– Disclaimer! Dry text about justice ahead! –
Justice – a fairly simple term for a complex construct with even more profound implications. It is easily dropped as a matter of course, like a naturality. Whether in societal discourse, amidst heated arguments or during casual conversations, justice stands out through its omnipresence and degree of entanglement in nearly every realm of life. Yet due to this extensive and still extending usage of justice as a buzzword with a seemingly inexhaustible stock of notions attached to it, its meaning is increasingly strained and overbent. What is it that we claim when demanding “justice for everyone”? What is it that we press to enable, when we condemn a system’s injustice? What is it that we desire, when we feel treated unjustly?
When looking up the meaning of “justice” in the Cambridge Dictionary the first definition that pops up is “fairness in the way people are treated”. On the first glance, this definition of justice seems to be quite narrow owing to its ignorance of justice’s connection to moral righteousness. But upon closer inspection this interpretation of justice actually captures three of this concept’s most prominent features. First and maybe foremost, the given definition implies the dependence of justice on action. As justice belongs to the space in between, the social in-between of people, groups and institutions, actors and actions are needed to build the bridge enabling just societal and social interrelations. In this way, justice lies in our very own hands coming down to how we, as individuals, groups, and institutions, treat each other. The reliance of justice on action becomes even more evident considering that justice can only ever exist in the field of tension between the conception of it that is currently in force and the ideals around it that demand these norms to be revised. Due to this ambiguity, justice’s requirement of acting is not only based on its form of manifestation but its ideal essence that we can only approach through perpetual adjustments to draw closer.
Secondly, the way this definition of justice is formulated reflects another important characteristic of justice, namely that justice is linked to everyone being granted what is due to them or, in other words, receiving their fair share. Theories of justice usually have the purpose of resolving and clarifying the conflicting interests arising from each person’s claim. Different perspectives on and approaches to these conflicts result in differing understandings of justice putting the emphasis on varying connected aspects like distribution or outcome. Therefore, justice is in fact not one but many.
Thirdly, by referring to fairness the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of justice also points to the close ties of justice and impartiality. In action, justice requires both that conflicting claims are treated equitably and thus fairly as well as similar cases of conflicting claims on justice are treated in a consistent manner and thus impartially. Consequently, justice is to be understood as opposite to arbitrariness as inconsistent and unreasonable treatment. Taking this understanding of justice into further consideration, the connection between justice and justifying are after all not of solely semantic and lexical nature but also of logical one. Therefore, it is most particularly the case that any conception of justice requires justification in order to be valid.
Spread across virtually every geographical region and historical period theories to justify certain conceptions of justice have been forwarded. In fact, the aforementioned equation of justice with fairness is part of such a justification as it turns out to be a familiar formula famously proclaimed by philosopher John Rawls in his “Theory of Justice”. Ever since Rawls’ 600 pages strong paper was published in 1971, a serious discourse of justice is barely possible without his theory being included. Although the innovation of his basic thesis, namely the understanding of justice as fairness, remains questioned, his method of derivation brought about a fundamental rethinking in the philosophical landscape dedicated to justice. By means of reviving the dusty but not less significant contractualism of the enlightenment, Rawls’ “Theory of Justice” promotes the idea of the social interdependencies and societal connectivity inhering justice. Like the classical contractualism of Kant, Hobbes, and Locke, Rawl’s modern contractualism is based on the idea of a fictional contract between the members of society symbolizing everyone’s submission to the power of the rule. To back up his ideas on which rules and laws should prevail in a just state of a just society, Rawls designed what he calls the “original position”, a hypothetical scenario in which individuals come together under a “veil of ignorance” hindering them from any insights into their personal disposition with the purpose of choosing the political system they want to be ruled by or, in other words, agreeing on their terms of justice. In this artificial state, the participants find themselves in a position of impartiality in which self-orientation and the search for the greatest self-benefit equates striving for the best of everyone since no one knows where they stand within the social structure they create. According to Rawls, the participants of the “original position” will choose by the “minimax” principle, that is to say they will choose whichever system has the maximum minimum or the best out of the worst-cases. Thereof, Rawls deduces two principles of justice namely the principle of equal liberty and the difference principle. The first one, entitling everyone to the same set of basic civil liberties and the second one, ensuring that inequality may only occur under the conditions that everyone has the equal opportunities to obtain the inequality or that it benefits the least benefited. This is how Rawls ensures that everyone is given what is due to them. At this point, the assertive reader will have noticed that Rawls’ theory of justice features two of justice’s basic characteristics but lacks one. With his theory, Rawls captures the impartial nature of justice as well as justice’s call for what everyone is entitled to have. Nevertheless, although being intrinsically connected to the moral obligations arising from the social interdependence associated with living together in a society, Rawls’ theory fails to take us all into the reciprocal responsibility to act as agents of justice.
This is where T. M. Scanlon’s theory of justice steps in. With the telling name “What we owe to each other” of his book, the very essence of Scanlon’s theory is already captured. Sharing the contractualist approach to justice with Rawls, the two theories coincide in the main points and differ only regarding the coming forth of the hypothetical contract (Scanlon’s criteria for just social rules rely on reasonable rejection) and the societal interrelation in focus: While Rawls mostly aims toward the justice between institutions and people, Scanlon takes each individual in the responsibility acting in accordance with justice by asking the simple question of what obligations we have not only overall as members of society but directly in between one another.
Accordingly, what we claim when demanding “justice for everyone”, what we press to enable, when we condemn a system’s injustice, what we desire, when we feel treated unjustly all comes down to what we owe to one another on the basis of justice as fairness or better said the impartiality of the “veil of ignorance”, equality according to the principles of equal freedom and fair difference. So, by implication Rawls’ theory points out the ideal principles of justice that ought to be realized, while Scanlon provides the practical guidelines for how to do so. Despite Rawls’ and Scanlons’ theories being only two of a seemingly indefinite amount of takes on and constructions of justice, they pin down justice’s essence and potential as source of unity and reciprocal responsibility – both of which can only benefit social and societal life together. Therefore, it is of utmost importance not to allow ‘justice’ to become a mere matter of wear and tear in everyday discourse, but to allow a profound exchange about all theories connected to this intriguing concept.
Sophia Abegg
Sources:
What Do We Owe to One Another? – Humanities Center
Justice (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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