Aristotle on Justice Source: Nicomachean Ethics, Book 5

Notes on Justice

5.1Definition of Justice. A state of doing just acts. Injustice is state of performing unjust acts. Aristotle focuses on unjust acts to define justice. Justice incorporates two related idea: lawfulness & fairness.

5.2General justice. Living completely in virtue. "...Bias seems to have been correct in saying that ruling will reveal the man..." p.119 [Ruling reveals character.]

5.3Specific Justice Contrasted with General. General justice corresponds to virtue, the absence of vice. But some acts, those of greed, may not express a vice, but is still unjust. Need to consider the origin and types of this more specific form of justice, unjustness.

5.4Justice in Distribution. Proportion between goods, rewards and persons. "Justice is proportionate equality." p.123 Relation of proportionate share corresponds to relations of parties. "For everyone agrees that what is just in distributions must fit some sort of worth, but what they call worth is not the same; supporters of democracy say it is free citizenship, some supporters of oligarchy say it is wealth, others good birth, while supporters of aristocracy say it is virtue." p. 123.

5.5Justice in Rectification. Need to restore equality. "Rectificatory justice is administered by restoring numerical equality." p.127

5.6 Justice in Exchange. Exchange maintains association. Not simple reciprocity, but proportionate reciprocity. Exchange of products must be made proportionate, otherwise not equal. Eg. of exchanging shoes and houses (shoemaking and building). "For no association [for exchange] is formed from two doctors. it is formed from a doctor and a farmer, and, in general, from people who are different and unequal and who must be equalized." p.129. "Money is designed to secure proportionate reciprocity, by facilitating exchange." p.129 "Currency...measures everything." p.129 Currency makes things commensurate.

5.7Political Justice. Justice in political association requires "...associates in a life aiming at self-sufficiency, who are free and either proportionately or numerically equal." p.131 "Where there is law, there is injustice, since the judicial process is judgement that distinguishes what is just from what is unjust." . 132-33.

"This is why we allow only reason, not a human being, to be ruler; for a human being awards himself too many goods and becomes a tyrant, but a ruler is a guardian of what is just and hence of what is equal.."p.132. "One part of what is politically just is natural, and the other part legal." Natural means universal, legal by convention.

5.8The Relation of Justice to Just Action. Justice is a mean, intermediate between two excesses. Acts are particulars of the universal.

5.9The relation of Voluntary Action to Just Action and to Justice. To classify as an act of justice or injustice, action must be voluntary. Aristotle defines voluntary as : 1) it is up to the agent; 2) it is done in knowledge of persons, instruments, and goals; 3) he does neither coincidentally or through the force of others. harm in associations can be caused by error or misfortune, not only injustice. "If the infliction of harm violates reasonable expectation, the action is a misfortune. If it does not violate reasonable expectation, but is done without vice, it is an error. For someone is in error if the origin of the cause is in him, and unfortunate when it is outside." p.138. When commit an unjust act without deliberation, one does injustice but one is not unjust. "But when his decision is the cause, he is unjust and vicious." p.138.

5.10Puzzles About Justice and Injustice. Can someone voluntarily suffer injustice? Doing justice [injustice] is always voluntary. What about receiving injustice? Yes, unless we add the clause "against the wish of the victim" to set of conditions required for voluntary action.

Relationship between decency and justice. Some universal laws fail in particular cases. Decency readjusts this imbalance. Hence what is decent is superior to what is just.

Injustice to oneself - suicide? No because one does so willingly; but unjust because act is unjust toward the city, which forbids it.

Benn, Stanley I.

1972"Justice." pp. 298-302 in Paul Edwards, Ed. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol 4. NY: MacMillan.

Meaning is closer to "fairness". Questions presuppose conflicts of interest, competition for scarce goods. Aristotle provided important understanding: proportionality, impartiality. "It is not for a judge to decide the respects in which men are equal but to decide whether the respects in which they are unequal are relevant to the issues in the case." 299. Rawls argues that the basis of justice is for others to recognize our claims, we must be prepared to recognize theirs. Aristotle defined "commutative justice": not profiting at someone else's harm. Leads to notions of fair wage, just price.

Aristotle also recognized that rule following, legislative justice, could not cover all cases; judges needed discretion. Led to equity law in England.

Mill tried to reconcile reciprocal justice with utilitarianism, reciprocate on society's behalf to achieve deterrence.

Philosophical question remains whether a standard for justice exists outside law. Positivists would say no. Stoics (Sophocles in Antigone) appeal to laws of heaven. Romans use idea of universal law, Aquinas: natural law- expression of God's will in universe. Grotius: natural law created by universals of man's rationality and sociality.

Epicurius argued against a substantive universal justice. Justice only emerges out of a compact made between persons.

Rawls: "...a just order as that body of principles that anyone might recognize as in his interest to maintain, given that others on whose acquiescence he depends, have interests that conflict with his own." 300.

This view similar to Hume's utilitarian view, which mentioned the security of expectation generated by the rules.

Utilitarians have problem with measuring the harm done to different parties.

Distributive justice: grounds can be arithmetic equality, merit (or dessert), or need.

Rawls, John.

1971A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Ch. 1: Justice As Fairness

This is a philosophical argument for a rational choice based theory of justice. Justice is defined as "fairness" and refers to the set of first principles that determine: "...basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits." p. 11 The argument is based in the idea of social contract, and argues that this is distinct from utilitarian principles, intuitionists and moral foundations.

The Original Position and Justification: Rawls establishes the idea of an initial condition in which people choose the principles that will govern their future social cooperation. Within this initial condition, one applies principles of rational choice to pick the set of principles defining justice.

Four conditions define this initial condition.

1]"No one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances in the choice of principles." p. 18

2]"...it should be impossible to tailor principles to the circumstances of one's own case." p. 11

3]"...particular inclinations and aspirations, and person's conceptions of their good do not affect the principles adopted." p. 18. In other words, everyone has a "veil of ignorance" about their own particular circumstances, eg. whether they are rich or poor. "one excludes the knowledge of those contingencies which sets men at odds and allows them to be guided by their prejudices." p. 19

4]"...the parties in the original position are equal." p. 19 In the political sense, the parties are equally able to propose and consider alternative sets of principles.

"We shall want to say that certain principles of justice are justified because they would be agreed to in an initial situation of equality." p. 21

Classical Utilitarianism:

Intutitionism:

Ch. 2: The Principles of Justice.

Institutions and Formal Justice:

Begins with a preliminary statement of the two principles; then spends hundreds of pages to modify them to their final form.

First Statement of Principles:

"First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices and open to all." p. 60

Democratic Equality and the Difference Principle:

"The intuitive idea is that the social order is not to establish and secure the more attractive prospects of those better off unless doing so is to the advantage of those less fortunate." p. 75

"...the difference principle is a strongly egalitarian conception in the sense that unless there is a distribution that makes both persons better off ..., an equal distribution is to be preferred." p. 76

Just Savings Principle:

"Each generation must not only preserve the gains of culture and civilization, and maintain intact those just institutions that have been established, but it must also put aside in each period of time a suitable amount of real capital accumulation." p 285.

The just savings principle established the minimum level of the transfer payment to the disadvantaged. Transferring more than this amount would threaten the well-being of future generations.

Ch. 3: The Original Position

Ch. 4: Equal Liberty

Ch. 5: Distributive Shares

Ch. 6: Duty and Obligation

Ch. 7: Goodness and Rationality

Ch. 8: The Sense of Justice

Ch. 9: The Good of Justice

Final Statement of the Principles of Justice

(Rawls: Theory of Justice, 1971)

First Principle

"Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

Second Principle

Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:

(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and

(b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.

First Priority Rule:

The principles of justice are to be ranked in lexical order and therefore liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty. There are two cases:

(a) a less extensive liberty must strengthen the total system of liberty shared by all;

(b) a less than equal liberty must be acceptable to those with the lesser liberty.

Second Priority Rule (The Priority of Justice over Efficiency and Welfare):

The second principle of justice is lexically prior to the principle of efficiency and to that of maximizing the sum of advantages; an fair opportunity is prior to the difference principle. There are two cases:

(a) an inequality of opportunity must enhance the opportunities of those with the lesser opportunity;

(b) an excessive rate of saving must on balance mitigate the burden of those bearing this hardship.

General Conception:

"All social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect - are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored." 302-303