THE CENTRAL ISSUES and most important questions concerning truth, goodness, and beauty bear on the objectivity of these three fundamental values. The picture is quite different in the case of liberty, equality, and justice.
In dealing with these ideas, we have seen that each is conceived in a number of different ways. We have considered the diverse modes of freedom, the several dimensions of equality, the different aspects of justice. The issues that come to the forefront here involve disputes about whether one or another conception of freedom, equality, and justice is the only correct conception of it, whether one takes precedence over the others, or whether the soundest and most adequate theory of the matter is one that embraces all of the various conceptions in an orderly and significant way.
In the sphere of liberty, only one of the three major forms of freedom has never been denied reality. That is liberty of action in society—the circumstantial freedom of the individual to do as he pleases without let or hindrance, so long as the exercise of such liberty does not turn into license by violating laws that prohibit doing injury to others or to the community as a whole.
Even among those who avoid the libertarian error of asking for unlimited freedom of action, with no distinction between liberty and license, there is difference of opinion concerning the relation of liberty to law—the natural moral law or the positive law of a civil society.
Some, like John Stuart Mill, hold that individuals are free only in that area of human conduct not regulated by law, so that as the sphere of law enlarges, the sphere of liberty contracts.
Others, like John Locke, hold on the contrary that individuals are not only free “where the law prescribes not,” but also when they act in obedience to laws that are constitutionally enacted by a government to which they have given their consent. Being politically free citizens of a republic, with a voice in their own government, they are also free when they obey laws in the making of which they have directly or indirectly participated.
In taking this position, John Locke affirms still another kind of freedom—the freedom that the virtuous man possesses in being able to will as he ought, in being able to conform his will to the moral or the civil law that prescribes just conduct and prohibits injustice.
Only those who recognize that virtuous persons stand in a special relation to law, quite different from the posture of vicious or criminal individuals, can understand why obedience to just laws justly made in no way infringes upon freedom of action. That special relation consists in their having the freedom to will as they ought.
Vicious or criminal individuals, lacking such freedom, regard the coercive force of law as greatly curtailing their freedom to do as they please. They do not respond to the law’s authority, but only to its coercive force; and, being constrained by it, they feel unfree.
This reveals a significant difference between the view of freedom held by those who affirm only the circumstantial freedom to do as one pleases and those who affirm liberty of action as subordinate to the liberty that is acquired with virtue—the freedom to will as one ought.
It is possible to go too far in stressing the importance of the latter freedom. To regard it as the only freedom worth having and thereby to dismiss liberty of action as having little or no value in human life is to obliterate the distinction between the free man and the slave, or worse, to think that even a slave in chains can achieve happiness because he has the only thing requisite for it—a good or virtuous will and the moral liberty that goes with it.
The most intensely disputed issue concerning freedom is, as everyone knows, the age-old controversy about man’s inherent possession of a free will and, with it, freedom of choice.
The determinists, who deny such freedom on the grounds that it is incompatible with the causal laws that govern the physical world of which man is a part, can affirm only one of the three major forms of freedom—liberty of action in society, freedom from coercion or constraint.
They must perforce deny the acquired freedom to will as one ought, for moral liberty presupposes freedom of choice. Denying moral liberty, which involves voluntary compliance with the dictates of the moral and civil law, they must also be uneasy with, or reject, the distinction between liberty and license and think that individuals are free only when their conduct is unconstrained by the coercive force of law.
Those who affirm the one freedom that is conceived as being inherent in human nature do so on the following grounds. Though they regard man as a part of nature, they also think he is so only in part.
In their view, the action of the human intellect and will may be conditioned by the action of the brain as a physical mechanism, but it is not wholly governed by the physical—or biophysical and biochemical—laws that govern the brain and other of man’s physical organs.
To affirm the freedom of the will one need not go to the extreme of attributing to man a spirituality that totally transcends physical nature and so is entirely exempt from the reign of its causal laws. One need only maintain that the physical basis of human behavior constitutes a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the action of the human mind in either thinking or willing.
Accordingly, exponents of the view that man inherently possesses freedom of choice reject the argument of the determinists that such freedom violates the laws of physical nature. The underlying issue between them is generated by their conflicting views concerning human nature—as not radically different from the nature of other physical organisms or as transcending the physical world, at least in part.
I pointed out earlier that moral liberty presupposes freedom of choice. I must now repeat another point made earlier; namely, that the natural right to liberty of action also presupposes freedom of choice. It is based on the need for liberty of action as a means to be employed in the pursuit of happiness.
We cannot be charged with the moral responsibility for making good human lives for ourselves if we are not free to execute our choices in actions that are not constrained by any impediment except those imposed by just laws. Without free choice, we cannot be free to will as we ought. Without free choice and moral liberty, we are not entitled to the freedom of acting as we wish in accordance with a willingness to act as we ought.
If I am right in the foregoing account of opposing views with regard to liberty—and this readers must decide for themselves—then the soundest and most adequate theory of freedom is one that affirms all three of the major freedoms: natural freedom of choice, acquired moral liberty, and circumstantial freedom of action, the last of these conjoined with the political liberty of enfranchised citizens under constitutional government.
The most fundamental issue with regard to equality pivots on the affirmation or denial of the proposition that all human beings are equal in their common humanity and only in that respect.
As persons, they are all equally human. None is more or less human than another, though they may be unequal, one with another, in the degree to which they possess the species-specific properties that are present in all members of the human species.
This view of the personal equality of all human beings is denied by those who divide mankind, as Aristotle did, into persons who are at birth endowed with the capacity to live as free individuals, able to direct the conduct of their lives, and those who are at birth deficient, lacking in their makeup the capacity for self-direction.
The inequality thus thought to exist between two portions of mankind is not regarded as a difference in the degree to which individuals possess the same native endowments. Rather it involves a difference in kind between two groups—the one having native endowments lacked by the other.
The distinction here introduced between equality or inequality in kind and equality or inequality in degree has far-reaching consequences. A massive array of undeniable facts prevents us from asserting that all human beings are not only equal in kind, but also equal in the degree to which they possess the properties inherent in their common human nature.
If we reject the Aristotelian view or views similar to it, which divide the human race into two unequal kinds of human beings, we cannot reject the view that all human beings, equal in kind, are nevertheless individually unequal in degree in many significant respects. Two individuals may, of course, be equal in the degree in which they possess some human attributes, but it is seldom if ever the case that two individuals are equal in the degree to which they possess all human attributes.
Upon the affirmation that all human beings are personally equal in their humanity rests the acknowledgment that all are entitled to a circumstantial equality of conditions and a circumstantial equality of opportunity. From the acknowledgment that individuals, equal in kind, are also unequal in degree in many diverse respects—not only in their native endowments but also in their acquired attainments and how they put both to use in the actions they perform or the services they render—follows the further consequence that justice requires inequalities in the degree to which individuals receive rewards for what they do.
Egalitarians, who, with regard to the circumstantial equality of conditions, advocate the elimination of all inequalities in degree, fail to recognize that the personal equality of human beings in kind together with their personal inequality in degree leads to two conclusions, not one.
It is not enough to conclude that all human beings deserve an equality of treatment or of conditions that is an equality in kind. It is also necessary to conclude that individuals, unequal in degree in respects that are significant, deserve an inequality of treatment or of conditions that is an inequality in degree.
The fundamental distinction between equality or inequality in kind and equality or inequality in degree is challenged by those who think that the only equality and inequality is an equality or inequality in degree. They reject the notion of equality and inequality in kind on the ground that it departs from the conception of inequality as consisting in one thing being more and another less in a certain respect and from the conception of equality as consisting in one thing being neither more nor less than another in a certain respect.
Being more or less is a difference in degree. Being neither more nor less is the absence of any difference in degree. Hence inequality, rightly conceived, must always involve a difference in degree; and equality, rightly conceived, must always consist in no difference in degree.
If the notion of equality were thus restricted, we could not affirm that human beings are all equally human in kind while being, at the same time, individually unequal in degree, one with another, in any number of significant respects. It would also be impossible to affirm the opposite view—that mankind is divided into two unequal groups of human beings, differing in kind, not just in degree, because one group possesses certain native endowments totally lacked by the other, not just possessed by the other group to a lesser degree.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to meet the challenge of the egalitarian by showing that the notion of equality and inequality in kind conforms to the conception of equality as consisting in two things being neither more nor less, and of inequality as consisting in one thing being more than the other in a certain respect.
Two concrete examples will be helpful in doing what is required. Let us first consider political equality and inequality, then economic equality and inequality.
Political equality in kind exists in any society in which all individuals entitled by their political nature to political liberty are granted the status of citizenship with suffrage. Political inequality in kind exists in any society in which some individuals are enfranchised and some are disfranchised and are thus deprived of political liberty and political participation through suffrage. In the latter case, one group of individuals has what the other group totally lacks. This is not a difference in degree, but a difference in kind.
When the population is divided into two groups, one of which has political status, powers, rights, and privileges lacked by the other, the members of the have group enjoy either enough or more than enough of the conditions to which all human beings are entitled. The have-not group, deprived of these conditions, have less than enough if they are subjects ruled without their own consent or without a voice in government but nevertheless ruled for their own good, or they may have nothing at all if they are chattel slaves used as instruments of production.
The inequality in kind between the political haves and have-nots can thus be seen as an inequality that involves a distinction between more and less. The haves have enough political power, or more than enough when they are citizens occupying political office and exercising the powers vested in such offices. The have-nots have less than enough political power or none at all.
The line that divides enough or more than enough from less than enough or none at all appeals to a standard of enoughness that is measured by the amount to which all human beings are entitled by virtue of their natural rights.
Economic equality and inequality in kind presents the same picture. All human beings are entitled to a certain amount of wealth, in the form of various economic goods, as a condition they need to lead decent human lives. That measure of wealth, however it is determined, is enough. Some individuals, having enough for the pursuit of happiness, may also deserve to acquire more than enough by the contribution they make to the production of wealth. Those who do not have the measure of wealth to which all human beings are entitled by natural right have less than enough in varying degrees of deprivation, down to the state of destitution that carries with it the threat of starvation and death.
A society in which all individuals or families have either enough or more than enough wealth is one in which there exists an economic equality in kind, accompanied by inequalities in degree. A society in which some individuals or families are economic haves and some are economic have-nots is one in which an inequality in kind exists, accompanied by inequalities in degrees both above and below the line that divides those who have enough or more than enough from those who do not have enough and are deprived in varying degrees.
Let us for the moment consider equality and inequality in kind apart from the possibility of its being accompanied, as it usually is and should be, by inequalities in degree. Then we can make the point under consideration crystal clear. Two individuals equal in kind, politically or economically, have neither more nor less than enough of the political conditions to which all human beings are entitled. Of two individuals who are unequal in kind, politically or economically, one enjoys the requisite conditions in a measure that is enough and the other is deprived of them in a measure that is less than enough.
In my judgment, a sound and adequate theory of equality is one that includes all the dimensions of equality—personal and circumstantial equality and inequality, equality and inequality in kind as well as equality and inequality in degree.
In the sphere of circumstantial equality, it must also include equality of opportunity as well as equality of treatment, conditions, and results. In doing so, it should subordinate equality of opportunity to equality of conditions and results.
To insist that equality of opportunity is the only circumstantial equality to which individuals are entitled is to deny that all persons are entitled by right to an equality of conditions that makes them all equal in kind as political and economic haves.
I have indicated the differences of opinion that separate exponents of different theories of equality on major issues about that idea. I have also indicated where I stand on these issues. Whether the views I have advanced are the correct ones, readers must decide for themselves.
With regard to the idea of justice, the central and predominant controversy consists in a three-sided dispute. There are three conflicting theories, two ancient, one modern.
Coming down to us from antiquity is the view that might makes right. This, in the course of centuries, became the legalist or positivist theory of justice, which holds that, antecedent to the positive law of the state that carries with it the force of the sovereign, nothing is either just or unjust. Unjust acts are those prohibited by the positive law; just acts those prescribed by it.
Equally ancient is the view that natural justice is antecedent to legal justice—that the precepts of the natural moral law and the existence of natural rights determine what is just and unjust prior to and independent of legislative enactments by de facto or de jure governments. This being the case, states, constitutions, governments, and their laws can be judged just or unjust by reference to natural rights and the principles of natural justice.
The third side in this three-cornered dispute is the utilitarian or pragmatic theory of justice, which emerged in the nineteenth century. According to this view, the criteria of what is just or unjust in human actions as well as in the acts or policies of governments and in the laws they make and enforce derive from the consideration of the ultimate end to be served—called the “general happiness” or “the greatest good for the greatest number” by the early utilitarians, but equally well named when it is called “the general welfare” or “the common good.” Acts, policies, and laws are just to the extent that they serve and promote the general welfare or the common good; unjust to the extent that they injure it or detract from it.
In my view of the matter, each of these three theories of justice is false when it claims to be the whole truth, excluding what is sound in the other two theories. Though I favor the naturalist theory as sounder than either of the other two, I must concede that when it claims to be able to answer all questions about justice by reference to natural rights, it goes too far. The questions it can answer are of prime importance, but they fall short of being all the questions that call for answers.
Similarly, the claim that all questions of justice can be answered by reference to criteria of fairness in exchanges or distributions is excessive. Some, but only some, certainly can be, and these are of secondary importance.
Questions about justice that cannot be answered by reference to natural rights or criteria of fairness can be answered by the consideration of what is expedient or inexpedient in relation to the general welfare or the common good. However, many—though not all—determinations of what serves or disserves the general welfare or the common good turn out upon examination to be identical with determinations of the just and the unjust by reference to natural rights or to criteria of fairness. The protection of natural rights from violation and the requirement of fairness in exchanges and distributions are highly expedient social policies. They promote the general welfare or the common good.
Finally, the claim made by the legalists or positivists that all questions of justice can be answered by reference to laws enacted by the state and enforced by a government in power can be embraced only by those who are unashamed to espouse the extreme doctrine that might makes right. Nevertheless, a retreat from that extreme must admit that some determinations of what is just or unjust stem solely from the enactment of ordinances that decide which of several alternative policies should be adopted as expedient in the service of the public interest.
None of these alternatives is to be recommended on the ground that it secures natural rights or that it represents fair dealing. None is superior to the others as being more expedient in the service of the general welfare. Therefore, it is only the enactment of a positive law embodying that alternative which determines what is just in this case.
The reconciliation of the three conflicting theories of justice can be accomplished by avoiding the excessive claim each makes and by putting what is true in each of them together in a well-ordered manner. This can be briefly set forth as follows.
Everything that is just by reference to natural rights or just by reference to criteria of fairness is also just through being expedient in the service of the common good or general welfare. What is just by reference to natural rights takes priority over what is just by reference to criteria of fairness because the latter is based on the personal equalities and inequalities of individuals—their endowments and attainments and how they put them to use—whereas the former is based on the natural needs common to all persons as members of the human race.
Everything that is expedient in the service of the common good or general welfare is just because it serves that end, but it may not always be just also by reference to natural rights or to criteria of fairness. Herein lies the special truth contributed by the pragmatic or utilitarian theory of justice.
All of the foregoing determinations of what is just or unjust can be made antecedent to the enactment of positive laws by the state. In fact, the enactment of positive laws that are just embodies the foregoing determinations of what is just.
However, some things cannot be thus determined to be either just or unjust. They are morally indifferent in the sense that they are neither for nor against natural rights, neither fair nor unfair, neither more nor less expedient in the public interest.
Nevertheless, in the public interest, one or another alternative course of action must be decided upon. When this decision is made by legislative enactment, a course of action prescribed by positive law becomes just, and one prohibited by positive law becomes unjust. Herein lies the special truth contributed by the legalist or positivist theory of justice.
If the formulation I have just presented is correct (which readers must decide for themselves), the reconciliation of the three conflicting theories has been accomplished by rejecting the extravagant claims made by each of them and by recognizing that each makes an indispensable contribution to the whole truth that is not made by the others. It is also necessary to put these partial contributions together in a way that recognizes the inherent priority of the naturalist theory over the pragmatic or utilitarian theory, and of both over the legalist or positivist theory. When this is done, we end up with a sound and adequate rendering of the idea of justice, and one that, in my judgment, cannot be achieved in any other way.
We are still left with the two most difficult questions about justice that have ever been raised. Both were raised by Plato at the very beginning of our Western thinking about justice. One, I think, can be answered; but the other may be unanswerable.
The first of these two questions is, Why should anyone be just in his or her action toward others or in relation to the community in which he or she lives?
This question was raised by Plato in the first two books of his Republic, in the context of inquiring whether the individual who acts justly profits from it in terms of his own happiness. In other words, should the individual act justly because it is expedient for him to do so on the grounds that his justice toward others promotes the pursuit of his own happiness?
On the face of it, the answer would appear to be negative. Even the acknowledgment that being virtuous is expedient as a means to happiness does not lead to a positive answer.
To make what is ultimately a whole good life, the individual must, of course, make the right choices concerning the goods he needs and wants. Moral virtue is the firm habit that disposes the individual to make such choices.
The habitually intemperate individual, who wrongly chooses to indulge in excessive desires for merely apparent goods that afford immediate pleasure, in preference to the real goods he or she in the long run needs, moves in a direction that departs from the route to his or her ultimate good. The same thing can be said of the habitual coward, who, lacking fortitude, turns away from the real goods he should seek because of the pains to be endured or the difficulties to be overcome in acquiring them.
So far it is clear that being morally virtuous (at least to the extent of being temperate and courageous) is not only worthy in itself but also expedient as an indispensable means to achieving a good human life. But what about that aspect of moral virtue that is called justice?
As I see it, the only answer must lie in a truth that is difficult to explain and that is seldom understood. If the moral virtues I have named—temperance, courage, and justice—were three separate habits any one of which a person might possess without having the others, then I, for one, would not know how to argue for the expediency of being just toward others as a means to my own happiness. However, if, on the contrary, the three habits named are distinct but not separable aspects of moral virtue as an integral and indivisible whole, then the answer sought is in sight.
The argument runs as follows. I cannot achieve the happiness of a good human life without being morally virtuous—without having the firm habit of making right choices. I cannot be morally virtuous in one respect without being morally virtuous in all respects, because the three aspects of moral virtue that I have named are inseparable from one another.
I cannot be temperate without being courageous and just. I cannot be courageous without being temperate and just. If I am unjust, I cannot be either temperate or courageous. But intemperance on my part and lack of fortitude will defeat my pursuit of happiness. Hence injustice on my part will defeat it also.
Therefore, in order to succeed in my effort to achieve my own ultimate good, which is a good human life as a whole, I must be just in my actions toward others and in relation to the community in which I live.
What underlies this argument and explains the truth on which it rests is a fundamental insight into the nature of moral virtue as a direction of human conduct toward the ultimate and common good. Our actions are directed either toward that end or away from it.
A given choice or act cannot be pointed in both directions at once. Nor can we have the habit of moving in that direction when we make choices with respect to our own good, while at the same time having the habit of moving in the opposite direction when we make choices with respect to the good of others.
Moral virtue being one integral whole, with a diversity of distinct but inseparable aspects, it always points us in one and the same direction whether we are considering our own happiness or the happiness of others. That is why my being just to others is also expedient as a means toward the attainment of my own happiness.
The other question Plato asked was, Is it better to suffer injustice at the hands of others or to be unjust toward them? The question presupposes, of course, that we are confronted with this difficult choice: We must either act unjustly toward others or suffer unjust treatment by them. Faced with these alternatives, which should we choose?
Plato himself was persuaded that the choice should always be to suffer injustice rather than do it. In his view, no injury that we can suffer at the hands of others can possibly be as destructive of our well-being as taking unto ourselves the moral evil of being unjust toward others. That view rests on an inadequate understanding of human happiness or well-being.
Toward the end of the trial of Socrates, Plato has him say that no harm can come to a good man in this life or the next. If this is interpreted to mean that the morally good or virtuous man cannot be seriously harmed by any external injury inflicted upon him by others; if, in other words, the only serious injury that an individual can suffer is one he inflicts upon himself by conduct that is not morally right or virtuous, then we can see why Plato thought that it is always much better to suffer injustice than to do it.
My rejection of Plato’s view of the matter turns on a conception of human happiness that involves the possession of all the things that are really good for a person, among which a morally good or virtuous will is only one, however important that one may be. Life and liberty, knowledge and friends, health and a modicum of wealth and other goods of fortune—all these are also real goods the possession of which is indispensable to a good human life.
This being so, my pursuit of happiness can be seriously impaired or even defeated by the injuries I suffer if I am enslaved, if my health is maimed, if I am deprived of sufficient wealth, if I am kept in ignorance, and so on. These are injuries I can suffer at the hands of others or from the injustice of the society in which I live.
I, therefore, think that there is no general answer to Plato’s question about doing and suffering injustice. In particular cases, it may be possible to decide that, confronted with certain alternatives, it is better to suffer injustice than to do it, because the injury suffered results only in a slight impediment to my pursuit of happiness, whereas the injury I inflict upon myself by being unjust may have much more serious consequences for my moral character. However, the latter would be the case only if my act of injustice in this one instance should lead to subsequent similar acts that then altered my habitual disposition and ended up in my loss of moral virtue itself, which is very unlikely.
The choice between doing and suffering injustice becomes a difficult and onerous one only when the external injury that threatens us would result in a total deprivation of one or another real good that we need in order to live well. If, in order to avoid the serious injury that threatens our happiness, we have to commit one act of injustice and one that does not lead to the loss of moral virtue on our part (because one act neither makes nor breaks a habit), then it may be clearly preferable to do injustice in this one instance rather than to suffer it.