Answer 4 of 5 questions.About 3 pages total -- REQUIRE READING FROM POWER POINT --
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Q1.pptxElementary Ethics
Justice and Distribution
Ethics as an area of philosophy
The term “ethics” is derived from the Greek word ethos, meaning habit or character.
We will be exploring the history and key themes in the ‘western’ tradition of ethics.
Ethics is traditionally considered a principal area of philosophy, alongside logic, epistemology, and ontology (metaphysics).
Western ethical theory is derived from Plato and Aristotle.
Plato held that moral knowledge was the key thing.
Aristotle by contrast emphasized character virtues or skills.
We begin with the topic of Justice. The ancient Greek term for this is dikaiosune, which can also mean “rightness” or “propriety.”
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates (1787)
Plato’s Euthyphro
Traditionally understood as Plato’s earliest dialogue.
The dialogue form is thought to have been invented by Plato, initially to dramatize the way Socrates practiced philosophy.
In antiquity Socrates was renowned for his irony. This is amply displayed throughout this early dialogue.
The theme is “piety,” that is, human behavior deemed acceptable to the gods. Popular Greek religion was polytheistic.
The basic question: Is it the justice of a human action that generates divine approval or divine approval that makes such action just? (Realism or non-realism).
Distinct areas of justice relate to: a) human affairs and b) the gods. Politics falls under (a) and religion under (b).
Plato’s Crito
This dialogue takes up the story of Socrates’ eventual execution at the time of his incarceration (399 BCE).
Having been condemned to death by his fellow Athenian citizens, in Crito Socrates defends his loyalty to the laws of his city-state.
The right and just thing to do, he argues, is never to place individual pleasure or convenience before the good of the community or state.
In modern contexts this position would be called “legalism,” that is, holding that all laws are necessarily morally binding.
Socrates’ stance seems surprising, given that other portrayals of him (by Plato and others) often show him challenging authority.
Under what circumstances do you think someone is morally justified in opposing laws? What of civil disobedience and freedom of conscience?
Plato’s Republic
Republic is a wide-ranging work generally considered Plato’s masterpiece.
While Socrates is still the main dramatic character, the style is considerably more elaborate than in the early dialogues.
Republic begins with an investigation into the nature of justice. Justice is first defined as “returning what is owed” and becomes “doing what best benefits one’s society.”
The famous “ring of Gyges” (ring if invisibility) story is introduced to further the argument: people only behave properly because they fear the legal and social consequences of not doing so.
The character Glaucon is elaborating the “might is right” argument introduced by Thrasymachus earlier on.
Glaucon wants to pressure Socrates to give a robust defense of the intrinsic (i.e. non-instrumental) value of justice.
John Rawls: A Theory of Justice (1971)
A Theory of Justice is one of the most influential books on ethical/political theory from the second half of the 20th century.
Its overall task is to offer a liberal account of social justice (ensuring the well-being all community members) without violating basic individual rights.
In the 1970s the political middle ground was further to the left that it is today, so Rawl’s account can be seen as more representative than Nozick’s.
Rawls takes a rigorously theoretical approach to the question of justice, seeking to formulate general principles of what is called “procedural” justice.
In fact, his theory really rests on a basic thought experiment: if you did not know you social position, how would you want society to be organized.
Rawls often questions the utilitarian approach, arguing it is predisposed to violate individual rights in the name of the general good.
Rawls’ principles of justice
Rawls is adapting the “contract” theory (formulated by Hobbes and Rousseau (17th and 18th centuries), which holds justice to derive from an implicit social agreement.
What these earlier thinkers called “the state of nature” Rawls calls “the original position”: the situation in which individuals enter into agreement.
What Rawls refers to as “the veil of ignorance” amounts to the key assumption that no person knows or can predict what social position she will occupy.
First principle of justice: equal right to most extensive liberty. Modern liberalism sees individual liberty as a key prerequisite of a just society. But liberty must be affirmed as a right for all, thereby placing obvious limits on it.
Second principle of justice: any inequality is only tolerable if all benefit from it. This states that lack of social and economic equality is only just where everyone is better off. In other words, equality is necessary to justice unless its absence is universally beneficial.
Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)
Whereas Rawls is building on a broadly communitarian tradition of social justice, Nozick appeals to the modern founders of libertarianism, especially Hayek.
Hayek’s theory proclaims the virtues of the free market to circulate social goods in the best way, freed from the prejudices of any central state authority.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia, along with the popular works of Milton Friedman (also an adherent of Hayek) brought free market position into the political mainstream.
Nozick’s basic question is: by what right does someone make a legitimate claim to a social good (what he calls “holdings”)?
Nozick argues that all questions of distribution must be historical, in the sense that they follow previous actions of agents worthy of holdings.
However, he also argues that we can never establish a pattern for distribution, such that some central agency of distribution could give according to moral merit.
Justice as Entitlement
Rather than pre-established principles of distribution (as set out by Rawls), Nozick puts forward his entitlement theory of justice, a theory focused on production.
Nozick points out that each thing to which social value is attached already has entitlements attached to it; in other words it is not free-floating property.
The mistake of social justice communitarianism, he insists, is that it looks at property and wealth always from the point of view of worthy recipients.
Nozick’s counterpoint is this: there is no agency capable of deciding who deserves something, and in fact this is already decided in a free market through ownership.
Applying his justice as entitlement idea to taxation, he likens this to “forced labor.” When a government collects tax it forces me to work more to get what I want. The only source of justice stems from the free choice of the earner.
For Nozick, the money I earn is really a promissory note for property. Taxation violates the promise by taking the decision out of my hands by force.
I. M. Young: Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990)
Iris Marion young was an influential political theorist who advanced the theory of deliberative democracy in the 1980s and 90s.
She argues that the tradition progressive concern about social justice focused excessively on issues around redistribution of wealth.
While questions of distribution are important, of equal weight are questions of participatory justice. She agrees with Nozick that justice is not all about receiving.
Reflecting on her theoretical and practical work on social exclusion, she insists that a genuine democracy involves the active participation of all affected by decisions.
Young’s approach is clearly communitarian, in that it sees justice as a question of the welfare of the whole of society; but follows the German thinker Habermas in emphasizing inclusion within public discussion and decision-making.
One thing that emerges from her work is the recognition of the key role played by public space within any healthy liberal democracy.
I. M. Young: Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990)
The distributive paradigm tends to see justice purely in terms of the possession of material goods.
However, social roles and prestige are very important in determining how just a society actually is.
The answer is not simply to expand the talk about distribution to include social and cultural goods and their fair dispersal.
A case in point is the status of women in society. The injustice involved is not adequately addressed when women have equal material means.
“Rights are not fruitfully conceived as possessions. Rights are relationships, not things … Right refer to doing more than having.”
Modern theories of justice tend to reduce it to the relative advantages held by individuals; ancient theories, by contrast, see justice in terms of a whole society.
Jonathan Wolff: Economic Competition (2007)
Wolff’s article can be seen as a response to Nozick, who assumes that free market distribution is automatically just.
The 19th-century liberal theorist John Stuart Mill claimed (On Liberty, 1859) that liberty is morally constrained by harm to others’ interests.
Leftist critiques of the free market point to the patterns of worker exploitation (a version of “harm”) within the workings of the modern industrial economy.
Wolff remarks: “The core of exploitation is making some sort of wrong or unfair use of another person purely for your own benefit” (p. 605)
Wolff’s area of application is international trade and whether a consumer can be said to be harming exploited producers.
The accusation of harm can only be avoided if it is true that my benefiting from the produced good does not harm the interest of the producers.
Group Activity
Get together in groups of 4 or 5 and discussion the following:
Identify the last three things you bought.
Who made them? Where did they come from? How important are they to you?
Do you think anyone was exploited in making them? Could you have bought a more “ethically produced” alternative product?
What is the moral status of taxation on earnings? Do you think you are entitled to keep all your earnings? What are the positive arguments in favor of taxation on earnings?
What do I owe (morally speaking) to others in my immediate community?
