Meaning of ‘justice’

    A theory of justice is intended to offer principles or rules by which human interaction -- involving basic rights and the exchange of goods -- ought to be governed. Justice occurs when the benefits and burdens of social life are properly distributed, and when each person gets his or her due. We know that some people make more money than others, that some inherit tremendous wealth, that others are born into poverty, that various groups face discrimination, and that the administration of the law favors the financially advantaged. These problems evoke questions about the correct conception of justice: what is a person due, and how are society's benefits and burdens to be distributed?
    If a person does not play by the accepted rules, that person is often called unjust. If a professor does not assign the grade a student earns, that professor may be unjust. If an employer does not pay minimum wage, or makes an employee work extra hours, that employer is considered unjust. Laws, customs, and conventions establish expectations. When these are not met, injustice is often the result. We might consider following the established rules to be the justice of the status quo, the way things are. But the rules themselves might be unjust. Why is the minimum wage so low? Why does the instructor insist on asking overly difficult questions? Still, following generally accepted rules is part of what justice involves, though only a part.
    Whether the status quo is just is often controversial; we can judge it using a basic conception of justice that attempts to show who ought to get what. Philosophers have presented many ways to answer this by proposing standards we may use to determine what is due to a person. For example, a person who contributes a great deal may be entitled to more than a person who contributes little.   Top

Contribution

    A conception of justice may hold that each person should be rewarded in proportion to his or her contribution. This is vague because contributions can be measured in many ways: time spent, the significance of the contribution to a project, the scarcity or value of the contribution. Maybe someone is needed for a small role in a large project, yet without that person's contribution the project may not be completed. If the contribution is difficult to replace, that person, who holds the key to a unique and valuable contribution, has great bargaining power. Some philosophers believe that rewarding people in relation to their bargaining power is morally proper, while others believe that bargaining power is typically morally arbitrary and that rewarding it is the antithesis of justice.
    A person's contribution and bargaining power may be large because of past exploitation, past unjust reward, or present luck. If a past wrong, say stealing money, makes someone more productive, rewarding that person may be wrong. It may be unfair that some people are luckier than others. Partly for these problems, some philosophers reject contribution as an appropriate standard of justice.   Top

Effort

    Some philosophers focus on effort. I once overheard students complain that a grade in a swimming class should be given on improvement rather than on ability. Perhaps all grades should be given on effort. After all, regardless of what skill or knowledge a person has, almost all people can choose to work hard. The proper rewards should then be measured by how hard someone works. On this view, people are to be rewarded in proportion to their effort.
    Effort is sometimes rejected because it is also socially determined. Some are able to work harder than others because of their social background, including the attitudes they adopted as children. Our social roles, our place in society, and our physical and psychological makeup may determine how hard we typically work. Past injustices and present luck may work together to affect our work ethic. Even though we find it difficult to determine who currently suffers from past injustices, especially injustices perpetrated against groups of people, it is apparent that many currently suffer disadvantage stemming from past injustices, perhaps including the stultification of effort.   Top

Need

    Need is sometimes proposed as a standard of justice. Each person should receive goods in proportion to his or her need. Yet "need" is often difficult to define. Furthermore, some needs are immoral, like the need for certain drugs. Other needs are idiosyncratic and self-stultifying, like a need to attain the unattainable. Needs may be selected or learned: a person may teach himself or herself to need elaborate and expensive food, an expensive car, or a rare violin. These things may then be genuinely needed; without them life might be intolerable for that person. Even so, rewarding such needs often seems to be wrong, perhaps unjust.  Top

Moral worth

    Moral worth has also been suggested as a proper standard for distributing rewards; each person should receive a share of society's goods in proportion to his or her moral worth. Something like this goes on in local elections for a political office or for an office in an organization where a person may receive more votes because voters mark a ballot for those they think of as morally trustworthy or morally good. A morally good person may be thought to deserve the job over someone who is not trusted. However,using moral worth to distribute goods seems strained; using moral goodness as a general standard of justice has had little support. When people cooperate to do a job, or work for someone else, or exchange money for goods, the whole point of the transaction is to get the job done. Whether a person is more moral than another is often irrelevant to the question of a person's just reward. Furthermore, establishing relative moral worth is difficult to the point of impossibility.  Top

Using multiple standards

   None of these standards -- contribution, bargaining power, need, effort, or moral worth -- appears to be the sole standard, or the sole morally proper standard, to determine proper social compensation. Each does play a role, depending on the circumstance. Need is often used as the standard for the distribution of resources within a family. Perhaps it should be the only standard for the distribution of medical care. Moral worth might help us make some distributional decisions, especially if we are distributing sensitive positions or moral praise. Bargaining power may indicate a scarce resource that, because of its scarcity, should have a high price so that it is most efficiently used. That high price may offer an incentive to use the resource in a proper way.
    The question about who gets what in an individual transaction is different from questions about who pays what taxes or who has what responsibility. A person with a scarce resource may be required to pay high taxes on the gains from that resource. In this way we can separate, to some degree, questions about such issues as bargaining power from personal gain. Although those with more bargaining power may receive more, they may also pay higher taxes. Other standards may then be used to determine who is to be subject to various levels of taxation. Ability to pay has been suggested as a morally proper standard for determining taxes, even though it may not be the only proper standard. As we watch political debates, we notice that all the standards mentioned above have been proposed as ways to determine who deserves the benefits and burdens of social programs and social taxation.  Top

Judging basic social arrangements

    The standards listed above have been presented as ways to determine the justice of who gets what within current basic social arrangements. That is, we assume that the basic structure is in place, and then ask how much people within that structure deserve. By current basic social arrangements we mean the basic organization of the economy, the government, the legal system, family structure, education, and so on. This includes the basic ways people are related to each other in terms of their social identity and the roles they occupy in major social institutions. A person's ethnic group, job, or social class typically influences his or her income, wealth, and opportunity. It also influences how much that person can contribute and even how much effort is likely to be expended. All of this may depend on basic social arrangements.  Top

Plato’s republic

    Philosophers since the ancient Greek Plato have also questioned the justice of the basic structure. In his Republic, one of the greatest works in the history of Western philosophy, Plato spelled out in detail what a just state would be like. He paints a picture of the ideal state from start to end by refusing to accept the justice of any current practice. His intention in describing the ideal state is to show what a just individual would be like; he assumes that an individual and the state have analogous structures: economic need, the need for guidance, for protection, and so on. For Plato, the virtues of a good state are easier to understand than the virtues of a good individual.
    A key job of the theory of justice is to provide a critique of current structures, independent of the way things are now. Plato does this by imagining a state in which each person does, as part of his or her social role, what he or she is innately best suited to do. He wants children raised in common so that family life would not influence the way people function; instead, each child would be selected to do the job the child can do best, by nature, and not according to social category, including gender or birth status. The state would be divided by function, establishing social classes of workers, warriors, and rulers. However, this promises to be a state divided by class loyalty. Plato argues that a common upbringing would help to unify the state. People would not know their biological family members, but instead would view everyone as members of an extended family.
    According to Plato, the state ought to be led by a philosopher-king, exercising the main control of the community; other rulers would do certain tasks under the king's direction. The rulers ought to be the wisest and most dedicated people in the community. The rulers and the philosopher-king are entrusted with all basic decision-making. The wisest person ought to be selected as philosopher-king and then use that wisdom to properly guide the entire state. In this way, Plato believes that the state could embody justice, because the philosopher-king would rule based on his or her insight into the ideals of goodness, truth, and beauty.
    Plato presents his state as a utopia; he does not believe it could exist. Human greed and desire for power militate against setting up and maintaining an ideal state. Instead, his Republic is presented an ideal. Nevertheless, his "ideal" is often considered too hierarchical (with some leading and some following) and dictatorial. Raising children in common and selecting them at an early age for life in one social class, even though selection is based on ability and not on race, gender, or other irrelevant traits, is far from a conception of democratic participation. In a democracy, even those without special wisdom, abilities, or indeed even moral goodness are typically allowed a voice in government. Though Plato presents an overly rigid "utopia," he did lead the way in applying philosophical theory to the justice of basic social arrangements.  Top

John Rawls’ social contract theory

    John Rawls, a contemporary American philosopher, engages in a similar enterprise to Plato's because he attempts to determine the correct principles of justice to use in organizing and changing basic social structures. He concludes that we should apply the method of the social contract tradition; to determine the justice of fundamental social structures. In the social contract tradition writers such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau examine the question of proper social arrangements by considering what people in a state of nature -- a place without political power -- would accept. Such hypothetical people (though traditional theorists may have thought that some people actually lived in the state of nature), never lived under social control. This means they cannot be prejudiced by any current power relations. We may put ourselves in that imaginary point of view and ask what kind of social organization, if any, we would select if we lived in the state of nature. In order to pose and answer this question, the classic social contract theorists define people in the state of nature according to their views on human nature. Such views differ from theorist to theorist. Hobbes, for example, believes humans to be greedy and dominating. He thinks that a dictatorial monarch is needed to keep people under control. Locke believes that people could, by and large, participate cooperatively in social life. For him, a limited government is needed to do what people cannot do for themselves, like provide military protection and an independent judiciary. Rousseau believes in a natural inclination for cooperation that could be unleashed by proper community structures.
    These conflicting views on human nature suggest that the state of nature can function as a way to introduce one's own bias about a just state. Hobbes wants a dictatorship, and his description of the inhabitants of the state of nature supports his version of justice. Locke thinks a limited state is most just, and Rousseau insists on communal governing structures involving full participation of nearly all. Each view depends on how the theorist defines human nature, from their own perspective, itself influenced by their past participation in basic social structures.
    Rawls believes that this introduction of concrete views about human nature is improper. Instead he wants to define an original position populated by imaginary people who only have the traits that are conducive to the development of a good theory of just social structures. For example, if people in the original position know what social position they will occupy in the state they are designing, they might be prejudiced enough to believe that people like themselves deserve more than others. Instead, if the occupants of the original position are under a veil of ignorance -- meaning that they do not know their personal and social traits -- they will protect all people. For example, hypothetical people who do not know whether they are male or female are unlikely to design a society to the systematic benefit of one gender.
    According to Rawls, the traits of the people in the original position enable us to decide what such hypothetical people would envision as a good society, and the kinds of principles of justice they would develop. If the people in Rawls's original position were defined under the proper constraints, then we can decide, through them, what would be selected as the proper principles of justice. Rawls defines the people in the original position as

• wanting the most for themselves
• devoid of jealousy over the gains of others
• risk adverse or unwilling to take a chance on being in a disadvantaged social class
• under a veil of ignorance (lacking knowledge of their personal characteristics, such as race and intelligence)

(1) society ought to have as much equal freedom as possible; and (2) provided the presence of equal maximal freedom and equal opportunity, social goods such as income, wealth, and self-respect must be distributed equally to all representative individuals unless an unequal distribution is to the greatest benefit of the least well-off.

Some other views: entitlements, equality, proper spheres, group equality

    Among philosophers, Rawls's theory is well known and carefully studied, yet he has not attracted many disciples. Instead, philosophers continue to offer widely divergent theories about the justice of basic institutions. Some philosophers, such as Robert Nozick, who taught at Harvard with Rawls as a colleague, believes that a just society respects the entitlements of those who worked to gain what they have without exploiting others and that those entitlements may be used in any way people see fit. Kai Nielsen, who taught in Canada, concludes that distribution should be equal. Michael Walzer argues that all goods should be restricted to their proper use, their proper spheres, and distributed based on that use. Medical care should go to the sick, but money may go to those who work hard.
    Although many questions about the justice of basic social structures remain to be settled, most people agree that inequality based merely on racial or gender differences is unjust. Determining the extent to which inequalities are based on race or gender is not always easy. Some thinkers make the assumption that any inequalities across large social groups cannot be based on individual differences; when considering a group we are not talking about individuals, but about an average person. In all groups, individuals differ. We should expect similar variations among women and men, blacks and whites, and so on. Where social goods are not similar between groups -- for example, that blacks have a lower average income than whites and that women have lower income than men -- racism or sexism is suspected. Faced with such disparities among groups, the demand is sometimes made that social action should ensure that all major social groups are equal, on the average, in terms of goods like income and wealth.  Top

Evaluating theories of justice

    We have been examining theories of justice relating to the way the social structure should be judged. This goes beyond the minimal sense of justice. In the minimal sense, justice involves acting consistently and according to the established rules. Sometimes the established rules are in flux, are not well-established, vague, in conflict with other established rules, inconsistently applied, or morally objectionable. In such cases, a theory about the justice of basic structures may help us change the rules, or else help establish what is fair. However, once we leave the established rules, the standards of justice are quite debatable. Strong support for one standard of justice over the others, claiming that it is the only proper standard, is not appropriate. The standards suggested all make some sense. We need to explore how they may be integrated so that they may be thought of as complementary, rather than as hostile. For example, one standard may be more applicable in one circumstance than in another, or one standard may be used to try to foster another, so that, for example, needs may be better met when people become more productive.
    Many standards of justice used to evaluate basic social action are imprecise and might be used to hide injustices. Rawls's theory, for example, is intended to protect the least well-off class of people. This, in one way, is utopian, because it will require significant redistribution to make sure that all benefits help those with less; carrying through on Rawls's principles would require an unusually high level of social rearrangement. In another way, Rawls capitulates to the status quo; the least well-off are called upon to accept their worst-off position in society. Rawls considers this to be proper even when differences are defined at birth in terms of expectations about what will be received. Since the least well-off cannot get more equality without a loss, this is called just. But their inability to get more seems to be based on the unwillingness of the better-off to contribute unless they benefit by inequality. The assumption is that if the better-off get more, then they contribute more. This inability or unwillingness to contribute should be evaluated. Even a subconscious unwillingness to contribute or structures that work only when some have more (such as structures dependent on the investments of the rich) may be unjust. Rawls's theory might not permit this evaluation. Perhaps we should not read Rawls as presenting a utopia, or an ideal version of justice, but a view of justice that depends upon the best use of current talents, skills, and dependencies.
    We do need theories that suggest changes needed in the current way things are done, even if such theories accept the status quo as the starting place, and we also need theories capable of evaluating all basic aspects of society.  Top