JUSTICE

Justice has to do with the distribution of benefits and burdens, rewards and punishments. Among the most important benefits and burdens of contemporary society are science and technology, their products and their costs. Although science and technology are involved with the administration of legal justice in many ways—from their uses in forensics to identify and prosecute criminals to the testimony of scientific and engineering experts in civil cases—the primary focus in this entry will be on the nature of justice in its own right, pointing out some implications for science and technology.

Versions of Justice

As an instrument for the distribution of benefits and burdens, the general concept is clear, but the various interpretations of the concept, and its applications are more contentious. Is justice a transcendent reality, as Plato held? A formal property having to do with proportional distribution, as Aristotle contended? Simply what contracting parties invent in mutually self-interested agreements, as Thomas Hobbes argued? An artificial construct as David Hume maintained? Or does justice have to do with ownership, a rendering to each according to one's due, as Polemarchus reports in Plato's Republic (331e) was the definition of the poet Simonides—a view also advanced by the Roman legal philosophers Cicero and Ulpian, as well as Thomas Aquinas? Is it possible that scientific and technological progress promote justice, especially the just power of human beings over the unjust forces of nature, as Francis Bacon argued? Or is a kind of natural justice thereby diminished, as Socrates in the Republic (372e) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in quite different ways, both proposed?

The traditional symbol of justice is a woman wearing a blindfold, holding a pair of equally balanced scales in one hand, and a sword in the other. The metaphor points to the symmetry between the quality of human judgment on one side and the rewards or punishments on the other. Justice is blind to all irrelevant considerations such as birth or social status or race or gender, and is concerned only with giving one what is deserved.

The earliest definition of justice in the West is the Simonides quote from Plato's Republic: "Justice is to render each person his due," giving to each person what each deserves, based on the person's character traits, including ability, virtues, and vices. If one is excellent, a suitable reward is appropriate. If one is vicious, punishment is warranted. A mediocre individual earns a mediocre benefit. Indeed Plato's Republic describes a meritocracy, made up of people in three classes, categorized according to their abilities.

The classic conception applies both to distributive and retributive versions of justice. Distributive justice concerns the distribution of benefits and burdens. Retributive justice deals with punishments and rewards. Immanuel Kant argued that not only should people who are good be rewarded with happiness in proportion to their goodness, but people who willfully do bad things should be unhappy in proportion to their bad intentions. Following this thought, he argued that crimes such as murder justified imposition of the death penalty. Kant used this thinking as a premise for the existence of God and life after death, arguing that justice required a god and a future existence for persons to receive their just rewards and punishments.

This classic view has been held by many philosophers throughout history. It is found in the Hindu and Buddhist idea of karma, which holds that each person will be reincarnated according to individual moral character, and in the Bible, which states, "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7). Somewhat unexpectedly, even Karl Marx in his labor theory of value (a worker should be rewarded for the full value of his work) seems to share the classical theory of just desert. The utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill also advocated a version of this doctrine, deeming it the central meaning of justice, which in turn signifies simply the most stringent requirements of utilitarian morality. Is justice simply the secular analogue to the religious doctrine of rewards and punishment according to merit? Contemporary political philosophers, such as John Rawls and Derek Parfit rejected or qualified the salience of this classic conception of justice as desert by arguing more egalitarian or need-based conceptions.

Contemporary Conceptions

In current discussions Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) remain common reference points. Rawls argues a view of justice as fairness defined by that impartial, hypothetical contract that people would adopt from behind a veil of ignorance regarding with what benefits or burdens they might begin their lives in a social order. Extending a perspective developed in John Hospers's Libertarianism (1971), Nozick defends justice as grounded in rights to liberty and ownership. Other contemporary analyses of justice include arguments by Parfit (1984), that justice requires some consideration of need; and by Michael Walzer (1983) and Nicholas Rescher (2002) that justice is not a single concept, but a plurality of concepts relative to different social contexts.

According to Hume, questions of justice typically arise when, in situations of scarcity, human beings seek to adjudicate between competing claims for limited goods. Such goods might be material benefits, social prestige, or power—any of which could be closely associated with science or technology. Suppose 100 competitors apply for a highly desirable position such as candidate at a leading graduate program in science or director of a major engineering project. What are the correct moral and legal criteria by which to decide who should be granted the position? Should selection be based on technical knowledge, need, utility, previous effort, likely contribution to be made? Should market forces be a factor? Race, ethnicity, or gender? If in the past blacks or women or the disabled were systematically discriminated against, should affirmative action come into play?

Or consider the use of kidney dialysis machines in a county hospital that can afford only five machines, but has a waiting list of twenty or thirty people. How should doctors decide which five people should be treated? By lottery? By a process of first come first served? By greatest need? By merit? By desert? By utility, for example, if one of the candidates is the mayor of a town that is part of the county and who has served the community well for many years? Or should a complex set of factors (including age, contribution, responsibilities, merit, and need) be used?

The most significant controversial issue in the debate over distributive justice is that of economic justice. How should wealth be divided up in society? Should the free enterprise system determine how much money and wealth people end up with or should an effort be made to redistribute wealth through some sort of income tax policy? Should there be a vigorous welfare program, ensuring that no one falls below a certain economic threshold?

Types of Justice: Formal and Material

Theories of justice may be divided into formal and material types. A formal theory of justice provides the formula or definition of justice without directly filling in the content or criteria of application. Material theories of justice specify the relevant content to be inserted into the formulas. They dictate what the relevant criterion is. The classical principle of formal justice, based on Book V of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is that "equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally." The formula is one of proportionality:

That is, if person A has X units of a relevant property P, and B has Y units (where Y is more or less than X), then A should pay proportionally more or less of the relevant burden Q than B. For example, if A has worked eight hours at a job and B only four hours, and time worked is the relevant criterion for reward, A should be paid twice as much as B.

The formal principle is used in law in the guise of stare decisis, the rule of precedent—like cases should be decided in like manner. The principle applies not only to the case of distributive justice, but also of retributive justice or punishment and commutative justice, in which obligation is based on a promise or contract that requires fulfillment.

The formal principle of justice seems reducible to the principle of universalizability: Treat like cases similarly unless there is a relevant difference, which itself is simply the principle of consistency. Be consistent in decisions. If there is no relevant difference between agents, treat them similarly. Insofar as there is no relevant moral difference between the sexes, this applies to the morality of sexual relations. If it is all right for Jack to engage in premarital sex, then it is also all right for Jill to engage in premarital sex; but if it is immoral for Jill to engage in premarital sex, it is also immoral for Jack. The formal principle of justice does not indicate whether some act is right or wrong, but simply calls for consistency. If people were content to live only with the formal principle, they might treat others very badly and still be considered just. As player Henry Jordan once said of Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of football's Green Bay Packers, "He treated us all the same—like dogs."

Some philosophers, such as Stanley Benn, believe that the formal principle of equal treatment for equals implies a kind of presumption of equal treatment of people. But there are problems with this viewpoint. As Joel Feinberg (1970) points out, sometimes the presumption is for unequal treatment of people. Suppose that a father suddenly decides to share his fortune and divides it in two, giving half to his oldest son and half to his neighbor's oldest son, but nothing to his other children. This kind of impartiality is arguably misguided and, in reality, unjust. Society must determine in which respect people are equal and so deserve the same kind of treatment; this seems to be a material problem, not a purely formal one. In other words, Benn confuses an exceptive principle (Treat all people alike except when there are relevant differences among them) that is formal with a presumptive principle (Treat all people alike until it can be shown that there are relevant differences among them).

The formal principle does not tell which qualities determine which kinds of distribution of goods or treatment. Thus material principles are needed to supplement the formal definition. Aristotle's own material principle involved merit: People are to be given what they deserve. A coach could justifiably treat his players like dogs only if they were doglike; otherwise, he should treat them more humanely.

Types of Justice: Patterned and Nonpatterned

Material theories of justice may be divided into patterned and nonpatterned types of justice. A patterned principle chooses some trait(s) that indicates how the proper distribution is to be accomplished. It has the form:

To each according to ————.

Robert Nozick (1974) rejects patterned types of principles, such as those of Aquinas, Rawls, and Rescher, because this type of attempt to regulate distribution constitutes a violation of liberty. The point can be illustrated by considering how a great inventor can justly upset the patterned balance. Suppose the existence of a patterned situation of justice based on equality. Imagine also that there is a great demand for some inventor's product and that people are willing to pay the inventor well for it. If millions of people pay for the product, the inventor takes home a great deal more than the patterned formula allows, but seems to have a right to it. Nozick's point is that, in order to maintain a pattern, one must either interfere to prevent people from allocating resources as they wish, or intervene to take from people resources that others have transferred to them.

Nozick argues for a libertarian view of nonpatterned justice, which he calls the theory of entitlement. A distribution is just if all people have those things to which they are entitled. In determining what people are entitled to, the original position of holdings or possessions is an important factor, as is what constitutes a just transfer of holdings. Borrowing from John Locke's theory of property rights, Nozick argues that people have a right to any possession so long as ownership does not worsen the position of anyone else.

Continuing Debates

As in the past, justice in the early twenty-first century remains a widely contested concept. The main current rival positions are the classic theory of just desert, egalitarian theory of distribution according to need, and rights theories. The challenge for political philosophy is to sort out the competing claims of such theories and make sense of people's deepest but conflicting intuitions—especially with regard to the uses and influences of science and technology.

With regard to retributive or criminal justice, the scientific study of human behavior has, for instance, raised important questions about levels of human accountability. To what extent should psychology and neuroscience inform the legal justice system? Forensics and studies of evidence that, for instance, question the reliability of eyewitness accounts, along with increased reliance on scientific experts, likewise have implications for court procedures. Some philosophers such as Brian Barry (1989) argue the importance of the sciences of game theory and decision theory to analyses of justice.

With regard to distributive justice, science and technology, by their discoveries and inventions especially in the areas of new drugs and lifesaving medical devices, create new challenges for justice. How shall society use these drugs and therapies? Should drugs for AIDS be distributed gratis to African countries that cannot afford to pay the market price? Is it just for pharmaceutical companies, which produced the drugs, to charge the same price to all buyers, or should allowances be made for depth of need and relative ability to pay?

With regard to science and technology in general, what constitutes a just distribution of the benefits of scientific discoveries and engineering inventions? Do owners of patents have an obligation to make some sacrifice in foregoing potential profits from their work to enhance distribution? Or does justice allow them to sell their work to the highest bidder, independent of the social result? Does the state promote justice through the regulation of science and technology, or is regulation properly constrained by respect for liberty and property? In advanced technological societies where, according to Langdon Winner (1986), technological design can be a hidden form of politics, and for Ulrich Beck (1986), the avoidance of risk is now a scarce commodity, do different theories of justice imply different responsibilities for scientists, engineers, citizens, politicians, or corporations? Indeed in a social system in which corporations are granted the status of legal persons, and serve as major vehicles for scientific and technological research, development, and innovation, what concept of justice best enlightens responsibilities in the public realm?

Finally because of technological transformations of the public realm, questions of justice have been extended both spatially and temporally. Increased telecommunications promotes questions of international justice. Increased ability to impact future generations raises questions of intergenerational justice.

LOUIS P. POJMAN

SEE ALSO Death Penalty;Environmental Justice;Equality;Grant, George;Rawls, John;Science, Technology, and Law.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barry, Brian. (1989). Theories of Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Beck, Ulrich. (1986). Riskogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. English translation: Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage, 1992.

Benn, Stanley. (1967). "Justice." In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan.

Feinberg, Joel. (1970). Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hospers, John. (1971). Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow. Los Angeles: Nash Publishers.

Nozick, Robert. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.

Parfit, Derek. (1984). Reasons and Persons. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rawls, John. (1999). A Theory of Justice, revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Originally published in 1971.

Rescher, Nicholas. (2002). Fairness: Theory and Practice of Distributive Justice. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Walzer, Michael. (1983). Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books.

Winner, Langdon. (1986). The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.