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Ch. 6-8 of Justice by MICHAEL J. SANDEL
Complete the week′s assigned reading from Justice; then, return to this area of our Bb course and post an open-ended question inspired by some component of what you read. (Your question should be the title of your post.) After this, write a 400-500 word mini-essay that responds to your question.) Your analysis should be very specific–that is, rooted in the assigned reading–and, so we can understand what you have to say, please read your post aloud and edit it for clarity and correctness before you post it.
Because your analysis will be deeply rooted in the assigned reading, you′ll want to include in-text parenthetical citations referencing page numbers from Justice.
Use the below summary to write it.
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Case for Equality/John Rawls”
American political philosopher John Rawls argues that “the way to think about justice is to ask what principles we would agree to in an initial situation of equality” (140). The resulting social contract would be just because we would be behind a “veil of ignorance”–no one would know what advantages or disadvantages they would have in the resulting society (140).
Rawls argues we would not choose utilitarianism, because we would not want to risk being a member of an “oppressed minority” (141). Nor would we choose libertarianism and risk ending up “destitute” (141). Rather, we would end up with two principles of justice: (1) “equal basic liberties for all citizens, such as freedom of speech and religion,” and (2) “only those social and economic inequalities that work to the advantage of the least well off” in society–what Rawls calls the “difference principle” (141, 151).To decide whether Michael Jordan’s wealth was consistent with this “difference principle,” for example, Rawls would ask whether it was “subject to a progressive tax system that taxed the rich to provide for the health, education, and welfare of the poor” (151). If so, and if this system made the poor better off, then Jordan’s wealth would not violate this principle.
Unlike the social contract, actual contracts are not “self-sufficient moral instruments” (142).Actual contracts “carry moral weight” if they “realize two ideals–autonomy and reciprocity” (144). They should be both “voluntary” and “mutually beneficial” (144).
Not all contracts have reciprocity. For example, if two children trade baseball cards voluntarily, and one knows more about the cards and the other agrees to unfair trades, there is autonomy but not reciprocity. Similarly, an elderly woman who agreed to pay $50,000 to have a leaky toilet fixed may have done so voluntarily, but most would say she had no moral obligation to pay.
On the other hand, Sandel argues that reciprocity may be enough–voluntariness may not be necessary to create a moral contract. For example, if A rents an apartment to B and B sublets it to C, who has necessary repairs done to the house and sends the bill to A, A can be ordered to pay. On the other hand, “squeegee men” operated this way in New York in the 1980s and 1990s, washing car windows without asking at traffic lights and demanding payment. The mayor ended up ordering the police to arrest them.
Rawls criticizes three alternative theories of justice for their arbitrariness. First, feudal aristocracies are unfair because they distribute wealth “according to the accident of birth” (152).Second, a libertarian society with “formal” equal opportunity is unfair because some have advantages others do not, such as supportive families (153, 156): “Only if everyone begins at the same starting line can it be said that the winners of the race deserved their rewards” (154). Third, even in a “meritocratic” society, with “fair” equal opportunity, in which everyone starts at the same point, wealth distribution will still be “determined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents” (154, 156).
Thus, Rawls argues for an egalitarian system. Opponents of egalitarianism argue that its application requires imposing “handicaps on the talented,” because otherwise there will never be equal results (154). But Rawls’s “difference principle” does not call for this equality of result (155). Rather, the talented should be allowed to excel, with the understanding that their winnings “should be shared with those who lack similar gifts” (156).
There are two main criticisms of Rawls’s difference principle. First, it does not give the talented incentives to perform. Rawls would respond that the difference principle “permits income inequalities for the sake of incentives, provided the incentives are needed to improve the lot of the least advantaged” over what they would have with a more equal arrangement (157). Second, Rawls’s theory seems to ignore the effort many devote to developing their talents. But Rawls would respond that “even effort may be the product of a favorable upbringing” that encourages and cultivates that effort (158). Sandel’s informal survey of his students bears this out: the vast majority say they are the first-born child, and studies have shown that first-born children tend to have a better work ethic than others.
Thus, Rawls rejects the idea of “rewarding moral desert” on two grounds (159). First, having greater talents than others is not that person’s doing. Second, “the qualities that a society happens to value at any given time” are “morally arbitrary” (161); whether particular skills “yield a lot or a little depends on what the society happens to want” (161).
Rawls would not argue, however, that “the people who work hard and play by the rules have no claim whatsoever on the rewards they get for their efforts” (160). Rather, Rawls distinguishes between moral desert and “entitlements to legitimate expectations” (160). These arise “once certain rules of the game are in place”; they do not “tell us how to set up the rules in the first place” (160). For example, a lottery winner may be “entitled” to the winnings under the rules of the game but cannot be said to “deserve” the winnings, when winning was arbitrary (161).
Some argue that we should just accept that life isn’t fair and “learn to live with it” (165). Rawls rejects this idea, on the ground that the “way things are does not determine the way they ought to be” (165). Rather, we should “share one another’s fate” and avail ourselves of the proceeds of our talents and opportunities “only when doing so is for the common benefit” (165)
Chapter 7 Summary: “Arguing Affirmative Action”
Sandel asks, Is affirmative action just, or is it “unjust to consider race and ethnicity as factors in hiring or university admissions” (168)? Proponents of affirmative action offer three justifications for it. First, it corrects potential bias in standardized tests. Second, it compensates for past wrongs. Third, it promotes diversity. This argument treats admission “less as a reward to the recipient than as a means of advancing a socially worthy aim” and is the one most often advanced by schools (171).
The second argument–that affirmative action compensates for past wrongs–can be challenged on the ground that “those who benefit are not necessarily those who have suffered, and those who pay the compensation are seldom those responsible for the wrongs being rectified” (170). The third argument–that promoting diversity is a value–is often challenged on both “practical” and “principled” grounds (172). Practically, opponents argue that affirmative action will not bring about a better society but rather will “damage the self-esteem of minority students, increase racial consciousness on all sides, heighten racial tensions, and provoke resentment among white ethnic groups who feel they, too, should get a break” (172). On principle, opponents argue that affirmative action is unfair because it violates the rights of the applicants who are “put at a competitive disadvantage” through no fault of their own (172).
A utilitarian would not see affirmative action as violating rights, as long as it produced greater benefits than harm. And even some rights-oriented philosophers, like Ronald Dworkin, reject this argument on the ground that the denied applicant has not been denied any rights, because there is no affirmative right to be considered on academic merit alone. Different universities define their mission different ways, and you only have a “legitimate expectation to admission insofar as you meet those standards better than other applicants” (173).
Does this mean that it would be just for universities to define their admission standards any way they’d like, even if they wanted to exclude particular people based on their races or religions, assuming they could legally do so? Dworkin would answer that today’s racial preferences are different because they “do not insult or stigmatize anyone” (176). Those who are not admitted are not considered “inferior,” and others are not admitted because they “deserve” an advantage that the rejected applicants do not (176). Rather, the idea is that diversity “serves the […] school’s educational purposes” (176).
Thus, the diversity justification for affirmative action could justify racial preferences for whites in some circumstances. For example, an apartment building that had a quota system favoring white applicants so that it could arrive at an optimal “racial and ethnic balance” that would discourage “white flight” and create a sustainably diverse community would not be criticized by proponents of this view. Rawls would say that no one “deserves” a particular apartment, and the relevant factor would be the housing authority’s mission.
Sandel argues that it may be impossible to separate morality from justice when considering affirmative action, for two reasons. First, “justice often has an honorific aspect”; in discussing justice, we consider “what qualities are worthy of honor and reward” (179). Second, “the idea that merit arises only once social institutions define their mission” is complicated by the fact that these institutions typically cannot “define their mission just any way they please” (179).
If the focus is on the furtherance of an institution’s mission, then admitting “development” applicants–those whose parents could make a sizeable donation to the school–could be seen as fair. Even auctioning spots to the highest bidders would be fair from this viewpoint. On the other hand, this approach could undermine the institution’s mission by undermining its integrity.
Because people have “different conceptions of honor and virtue,” tying debates about justice to these concepts may result in “hopeless disagreement” (183). This is why modern philosophers like Kant and Rawls tried to “find a basis for justice and rights that is neutral with respect to competing visions of the good life” (183). Chapter 8 examines whether they have succeeded.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Who Deserves What?/Aristotle”
Aristotle’s political philosophy has two central ideas. First, justice is “teleological”; to define rights, we must “figure out the telos (the purpose, end, or essential nature) of the social practice in question” (186). Second, justice is “honorific”; the telos of a practice depends, at least in part, on the “virtues it should honor and reward” (186). Thus, unlike the theories discussed in the previous chapters, Aristotle does not seek to “separate questions of fairness and rights from arguments about honor, virtue, and moral desert” (186).
For Aristotle, people get what they deserve according to “merit” (187). Thus, flutes should go to the best flute players, not the wealthiest or some other criterion that is not relevant to flute playing. A utilitarian would agree with this because it would make listeners better off and achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number, but Aristotle’s reason would be that flutes are intended to produce excellent music, and therefore they should go to those who can best “realize this purpose” (187). This is an example of “teleological reasoning”; that is, reasoning from the “purpose of a good to the proper allocation of the good” (187-88).
To analyze affirmative action using Aristotle’s approach, we would first examine the purpose of a university by considering what “virtues […] universities properly honor and reward” (191). Aristotle believes that “it is possible to reason about the purpose of social institutions” without it simply being a “matter of opinion” or “fixed once and for all” at a particular point in time (191).
Aristotle’s politics offer an answer to the question of how to determine the “purpose of a social practice in the face of disagreement” (191). He begins by asking the purpose of political association. Aristotle’s answer is “to form good citizens and to cultivate good character” (192).
As with flutes, Aristotle reasons from the purpose of political associations to the best way to distribute it: political power should go to those who “excel in civic virtue, those who are best at deliberating about the common good” (194). This is not only because they would “enact wise policies,” but because giving “public recognition to those who display civic excellence serves the educative role of the good city” (194).
It is controversial today to claim that politics is “for the sake of the good life,” when we often view politics as “a necessary evil” (194). But Aristotle believes we have to participate in politics to “fully realize our nature as human beings” (195). In Aristotle’s view, the “moral life aims at happiness,” but not in the utilitarian sense (196):“Moral excellence does not consist in aggregating pleasures and pains but in aligning them, so that we delight in noble things and take pain in base ones” (196). Moral virtue comes from “habit”;that is, we “learn by doing” (197). Thus, we must “develop the right habits in the first place,” and this is the “first step in moral education” (197).
For Aristotle, moral virtue is a “mean between extremes” (198). Thus, habit alone is not enough. Judgment, or “practical wisdom,” is required, defined as “a reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to the human good” (198). Thus, practical wisdom has political implications: people with practical wisdom can “deliberate well about what is good, not only for themselves but for their fellow citizens, and for human beings in general” (199).
Thus, we cannot act morally without engaging in politics, for two reasons. First, laws “inculcate good habits, form good character, and set us on the way to civic virtue” (199). Second, citizens are able to “exercise capacities for deliberation and practical wisdom that would otherwise lie dormant” (199).
Aristotle does not include slaves or women in his view of citizenship, but Sandel does not believe that Aristotle’s defense of slavery “reveals a flaw that condemns his political theory as a whole” (200). Rather, Sandel sees a critique of Aristotle’s argument within Aristotle’s own theory. Aristotle concedes that some people were slaves as a result of “bad luck” (202). He sees coercion as a “sign of injustice,” and therefore his own views are inconsistent with slavery (202).
Aristotle’s view of justice is, in fact, “a more demanding moral standard for justice in the workplace” than the “liberal ethic of choice and consent” (202). For example, a libertarian would consider a dangerous job just if the workers “freely exchanged their labor for a wage” (203). Rawls would consider it just if the “free exchange of labor took place against fair background conditions” (203). But Aristotle would consider it just only if it is “suited to the nature of the workers who perform it,” and some jobs might be too dangerous to qualify (203).
Sandel ends this chapter by discussing the case of Casey Martin, a professional golfer with a circulatory disorder that made it painful and risky for him to walk the golf course. The Professional Golfers’ Association refused to let him ride a golf cart in tournaments, and he sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, arguing that a cart would be a reasonable accommodation and did not “fundamentally alter the nature” of the activity (204). In opposition, many famous golfers argued he would have an “unfair advantage” riding a cart, because “fatigue is an important factor in tournament golf” (204). This raises “a question of justice in classic Aristotelian form” (204). To decide this case, the Supreme Court had to determine the “essential nature” of golf. It decided that he could use a cart because doing so “was not inconsistent with the fundamental character of the game” (204).
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia “challenged the Aristotelian premise […] that it is possible to reason about the […] essential nature of a game” (204). He believed it was not possible to say that any particular rule is “essential” when “it is the very nature of a game to have no object except amusement” (204). This argument can be criticized on three grounds. First, it “disparages sports” (205). Second, rules of games are debated all the time on their merits. Third, this argument “misses altogether the honorific aspect of the dispute” (205). If the only issue were fairness, the easy solution would be to allow everyone to ride a cart. But the dispute was “less about fairness than about honor and recognition—specifically the desire of the PGA and top golfers that their sport be recognized and respected as an athletic event” (206).