Chapter Two of A Just Solution

Justice

Justice is mutual respect for the mutually independent wills of all people in effecting all choices. (I'll often refer to it, for short, as "mutual respect in effecting choices.") Those readers who find that definition both self-explanatory and satisfying need read no further in this chapter. For the rest I'll attempt to explain what it means and in a separate chapter, concerning ontological and epistemological issues, to make the case as to why, in the end, no human being has any choice but to be satisfied by it. Its historical context, that of the liberal philosophical tradition, is taken up in Chapter Five.

We humans are social beings. We live in communities. We always have; presumably, we always will. That social existence creates inevitable conflict. There is conflict between individuals, conflict between individuals and the community, and conflict between subgroups within the community. Those unavoidable conflicts create the need for justice; justice is all about conflict resolution. Mutual respect in effecting choices establishes a standard by which we must govern ourselves in our direct, personal interactions with one another, as well as the actions of subgroups. What is usually called social justice (which is limited here to political and economic justice) includes effects of actions of individuals that are transmitted indirectly, through the “foundational processes of the community.” The inevitable existence of conflicts forces us to confront the issue of their resolution.

Conflicts could be resolved randomly. That would require that all parties to every conflict agree to leave the outcome completely to chance, such as rolling dice, or cutting cards, etc. Of course, the act of agreeing to such a mode of conflict resolution would in itself go to the issue of justice. Leaving aside that added complication, in the likely event people decided against leaving the resolution of all conflicts to pure chance, without an overriding idea of justice the choices would be to engage in good-faith negotiations leading to a resolution agreeable to all parties in the case of each conflict or simply to let the participants take whatever steps they might choose in order to prevail. As will be seen, good-faith negotiations are themselves an example of justice in operation. Yet ad hoc negotiations are as unlikely to be chosen as the means of resolving all conflicts as would leaving things to chance. For one thing, it would be too difficult to identify who was a party to every conflict, much less the nature and degree of everyone's place in it. So, the choices come down to resolving conflicts via unfettered 'fights to the finish' or coming up with an idea of justice. If one thinks fights to the finish are the way to go, one must still make a case for that 'ethic.’ The question arises whether there exists an ethic which impels itself on all people, so that abiding by it is a requirement of human being, rather than its being an idea forced on some by others. That takes us to the ontological and epistemological issues inherent in the quest for justice. For the present, let's simply look at what justice is and how it applies to personal behavior and, in the next chapter, how it applies to the structure and functioning of what I call the foundational processes of the community, saving the ontology/epistemology of it all for Chapter Four.

As the presence of words like "choice" and "choosing" in the last paragraph attest, at the center of all this is the will. Within what has become the Euro-American tradition, at least since the times of the ancient Greeks—and even before that—wise people have wondered about this thing we call the will. What is it, exactly? What is its extent? Where is it located within us? What is its ultimate source? Is it free or determined, or is it somewhere between the two? None of these questions have been answered to the satisfaction of all. A definitive answer to any of those questions can only take the form of a belief. Often those beliefs are based on some idea of what God has indicated regarding will in us, but such beliefs can also be secular, in the form of assumptions or assertions about 'human nature' or the structure and functioning of human consciousness. Personally, I believe that God exists as pure will (so that the 'Big Bang' could be explained as God willing the Universe into existence) and that it is in the sense of our being imbued with a will that we human beings are created ‘in the image of God.’ What I believe, however, has no more to do with what justice is than anything anyone else believes has to do with it.

Again, we are careening toward ontology/epistemology here, but the point can and should be made at this juncture that mutual respect in effecting choices is based on incontrovertible evidence: Each and every day, in almost each and every encounter we have with any other human being, we are reminded that each and every one of us has a will independent from that of anyone else. Even little babies have a willfulness about them, which willfulness goes beyond having their immediate needs met. That is, we humans have mutually independent wills with respect to one another.

That distinction between free wills on the one hand and merely independent wills on the other is very important, philosophically, to this ethic. To have a free will is to have a capacity for utterly undetermined, unprompted actions. That’s a tough case to make. My reference to our having independent wills means only that every human being has, separate from each and every other human being, a capacity to choose among existing alternatives.

The topic of the will and its place in ‘human nature’ gets to the root of a vital point I am making here, that mutual respect in effecting choices is separate from any moral construct. Free will is connected with creating ourselves as human beings. Other ambulatory beings, say, dogs, are what they are due to genetics and their social environment. In the wild there is no discrepancy between their social environment and their genetic coding, so they will act a given way. Domesticated dogs learn to curb their instincts in adapting to co-habitating with humans. In this they respond in kind to the treatment they receive. To this point the stories of domesticated dogs and the children of human beings are much the same. Beginning at an early age, though, and expanding as we grow into 'adulthood,' people must choose to act one way or another, whether kindly or unkindly; generously or caucishly [formerly 'niggardly,' according to D. Huffstetler]; rightly or wrongly, not as the product of training alone, not merely as results of external influences, but as acts of our internal wills. It is willfulness in this context that makes every human being as different from any animal as any animal is from a plant. Determining what kind of person every human being should will oneself to be has been the object of all the moral theorizing ever undertaken on this planet, whether based on a theology or a philosophy. Justice in itself, however, refers to acts pertaining to the "mutual external relationships" (from Immanuel Kant) of human beings. Though the range of interactions pertinent to justice stretches from our most intimate relationships to the most general of them, those of which we are a part merely by virtue of being members of the same community, the bailiwick of justice is limited to interactions among human beings. Traditionally, ideas of justice have been portions of larger moral constructs, whether religious/theological or secular/ philosophical. Those can also refer to purely private behaviors, such as diet, clothing, etc., as well as one's relationship to non-human beings or the broader physical environment. The ethic I am presenting herein, however, is not a part of any moral construct. It stands independently as a standard by which to judge our interactions with one another as human beings. It doesn’t depend on our having free wills, much less that they be trained toward a particular way of being, which would in turn bring into question whether they were any longer free in any meaningful sense. That last point is especially vexsome for those who would make liberty the foundation of justice.

As well as having independent wills with respect to one another, it is axiomatic that no one can demonstrate to the rational faculty of anyone else that the will of any person is intrinsically superior (or inferior) to the will of any other person, or in any other way inherently more (or less) worthy of being fulfilled than is the will of any other person. One can believe whatever one wants regarding such matters, but no one can by any means demonstrate to the rational faculty of anyone else that such is the case. While a full accounting of all this goes to the fullest depths of the epistemological and ontological issues that always attach to any ethic, for now I'll skip to the conclusion regarding our interactions as human beings with one another that follows from what I've said so far: No human being has any choice but to respect the wills of all other people. Hence, we can say at this point that justice must involve mutual respect for the mutually independent wills of all people.

One of the most important aspects of this ethic is that it never leaves the realm of the material world (or, as I prefer to put it, "apparent material existence"). While that statement points us yet again in the direction of epistemological and ontological concerns, it refers us to a crucial element regarding the will within this ethic, that it is limited to effecting choices. Regarding making choices, the will has two components, wanting and choosing. Wanting is abstract and infinite. Choosing is concrete and finite. It's a material thing. Justice, as well as being limited to actions among human beings, is limited actions in effecting choices.

Whether there can be such a thing as an act by a human being that doesn't involve effecting a choice may be a good question. Choosing is what we do. It is the one truly unalienable aspect of our existence, as individuals and as groups, on this planet. We can give away our property, our liberty, even our very lives, but we cannot choose to stop choosing (except for the one and only final choice, the choice to end one's life). Even so, where choices are not being effected, conflict, and therefore the issue of justice, cannot arise. Hence, justice is mutual respect for the mutually independent wills of all people in effecting all choices.

Now, as wonderful as mutual respect in effecting choices may already seem to be to one or another reader, some readers have doubtlessly looked upon it and thought that it struck them as being vague and impractical—perhaps even hopelessly so. After all, what does it mean to respect the will of another person? The best answer to that question seems to be that such respect suggests that we are required to take the wills of others into account whenever, and to whatever extent, any action we are contemplating might affect those others. This explanation still invites a host of practical objections, however. It is impossible for one to know everyone who will be affected by any action one might take, much less how it will affect each of them, much less how each of them would respond to those effects, much less whether those effects are 'really' good or bad (regardless of what the people on the receiving end might think of them?). One might think these objections signal the demise of this idea of justice. On the contrary, what they signify is that in mutual respect in effecting choices our actions may not be merely just or unjust, but may be more or less just, depending on the extent to which we do take the wills of others into account in our own actions. As long as we are taking the wills of others into account in effecting a choice, we are being just, whether in much or in little. Here this ethic approaches the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule ain't bad. It has the virtue of being prescriptive, of being a positive rule to live by, telling us what we should do, as opposed to being proscriptive, or negative, telling us what we should refrain from doing. I think of it as being the sufficient condition of righteousness: As long as one is acting in accordance with it one is acting righteously. Mutual respect for the mutually independent wills of all people in effecting all choices is the prescriptive, sufficient, definitive condition of justice.

Even so, it would seem that for mutual respect in effecting choices to be of practical benefit it must provide us with a 'bottom line' that separates, unequivocally, just actions from unjust actions. Such a line does exist. We can call this bottom line the 'minimum condition' of justice. It is the necessary, proscriptive condition of justice. To be on one side of it is to be acting justly, to be on the other side of it is to be acting unjustly. It follows from the axiom that no one can demonstrate to anyone's rational faculty that anyone's will is intrinsically superior/inferior to, or in any other way inherently more/less worthy of being fulfilled than is, the will of any other person. It is unjust for one person to act as though one's will is intrinsically superior or otherwise inherently more worthy of being fulfilled than is the will of any other person. To act in that manner is to assert a claim that one's will is somehow inherently more worthy of being fulfilled than is that of the other person.

We must be careful here. In referring to the prescriptive, sufficient condition of justice it does no harm to go on about wills more generally. When it comes to the proscriptive, necessary, minimum condition of justice, though, we are referring strictly to the choosing capacity of the will, the inherent capacity of human beings to make choices for themselves. To act unjustly is to subordinate that aspect of the will of one or more people to oneself. It is to co-opt the will of one or more persons in the process of effecting a choice one has elected to effect. It is to force, fool, insinuate, etc., others into that process without their freely chosen participation in it. It is to deny others their inherently given capacity as human beings to choose for themselves whether or not to participate in that process.

There are three ways to co-opt the will of another person into the process of effecting a choice, coercion, manipulation, or preemption.

Coercion may be the most obvious form of co-option. Coercion-as-co-option means using force or the threat of force to get another person to participate in one’s process of effecting a choice. A simple example of coercion is when one person robs another person at gunpoint.

The second method of co-option is manipulation. Manipulation can take many forms. It can be purely negative, as in the use of deceit to cloak one's true intentions. It can also be superficially positive, as when one uses flattery to get one's way. Lies of commission and lies of omission are both forms of manipulation. 'Pitching a fit' is another form of manipulation. Within the legal context, fraud is an example of manipulation. In general, we can say that manipulation is the attempt to get one or more others to participate in one's process of effecting a choice using communication, whether verbal or nonverbal, which does not involve coercion or rational persuasion.

The third form that co-opting the wills of others in the process of effecting a choice may take is preemption. There is a sense in which both coercion and manipulation are forms of preemption, in that in both cases one is acting without due regard for the will of another person. Both of those, however, involve communication, in one form or another, with the other person. Preemption, in and of itself, refers to co-opting the will of another with no communication, in a situation in which that person has no opportunity at all to assert his/her will. A burglary of someone's home when that person is not there is an example of pre-empting per se the will of another. Another example of preemption is murder. For anyone to threaten another human being with death unless that person does one thing or another is coercion. The actual act of killing another person to further the process of effecting a choice is preemption, refusing to acknowledge that person’s will.

On the subject of effecting choices, in the course of my expedition of discovery pertaining to these matters I was directed by Dr. Fred Boadu to Warren J. Samuels's conception of social power as "the ability to effect choices" (brilliantly presented in "Property and Power," in Gene Wunderlich and W. L. Gibson, eds., Perspectives of Property). According to Samuels, we humans operate out of what he calls "opportunity sets." These are ad hoc combinations of the resources we have at our disposal to effect one choice or another. These resources basically include everything about us: talents, skills, intellect, knowledge obtained, money, positions held, looks, etc. For our purposes we can call these resources 'sources of social power.' When there is something we desire, some choice we choose to attempt to effect, we employ the appropriate sources of social power we possess to seek to obtain or achieve it, to effect that choice.

There are two particular points related to mutual respect in effecting choices which Samuels's paradigm serves to bring into sharp relief. One of these is how effecting choices is related to conflict and its resolution—and how resolutions of such conflicts can be contrary to what one wills yet not be unjust. Often conflicts over competing desires occur on a more personal level. Sometimes a compromise can be reached such that the object of desire is shared in some manner agreeable to both parties. At other times some other form of negotiation is employed, such as, "We did what you wanted last time, so this time let's do what I want." Negotiations are indicative of respect on their face, and represent just resolutions of conflict related to desires. On a more general level, such as in the marketplace, whatever we may seek is often so plentiful that virtually any number of people can effect the same choice to no one's detriment. In other cases, however, there is less supply of the object of our desires than there is demand for it. In the marketplace, this is usually resolved by the principle of 'first come, first served.' In other instances, auctioning is used to see 'who wants it most' (or at least who wants it most commensurate with one's financial resources). In some situations rationing is used. The types of choices we seek to effect also include competitions for a single, or at all events much more limited, reward or position, such as in athletic competitions or beauty pageants on the one hand, or scholarships or jobs on the other. When we are unable to effect our particular choice in such cases, we simply have to accept that we did not have enough of the relevant sources of social power to effect that choice relative to another person who was seeking to effect the same choice. It is important that pure strength of will can be a legitimate determinant in such competitions. This brings us to the second important point that Samuels's conception helps to make abundantly clear: Simply because one is unable to effect a particular choice does not necessarily mean one has suffered an injustice. One has merely had one's will thwarted. There is nothing inherently wrong, unfair, or unjust in that, given that no one's will is inherently more worthy of being fulfilled than is that of any other person in the first place. It would only become an injustice if one were denied success in a competition based on some factor not relevant to it, for instance, being denied a job based on race, creed, color, national origin, or gender.

There are, one might object, situations in which one person's will is subordinated to that of others as a matter of course. Both the enactment and the enforcement of laws raise the problem of subordination of wills in the interest of 'keeping the peace,' but those, as well as other issues related to justice in what was referred to previously as our "most generalized" relationships, those we are 'stuck with' by virtue of a common membership in a community, will be taken up in the chapter on political and economic justice. There are, however, other examples of the wills of some being routinely held to be superior to the wills of one or more others. We can call such situations 'hierarchical structures.’ There are two kinds of such structures, which I'll call 'artificial' and 'natural.’ The most important general point to make regarding them is that they are recognized as being limited to particular times, places, and matters.

Artificial hierarchical structures are the votive creations of human beings, not a requirement of our existence. Basically, they are part and parcel of organizations. Whenever we join an organization we agree as one of the conditions of our joining it that, regarding matters related to the organization itself, there is a hierarchy of wills by which we will abide. Organizations in which consensus is used as the means of making decisions comprise the exception to this rule. The most obvious artificial hierarchical structure for most people is one's place of employment. While one can have one's will subordinated to another person rather frequently in such situations, the most important feature of these artificial structures for present purposes is that their sphere of power is absolutely limited to matters related to the organization itself. While this will be dealt with more thoroughly in the discussion of political and economic justice, for now it is worth mentioning that a just political system is not a hierarchical structure.

The relationship between parents and their children is a natural hierarchical structure. Parents have the responsibility of raising their children. That is a biological fact. Human babies, left alone, will die—very quickly. They cannot begin to take care of even their most basic needs. They are utterly dependent on others for their very lives. Moreover, they have to be taught 'how to act' in order to coexist with other human beings in a social environment. Indeed, the art of good parenting is to raise a child who is capable of being an interdependent person, meeting one's duties and responsibilities in both sides of one's social relationships, being sufficiently independent while acting with due respect regarding the dependence of others on oneself. In meeting these responsibilities, parents often simply override the wills of their children. Good parenting may require some sort of explanation as to why a parent has acted one way or another, but in certain instances children's wills must simply be subordinated to that of their parents, especially when the children are very young.

It certainly is possible for parents to abuse their hierarchical positions with respect to their children, and that should certainly be subject to law, but it must be assumed that, except where there is hard evidence to the contrary, parents have their children's best interests at heart, whereas children are unable to know what is in their best interest. Still, perhaps a general tendency towards a lack of justice in those relationships may account for the tendency of rebelliousness among youth. After all, the history of the human experience is littered with social rebellions stemming from a lack of justice.

If nothing else, that provides me a platform to ruminate on justice in the parent/child relationship, which is one that must go from one of complete dependence to (hopefully) one of healthy interdependence. It is true that material dependence does limit one's independence of action, however independent one's will may be (which can engender frustration, which can result in outbursts of various kinds). Even so, this material dependence doesn't compromise the standing of the will. Even the most profound material circumstances cannot abrogate the independent status of anyone’s will. Therefore the will of even the most dependent person, for example, a suckling infant, must be respected. This is why the response to a child's query, "Because I said so," is terrible parenting. It implies that the child has no standing to have its will respected. Such an attitude, repeated often enough, will either inculcate the bitterness that one forced to accept arbitrariness on the part of another always tastes, or teach the child not to expect respect for its will. While it is a parent's duty to do what is best for one's child, and that necessarily involves frustrating a child's desires on occasion, that must always be done in a manner which recognizes the respect for its will to which the child as a human being is entitled as fully as any other person.

As a child grows emotionally, a gradual transition must take place in the relationships between children and their parents. The parents must respect more and more the independence of their children's wills. Even if they are doing what their parents would rather they weren't doing, even if they are making mistakes or even doing bad things, the parents must treat them more and more like they would any other adult human being, until, other than the special emotional bond that exists between them, the relationships between parents and their children are based fully on mutual respect for their mutually independent wills. When and where this has not happened, the parents have failed their children. (As I've never been a parent, all my theories of child-rearing remain totally intact.)

Going outside the family, this notion of hierarchies of wills becomes an even finer and more delicate thread in the tapestry I am attempting to weave. In no way should it be taken to provide carte blanche for anyone regarding one's interactions with any other person in any situation. An inability to act independently does create a hierarchical structure of a kind, however, in which the dependent person must be prepared to submit to the wills of others. For instance, a sick person must submit to the instructions of one's doctor to the extent that one is dependent on the doctor to get well. This applies as well to situations in which people are permanently materially dependent on others due to circumstances beyond their control, such as people who are permanently physically or psychologically incapacitated. Again, one person's being materially dependent on another does not grant anyone license to exercise one's own will without regard for the will of that other person. Those who are the relatively independent party in the relationship are still under the injunction to respect the will of the dependent person to the greatest extent possible. The key is that the relatively independent person is to some extent responsible for the well-being of the more dependent person, and that responsibility carries with it a certain weight in the relationship between those people. This also serves to emphasize that the limit of the hierarchy of wills in such situations is the extent to which the one person is responsible for the other, and partial relaxation of mutual respect in effecting choices extends only to matters directly related to that other person's well-being and must be predicated on what is genuinely felt to be in the best interest of the dependent person. So, the will of the dependent person can be legitimately ignored in certain times and places, but only when ignoring it is in that person's best interest in matters that person is incompetent comprehend. In this it is much like the relationship between parents and children. For all of that, the dependent person, if not intellectually impaired (in which case a relationship more like that of child and parent is appropriate) must understand that a dependence on others creates a practical hierarchy even where no actual hierarchy of wills exists. This applies to anyone in a dependent relationship, and suggests the necessity of being aware of our responsibilities in all of our interdependent relationships.

As has been noted, we humans are social beings. We live in groups. We do not exist independently of one another. Rather, we are all in a general way interdependent with respect to one another. In certain situations and circumstances, as just discussed, we can be more dependent, or even subservient, relationships, but nothing can ever negate the inherent independence of our wills with respect to one another.

Our interdependence is perhaps most obvious with respect to the economy: No one can produce all of the goods and services one wants and needs, so all of us depend on the productive contributions of everyone else. At the broader social level we can also easily comprehend a subtler form of interdependence in that we all require that, in the main, the people with whom we come in contact on a daily basis conform in broad outline, at least, to shared notions of how human beings ought to behave. This doesn't refer necessarily to moral 'oughts', but simply to recognizable, comprehensible, 'appropriate' behavior. This can easily take the discussion in the direction of culture and its effects on behavior as well as our perceptions of appropriateness and even morality, but that isn't where we need to go. It means simply that we depend on others to act predictably, within boundaries, and that we understand and accept that others depend likewise on us.

From the obverse perspective, it is possible to lose sight of interdependence, and to assume a hierarchy where none legitimately exists. Specifically, assuming a hierarchy among the members of the community based on relative social status is a formula for aristocracy or oligarchy: For members of the middle class to adopt an attitude of superiority towards the poor is to legitimize the same attitude of the rich toward themselves. Even in the demand economy, some would be vastly richer than others. We must keep in mind that the sufficient and necessary conditions of justice always override the obviously unequal standing among people that is always present in social existence.

I hope that I have made a convincing case for mutual respect for the mutually independent wills of all people in effecting all choices, with its minimum condition that we refrain from co-opting the wills of any others in seeking to effect any choice. We are required to use it to guide us in our interactions with others in any situation in which we may find ourselves interacting with other human beings in the process of effecting a choice. Still, it doesn't take the place of personal morality altogether. As I mentioned, a personal morality, such as one based on religious belief, may include injunctions concerning behaviors that do not involve others, such as what one may eat or wear. Also, a personal morality is all anyone can have to determine one's attitudes about one's interactions with non-human beings, as well as one's attitude toward the broader physical environment. Moreover, mutual respect in effecting choices allows for any act between consenting adults. Hence, gambling, prostitution, and for that matter the use of drugs would all be outside the scope of justice as mutual respect. If one opposes such things on religious or other moral grounds, however, one must keep in mind that, while one's beliefs most definitely should influence one's participation in the political process, decisions regarding the legality of such behaviors within the community must themselves be the product of a just process. While once again ontology and epistemology draw near, this brings us more immediately to the issue of political justice.