Contemporary Jobs and Muirhead’s Account of Just Work Essay (Critical Writing)

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While searching for a job, a person should regard his/her work as a personal fit that would both meet the social needs and your personal preferences. As Russell Muirhead says, “Do what you love – the money will follow” (Muirhead 2). In other words, your job should suit your own interests and aptitudes. The author of “Just Work” insists that people must not consider the job as a means of earning money. Instead, the job must reconcile freedom in case it is our choice, but not the choice of necessity. According to Russell, the work cannot be associated with compulsion and as it was determined by history. Thus, it is obligatory to clarify what current jobs count as unjust or compulsive owing to the constant change of the social requirements.

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First of all, Muirhead argues that freedom plays a significant role in occupational choice. It influences the future experience and outlook on the job as a part of our life. In this respect, the author pays attention to the moral value of the job rather than to the material side. Moreover, job affects the workers’ character. Arising from it, the unjust job is the one that makes people be “as stupid as an individual can become” (Muirhead 13). Therefore, the selected profession should be a reflection of your personality and there should always be a distinction between the obligation and freedom to work.

Cultural democracy implies equality and justice in fitting the job. People should be granted the occupation according to their talents and skills that are especially urgent for our liberal society (Muirhead 51). The concept is quite logical since the society will be properly ordered in case all do what they can do in the best way. In this respect, the irrelevant occupation may lead to disorder in society and provoke unemployment and economic instability. The work that does not coincide with skills and capacities can be also considered as the unjust one.

Muirhead (71) is confident that “justice must be concerned with what each deserves and cannot tolerate arrangements where some are used simply for the sake of others.” In addition, the job is not a sacrifice of redemption for the material benefits resulting from our work; it is our calling. Furthermore, in the age of unemployment, people are looking for a rewarding job that brings only money but not pleasure and, thus, they are subjected to hard labor against their will.

Further, the author believes that occupation choice should depend on the satisfying of personal “expression of pride” (Muirhead 95) in respect to democracy. In this case, it is necessary to consider the ethics of works since the current American society is not sufficed with ethical standards. The employees are not provided with additional incentives and the work ethic statistics show that it focuses on the working hours and job satisfaction. (Muirhead 97). Therefore, American society is stereotyped as a nation that works hard where the main features of a democratic employee are diligence and persistence. That American concept contradicts the idea of the perfect fit and, hence, such kind of work is also unfair towards the current society.

In the book, there is a distinction between the purpose of the work and its activity. The problem is that the latter does not imply faith in the importance of the job. To be more exact, every worker is imposed by the commitment to the working life. The fulfillment of work is crucial since it is the main purpose of the working activity. However, if it does not coincide with the occupational choice, the job cannot be regarded as the rewarded one (Muirhead 149). Due to the fact that fulfillment is more demanding, it cannot be democratized and it requires a thorough reconsideration. The modern ideal of fulfillment is a rather problematic aspect of our liberal society since it is “a difficult and uncommon achievement” (117). As a result, the role of workers distorts in terms of the promise of commitment if regarding the careers as a calling but as an obligation. Moreover, it does not justify the statement that people should gain the profession according to their talents and needs. People must be equal in their choice and feel free in selecting the commitments and roles. So, it is natural to consider a job unjust if it does not comply with the individual choice.

Considering the matter of equality in more detail, it is necessary to involve the subordinate relationship. In the book, the author depicts the bond between master and servant in America. Here, he argues there is no justification for such relation since they are deprived of the stated democracy. Instead, it is more typical of the aristocratic society. The awareness of subordination constitutes the differences in “fortune, education, opinion, and rights” (Muirhead 78). In this situation, the loss of individuality takes place and, as a result, master and servant are differentiated by the “natural resemblance”. Rank differences generate the actual inequality that opposes the above-mentioned concept. Hence, from the author’s point of view, the job choice is fair in the aristocratic society.

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To solve this problem, the hierarchy organization should be deprived of “pride and humility” and involve normal human relationships for employees not to feel oppressed. In addition, such relations would be more justified in case they are contrast–based. Hence, there must be a strict distinction between “actual inequality and contractual equality” (Muirhead 81). The hierarchical system on the contractual basis explicitly reveals the inferiority of the employee but implicitly points out the invisible equality.

The appropriate roles of people in the working life can be viewed as unjust if the workers carry out their obligations and are satisfied with the demanding fulfillment of the current liberal society. It means that the promise of work should be differentiated from the devotion to work. In this case, it does not conform to the work ethics. However, there are situations when the fulfillment does not fit the main purpose of the work ethics. As practice shows, the moral standard for the relevant working conditions is often vague and concentrated within the working process.

Consequently, there arise numerous conclusions. First, the notion of an unjust job framed in the unfair distribution of labor. Nowadays, people are rarely granted the job they deserve. Secondly, unjust work associates with a wrong definition of the purpose of the work and its actual fulfillment. The current employment system is not able to offer alternative occupations that would satisfy both the material and moral values of the employees. Finally, the unjust job is the one that excludes the actual inequality and humiliation.

Works Cited

Muirhead, Russell Just Work. US: Harvard University Press, 2007.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Contemporary Jobs and Muirhead’s Account of Just Work." November 21, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/contemporary-jobs-and-muirheads-account-of-just-work/.

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