Liberalism and the Limits of Justice by Michael J. Sandel

Author:Michael J. Sandel [Sandel, Michael J.]
Language: swe
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Philosophy, Political
ISBN: 9780521562980
Google: ArpKbwAACAAJ
Amazon: B00AKE1U9G
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1998-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

LIBERALISM AND THE PRIORITY OF PROCEDURE

To justify an exchange or institutional arrangement, it is not enough to show that it arose from a voluntary agreement between the parties involved, for at least two different sorts of reasons – one moral, the other epistemological. Although Rawls does not distinguish these arguments explicitly, both are implicit in his account, and each serves to reinforce the other. We might call the first the argument from contingency and the second the argument from conventionalism. The first recalls the argument from arbitrariness deployed in support of the difference principle against meritocratic, aristocratic, and other rival conceptions of equality falling short of Rawls’ ‘democratic conception’. In the case of justification, it begins with the observation that in practice, agreements turn out unfairly for a variety of reasons, as already suggested; one or the other party may be coerced or otherwise disadvantaged in his bargaining position, or misled or otherwise misinformed about the value of the objects being exchanged, or confused or mistaken about his own needs and interests, or, where uncertain future returns are involved, a bad judge of risk, and so on. In some of these cases, notably those involving outright coercion or deception, we may be tempted to say that the exchange was not truly a voluntary one, or that the ‘contract’ is invalid, and so attribute the unfairness of the result to an inadequacy of consent. Libertarians and others who argue that voluntary agreements are wholly self justifying are anxious to rule out such cases by invoking distinctions between coercive and non-coercive influences, legitimate and illegitimate bargaining tactics, threats and inducements, and so on (Nozick 1972; Kronman 1980).

But Rawls would deny that any such distinction could succeed in marking out a range of self-justifying agreements as long as some morally arbitrary influences were allowed to remain. However strictly one defines the requirements of a voluntary agreement, the fact that different persons are situated differently will assure that some differences of power and knowledge persist, allowing agreements, even ‘Voluntary’ ones, to be influenced by factors arbitrary from a moral point of view. ‘Somehow we must nullify the effects of specific contingencies which put men at odds and tempt them to exploit social and natural circumstances to their own advantage’ (136).

Even voluntary agreements are likely to fall short of the ideal of autonomy, in which the obligations incurred are self-imposed in the strict sense of ‘self’ defined as prior to its attributes and ends and thus free from heteronomous determinations. Only this sense of self, and the notion of autonomy it permits, rules out arbitrary influences completely. Ruling out coercion alone cannot justify a contract any more than ruling out, say, class privileges alone can justify a meritocracy. In both cases, too much is left subject to contingencies arbitrary from a moral point of view. Once we are bothered by the most conspicuous obstacles to individual autonomy, we are bound on reflection to reject heteronomous influences wherever they appear.2

Beyond the moral difficulty with the notion that contracts are self-justifying lies an epistemological difficulty.

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