Introductory Questions about Justice
Adapted from The Big Questions by Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins
- In what kind of society would you prefer to live? A large urban society; a small rural society; some safe suburb; a bustling commercial city; a quiet, more or less homogeneous town in which people more or less share the same values; a multiethnic neighborhood with many different peoples?
- Do you believe in the death penalty for the most heinous crimes? Why or why not?
- Should a president of the United States be impeached if his or her subordinates break the law?
- Should shelter for the homeless be provided at government (that is, taxpayer) expense? Should this be undertaken at the federal, state, or local level? If you say, “none of the above,” what do you think should be done about the problem?
- Is political power ultimately nothing but the rule of the strongest, the most powerful, the most persuasive on TV? Is a government anything more than the power of those who run it? Why are there governments at all?
- Does the government have the right (rather than merely the power) to demand a percentage of your paycheck as taxes? Why or why not?
- What is justice? What aspects of our society make it a just society? What aspects of our society are unjust?
