Why does justice have good consequences

Conduct X has good consequences. Conduct X expresses respect for persons. Having good consequences is a principium essendi of justice. Expressing respect for persons is a principium cognoscendi of justice. Conduct X is just. Suppose the consequentialist ceases to believe 2. It follows that she can no longer consistently believe both 4 and 5 ; she must reject one or the other.

If she holds on to 1 and 3 , she must keep 5 and reject 4. But nothing requires her to hold on to 1 and 3. It is equally open to her to hold on to 4 and to reject 3 and 5. It all depends to which beliefs she is most strongly committed; and the H 2 O example shows that we are not necessarily more strongly committed to beliefs about principia essendi than to beliefs about principia cognoscendi. All of the above applies mutatis mutandis to the deontologiost, who believes: 1. Expressing respect for persons is a principium essendi of justice.

Having good consequences is a principium cognoscendi of justice. If the deontologist ceases to believe 2 , she must choose between 4 and 5 ; and there is no guarantee that 5 will win. In short, it is to confuse principia essendi with principia cognoscendi. But why should we expect consequentialist and deontological criteria to go together, even for the most part?

Once we have accepted one set of considerations as the principium essendi of justice, what justifies us in granting a rival set of considerations the status of principia cognoscendi? So the question remains: if good consequences are not the principium essendi of justice, why are they among its principia cognoscendi? The Theistic Solution One obvious answer is to appeal to a divine creator who secures the correlation.

This hypothesis takes two forms. The first is that the deontological principles of justice were laid down by the creator with an eye to their beneficial effects. So it's no surprise that duties track benefits. But in that case, is it God's choice , or the reasons for God's choice, that constitute the principium essendi of justice?

If the former, we run into the usual problems of divine command morality. If the latter, we're back with indirect consequentialism, which we've already seen to be praxeologically incoherent. The second form flips the direction of explanation. The deontological aspects of justice are its principium essendi ; but since God is benevolent and omniscient, she has arranged the causal laws of the universe so that humankind will be rewarded for just conduct.

So it's no surprise that benefits track duties. Notoriously, this position involves a number of difficulties. It will suffice to name just one: any deity powerful enough to arrange a rough concurrence of justice and benefit could presumably have arranged a more precise one than that which we currently enjoy; her failure to do so must thus be explained, and any such explanation, to the extent that it is successful, is likely to make even the rough concurrence mysterious once more.

In other words, let x signify the degree to which justice and benefit currently coincide. Conceivably, the degree might have been higher or lower than x. Either way, the theistic solution appears to fail.

The Evolutionary Solution Perhaps evolution, the currently fashionable substitute for God, might be pressed into service here. After all, evolution is not supposed to be omnipotent or benevolent, so the failure to produce a perfect concurrence between justice and benefit might be more easily explainable.

According to the evolutionary solution, since beings who cooperate with each other tend to be more successful than beings who don't, both biological and cultural evolution will favour those with cooperative dispositions, and so we will tend to find plausible those principles that urge us to behave in cooperative rather than predatory fashion. The survival value of justice cannot, of course, be its principium essendi -- that would land us back in indirect consequentialism.

At one time I thought something like this solution might be the answer to my puzzle. I no longer think so. Rather, I now think that the evolutionary solution is vulnerable to a variant of the same objection that felled the indirect-consequentialist solution. Evolutionary considerations may explain why we approve of X. But on pain of indirect consequentialism, and thus of praxeological incoherence, we cannot regard such considerations as explaining why X is deserving of our approval.

In approving of X, we must regard X's merit as independent of the evolutionary process whereby we came to approve of it. For all that the evolutionary story tells us, it's still a cosmic coincidence that what has survival value is the disposition to approve of the very thing that actually merits our approval.

Second Digression: Ends and Means What sort of value does justice have? Is justice to be valued as a means, as an ultimate end, or neither? Some deontologists might plump for the latter option: neither. Rights are not goals to be pursued, either as ends in themselves or as means to further ends; rather, they are side-constraints on our pursuit of goals. If justice is neither one of our ultimate ends, nor a means to one of our ultimate ends, what reason could we have to care about it?

Suppose, then, that justice is an ultimate end -- one that serves no further value beyond itself. Then either it is our sole ultimate end, or it is one among others. If justice is an ultimate end, then, it must be one among others. But in that case, how is it to be integrated with our other ultimate ends? Do we make trade-offs when ultimate ends conflict? Or do we look for some way of conceiving of our ultimate ends so that conflicts are impossible?

But then we are no longer treating justice as an ultimate end; justice now serves the more inclusive end of eudaimonia. Hence justice must be understood as a means, not as an ultimate end. But here again there are two options; justice is either an external means or an internal means. An external means bears a causal or instrumental relation to its end, while an internal means bears a logical or constitutive relation to its end. If Freud is right, then my motive in writing this address was to win "fame, fortune, and the love of women.

I'm not playing the chord as an end in itself; the chord's value to me lies in its contribution to the whole sonata. So the chord is a means -- but not an external means. One test for the difference is to see whether it makes sense to wish for the end without the means.

Now if the value of justice lies in its being an external means to some end, then it makes sense to wish for the end without having to use the means -- in which case we're entangled once again in the same sort of paradox that afflicts indirect consequentialism. Treating justice solely as an external means is inconsistent with the kind of counterfactually stable commitment that justice must involve in order to function successfully even as an external means.

Hence the value of justice can ultimately lie only in its being an internal means as well. This is essentially the Platonic and Aristotelean view: justice is an internal means to eudaimonia.

Since nothing counts as that end in the absence of that means , no counterfactual stability problem arises. Just about every paper of mine sooner or later features Aristotle descending in a contrivance at some crucial point in the plot, and now seems as good a time as any. If the structure of justice turns out to be Aristotelean, perhaps the solution to our larger puzzle will be so as well.

This principle is sometimes described as holding that one can't fully possess any one virtue without possessing them all; but in fact that is merely a corollary of the fundamental principle, which is that one can't specify the content of any one virtue independently of the content of all the other virtues.

Consider the following example. The Hilton Beachfront Inn is burning down, and Eric Marcus is trapped under a gigantic pumpkin-coloured beach umbrella. I could rush in and try to save him, but at considerable risk to myself. One might think of courage as counseling me to take the risk, and prudence as counseling me not to take the risk; but from an Aristotelean perspective, this would misdescribe the situation.

The virtue of courage does not require us to take any and all risks, but only those risks that are worth taking; facing a danger worth running away from is no more admirable than running a way from a danger worth facing.

Taking stupid risks is not admirable, and so is incompatible with what virtue requires. Likewise, the virtue of prudence does not require us to save our skins at all costs; we have a prudential interest not just in the length of our lives but in their quality, where quality of life depends, in turn, not just on material comforts but on whether we are living a life worthy of admiration and respect.

Hence saving Eric is not courageous if it is imprudent; and letting Eric die is not prudent if it is cowardly. What courage requires of me in this instance cannot be determined independently of determining what prudence requires of me, and vice versa; the contents of the two virtues are specified reciprocally, via mutual adjustment.

That is why I cannot possess one virtue fully without possessing them all: virtues require counterfactual stability. I do not count as fully courageous unless I can be counted on to do the courageous thing in every situation , which in turn requires that I be a reliable assessor of which risks are worth taking; but which risks are worth taking might sometimes depend on the requirements of prudence, or justice, or loyalty; to the extent that I am imprudent, or unjust, or disloyal, I cannot be counted on to assess those risks properly in such possible or actual situations, and so I will not be fully just.

The unity-of-virtue thesis also implies that the requirements of the various virtues cannot conflict. Nowadays even such enthusiastic Hellenophiles as Williams, Nussbaum, and MacIntyre tend to dismiss this claim as unduly optimistic.

So it will certainly seem, if we follow the modern habit of labeling any desirable character trait as a virtue. But virtues are principles of choice; to say that courage, or loyalty, or temperance requires a certain course of action is to say that we ought to follow that course of action; and ought implies can.

The Greeks are not committed to the claim that all things worth wishing for are compossible, but only to the claim that all things worth aiming for are compossible. The requirement to integrate our aims into a compossible system plays a role in determining the content of the aims; it is in that sense that all goods, including the virtues, turn out to be means, internal or external, to eudaimonia.

If the contents of the virtues are specified by reciprocal determination, it follows that the content of justice is partly specified by, inter alia , such virtues as prudence and benevolence -- virtues that have among their chief concerns the production of benefits, for oneself and for others respectively.

This does not make justice a consequentialist notion, since the direction of determination runs both ways; what counts as a beneficial consequence will be partly determined by the requirements of justice.

For the concept of benefit is in reciprocal determination with the concepts of prudence and benevolence , which in turn are in reciprocal determination with the concept of justice. Thus justice and benefit are brought into reciprocal determination with one another. On this view, human welfare whether individual or general and justice are conceptually interrelated, with neither concept being basic but each depending in part on the other and all the other virtues for its content, just as Aristotle defines virtue and human flourishing in terms of one another.

Since for reasons pointed out, in rather different ways, by John Rawls and Bernard Williams principles of justice that imposed unreasonable and excessively self-sacrificial demands on moral agents would be unfair, there are reasons of justice for attempting to accommodate self-interested concern. And since a way of life that did not allow agents to regard themselves as admirable, or their lives as tracking genuine value, would not be worth living, there are self-interested reasons for attempting to accommodate justice.

These considerations yield a version of ethical constructivism though not of an anti-realist variety in which neither the concept of justice nor the concept of welfare has a completely determinate content independently of the other, but the optimal conception of the good life is constructed out of the mutual adjustment of such concepts. It turns out, then, that justice and benefit are each a partial principium essendi of the other.

One important implication of this approach is to recast the debate between Rawls and his critics e. Rawls maintains that the correct principles by which to assess political and social institutions are those that self-interested contractors could rationally agree to under fair bargaining conditions; his critics argue that there are substantive moral values that hold prior to and independently of the social contract procedure, and that these values should constrain the principles that result.

But if, as my approach maintains, neither the self-interest of the contractors nor the independent moral values can be fully specified without reference to the other, then each side has adopted an excessively absolutistic position, and a basis for compromise through mutual adjustment emerges. We can now see our way, apparently, to a solution to the problem of why justice has good consequences. Semi-deontological considerations of justice play a role in determining what counts as a good consequence; semi-consequentialist considerations of benevolence and prudence play a role in determining what counts as just.

Hence it is only to be expected that justice should tend to coincide with benefit, both for oneself and for others. At one time I thought the unity-of-virtue solution was the complete and final answer to my puzzle. I think the unity-of-virtue solution is a partial answer; in particular, the fact that justice and benefit are conceptually interconnected explains why we implicitly tend to assume that the two will go together.

But the unity-of-virtue solution explains the concurrence of justice with benefit by showing that the content of each notion has been adjusted to bring it into conformity with the other. This solution gives us no reason, however, to expect any concurrence between the prima facie contents of justice and benefit, before they have been mutually adjusted. And there must be some such prima facie contents. Is our tax policy fair? Is our method for funding schools fair? Arguments about justice or fairness have a long tradition in Western civilization.

In fact, no idea in Western civilization has been more consistently linked to ethics and morality than the idea of justice. From the Republic, written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, to A Theory of Justice, written by the late Harvard philosopher John Rawls, every major work on ethics has held that justice is part of the central core of morality.

Justice means giving each person what he or she deserves or, in more traditional terms, giving each person his or her due. Justice and fairness are closely related terms that are often today used interchangeably. There have, however, also been more distinct understandings of the two terms.

While justice usually has been used with reference to a standard of rightness, fairness often has been used with regard to an ability to judge without reference to one's feelings or interests; fairness has also been used to refer to the ability to make judgments that are not overly general but that are concrete and specific to a particular case. In any case, a notion of being treated as one deserves is crucial to both justice and fairness. When people differ over what they believe should be given, or when decisions have to be made about how benefits and burdens should be distributed among a group of people, questions of justice or fairness inevitably arise.

In fact, most ethicists today hold the view that there would be no point of talking about justice or fairness if it were not for the conflicts of interest that are created when goods and services are scarce and people differ over who should get what. When such conflicts arise in our society, we need principles of justice that we can all accept as reasonable and fair standards for determining what people deserve.

But saying that justice is giving each person what he or she deserves does not take us very far. How do we determine what people deserve? What criteria and what principles should we use to determine what is due to this or that person? Principles of Justice The most fundamental principle of justice—one that has been widely accepted since it was first defined by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago—is the principle that "equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally.

And if Jack is paid more than Jill simply because he is a man, or because he is white, then we have an injustice—a form of discrimination—because race and sex are not relevant to normal work situations. There are, however, many differences that we deem as justifiable criteria for treating people differently. What is it?

What does it attempt to accomplish? First, as businesses become interdependent and globalized, they must pay more attention to quality control, human resources, and leadership in diverse settings. What will give greater legitimacy to an organization in these areas than fairness? Fairness is a value that is cross-cultural, embraced by different social groups, and understood by nearly everyone. However, what is considered fair depends on a variety of factors, including underlying values and individual characteristics like personality.

For instance, not everyone agrees on whether or how diversity ought to be achieved. Neither is there consensus about affirmative action or the redistribution of resources or income. What is fair to some may be supremely unfair to others. Second, as we saw earlier, justice theory provides a method for attaining fairness, which could make it a practical and valuable part of training at all levels of a company.

Justice theory may also provide a seamless way of engaging in corporate social responsibility outwardly and employee development inwardly. Fairness as a corporate doctrine can be applied to all stakeholders and define a culture of trust and openness, with all the corresponding benefits, in marketing, advertising, board development, client relations, and so on. It is also an effective way of integrating business ethics into the organization so ethics is no longer seen as the responsibility solely of the compliance department or legal team.

Site leaders and middle managers understand fairness; employees probably even more so, because they are more directly affected by the lack of it.

Fairness, then, is as much part of the job as it is an ongoing process of an ethics system. It no doubt makes for a happier and more productive workforce. An organization dedicated to it can also play a greater role in civic life and the political process, which, in turn, helps everyone. In this sense, it is like life itself. After all, you have no idea what your future will be like.

You could end up rich, poor, married, single, living in Manhattan or Peru. You might be a surgeon or fishing for sturgeon. Yet, there is one community you will most likely be a part of at some point: the aged. Given that you know this but are not sure of the details, which conditions would you agree to now so that senior citizens are provided for?

Remember that you most likely will join them and experience the effects of what you decide now. You are living behind not a spatial veil of ignorance but a temporal one. Rawls developed a theory of justice based on social contract theory, holding that the natural state of human beings is freedom, not subjugation to a monarch, no matter how benign or well intentioned.

What challenges does Rawlsian justice theory present when it comes to the redistribution of goods and services in society? It also has been accused of stifling enterprise, innovation, and investment.