Justice

1. Justice requires examining moral dilemmas and their implications

To answer these questions, we have to explore the meaning of justice.

Trolley dilemma. The runaway trolley scenario illustrates the complexity of moral decision-making. Should you divert a trolley to kill one person instead of five? This thought experiment reveals the tension between utilitarian thinking (maximizing overall welfare) and respect for individual rights.

Real-world applications. Similar ethical quandaries arise in contemporary issues:

• Price gouging during natural disasters
• Criteria for awarding military honors
• Executive bonuses during financial crises

These situations force us to confront difficult questions about fairness, responsibility, and the competing claims of individuals and society. By examining such dilemmas, we can better understand the principles that should guide our moral and political choices.

2. Utilitarianism: Maximizing happiness for the greatest number

Bentham thought his utility principle offered a science of morality that could serve as the basis of political reform.

Bentham's principle. Utilitarianism, developed by Jeremy Bentham, proposes that the highest moral good is maximizing overall happiness and minimizing suffering. This approach offers a seemingly objective way to make ethical decisions by calculating costs and benefits.

Critiques and limitations:

• Fails to account for individual rights
• Reduces all values to a single scale
• May justify oppression of minorities for majority benefit

While utilitarianism provides a clear framework for decision-making, it struggles to capture the full complexity of moral life and the inviolability of human dignity. John Stuart Mill attempted to refine utilitarianism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures, but ultimately faced similar challenges in grounding individual rights.

3. Libertarianism: Individual rights and self-ownership

If I own myself, I must own my labor. (If someone else could order me to work, that person would be my master, and I would be a slave.)

Self-ownership principle. Libertarianism asserts that individuals have absolute rights over their own bodies, labor, and justly acquired property. This view leads to a minimal state that protects only against force, theft, and fraud.

Implications:

• Opposition to redistributive taxation
• Rejection of paternalistic laws
• Support for free markets and voluntary exchanges

While libertarianism offers a strong defense of individual liberty, it faces challenges in addressing:

• Collective goods and externalities
• Inequality of opportunity
• Social obligations beyond consent

The libertarian emphasis on self-ownership provides a compelling argument against certain forms of government coercion but struggles to account for our intuitions about social responsibility and fairness.

4. Markets and morals: The limits of economic reasoning

For Kant, justice requires us to uphold the human rights of all persons, regardless of where they live or how well we know them, simply because they are human beings, capable of reason, and therefore worthy of respect.

Market encroachment. Economic reasoning and market mechanisms have expanded into traditionally non-market domains, raising ethical concerns:

• Military service and private contractors
• Surrogate pregnancy and reproductive rights
• Organ sales and human dignity

Moral limits of markets. While markets can efficiently allocate many goods, some things should not be bought and sold:

• They may corrupt the good being exchanged (e.g., friendship, civic duty)
• They can exploit vulnerable populations
• They may undermine social values and human dignity

Examining the moral limits of markets requires us to consider the purpose and meaning of social practices, not just their economic efficiency. This highlights the need for public discourse about the proper scope of market reasoning in society.

5. Kant's moral philosophy: Duty, freedom, and human dignity

To act freely is not to choose the best means to a given end; it is to choose the end itself, for its own sake—a choice that human beings can make and billiard balls (and most animals) cannot.

Categorical imperative. Kant argues that moral actions must be based on universal principles, not contingent desires or consequences. His formulation: Act only according to rules you could will to become universal laws.

Human dignity. Kant's ethics emphasizes the intrinsic worth of rational beings:

• People should be treated as ends in themselves, never merely as means
• This provides a foundation for universal human rights
• It challenges utilitarian calculations that might sacrifice individuals for the greater good

Kant's philosophy offers a powerful alternative to both utilitarian and virtue-based approaches to ethics. By grounding morality in reason and human dignity, it provides a basis for individual rights that doesn't depend on consequences or particular conceptions of the good life.

6. Rawls's theory of justice: Fairness and the veil of ignorance

If we are freely choosing, independent selves, unbound by moral ties we haven't chosen, we need a framework of rights that is neutral among ends.

Original position. Rawls proposes a thought experiment: Imagine choosing principles of justice from behind a "veil of ignorance," not knowing your place in society. This leads to two principles:

1. Equal basic liberties for all
2. Social and economic inequalities must benefit the least advantaged

Critiques:

• Does it truly capture our moral intuitions?
• Can we separate justice from conceptions of the good life?

Rawls's theory offers a compelling vision of fairness and provides a framework for thinking about just institutions. However, it faces challenges in addressing questions of desert, community, and the role of moral judgments in political life.

7. Aristotle's virtue ethics: The good life and the common good

For Aristotle, justice means giving people what they deserve, giving each person his or her due.

Teleological reasoning. Aristotle argues that to determine what's just, we must consider the purpose or essence of the good in question. This applies to both individual virtues and social institutions.

Politics and character. Unlike modern liberal theories, Aristotle sees politics as essentially about cultivating good character and promoting the common good. This view:

• Emphasizes civic virtue and participation
• Connects justice to substantive moral questions
• Challenges the idea of state neutrality on conceptions of the good life

While Aristotle's approach risks imposing particular moral views, it offers a richer conception of political community than theories focused solely on individual rights or aggregate welfare.

8. The role of moral desert in distributive justice

We don't deserve our place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than we deserve our initial starting point in society.

Questioning desert. Rawls challenges the idea that people morally deserve the rewards their talents bring:

• Natural abilities are morally arbitrary
• Social circumstances shape our efforts and character

Implications:

• Challenges meritocratic justifications for inequality
• Supports redistributive policies
• Shifts focus from rewarding virtue to creating fair institutions

This view powerfully critiques common assumptions about fairness but faces objections:

• It may conflict with intuitions about personal responsibility
• It could undermine incentives for developing talents

Examining the role of desert in justice forces us to confront difficult questions about free will, responsibility, and the basis for legitimate inequalities in society.

9. Collective responsibility and obligations of solidarity

To have character is to live in recognition of one's (sometime conflicting) encumbrances.

Beyond consent. Many of our moral obligations arise not from explicit agreement but from our social roles and identities:

• Family responsibilities
• Civic duties
• Historical injustices

Implications:

• Supports arguments for reparations and collective apologies
• Challenges purely individualistic conceptions of responsibility
• Enriches our understanding of moral and political community

Recognizing obligations of solidarity provides a more nuanced view of moral life than theories based solely on individual choice or universal duties. However, it raises difficult questions about the limits of such obligations and their relationship to personal autonomy.

10. The politics of the common good: Beyond neutrality

A just society can't be achieved simply by maximizing utility or by securing freedom of choice. To achieve a just society we have to reason together about the meaning of the good life, and to create a public culture hospitable to the disagreements that will inevitably arise.

Engaging moral disagreement. Rather than avoiding contentious moral and religious issues, a politics of the common good directly addresses them through public deliberation.

Key elements:

• Cultivating civic virtue and shared sacrifice
• Examining the moral limits of markets
• Addressing inequality's impact on social solidarity
• Rebuilding public institutions that bring people together

This approach rejects the idea that politics can or should be neutral among competing conceptions of the good life. Instead, it sees democratic deliberation about substantive moral questions as essential to creating a just and vibrant political community.

Last updated: January 22, 2025