John Rawls' A Theory of Justice: Is it Important to Encourage Justice in Society?

 Philosophy is an important part of our lives and impacts much in our world. Justice and injustice is something that we discuss regularly and has many different viewpoints in arguments. John Rawls discusses what is fairness and uses the thought experiment of veil of ignorance where one doesn't know what race, religion, wealth, or role one is in society and how they would make decisions. If one did not know how one was born they would in essence want more equality in liberty, fair opportunity, and fair treatment because they don't want to gamble with their lifetimes.

Thinking along those lines we know that society grows best when there are reasonable differences but those differences are based on individual merit and not on extraneous factors that one cannot control (the veil of ignorance). For example, one earns more because they learned new skills or invented something new would not be injustice. This is also one reason why we have Bill of Rights, Constitution and other artifacts that try and encourage a sense of justice that increases the most motivation for people to strive and gain so society can benefit from their efforts. 

Sometimes they don't work out as it should on a granular level and that is where corrections could be found so as to improve the systems society relies on to maintain a sense of justice. I believe that it is a moral responsibility of society to encourage what is good and discourage what is dishonest or destructive (i.e. rewarding poor or dishonest behaviors that becomes normalized and drags down the performance of the whole.). Supporting justice fosters greater economic engagement and outcomes that helps all of society in a way that creates widespread benefits.

Outside of Rawl's theory we have cultural symbolism that are designed to deal with intentional injustices (It has some form of it tens of thousands of years ago and carries through to today. There are deep psychological and sociological reasons why these beliefs persist.). When such injustices occur and there are no ways to correct, most societies symbolize a great judgement in the hereafter. Almost every society, religion, and philosophical system has some form of it and its part of our collective unconscious because it is embedded into our human experience.

Encouraging justice and correcting injustice should be part of every justice system and is central to its purpose in society and in alignment with our cultural assumptions. It would be neglectful of one's duty to not make improvements where deficiencies are found or injustices have occurred. Even where we may feel we are doing well, we can often find room for improvement. When we feel we don't have room for improvement, that is when the intent of injustice creeps in and begins to erode the whole. The simple act of striving is what makes society a better place from generation to generation.