of justice that incorporates the protection of rights and
opportunities to pursue the unequal acquisition of economic (and other)
goods, the second story argues that rights associated with freedom and
opportunity are not enough of a foundation to ensure equality for all citizens.
The first story maintains that treating people the same is the fairest way to an
equal society, while the second offers the patterns of inequality in Australia
as an indicator of a lack of fair process in the race to attain valued goods
and services. As a consequence, the second story advocates distribution of
wealth via social rights as the only way to achieve a just society.
However, what is not questioned here is the ultimate goal that is to be
achieved, which is a just society that gives expression to the idea that each
and every human being is of equal and inherent moral worth. What these
two stories are debating is simply the method by which equality can best be
achieved, and, more specifically, the extent to which people can be treated
differently in pursuit of equality (without unde1mining that very goal!).
These stories are both so heavily invested in the notion of equality that it
has become taken for granted as a point of reference for any discussion of
justice. For example, if you were to ask anyone what justice meant to them,
in some form or another they would mention equality. If you were to ask
them to elaborate by explaining exactly what equality means and how it
can be achieved, though, you would get a range of responses - some would

JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE: STORIES ABOUT SOCIETY

23

say it means treating people the same, while others would say that unequals
must be treated unequally.
The irony is that regardless of whichever method is used to achieve
equality, and regardless of which story is followed here, in both cases we
will still produce a fair society (remember our earlier point about justice
having no inherent qualities). Of course, this does not mean that following
one story over another will avoid producing winners and losers. The very
existence of the 'other story' suggests that discussions about how best to
achieve equality will continue. But an ongoing debate about equality does
not mean that no progress is made to achieve justice. What this highlights
for our purposes are a few final points that we would like to make about
justice- that justice is always incomplete, and attempts to alleviate injustice
will always produce new claims for justice.
Equality can never be fully realised for either story, since arrangements of people, social relations, other actors and material resources act as
barriers and networks of resistance to its complete achievement. Any claim
of inequality - and ultimately injustice - from each story merely points to
the limitations and failures of other stories that have played a dominant role
in ordering our society in specific ways. At the same time, these limitations
provide the impetus for new possibilities of social ordering - that is, new
attempts to achieve justice. The answer that is suggested to these limitations
or failures, ironically enough, always appears to be more equality, only
approached in a different way. These ongoing antagonisms and debates
cannot be avoided.

5. Conclusion
In the 21st century, it is common sense to note that liberal democracies like
Australia prioritise the idea of justice in their goals for society, and that the
importance of a fair society, where all are treated equally, is the cornerstone
of govenunent policies. Internationally, the United Nations also prioritises
justice in human rights conventions, which articulate ideas about the inherent moral worth of each person, and historically, revolutions in America and
France have been waged over justice through calls for equality and liberty.
At the same time, injustice is still a feature of modern society, and there is
a strong argument from some corners that inequality may be appropriate
when the processes that have achieved it are fair.
What these stories express is an assumption that the path to a fair and
just society constitutes what might be a linear progression from injustice
to justice, uncivilised practices to civilisation, and unenlightened ways of
treating others to enlightened ones. When we think of the great histories that
have been written about our society, they most often highlight momentous
changes, and are written as a movement toward a "perfectible future". The

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JUSTICE IN SOCIETY

history of Western civilisation focuses on the triumph of science over nature,

and the role of humans in achieving just political and social institutions- the
revolutions in France and America already discussed are perfect examples.
They also suggest that inherent aspects of human beings drive them inexorably towards justice. It is within this idea that we are moving towards a
perfectible future that we couch our ideas ofjustice, and it is always towards
the more 'civilised', 'enlightened' and 'just' end of the scale that we position
ourselves.
As this chapter has suggested, though, despite the hold of these ideas
about justice and what constitutes a just society on our imaginations, there
is a variety of complex questions and assumptions that must be more fully
comprehended if we are to consider justice in any meaningful way. This
chapter has unpacked three of these assumptions: that justice and injustice
are easily identifiable; that all people, simply by virtue of being human,
have an inherent moral worth that must be respected; and that treating all
people equally is the basis for a just society. We have suggested that while
justice may be seen as an important goal, we cannot pin down what it means
because the term can be, and has been, used to refer to diverse political and
social ambitions. We have argued that, despite the idea that just societies
must reflect an inherent human nature and allow this to flourish (think of
political campaigns for justice centred on expressing and liberating one's
sexuality in this vein), what this 'inherent human nature' consists of is
historically and culturally constructed, and thus is an unstable concept on
which to base calls for justice. Finally, we have pointed out that no matter
the method utilised to achieve equality and give expression to what is
understood to be a just society, these attempts are always incomplete, and
in fact become the impetus for ongoing claims for justice.
Justice, it can then be argued, is an incomplete and continually failing
enterprise that cannot be grounded in a notion of a human essence. This
does not mean, however, that we should ignore justice or fail to use it
as a motivation for our actions. Following Jacques Denida (1930-2004),
we position justice as an ideal, an inspiration that is supremely important
and worth striving for constantly and tirelessly, but which will never be
finally achieved (Denida 1990). As you will no doubt notice, this is quite a
different story about justice than those assumed within the two stories that
are dominant in discussions about justice in Australia. These two stories
act with great certainty about what justice is, and great determination about
how to achieve it. In the next chapter, we will explore more fully why we
would argue that the assumptions underpinning these dominant stories about
justice are troubling, and continue to paint the alten1ative picture of justice
begun here.