JUSTICE
In this Lesson we will cover a key concept, justice, especially in current moral theory. Movements in the U.S., civil rights and gender rights and the antiwar movement helped to spur work in substantive ethics. Certainly rights movements directed attention to justice..
Fortunately or not, there is no agreement among philosophers on the nature of justice. So we have, currently a variety of perspectives. We will get to them (not all of them) soon. But we want to start with more traditional classifications.
It is frequently the case that 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.
Social justice occurs when the benefits and burdens of social life are properly distributed, and when each person gets his or her due. This is a generic description of justice. Since people have widely different endowments of good and traits, that is a serious issue.
There is another sense to justice. 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. Is it fair that some people are born with millions? Should CEOs earn as much as they do? 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.
A variety of simple ways of judging whether people are treated justly have been proposed. These involve claims that a person ought to get things in proportion to the extent a person has a particular trait. If a person has more of a trait, the person should get more. If the person doesn’t get more, the person is being treated unjustly or unfairly.
A conception of justice may hold that each person should be rewarded in proportion to his or her contribution. We might say: X is a person who has the trait of contributing a great deal. Think about how clear that is.
Is that about contributing time? Think about ways we might measure contribution. Contribution 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.
Effort has been used as a way to make things fairer. Everyone can put in effort, but not everyone can contribute highly. Certain handicaps might keep people from high levels of contribution but they might put in a great among of effort. This is a more egalitarian approach than the contribution approach.
Effort, as a standard of justice, 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. Nothing is as easy state as it seems, so we need to consider these complexities. 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.
Maybe need is easy to determine. Justice might involve the following demand: 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. (Does anyone have that need?)
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.
Lots of people think it would be great if everyone got what they need. Think of the claim that everyone should get the health care they need. But what health care do people need? Plastic surgery? While people like the sound of getting what one needs, most people today don’t like the sound of basing justice, what a person is due, on that person’s moral worth. But it 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. If need is vague, think about figuring out who has what moral worth.
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 often play a role, whether it should or should not, depending on the circumstance. Need is often used as the standard for the distribution of resources within a family. Despite what was said above, if we could work it out, 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. (Think about the concept of distributing moral praise. I think that makes sense.) 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.