This article elaborates on the possibility of having distributive justice through taxes at European level. That possibility will be based on the verification of a set of conditions such as fiscal sovereignty, political community, welfare model; and personal taxes, which, according to the author, must be present at the level of the European Union in order to achieve that normative principle (distributive justice). Throughout the discussion, upon acknowledgement that those requirements are still not in place, it will be suggested the possibility of moving to a Fiscal federalism, highlighting at the same time its advantages in the context of globalization.
This article elaborates on the possibility of having distributive justice through taxes at European level. That possibility will be based on the verification of a set of conditions such as fiscal sovereignty, political community, welfare model; and personal taxes, which, according to the author, must be present at the level of the European Union in order to achieve that normative principle (distributive justice). Throughout the discussion, upon acknowledgement that those requirements are still not in place, it will be suggested the possibility of moving to a Fiscal federalism, highlighting at the same time its advantages in the context of globalization.
The purpose of this article is to research the role imagination plays in making of justice judgments. It is argued that by taking into account the activities, enabled by imagination, we are in a better position to explain the factors influencing judgments of distributive justice. The empirical research of distributive justice has shown that context is important in deciding which norm of distribution has to be applied. Still, to explain what it means to understand the context of distribution we need to study imagination. Imagination is an innate mental capacity of making the images of absent, not directly perceived images. Three activities enabled by imagination are discussed in connection with the justice judgments, namely, moral imagination, empathy & compassion. Moral imagination is understood as a capacity to perceive the situation in terms of what is morally relevant & irrelevant. It relies on the symbolic resources such as moral vocabulary & metaphor, among others. Analysis of which particular resources are employed in perceiving particular situation may shed a light on the process of justice judgment. Another activity, discussed in this paper, is empathy. Empathy is the capacity to imagine the feelings & emotions of the other, by imagining self in the situation of the other. The role of empathy is significant, as it is the main activity by which people can know at all of what the perspectives of others are, & thereby to encompass these in their own understanding of the context. The strength of empathy depends upon the similarity & blame attribution of the person with whom we empathize. These, in turn, are encoded in the signs & narratives we use to describe who the other is. Finally, some theorists argue that in order to understand judgments of distributive justice we need to take into account the play of compassion. Compassion is a disposition to seek well-being for those who suffer. Still, compassion is an ambiguous disposition, as it is very close to the aversion. For that reason, compassion, far from motivating as to take care of those in the worst condition, makes us to turn away from them. Adapted from the source document.
John Rawls's famous "A Theory of Justice" firmly established itself as a classical work in the field of political philosophy. There is a huge mass of critical literature on it dealing with various details & aspects. Yet it seems nobody noticed some fatal internal inconsistency at the very basis of the project. That is, the fact that Rawlsian aim to make a theory of justice more geometrico diverges from his explicit belief in the unconditional value of justice & its conceptual independence of rationality. This belief is an essential part of the "Theory" no less than the attempts to ground it on reason. But to ground justice on reason means exactly to destroy its conceptual autonomy & unconditionality. That is the problem the article concentrates on. It shows that, firstly, Rawls makes not clear enough which ideal -- this of justice or that of rationality -- he takes as self-grounding & of the ultimate importance when compared with each other. On the one hand, the willingness to use the model of the original position stems from purely moral, that is, unreducible to utility maximizing calculations, state of consciousness, without which the persons cannot be persuaded to take part in the mental experiment & to perceive it as just. On the other hand, Rawls declares the need to ground the principles of justice & to prove that unjust behavior is also irrational, which means he questions the very belief in the binding power of Kantian morality together with his own quest for justice (If justice is nothing other than rationality, so why should we worry about it? Let's speak instead about rationality & utility alone). Secondly, we demonstrate that although a famous veil of ignorance needs because the persons under it are homini economici, that is, rational egoists without any moral sentiments, yet this veil is possible & useful only if the homini are supplied with a sense of justice, which means that the initial definition of the persons is destroyed. Moreover, in this case the veil is superfluous because the supposed sense of justice takes on the function of it. Thirdly, a contradiction in terms between two fundamental presuppositions of Rawls's theory -- Cartesian universal reason of solitary thinker on the one hand & contractarian conception of justice on the other -- is exposed: what becomes of the idea that justice is the result of a rational agreement, if each person finds the principles of justice individually & needs no communication? Fourthly, communitarian critique of Rawlsian claim to universality & impartiality is briefly presented & discussed in order to show that to be rational is not the same as to be neutral, fair & impartial. Moreover, no matter what we think about the possibility to be fair, at least the state of being both rational & fair (or just in Rawlsian sense) is unattainable. Adapted from the source document.
Trust in Lithuanian police, courts and prosecutors oqce has reached the record values in 2015. Trust and conCdence in these institutions is growing, though it is diqcult to identify what exactly is stimulating that growth. Public relations or media in_uence, or good organization of the institutional work as well as other reason can be an explanation for the better public attitudes. Answers to the question "Do you trust the police, courts, prosecutors oqce?" do not explain what was done properly when trust values raise, and what problematic areas of institution work need attention when evaluations are getting worse. `ere is a signiCcant doubt expressed in academic literature if this and only indicator, so oƒen used for the evaluation of institution work, adequately describes how good or eQectively prosecutors oqce works, police safeguards public security, and courts ensure protection of citizen rights, defence of interests and other demands of democratic society. `e article analyses trust and conCdence in institutions of criminal justice system in Lithuania. Analysis uses ideas and data of two international research projects - EURO-JUSTIS and FIDUCIA. We examine trust and conCdence as complex phenomenon, which include several important aspects: 1) eQectiveness of criminal justice institutions; 2) distributive justice; 3) procedural justice; 4) shared perceptions of right and wrong and shared moral values with institutions; 5) legitimacy of institutions; 6) co-operation between society and criminal justice institutions. Evaluation of the survey data shows that diQerent elements of this phenomenon obtain diQerent ratings, and diQer from the evaluation of trust and conCdence in the broad sense. Understanding of these diQerences gives us a possibility to assess and improve work of criminal justice institutions more purposefully
Trust in Lithuanian police, courts and prosecutors oqce has reached the record values in 2015. Trust and conCdence in these institutions is growing, though it is diqcult to identify what exactly is stimulating that growth. Public relations or media in_uence, or good organization of the institutional work as well as other reason can be an explanation for the better public attitudes. Answers to the question "Do you trust the police, courts, prosecutors oqce?" do not explain what was done properly when trust values raise, and what problematic areas of institution work need attention when evaluations are getting worse. `ere is a signiCcant doubt expressed in academic literature if this and only indicator, so oƒen used for the evaluation of institution work, adequately describes how good or eQectively prosecutors oqce works, police safeguards public security, and courts ensure protection of citizen rights, defence of interests and other demands of democratic society. `e article analyses trust and conCdence in institutions of criminal justice system in Lithuania. Analysis uses ideas and data of two international research projects - EURO-JUSTIS and FIDUCIA. We examine trust and conCdence as complex phenomenon, which include several important aspects: 1) eQectiveness of criminal justice institutions; 2) distributive justice; 3) procedural justice; 4) shared perceptions of right and wrong and shared moral values with institutions; 5) legitimacy of institutions; 6) co-operation between society and criminal justice institutions. Evaluation of the survey data shows that diQerent elements of this phenomenon obtain diQerent ratings, and diQer from the evaluation of trust and conCdence in the broad sense. Understanding of these diQerences gives us a possibility to assess and improve work of criminal justice institutions more purposefully
