Justice by Michael J. Sandel

Author:Michael J. Sandel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429952682
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The Argument from Moral Arbitrariness

Rawls presents this argument by comparing several rival theories of justice, beginning with feudal aristocracy. These days, no one defends the justice of feudal aristocracies or caste systems. These systems are unfair, Rawls observes, because they distribute income, wealth, opportunity, and power according to the accident of birth. If you are born into nobility, you have rights and powers denied those born into serfdom. But the circumstances of your birth are no doing of yours. So it’s unjust to make your life prospects depend on this arbitrary fact.

Market societies remedy this arbitrariness, at least to some degree. They open careers to those with the requisite talents and provide equality before the law. Citizens are assured equal basic liberties, and the distribution of income and wealth is determined by the free market. This system—a free market with formal equality of opportunity—corresponds to the libertarian theory of justice. It represents an improvement over feudal and caste societies, since it rejects fixed hierarchies of birth. Legally, it allows everyone to strive and to compete. In practice, however, opportunities may be far from equal.

Those who have supportive families and a good education have obvious advantages over those who do not. Allowing everyone to enter the race is a good thing. But if the runners start from different starting points, the race is hardly fair. That is why, Rawls argues, the distribution of income and wealth that results from a free market with formal equality of opportunity cannot be considered just. The most obvious injustice of the libertarian system “is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by these factors so arbitrary from a moral point of view.”11

One way of remedying this unfairness is to correct for social and economic disadvantage. A fair meritocracy attempts to do so by going beyond merely formal equality of opportunity. It removes obstacles to achievement by providing equal educational opportunities, so that those from poor families can compete on an equal basis with those from more privileged backgrounds. It institutes Head Start programs, childhood nutrition and health care programs, education and job training programs—whatever is needed to bring everyone, regardless of class or family background, to the same starting point. According to the meritocratic conception, the distribution of income and wealth that results from a free market is just, but only if everyone has the same opportunity to develop his or her talents. Only if everyone begins at the same starting line can it be said that the winners of the race deserve their rewards.

Rawls believes that the meritocratic conception corrects for certain morally arbitrary advantages, but still falls short of justice. For, even if you manage to bring everyone up to the same starting point, it is more or less predictable who will win the race—the fastest runners. But being a fast runner is not wholly my own doing. It is morally contingent in the same way that coming from an affluent family is contingent. “Even if it works to perfection in

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.