Online research in philosophy

There can be no doubt that Brian Barry has made an enormous contribution to the clarification of the ideas of justice current in contemporary political thought. In Barry’s Justice as Impartiality he explicitly distinguishes and sets in competition three models of justice: justice as mutual advantage; justice as reciprocity; and justice as impartiality (the ‘rational’, ‘fair’ and ‘reasonable’ of my title), and he argues that we should prefer the last of these. What I want to do here is to consider four questions. First, what is this competition a competition about? Second, has Barry adequately characterised the contenders? Third, can the competition be won on the grounds Barry suggests? Fourth, is it a competition that we should want to be won by a single theory? By contrast I want to argue that there are advantages in retaining a pluralist perspective in which all three approaches remain in play.

Philosophical disagreement about justice ranges over at least two questions. The most immediate is a substantial question, concerning the conditions under which particular distributive arrangements can be said to be just or unjust. The second, deeper, question concerns the nature of justice itself. What is justice? Here we can distinguish three views. First, justice as mutual advantage sees justice as essentially a matter of the outcome of a bargain. There are times when two parties can both be better off by making some sort of agreement. Justice, on this view, concerns the distribution of the benefits and burdens of the agreement. Second, justice as reciprocity takes a different approach, looking not at bargaining but at the idea of a fair return or just price, attempting to capture the idea of justice as equal exchange. Finally justice as impartiality sees justice as ‘taking the other person’s point of view’ asking ‘how would you like it if it happened to you?’ Each model has significantly different consequences for the question of when issues of justice arise and how they should be settled. It is interesting to consider whether any of these models of justice could regulate behaviour between non-human animals.

Hume’s theory of justice is commonly regarded by contemporary theorists of justice as a theory of justice as mutual advantage. It is thus widely thought to manifest all the unattractive features of such theories: in particular, it is thought to endorse the exclusion of people with serious mental or physical disabilities from the scope and protection of justice and to justify the European expropriation of the lands of defenceless aboriginal people. I argue that this reading of Hume is mistaken. Mutual advantage is only part of Hume’s theory, the part that explains the origins of the institutions of justice in a general sense (property and promise keeping), and it is bracketed off from those parts of Hume’s theory that explain who is included within the scope of justice, how much each receives, and why and to whom we have a duty to be just. The interpretation of Hume’s theory as a theory of justice as mutual advantage not only fails to convey Hume’s complex purposes, but it portrays Hume’s theory of justice as the kind of theory he was most concerned to refute.

It is widely acknowledged that low-income and minority communities in liberal democratic societies suffer a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards. Is “environmental injustice” a necessary feature of liberal societies or is its prevalence due to the failure of existing liberal democracies to live up to liberal principles of justice? One leading version of liberalism, John Rawls’ “justice as fairness,” can be “extended” to accommodate the concerns expressed by advocates of environmental justice. Moreover, Rawlsian environmental justice has some significant advantages over existing conceptions of environmental justice.

It is widely acknowledged that low-income and minority communities in liberal democratic societies suffer a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards. Is “environmental injustice” a necessary feature of liberal societies or is its prevalence due to the failure of existing liberal democracies to live up to liberal principles of justice? One leading version of liberalism, John Rawls’ “justice as fairness,” can be “extended” to accommodate the concerns expressed by advocates of environmental justice. Moreover, Rawlsian environmental justice has some significant advantages over existing conceptions of environmental justice.

Michael Porter argues that some nations manifest a competitive advantage deriving from key elements of their economic structure. Some nations are thus disposed by structure to possess what Porter calls a "competitive advantage of nations" (Porter, 1990). In this paper I examine the prospect of an ethical advantage of nations, and in particular, of a set of advantages that extend far beyond the simple dimension of trust so often discussed. I consider, further, how such a range of ethical features would be structured, and what the implications of those features would be. Three conclusions are reached: 1. Morality may create economic advantages for nations in ways that extend beyond the notion of an idealized market; 2. In order for ethics to drive economic advantage, ethical concepts must rise to the status of intrinsic value; and 3. If claims for national ethical success factors are true, then nations should attend to the issue of moral education.

This paper examines a recurrent debate about the rationale of contractual liability: whether the central object of contract law is to facilitate human interaction by respecting individual choices, or if it is in large part to redistribute wealth, power, and advantages generally. The debate between defenders of freedom of contract and those who would use contract law to advance schemes of redistribution is connected to the long-standing issues between natural-law theories and legal positivism. This paper is divided into two main sections. In the first, the notion of individual autonomy is examined in light of the classical view, most recently advanced by Fried, that the rationale for enforcing contracts is connected to the respect for individual autonomy as such. There is also an examination of the notion of a collective concern, and what it is, from a libertarian point of view, that makes some social goals objectionably collective. The second part of the paper argues that the use of collective resources for the enforcement of contracts brings with it the authority to limit and shape enforcement in the interest of redistribution.

Since at least as long ago as Plato’s time, philosophers have considered the possibility that justice is at bottom a system of rules that members of society follow for mutual advantage. Some maintain that justice as mutual advantage is a fatally flawed theory of justice because it is too exclusive. Proponents of a Vulnerability Objection argue that justice as mutual advantage would deny the most vulnerable members of society any of the protections and other benefits of justice. I argue that the Vulnerability Objection presupposes that in a justice-as-mutual-advantage society only those who can and do contribute to the cooperative surplus of benefits that compliance with justice creates are owed any share of these benefits. I argue that justice as mutual advantage need not include such a Contribution Requirement. I show by example that a justice-as-mutual-advantage society can extend the benefits of justice to all its members, including the vulnerable who cannot contribute. I close by arguing that if one does not presuppose a Contribution Requirement, then a justice-as-mutual-advantage society might require its members to extend the benefits of justice to humans that some maintain are not persons (for example, embryos) and to certain nonhuman creatures. I conclude that the real problem for defenders of justice as mutual advantage is that this theory of justice threatens to be too inclusive.