43. Justice

There is a prevailing view of justice as a social contract of self-restraint for mutual benefit between rational, free, autonomous actors. The underlying assumption is that they are roughly equal in power and means. I reject the assumptions of rationality, autonomy, freedom, equality and mutual benefit. Rawls assumed that for the determination of what is just there is a ‘veil of ignorance’, as if people can stand aside from their own situation and background, knowledge, skills and means, but that is an illusion. The assumption of a rational agreement between people roughly equal in power totally ignores the immorality of groups and phenomena of power that I will discuss later in this blog.

Most objectionable, as argued by Martha Nussbaum in her Frontiers of justice, is that creatures (e.g. children, the handicapped, the elderly, and animals) that are less endowed, with fewer means and resources, or little power, are simply ignored or set aside.

Justice goes further than an equilibrium of mutual advantage between actors with roughly equal power and capacities. Justice counts especially when there is no equilibrium of power. I prefer the capabilities tradition that Nussbaum follows, where justice entails that people have access to what is needed for human dignity and flourishing, to achieve (Aristotelian) virtues. It is not only about negative freedom from interference with flourishing of the individual, to which liberals limit themselves, but also positive freedom to achieve flourishing, i.e. to have the means and access to it. Nussbaum lists the following: life, health, bodily integrity, perception/fantasy/thought (by means of education and training, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion), emotions, practical reason (view on the good), affiliation (empathy, respect), other species (be concerned with animals and nature), play, influence (political participation, property, work, access to relationships). I can imagine variations to this list, but it serves as a guide.

Beyond individual capabilities justice also requires solidarity. In present complex society, with extreme division of labour and innumerable mutually connected markets, tension between individual and collective interests, unpredictable and unintended effects of complex interactions between individual and collective actors, and perverse effects of markets, people are subjected to systems they have little influence on. Also politicians do not steer but are carried along in a fancy fair of collisions. Then there is a collective duty to assist the casualties of the system. The system also provides windfalls that yield individual success, profit and flourishing of life (I myself, for example, have little to complain), but people should realise that their success is not all their own doing, and that the ground beneath their feet is drenched in the blood of previous generations in their battle for rights and freedom, and that they are benefitting from a leverage of the genius and toil of previous generations. Neither success nor failure are entirely one’s own doing. Under the influence of radical enlightenment thought about the autonomous individual in liberalism the systemic effects on opportunities and development of people are neglected.