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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2009
THE INAPPLICABILITY THESIS
There is a gap between the idea of distributive justice and the many factors that are morally relevant for decision making on economic issues. Only to a degree can this gap be attributed to the distance between “ideal reach” and “practical grasp,” to the legitimate difference in detail between an abstractly delineated economic scenario and a concrete set of circumstances, and to the disparate idioms and metaphors of theoretical and practical discourse. Rather, the gap indicates a fundamental problem with the concept of distributive justice. The problem, that is here termed the “inapplicability thesis,” is that even if distributive justice in abstract formulation were to be accepted as a value, its application in economic decision making is indeterminate.
1 Kelsen, Hans, “Aristotle's Doctrine of Justice“ in What is Justice? Collected Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 128.Google Scholar
2 The difficulties that a concept of distributive justice would have in a world in which the problem of “production“ has been solved do not relate only to the relativism of Marxist historicism. While a Marxist could argue that the bourgeosis morality of redistribution would be transcended in socialist society, a conservative philosopher like David Hume has also referred to a similar difficulty. For Hume, justice presupposes a context in which there are scarce resources and confined generosity, since no source can be found for justice in a world where there would be no conflict over the use of resources.
Yet, if generosity were so severely “confined” as to include envy and even “motiveless malice,” it would be impossible for resources to ever suffice to eliminate conflict. Even in a universe of overflowing abundance, an lago could create scarcity by insisting on possessing or spoiling what his neighbor is about to consume.
3 Rawls, John, Theory of Justice (Cambridge; Harvard U. Press, 1972), 72.Google Scholar
4 Rawls, 72.
5 Rawls, 74.
6 , BernardWilliams, “The Idea of Equality” in , Laslett & , Runciman eds. Philosophy, Politics and Society. Second series. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 121.Google Scholar The exclusion of “preventive medicine” eliminates those contexts in which illness obviously is not a necessary condition for treatment.
7 Williams, 122.
8 In polling the list of primary virtues, order or liberty could be close contenders with, or even outrank, justice. The idea that justice is a primary social virtue seldom comprehends the idea of distributive justice. There is a vision of society in which justice as law, order, or hierarchy is the necessary condition for any other virtue. “Take but degree away, untune that string. And hark what discord follows.” An articulated elaboration of this position is found in E. M. W. Tillyard's The Elizaberthan World Picture as a statement of a dominant political point of view.
Similarly, Kant's insistence on the primacy of justice over utility may have excluded any idea of redistribution of goods as a rule of justice. The Continental liberals traced to Kant their insistence that distributive approaches violated the university of the rule of law.
9 Plato has designed the Republic with reference to these virtues, but his description of the longer list of vices and virtues of timarchy or democracy indicate his recognition of the relationships between institutional life and plural virtues. One bit of evidence, is his allusion to the different kinds of moral possibilities available in a small, rustic, egalitarian society and a sophisticated city state like the Republic.
10 Vlastos, Gregory, “Justice and Equality,” in Social Justice, edited by Brandt, R. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1962), 60, 61.Google Scholar
11 Rawls, 277, 278.
12 The thesis that distributive justice is inconsistent with rule of law in a free market society would be a particularly strong exemplification of the inapplicability thesis. As noted above, this argument has roots in Kant's concern with generality of legal rules. The theme has been developed by F. von Hayek in Constitution of Liberty is not discussed, here, but would probe the contextualist argument.
13 From the point of view of post-Edenic society, it is possible to utilize Eden to justify egalitarianism. Thus, the Leveller poem went: “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” Yet the institutional structure of Eden, is non-egalitarian since the human sovereigns –created as the contemporary courtier idiom puts it “in the image of God” – rule over the other creatures. This sovereignty can be justified by appeal to divine plan or to the natural hierarchy of the great chain of creation.
Similarly, the perfection of heaven involves no explicit maldistribution. Yet relative position in the angelic hierarchy did breed revolt. The point is that the decision of what distribution is justified is always related to an institutional context.
