The Elements of Social Justice (Routledge Revivals) by L. T. Hobhouse

Author:L. T. Hobhouse [Hobhouse, L. T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415552776
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2009-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

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1 Following Plato—Laws, Bk. VI, p. 757.

1. Similarly, if it be justice as between communities that is in question, it may be held that a community has rights as such, or that its rights are qualified by its character as a community or by its special relations to other communities. But anything that ignores or overrides the claim of community, i.e. anything other than a rule applicable to any community similarly constituted and circumstanced, is irrelevant and the source of inequality. Lastly, a corresponding conception applies to elements or functions in the social life. A function has its due sphere .defined by its relation to the common life as a whole, i.e. by any consideration arising from the nature of the function itself, or by any principle applied impartially to all functions, but not by any extraneous consideration, and not on any partial ground inconsistently applied. Thus underlying great divergence of possible application, there appears in the general conception of equality something applicable to all aspects of social life. In the very broadest sense equality means treatment with reference purely to the purpose in hand, exclusive of all extraneous considerations.

1 In more abstract terms the argument runs: According to the Principle of Harmony the object of moral endeavour is to establish and extend harmony and remove disharmony. Any person may have within him elements and capacities of harmony with others and also disharmony. What is inharmonious if it cannot be modified must be destroyed, but to repress or even to fail to stimulate and promote any element capable of harmonization is contrary to the moral purpose. This holds whatever, wherever, and in whomsoever the element may be. Thus, it is an impartial principle, irrespective of persons, according to which every man has a duty to and a claim upon every other, with whom he is in actual relation, in respect of the elements of potential harmony in his nature. The common good is the realized harmony of these elements in all members of the community, and its fundamental principles are those on which such realization is based. It failsthere is a wrong in it—if whatever harmony there be conflicts with an element of good in any member. Thus each man has a claim upon the common good proportioned to his own qualifications for sharing it. This is the fundamental principle of equality.

1 It may be said that these distinctions are subjective. What is one man’s luxury is another man’s necessary. This is mainly due to social inequalities which have allowed some classes to become so accustomed to expensive modes of living that they would—at least for a time—find it a hardship to dispense with them. But this form of inequality has no social justification. There are also differences of temperament and physique independent of social institutions, which, e.g., make a mild narcotic like tobacco an extraordinary comfort to the average man, while not a few are indifferent or hostile to it. Differences of this sort are met by mere liberty.

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