Lecture Notes for Manuel Velasquez,
Philosophy, Chapter 8: Social Philosophy Spring 2002
JUSTIFYING THE STATE
What is meant here by the word "state"? The state is the primary law-giving and law-enforcing institution in a society. (States generally possess a military arm.) Thus, Kentucky is not a good example of "state." The United States is. In ancient Greece the most common example of the state was the city-state, such as Athens or Corinth. In the modern world, the most common example is the nation-state. February 18, 2002
1. To what question(s) are the theories of social contract meant to supply an answer? (609) What justifies the power of the state? (What is the basis for our duties to obey the state?) Are there any limits to the legitimate power of the state? (Are there any commands the state might address to us that we are not duty-bound to obey?) The second question points to a third: how might we discover guidelines to help make the political system more just.
Social contract theories are usually involved in comparing three things:
1) a (perhaps imaginary) pre-political condition
2) the (just) social order people deliberately created or would create as they left the pre-political condition having very definite motives.
3) the present (or past) actual social order which we should accept because it is the best way to achieve the reasons people set up a state (the only option Hobbes takes seriously) OR which may be flawed and in need of reform or alteration to conform to the good reasons people have for setting up a state.2. (609-10) How does Thomas Hobbes conceive humans (in their "natural condition")? Self-interested, driven by needs for personal survival and advantage over others.
What would happen, according to Hobbes, if humans lived "without a common power" over them? There would be a war of each against all. No systematic efforts; no cultivation of the earth; no trade by water; no buildings except the most basic; no geographical knowledge; no history; no literature; no polite society; . . . but "continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
3. What passions incline people to peace? Fear (of death); desire (for things that contribute to comfortable living); hope (to obtain the latter through effort).
How does reason lead people to enter a social contract? (610-11) People, or rather "men," recognize that if they do not wish to live poor, nasty, brutish and short lives, they must make peace with one another and agree to end mutual aggression. To enforce the agreement they must accept an authority outside themselves that has the power to compel them to act in the common interests of security.
In Hobbes the social contract is the agreement that people make when they each decide to give up aggression against others provided others do likewise. The contract enacts rules to protect individuals from injury by each other, to protect property, and to guarantee contracts. The social contract establishes an organized society, but it must be enforced by a special type of government.
What kind of a state does Hobbes favor? (611) An absolute authority. It would not be enough to have a constitutional monarch, whose powers would have to be shared with a Parliament, or division of powers between three branches (or checks and balances) as the U.S. Constitution tried to set up.
4. According to John Locke, human beings even prior to the existence of a state had natural (i.e., moral) rights to life (not to be killed), to liberty (not to be enslaved or kidnaped), and to property (freedom from theft, arson, etc.). Occasionally people would even respect each other's rights.
Why, then, did Locke think individuals would enter into a social contract? (611-12).
(1) There needs to be a clearly known, established law that everyone grants to be the standard of right and wrong. (Locke is thinking of the advantages of having a detailed, published legal code. Without it, he thinks, people are just as likely to act in terms of their interest as they are to act in terms of what they naturally know is right.)
(2) There needs to be publicly recognized impartial judges with the authority or power to decide when there are differences of opinion. In the state [condition] of nature they do not exist.
(3) Regularize enforcement of the natural moral law through impartial public authority. Avoid the cycle of mutual retaliation that occurs when individuals try to enforce it. In the state [condition] of nature the only way to enforce this law is unofficial, individual action.
How does a legitimate state according to Locke differ from a viable state according to Hobbes? (612-13) Locke's political state comes into existence in order to defend preexisting rights to life, liberty, and possessions. This implies limitations on its power. There is a moral standard that justifies revolt against a tyrannical state. A justifiable political arrangement will limit what a state can order its citizens to do. (Locke favored a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute authority.)
5. What is David Hume's chief criticism of these early social contract theories? (616)
The social contract is just a myth; states do not really come into existence like this. They arise from conquest, or usurpation, and succession (father to son).
[Velasquez is wrong that the idea of social contract fell out of favor after David Hume (mid-18th century), although it is true that philosophers deemphasized it; politically it continued to be influential: the U. S. Declaration of Independence was written after Hume's criticism and the French Revolution was inspired in part by Rousseau's social contract theory.]
6. What is John Rawls' (20th century) conception of the social contract? (616-18) The social contract for Rawls is not an actual agreement, but an agreement that abstract individuals in a prepolitical condition would make. These abstract persons are defined as (1) having only general knowledge of human nature, social development, etc; (2) as ignorant of their particular gender, race, disability status, place in the order of generations, talents; and (3) as rationally self-interested. A just social arrangement would follow the rules that such individuals would make.
Rawls reasons that nobody would choose rules that would permit discrimination on the basis of race, gender, etc., because nobody would wish to be the victim of such discrimination. Similar reasoning leads to the conclusion that these abstract persons would demand equal opportunity.
He also reasons that nobody would permit arrangements where persons who are already advantaged are able to increase their advantages at the expense of those who are relatively disadvantaged, because nobody would wish to take the chance that he might be relatively disadvantaged.
JUSTICE
I want to hold questions 7-8, 12, and 17 (on Mill, Plato, and Rawls) until after we have discussed qq. 9-11, 13-16.
Definitions and Rules of Justice (in general)
9. When we think of justice in terms of retribution, what kind of justice are we thinking of? (627) The question of justice comes up often in connection with punishment. This is a special type of justice, related to the proper assignment of punishment, typically in response to an offense against some kind of law or social rule.
Justice is often subdivided into three types: retributive, restorative, distributive
a. retributive justice--the kind of justice related to punishment for an infraction against a rule
b. restorative justice--the kind of justice that responds to an injury to a person or social unit by some sort of action or payment that tries to repair the injury and restore wholeness.
An example is personal liability for automobile accidents; if someone damages your car through no fault of your own, that person (or her insurance company that she has hired when she took out insurance) has the duty to pay for the restoration of the wholeness of the car. Even if the person happened to violate a rule when she caused damage to my car, her paying for damages represents restorative justice, not retributive justice.
If the person loses her license because she broke a law when she damaged my car, that would be retributive justice.
The third kind of justice is distributive justice.
10. What is distributive justice? (627-28) It concerns the fair and proper distribution of public (or group) benefits and burdens. The clearest cases occur when a family, or a society, or a social unit like a church or corporation, has some benefit or burden to distribute among its members or parts.
11. What is the formal principle of [distributive] justice? Formal justice obtains when persons who are similar in all respects relevant to the treatment in question are given similar benefits and burdens, and individuals dissimilar in relevant respects are treated dissimilarly. (629)
This principle is often stated with a proportionality clause. Dissimilar individuals are treated in proportion to their dissimilarity; for example, the person who works four hours may be paid twice what a person who works two hours is paid.
Why does this principle not settle all issues related to justice? (629)
What are the relevant respects? When it is workers, should we pay them according to seniority? According to time worked? According to the quantity of their products? According to the quality of their products? According to the efforts they are making? According to how much they need? According to the goodness of their character? According to the pleasantness of their personalities? According to how closely they match up to some masculine (or feminine) stereotype?
13. How does Velasquez summarize the doctrine of justice as merit? (632) "A just society is one that distributes benefits and burdens according to merit as measured by a person's talent, ability, effort, achievement, intelligence or social status."
State different versions of the view that justice is merit? (Lecture)
benefits and burdens should be distributed in accord with:
--- ability;
--- achievement (quality and quantity of product or service);
--- effort;
--- seniority; etc.
--- capacity for moral virtue, achieved moral virtue (Plato)14. How can we summarize the view known as strict egalitarianism? (633)
In a just society every person will be given exactly equal shares of that society's benefits and burdens.
In what contexts is it most plausible to apply egalitarianism? (633-34) Children should receive equal shares of a family's goods. Workers who work in teams receive the same, or close to the same, pay.
What problems might this approach produce? People do not get treatment that responds to their diverse needs. V. gives the example of a teacher who has to teach students who learn in different ways. If there is no opportunity for individual attention, everybody gets the same treatment. Even within a family, sickly children may need more medical attention than other children; if they received only the medical attention healthy children receive they might easily die.
Also, while egalitarianism may work fairly well in cultures where people acquire their sense of self from the notion that they are contributing, people contribute their best and paying each member of a department the same makes some sense. In more competitive cultures, where people feel self-esteem primarily to the extent that they surpass others, businesses would find it difficult to succeed if all workers, the most and least skilled, the most and least industrious, were paid the same.
[Question 15 not discussed Spring 2002] 15. What "modified egalitarianism" does V. then mention? This kind of egalitarianism defends strict equality in relation to political rights and economic opportunities, but allows for unequal distribution of economic benefits and burdens according to relevant differences among people.16. What principle of justice does V. call "socialist" view? (639) Work burdens should be distributed according to people's abilities, benefits according to their needs.Is this superior to strict egalitarianism? Explain. (635) It is more nuanced and thus avoids some of the problems of strict egalitarianism. But factual inequalities seem to undercut both political equality and equality of opportunity.
It is hard to justify the idea that political rights of immature, unintelligent individuals should be the same as those of mature, intelligent individuals, especially when there is a huge gap.
Factual inequalities make it difficult to determine when equality of opportunity has been achieved: thus, every student in a college course has the same formal opportunity to make an A--but students differ in learning styles (visual, auditory, hands-on) and the course may not address each learning style equally--it may not be possible given the subject-matter.
Some students will be more distracted than others by numerous factors: their desire for contact with their peers, their need for holding down a job, raising kids, etc.; subtle messages received from external sources that they are unable to learn or that learning in humanities courses is a waste of time. So how real, after all, is equality of opportunity? And how much effort should society make to guarantee that equality of opportunity is real and not formal? (This is an important issue related to the subtle effect of racism and sexism in our society.)
Where is this already applied in our (non-socialist) society? The members of a team will distribute work burdens according to team-members' abilities. Charitable organizations will distribute benefits according to needs. Managers will often try to accomodate workers (especially those with seniority) who have special needs and reassign them if some of their abilities have been impaired. Most people, although not libertarians, feel that government should distribute some of the funds that it controls in order to meet the needs of those whose needs are greatest.
Why might this view also reasonably be called "familial justice"? Able family members often willingly work to support and help the family, and family members who are in need are supported out of the family resources supplied by the more able-bodied.
What are some objections to the universal application of this principle? (640)
1) While the principle may be appropriate within the family, people will be less than enthusiastic about applying it to the larger society. (Note that this depends a lot on whether individuals in a culture tend to conceive their well-being in isolation from that of others or in connection with that of others. This is not the same in every culture; and it may change over time in the same culture.)
2) It is claimed that society would suffer because (a) this principle would not reward hard work, and (b) people usually work hard only when they are given material incentives.
3) The application of this principle requires the heavy hand of governmental tyranny because people will be required to work in jobs for which they have the greatest abilities, not necessarily the jobs that give them the greatest material rewards or other kinds of personal satisfaction.
4) What a human being needs may be difficult to determine. Clearly, we need food, clothing, shelter, physical security, medical care, and exercise, some degree of love as children and respect as adults; but once we get beyond these basics, needs become quite interesting and complex. It is doubtful that government is very good at understanding or addressing our spiritual needs, for instance.
Justice Related to the Total Social Order
7. According to J. S. Mill, what is the ultimate criterion of justice? (637) The common good, aka the public interest, or whatever best satisfies the interests of the population.
Mill is a utilitarian. That means: he holds that before deciding upon a major course of action, we should consider the probable good and bad consequences for everyone affected, not just ourselves or a small subsection of those likely to be affected.
How would Mill describe "the just society"? (636) the one that distributes benefits and burdens in whatever way will produce the greatest [net] social benefits or, when only net harms result, inflict the least social harms.
For what, according to Mill, is justice a name? (637) certain groups of moral rules that have greater (positive) impact on human well-being than other rules for the guidance of life. (Thus, a rule against murder or rape would be a part of justice.)
8. What "troublesome" problem is likely to be raised about the utilitarian view of justice? (638-39) Because of its focus on the common good, utilitarian thinking raises the problem of the forced sacrifice of individual interests in order to promote the common good. Sometimes what seems to promote the common good seems to violate individual rights and therefore to be unfair or unjust.
12. How does Plato justify severe class distinctions in his society? (630-32)
Plato describes a society organized into three distinct classes, producers, warriors, and ruler guardians. The latter are known also as philosopher kings. People are selected for these classes based on their natural talents and their capacity for moral virtue, the degree to which they seem able or ready to serve the common good. In the ideal society, those with the greatest capacity for moral virtue will be given the most extensive moral and intellectual education; those with the least capacity for moral virtue will be given training in a particular productive craft. The result would be that the rulers would be the individuals who are both most inclined by nature to serve the public good and those with the most complete education.
As Velasquez says (616) Plato does think that inequality is natural. That is, not everyone has the same innate readiness to become good and not everyone has the same talents that can be developed by education.
17. John Rawls' two principles of justice concern justice related to the basic structure of society. Rawls does not think that voluntary associations in a society always have to embody these principles so long as the social order taken as a whole does.
(641-42) Describe Rawls' principles of justice, giving special attention to the "difference principle." Rawls holds:
1) that everyone should have as many political rights and freedoms as possible, as long as everyone has the some rights and freedoms.
2a) that desirable jobs and positions should be open to anyone who is qualified by his or her abilities (no discrimination on the basis of sex, race, sexual orientation . . . ), and that training and education should be supplied to make equality of opportunity effective
2b) that some inequalities are permissible when they serve to motivate individuals to contribute more to society provided that these contributions serve to improve the situation of the least advantaged members of society.Velasquez gives an example of paying different salaries in order to motivate individuals to contribute more to society together with social welfare programs to relieve the plight of the least advantaged. But Rawls is willing to tolerate not only economic inequalities but also political inequalities -- provided certain special conditions. For example, a governmental official and a policeman have powers that ordinary citizens do not have. But those powers are justifiable only if this division of labor enables otherwise disadvantaged persons in society to improve their situation. Thus, Rawls permits a division of labor and a corresponding division of powers and incomes when this arrangement improves the well-being of society as a whole and it improves the situation for the least well-off groups.
Rawls wants especially to avoid the following trap into which utilitarianism may fall: the powerful top layer and the moderately powerful middle would gang up on the least powerful, saying that exploitation of the least powerful is justified because, taken as a whole, there is more satisfaction in society with the exploitative relationship than there would be without it. This type of rationale was given for slavery and something like it is still used occasionally to justify not taking more vigorous steps to end racial discrimination.
How does Rawls' second principle (2a and 2b together) produce a "win-win" situation for the most talented and the least advantaged persons in society? (625-26) The most talented get a chance to use their skills and receive improved benefits while the least advantaged have their greatest and most pressing needs met.
18. What is a right? (See McCloskey definition, p. 654) An entitlement or justified claim on others. A right to life would then be perhaps a justified claim not to be killed by others. RIGHTS
19. How are rights related to duties? (654) Rights are not the same thing as duties but they always are associated with duties. A right to life is associated with the duties of others not to kill you. If I have a right to free medical care, then other people or social units like the government would have the duty to provide me with free medical care.
20. Distinguish moral rights from legal rights? Legal rights depend upon the existence of laws enacted by a government. (Velasquez is wrong to limit them to laws of a nation or country; there are legal rights established by state and city governments as well as by international treaties. Moral rights do not depend upon governments. They are defended by appeal to moral principles or they are themselves moral principles. Moral rights may seem to be eternal and unchanging, while legal rights obviously change when governments alter laws.
What other term is sometimes used for "moral rights"? (654) Human rights; they used to be called natural rights, meaning rights that human beings have simply because they possess human nature.
Do legal rights sometimes express and defend moral rights? Yes, a legal right not to be killed, backed by laws against murder, defends the moral right to life.
Do they always? No. A slaveholder's legal right, in the pre-Civil War U.S., to have his escaped slave returned did not defend the slave's moral right to liberty or any other moral right we would now recognize. We often appeal to moral rights as a basis for reform of existing laws and the establishment of new legal rights.
21. How are "positive" rights distinguished from "negative" rights? (654-55) Negative rights impose on others a duty not to interfere with a person's activities in a certain respect. The right to liberty is a right not to be enslaved or kidnaped; the right to property is a right not to have one's possessions stolen or house burned down. Positive rights impose on others a duty to provide a person with some good. Positive rights have been defended in relation to education, adequate medical care, a fair trial, a clean environment.
What kind of rights do you think a libertarian or "classical liberal" like Nozick favors? The most consistent libertarians recognize only negative rights. (We have to qualify this with the addition that libertarians believe that if you have promised or contracted to do something, then you have a duty to carry out your promise or fulfill your contract. But libertarians claim that we are free not to promise or enter into contracts.)
The UN Declaration (653) and Thomas Donaldson (656)? The UN Declaration and Professor Donaldson recognize positive and negative rights. For example, the UN Declaration lists "the right to a . . . favorable remuneration . . . [and] the right to rest and leisure." Donaldson's rights 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 would seem to be positive rights. (Rights 1 and 7 seem to be variants of the negative right to liberty; rights 3 and 6 are probably based on the negative right to life.)
CRITIQUES OF THE DOMINANT MODERN WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
[Q. 22 not discussed in Spring 2002 class]23. (647-49) How does Martin L. King defend the right, under certain circumstances, to break a law? In principle he agrees with Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." King says that an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law [the moral law would demand that we respect human rights]. King insists that any law that "degrades human personality" is unjust. [Racial] "segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality." King explains this concept of "damaging the personality" as follows: This damage depends on the false attitude created by segregation that the white person is superior just because he is white, that the black person is inferior just because he is black.22. According to feminist writers, what separation has kept women in an inherently unequal position? The separation between the "private" sphere of the family and the "public" sphere of the state.
What evidence can be given for this statement? (622-24) The early social contract theorists themselves assumed that men entered the social contract as heads of families. This assumes that families somehow exist in the state of nature and do not fall into the realm of the political social contract.
The evidence is that traditionally women have had major responsibility for the functioning of life in households and families, while men have been freed up for responsibilities in the public realm. But the public realm is the locus of political power in society.
Does this necessarily imply that those who favor women's social equality must abandon social contract theory? (626) Velasquez thinks that the idea of the social contract can be restated so that, instead of assuming that women and subordinate to men and only men make the social contract, women can be conceived as full-fledged partners in the social contract. (Carol Pateman, a leading feminist critic of social contract theory, regards this kind of reform as a cosmetic change; she thinks that a fundamentally different theory is required if women are to be truly liberated.)
Upon what moral tradition does King draw? The natural law tradition, in particular the conclusion that laws are unjust when they distribute benefits and burdens unjustly.
But King is also appealing to the point of this tradition that natural moral law command us to develop our higher capacities, including our reason. Segregation statutes teach persons who belong to the allegedly inferior group that they cannot develop their higher capacities, that they must be content always to follow the lead of their alleged superiors.
King also draws upon Gandhi's inspiration--nonviolent civil disobedience, accompanied by a willingness to accept the consequences for breaking an
24. What, according to Malcolm X, is the political philosophy of black nationalism? (679) The black man should control the politicians and the politics in his community. Likewise "the economic philosophy of black nationalism is that we [black people] should control the economy of our community."
What would Malcolm X say about who was included in the actual social contract of 20th century America? His point was that the politicians in the predominantly black areas of North America were not controlled by black people, and that economic institutions in these areas were not controlled by black people. In other words, even in the North where black people had a legal right to register to vote and to vote, and the legal right to organize, they did not have power corresponding to their numbers. They were not actually a part of the actual social contract. The power structure had effectively persuaded them that they could not be politically powerful or personally significant, except maybe as entertainers.
What kind of social contract might Malcolm X have favored?
Read between the lines: 678-80) He probably would have favored a two-level social contract. The black community must come together independent of the white-dominated power structure--independent of the white social contract. Then, having asserted their power based on their own strengths, they would be recognized as equals by the rest of society. Gradually, a more inclusive social contract might be constructed to enable the black community and the white community to peacefully coexist and even to cooperate. But Malcolm X had reasons to be suspicious of proposals for a "colorblind" SC. The complete dissolution of independent black political communities would not be possible for a long time, because it might take a long time for whites to completely unlearn their habits of trying to dominate.