Equality and Economic Justice

Should there be equal opportunity in a just society? Yes equal opportunity is important for a just society. Equal opportunity is the chance for every person to seek what they want in life without discrimination of race, creed or color. In order for a just society to exist we must have rules and one of those rules should be equal opportunity. Given the deontological theory we should do what is right. If as a society we do not allow equal opportunity then how can we have a just society? Everyone should be given the equal chance to make something out of themselves by want rather than necessity. The theory of Utilitarianism and equal opportunity are one in the same that they state everyone should be equal with the goal of the greatest amount of happiness possible.

John Stuart Mill was a classical Utilitarian. The theory of Utilitarianism is to maximize happiness. Mills believed that a person’s acts are right or wrong depending on how much happiness resulted to the most amounts of people. In this week’s lesson we learned that John Stuart Mills believed in higher and lower pleasures. The higher levels of pleasure Mills refers to are the intellectual and social pleasure with the lower pleasure being sensory pleasures or pleasures that we physical feel. An example to distinguish the two would be a high level of pleasure from obtaining some knowledge from reading a book while a lower pleasure could be the feeling of drinking a cold coke on a hot day. Mills also is the first to make bring about the extinction between external and internal motivations. External motivations come from a person’s fear f punishment while internal is the person really wanting to do well with no outside pressure to do so.