Throughout Miller's "The Scope of Social Justice", he covers mainly what social justice is and how social justice works in a society and social justice in welfare and freedom. Each of these ideas correlates with my two contrasting theories of social justice in Le Guins short story, "The One's Who Walk Away From Omelas." These theories were based on the people who stayed in Omelas, which did not have concern for the social justice, and those who left Omelas, who were more "socially just."
In the beginning Miller discussed more of what social justice is, which is "how the good and bad things in life should be distributed amongst the members of a human society(Miller 1)." For something to be unjust it would mean that a person/persons would have less advantages than one "ought" to have. After stating this, I will return to the ideas from Le Guins short story. At the end of the story you find out how one little child is left locked in a dirty basement with nothing. He is left there to bear all of the sadness of the society on his shoulders. This, according to Miller's definition, would clearly be unjust. The good and bad is not being evenly distributed, the bad is being solely placed on one little child, while everyone else in the town is enjoying all of the advantages they receive due to the suffering of the little child.
When it comes to social justice in the society it requires everyone in the society to cooperate. Which in the case of Omelas, everyone does cooperate, yet it is still not socially just, due to the fact of that one little boy. When it comes to the advantages and disadvantages being evenly distributed I will return to Miller's writing. He gives the example of people who live below the poverty line. Is that just? Even when it comes to people who are living above the poverty line, yet, do nothing to aid those who are homeless and in need. Clearly, in Omelas, everyone is living better than the little boy, and none do anything to help. Even those who agree it is wrong, they still opt to leave the city instead.
Welfare and freedom are also two concepts brought up in Miller's writing. First to touch on welfare, Miller states how out of all of the different advantages which should be regulated in a socially just society, like money, property, jobs, etc., none are personal welfare( happiness ). He states, "social justice has to do with the means of obtaining welfare, not with welfare itself (Miller 7)." In this case, it almost makes social justice seem rather materialistic. It the things that are distributed that are meant to make us happy, and if they don't, that is in no ones control, since that is psycological. Connecting that with Omelas, does that neccesarily make the little boys situation unjust? It may or may not, depending on how you look at it. It is unjust in the way that he does not receive equal advanteges or opportunities, yet just in the way that he could try to make the most of what he as, which is obviously a slight extreme. Going back, we look at how he doesn't have the same opporunites, which correlate with freedom. Miller discusses "whether and when lack of resources constitutes a constraint on freedom (Miller 13)." In Omelas, the little boy is locked up, therefore has no way of leaving his hell. This society is in no way a just society. The little chid is forced to recieve all of the burdens of everyone else, and is in no means able to escape and revieve the fiar distribution. This is due to the fact that the people of Omelas would rather have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages. Even though this society is meant to perfect and just, as long as that little child is suffering, it never will be.
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