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Justice In John Rawls Vis-À-vis Nigerian Democracy
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1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
A nation as a
political society is fundamentally characterized by association of human
beings working together for common good and possessing adequate means
for attaining it. Nigeria is a typical political society but seriously
lacks the quality of a good political society. The national peace is
threatened by self-interest at all levels of the society. Caught in the
grip of Nigerian systems of government, leaders and various sectors in
government are led to pursue their particular aims and ambitious of
power, progress and wealth, without taking sufficiently into account the
necessity and duty of national solidarity and co-operation for benefit
of the common good of all people who make up the human society.
However,
the fundamental task or purpose of this research work is to expose the
principles of justice as fairness in Rawls and then to extract its
relevance and apply it accordingly for the restoration of justice in
Nigerian democratic system. Thus, the summit of our task is how best
could these principles of social justice in Rawls help in salvaging the
decadent, dilapidating and wounded Nigerian society.
1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
IT
is believed that all humans as social being cling to justice in some
kinds or another, but the difference is in the application of the
concept of justice. But it is required that justice as a virtue should
be interpreted in terms of goodness in human society. In line with
these thoughts, Rawls affirms that “injustice, then, is simply
inequalities that are not to the benefit of all.â€3 Thus, our
concentration in this work dwells specifically on Rawls notion of
justice as fairness and its relevance to Nigerian democratic
government. We shall therefore, rely so much on his famous work, A
Theory of Justice as our primary source in this research work.
1.4 METHODOLOGY
The
method will be more of analytical and expository in approach. Our
primary and specific aim is to analyze critically the primary aim of
Rawls, why he decided to invent and develop the principles of justice as
fairness. After that, we shall carefully and adequately place them
side by side with Nigerian democratic government, to find out the
difference and similarities between the principles, and then to
incorporate the good aspects of the principles into the Nigerian
democratic system. In general, the work is to be divided into five
chapters. Chapter one will be the introduction, methodological
consideration and literature review. The second chapter, will expose
the general notion of justice, and examine the background of Rawls and
some key principles of his notion of justice. Consequently, the
analysis of the concept of democracy and Nigerian democracy should be
taken care of in chapter three. In chapter four, the exposition and
examination of Rawls’ principles of justice and the social implication
of it to Nigerian democracy takes place. Finally, the last chapter will
be the critical evaluation and conclusion.
[1] See J. Omoregbe, Knowing Philosophy, A General Introduction (Lagos: Joja Educational Research Published Ltd, 1990) p.117.
2 J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Rev. ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.3.
3Ibid, p. 54
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