Transcript Theories of Justice: Plato and Rawls

Justice, I:
Plato and Rawls
University of San Diego
7/21/2015
Lawrence M. Hinman, Ph.D.
Director, The Values Institute
©Lawrence M. Hinman
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Introduction, 1

All of us have been the recipients of
demands of justice.
– My daughter protesting, “Daddy, it’s not fair for
you to get a cookie at night and I don’t.”

All of us have also been in the position of
demanding justice.
– I told the builder of my house that, since he
replaced defective windows for a neighbor, he
should replace my defective windows. “It’s
only fair. You did it for other people in the
same situation.”
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Introduction, 2
 Consider
the opening paragraph’s of John Rawls’ classic A Theory
of Justice (1971):
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems
of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be
rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no
matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or
abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability
founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot
override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for
some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not
allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the
larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just
society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the
rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to
the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to
acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one;
analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to
avoid an even greater injustice. Being first virtues of human
activities, truth and justice are uncompromising.
These propositions seem to express our intuitive conviction of the
primacy of justice.
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Overview
Part One:
 Plato: Models of Justice
 Distributive justice
Part Two:
 Retributive justice
 Justice and reconciliation
 Justice and War
 Justice and Peace
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Plato

In Plato’s Republic,
we find an analysis
of four distinct
conceptions of
justice:
–
–
–
–
Athenian
Conventional
Cynical
Platonic
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The Athenian Conception of Justice:
Justice as Honesty in Word and Deed



Cephalus, an Athenian elder, presents the
first view of justice.
According to this first definition, justice is
”to speak the truth and to pay your debts”
and honor the Gods.
Socrates objects: aren’t there times when
it’s better not to tell the truth and pay
debts? If so, this is not a good definition
of justice.
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The Conventional View of Justice
as Helping Friends and Harming Enemies

Polemarchus states that the just man is
the one who helps his friends and harms
his enemies.
– “And are enemies also to receive what we owe
to them?
– “To be sure, he said, they are to receive what
we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes
to an enemy that which is due or proper to him
-- that is to say, evil. “
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The Cynical View of Justice
Might Makes Right

Thrasymachus:
– “Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that
justice is nothing else than the interest
of the stronger.”

This view carries over into the
present day as legal positivism and
Realpolitik.
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Plato’s Concept of Justice


Question to Glaucon and
Adiemantus: Why be just, apart from
reward and punishment?
Justice as harmony
– of the soul (internal) and
– of the state (external)
• the just soul and the just man will live well
• he who lives well is blessed and happy
• The just man is happy
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The Ring of Gyges
According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the
service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an
earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he
was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into
the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow
brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking
in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than
human, [359e] and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he
took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the
shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might
send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into
their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as
he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the
ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible [360a]
to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as
if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and
again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and
reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with
the same result -- when he turned the collet inwards he
became invisible, when outwards he reappeared.
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The Ring of Gyges
Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers [360b]
who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced
the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew
him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such
magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other;
no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would
stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not
his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market,
[360c] or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or
release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God
among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of
the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this
we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly
or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but
of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be
unjust, there he is unjust. [360d] For all men believe in their hearts
that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and
he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right.
If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming
invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's,
he would be thought by the lookers -- on to be a most wretched idiot,
although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up
appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer
injustice.
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Types of Justice

Distributive Justice
– Benefits and burdens

Retributive Justice
– Criminal justice
– See Lecture #2 on theories of justice
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Distributive Justice

The central question of distributive
justice is the question of how the
benefits and burdens of our lives are
to be distributed.
– Justice involves giving each person his
or her due.
– Equals are to be treated equally.
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Goods Subject to Distribution

What is to be distributed?
– Income (income tax)
– Wealth (inheritance tax)
– Opportunities (equal opportunities)
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Subjects of Distribution

To whom are good to be distributed?
– Individual persons
– Groups of persons
– Classes
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Bases for Distribution

On what basis should goods be
distributed?
– Equality (Amartya Sen)
– Merit (Hillel Steiner)
– Free market transactions (Nozick)
– Many standards (Walzer, David Miller)
– Maximizing individual needs or desires
– Ability to make best use of the goods
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Strict Egalitarianism


Basic principle: every person should
have the same level of material
goods and services
Criticisms
– Unduly restricts individual freedom
– May conflict with what people deserve
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John Rawls


Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971)
has set the stage for contemporary
discussions of justice.
Justice as Fairness
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A Theory of Justice
1.
Each person is to have an equal right to the most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties
compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.
2.
Social and economic inequalities are to be
arranged so that they are both:

•
to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent
with the just savings principle, and
•
attached to offices and positions open to all under
conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
#1 must be satisfied prior to 2, and 2b prior to 2a
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The Difference Principle

If a system of strict equality maximizes the
absolute position of the least advantaged
in society, then the Difference Principle
advocates strict equality.

If it is possible to raise the position of the
least advantaged further by inequality of
income and wealth, then the Difference
Principle prescribes inequality up to that
point where the absolute position of the
least advantaged can no longer be raised.
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Critics of the Difference Principle





Strict egalitarians: don’t treat anyone
differently
Utilitarians: doesn’t maximize utility
Libertarian: infringes on liberty through
taxation, etc.
Desert-based theorists argue to reward
hard work even when it doesn’t help the
disadvantaged
Does not provide sufficient rewards for
ambition
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Resource-Based Approaches:
Ronald Dworkin

People should be made to accept the
consequences of their choices
– people who choose to work hard to earn more income
should not be required to subsidize those choosing
more leisure and hence less income

People should not to suffer consequences of
circumstances over which they have no control
– people born with handicaps, ill-health, or low levels of
natural endowments have not brought these
circumstances upon themselves
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Welfare-Based Approaches


Seeks to maximize well-being of
society as a whole
Utilitarian in inspiration: it seeks to
maximize welfare for everyone.
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Desert-Based Approaches

People should be rewarded for their:
– Actual contribution
– Effort


Seeks to raise the overall standard of
living by rewarding effort and
achievement
May be applied only to working
adults
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Conclusion

Distributive justice attempts to
answer the question of how goods
and opportunities in society can be
distributed fairly.
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