Keywords: social justice, allocation of scarce goods, operation dilemma
The first part will summarise principles of local justice [Elster 1992; 1995] concerning rules of scarce goods allocation (e.g. transplantation, admission to school, selection of workers for layoffs) by local institutions. Elster distinguishes four types of actors influencing selection of allocation procedures: political authorities, allocation officers (managers, surgeons), claimants on scarce goods and public opinion. He divides allocation principles into five clusters: egalitarian, time principles, status defined, power or money influenced and a significant category comprised of need, efficiency and contribution. We will briefly introduce other approaches to justice in allocation (e.g. Walzer) and the concept of local justice will be discussed concisely in broader context of global distributive justice (Cohen, Rawls, etc.).
In the second section we will analyze public opinion on justice perception related to a scarce goods allocation. We exercise a hypothetical moral dilemma represented by a situation in a hospital where a decision must be done concerning who should receive an urgent operation first. There can be two principal basis of the distribution of scarce resources criteria distinguished: need (individual’s neediness) and desert (individual’s usefulness). Moreover Elster among other principles distinguishes lottery, waiting in a queue, seniority, efficiency, previous contribution and power (money); some of them are included in the offered choices. Data representing Czech population from ISJP 1991 and 2006 - International Social Justice Project and public opinion survey “Our Society” CVVM 2006 will be employed. First we will explore a change of opinions after 15 years of societal transformation and briefly compare justice perceptions of Czechs with other countries involved in 1991 ISJP (Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, Hungary, Poland). Then we will analyse two basic spheres regarding conditionality of scarce goods allocation preferences. The first one reflexes a dependence on a position in social structure (education, age, social status, etc.); special attention will be paid to gender difference in justice perceptions. In the second we will focus on associations with general norms of distributive justice regarding societal resources (available only for data in 1991) and political orientation.
