Justice Book Test

Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Rawls, Kant, Negative freedom

Utilitarianism: Human Nature

• Humans desire happiness

• Every persons happiness is of equal value

• Consequentialism: the morality of an action is based upon the consequences of the action

• Happiness: pleasure and abscence of pain (Bentham) or general contentment with occasional moments of excitement (Mill)

Utilitarianism: Just Society

The greatest happiness principal: maximize overall wellbeing and happiness for the most people.

• Actions, norms, pollicies, laws, institutions are good insofar as they maximize happiness and reduce suffering

Utilitarianism: Specific Applications

Government support for:

• Public education

• Public Health

• Poverty reduction

• Research to improve human life

• Income redistribution (e.g., taxing the rich to provide a universal basic income or free healthcare)

Utilitarianism: Objections/criticisms

• Utilitarianism has the possibility of simplifying each person to a number or object

• Could force people to forgo certain liberties for the sake of the greater good

• Risks stripping the rights of a minority to please the majority.

Libertarianism: Human Nature

• Humans are free individuals

• Negative conception of freedom (i.e., freedom = no interference from others, government)

• Humans have fundamental rights (life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and property)

Libertarianism: Just Society

The state exists to protect individual freedom and rights. It should only prtect against force, fraud, and theft

• The state should generally leave people free to make their own decisions and live with the consequences of those choices

Libertarianism: Specific Applications

Small government and free markets. The state should only protect against force, fraud, and theft.

• No paternalism, (i.e., impossing laws for people’s “pwn good”)

  • No madatory social security contributions

  • No seatbelt/helmet laws

  • Marijuana should be legal

• No laws based on morality

  • No laws restricting alcohol sales on Sundays, abortion, prostitution

• No redistribution of wealth or income

• No regulating the economy

  • No minimum wage laws

  • No labor laws

Libertarianism: Objection

Libertarianism does not address issues of inequality and can lead to large disparities of wealth, power, and opportunity.

• Risks leaving people vulnerable to suffering through no fault of their own

• Risks not protecting peopl from exploitation

  • Price gouging

  • Low wages

  • Dangerous working conditions

Kantian Ethics: Human Nature

• Thinks humans are different than animals because we have the freedom to make autonomous choices via reason, rather than acting based on instinict, emotion, or the influence of others.

• Individual rational agency gives us moral worth.

• Positive freedom = freedom means being autonomous and choosing based on reason, which will lead to morally good decisions.

Kantian Ethics: Just Society

• Formula of humanity: Treat people as ends, not merely as a means.

  • People need to respect and promote their own and others’ rational agency

• Universal Law Test: Peopl should act in ways that can be universalized. You should follow rules that apply to everyone and shouldn’t make exceptions for yourself.

Kantian Ethics: Specific Applications

• Human rights protections

  • free speech

  • freedom of religion

• Laws and norms to protect individuals from exploitation, objectification, dehumanization

  • No prostitution

  • No payday loans

• Laws or norms to promote rational agency

  • No lying

  • No drug use

  • No drunkenness

• Promote rational agency through education to help people develop critical thinking, as well as helping eople in need.

• Consent doesn’t make an action okay if it’s dehumanizing or objectifying

  • Euthanasia or prostitution

Kantian Ethics: Objections

• Rules are too absolute, don’t account for circumstances

  • Case of lying to the would-be-murderer

• Libertarians would criticize Kantian freedom as too demanding

• Aristotle & Sandel would criticize the individualistic conception of the self

Rawls’ Theory of Justice: Human Nature

• Individualistic conception of self

• Humans are rational, free agents

• Positive freedom = ability to make meaningful choices, live a good life

• Our talents, abilities, motivation, and opportunnities are shaped by luck

Rawls’ Theory of Justice: Just Society

• Veil of Ignorance thought experiment

• Liberty Principle: equal civil and political rights for all

• Difference Principle: Social and economic inequallity only insofar as it benefits the worst off

• Every person should be treated with fairness and have equal opportunities

Rawls’ Theory of Justice: Specific Applications

• Human rights protections

  • Free speech, freedom of religion

• Government programs to redistribute income or wealth

• Governmetn programs to reduce poverty

• For people to be free the government needs to make sure that the people have their basic needs met

  • Housing

  • Education

  • Food

Rawls’ Theory of Justice: Objections

• Difference principle is unfair to people who work harder, contribute more value to their societies

• The difference principle is a patterning principle, which violates the free choice people make

• Veil of Ignorance is impossible since our thinking is always shaped by social influences.

Aristotle’s Just Society: Human Nature

• Humans are social beings

• We need society and personal relationships to flourish

• We need certain character traits or virtues to flourish as a person and as a member of society

• Our character is shaped by our societies’ laws, norms, customs, and culture

Aristotle’s Just Society: Just Society

Perfectionism: a just society is one in which people fulfill their potential by living virtuous lives within a wel-ordered polis that promotes human flourishing (eudaimonia)

• Distributive justice concerns the fair allocation of resources in accordance with merit, while corrective justice deals with rectifying wrongs through proportional means

Aristotle’s Just Society: Specific Applications

• Laws can be paternalistic or moralistic, encouraging us to develop virtue

  • sin taxes

  • social security

  • regulating social media

• Moral education is essential from parents, schools, role models

• Shared responsibility to ensure that culture encourages human flourishing

Aristotle’s Just Society: objection

• What virtues or ideas of human flourishing should be used? Who makes this descision? This takes away individuals’ freedom to choose their own conception of a good life and imposes morality on people

• It can be seen as elitist and exclusionary aince Aristotle excluded women, enslaved people, and non-citizens

Sandel’s Critique of Moral Individualism: Human Nature

• Humans are social beings

• Meaning, identity, and values are shaped by shared stories

• We have unchosen obligations to our family, community, country

• People yearn for a sense of belonging

Sandel’s Critique of Moral Individualism: Just Society

A Politics of the Common Good: need to work out how to live together through shared experiences, stories, values, and reasoning.

Sandel’s Critique of Moral Individualism: Specific Applications

• Encourage citizenship, ssacrifice, and service by inculcating a concern for the common good.

• Establish moral limits to markets to ensure that markets serve human goods.

• Reduce inequality

• Encourage solidarity through shared civic life

  • public schools

  • parks

  • transportation

• Be willing to engage in moral reasoning with others, including in shared social and political discussions

Sandel’s Critique of Moral Individualism: Objections

• Morals very by person, so people may be subject to morals they do not agree with

• This brings religion into public discourse, which could threaten separation of church and state

• Gives up on the idea of using reason to figure out the objective truth about justice (like rawls and Kant attempt to do