Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

iep.utm.edu/justwest

Western Theories of Justice

Justice is one of the most important moral and political concepts. The word comes from
the Latin jus, meaning right or law. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just”
person as one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving
everyone his or her due,” offering the word “fair” as a synonym. But philosophers want to
get beyond etymology and dictionary definitions to consider, for example, the nature of
justice as both a moral virtue of character and a desirable quality of political society, as
well as how it applies to ethical and social decision-making. This article will focus on
Western philosophical conceptions of justice. These will be the greatest theories of
ancient Greece (those of Plato and Aristotle) and of medieval Christianity (Augustine and
Aquinas), two early modern ones (Hobbes and Hume), two from more recent modern
times (Kant and Mill), and some contemporary ones (Rawls and several successors).
Typically the article considers not only their theories of justice but also how philosophers
apply their own theories to controversial social issues—for example, to civil disobedience,
punishment, equal opportunity for women, slavery, war, property rights, and
international relations.

For Plato, justice is a virtue establishing rational order, with each part performing its
appropriate role and not interfering with the proper functioning of other parts. Aristotle
says justice consists in what is lawful and fair, with fairness involving equitable
distributions and the correction of what is inequitable. For Augustine, the cardinal virtue
of justice requires that we try to give all people their due; for Aquinas, justice is that
rational mean between opposite sorts of injustice, involving proportional distributions
and reciprocal transactions. Hobbes believed justice is an artificial virtue, necessary for
civil society, a function of the voluntary agreements of the social contract; for Hume,
justice essentially serves public utility by protecting property (broadly understood). For
Kant, it is a virtue whereby we respect others’ freedom, autonomy, and dignity by not
interfering with their voluntary actions, so long as those do not violate others’ rights; Mill
said justice is a collective name for the most important social utilities, which are
conducive to fostering and protecting human liberty. Rawls analyzed justice in terms of
maximum equal liberty regarding basic rights and duties for all members of society, with
socio-economic inequalities requiring moral justification in terms of equal opportunity
and beneficial results for all; and various post-Rawlsian philosophers develop alternative
conceptions.

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Western philosophers generally regard justice as the most fundamental of all virtues for
ordering interpersonal relations and establishing and maintaining a stable political
society. By tracking the historical interplay of these theories, what will be advocated is a
developing understanding of justice in terms of respecting persons as free, rational
agents. One may disagree about the nature, basis, and legitimate application of justice,
but this is its core.

Table of Contents

1. Ancient Greece
For all their originality, even Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies did not emerge in a
vacuum. As far back in ancient Greek literature as Homer, the concept of dikaion, used to
describe a just person, was important. From this emerged the general concept of
dikaiosune, or justice, as a virtue that might be applied to a political society. The issue of
what does and does not qualify as just could logically lead to controversy regarding the
origin of justice, as well as that concerning its essence. Perhaps an effective aid to
appreciating the power of their thought is to view it in the context of the teachings of the
Sophists, those itinerant teachers of fifth-century ancient Greece who tried to pass
themselves off as “wise” men. In his trial, Socrates was at pains to dissociate himself from
them, after his conviction refusing to save himself, as a typical Sophist would, by
employing an act of civil disobedience to escape (Dialogues, pp. 24-26, 52-56; 18b-19d,
50a-54b); Plato is more responsible than anyone else for giving them the bad name that
sticks with them to this present time; and Aristotle follows him in having little use for
them as instructors of rhetoric, philosophy, values, and the keys to success. So what did
these three great philosophers (literally “lovers of wisdom”) find so ideologically
objectionable about the Sophists? The brief answer is, their relativism and their
skepticism. The first important one, Protagoras, captures the former with his famous
saying, “Man is the measure of all things—of the things that are, that they are, and of the
things that are not, that they are not”; and he speaks to the latter with a declaration of
agnosticism regarding the existence of divinities. Gorgias (Plato named dialogues after
both of them) is remembered for a striking three-part statement of skepticism, holding
that nothing really exists, that, even if something did exist, we could not grasp it, and that,
even if we could grasp something real, we could never express it to anyone else. If all
values are subjective and/or unknowable, then what counts as just gets reduced to a
matter of shifting opinion. We can easily anticipate how readily Sophists would apply
such relativism and skepticism to justice. For example, Thrasymachus (who figures into
the first book of Plato’s Republic) is supposed to have said that there must not be any gods
who care about us humans because, while justice is our greatest good, men commonly get
away with injustice. But the most significant Sophist statement regarding justice arguably
comes from Antiphon, who employs the characteristic distinction between custom
(nomos) and nature (physis) with devastating effect. He claims that the laws of justice,
matters of convention, should be obeyed when other people are observing us and may
hold us accountable; but, otherwise, we should follow the demands of nature. The laws of
justice, extrinsically derived, presumably involve serving the good of others, the demands

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of nature, which are internal, serving self-interest. He even suggests that obeying the laws
of justice often renders us helpless victims of those who do not (First, pp. 211, 232, 274,
264-266). If there is any such objective value as natural justice, then it is reasonable for
us to attempt a rational understanding of it. On the other hand, if justice is merely a
construction of customary agreement, then such a quest is doomed to frustration and
failure. With this as a backdrop, we should be able to see what motivated Plato and
Aristotle to seek a strong alternative.

a. Plato

Plato’s masterful Republic (to which we have already referred) is most obviously a careful
analysis of justice, although the book is far more wide-ranging than that would suggest.
Socrates, Plato’s teacher and primary spokesman in the dialogue, gets critically involved
in a discussion of that very issue with three interlocutors early on. Socrates provokes
Cephalus to say something which he spins into the view that justice simply boils down to
always telling the truth and repaying one’s debts. Socrates easily demolishes this
simplistic view with the effective logical technique of a counter-example: if a friend lends
you weapons, when he is sane, but then wants them back to do great harm with them,
because he has become insane, surely you should not return them at that time and should
even lie to him, if necessary to prevent great harm. Secondly, Polemarchus, the son of
Cephalus, jumps into the discussion, espousing the familiar, traditional view that justice is
all about giving people what is their due. But the problem with this bromide is that of
determining who deserves what. Polemarchus may reflect the cultural influence of the
Sophists, in specifying that it depends on whether people are our friends, deserving good
from us, or foes, deserving harm. It takes more effort for Socrates to destroy this
conventional theory, but he proceeds in stages: (1) we are all fallible regarding who are
true friends, as opposed to true enemies, so that appearance versus reality makes it
difficult to say how we should treat people; (2) it seems at least as significant whether
people are good or bad as whether they are our friends or our foes; and (3) it is not at all
clear that justice should excuse, let alone require, our deliberately harming anyone
(Republic, pp. 5-11; 331b-335e). If the first inadequate theory of justice was too
simplistic, this second one was downright dangerous.

The third, and final, inadequate account presented here is that of the Sophist
Thrasymachus. He roars into the discussion, expressing his contempt for all the
poppycock produced thus far and boldly asserting that justice is relative to whatever is
advantageous to the stronger people (what we sometimes call the “might makes right”
theory). But who are the “stronger” people? Thrasymachus cannot mean physically
stronger, for then inferior humans would be superior to finer folks like them. He clarifies
his idea that he is referring to politically powerful people in leadership positions. But,
next, even the strongest leaders are sometimes mistaken about what is to their own
advantage, raising the question of whether people ought to do what leaders suppose is to
their own advantage or only what actually is so. (Had Thrasymachus phrased this in
terms of what serves the interest of society itself, the same appearance versus reality
distinction would apply.) But, beyond this, Socrates rejects the exploitation model of
leadership, which sees political superiors as properly exploiting inferiors (Thrasymachus

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uses the example of a shepherd fattening up and protecting his flock of sheep for his own
selfish gain), substituting a service model in its place (his example is of the good medical
doctor, who practices his craft primarily for the welfare of patients). So, now, if anything
like this is to be accepted as our model for interpersonal relations, then Thrasymachus
embraces the “injustice” of self-interest as better than serving the interests of others in the
name of “justice.” Well, then, how are we to interpret whether the life of justice or that of
injustice is better? Socrates suggests three criteria for judgment: which is the smarter,
which is the more secure, and which is the happier way of life; he argues that the just life
is better on all three counts. Thus, by the end of the first book, it looks as if Socrates has
trounced all three of these inadequate views of justice, although he himself claims to be
dissatisfied because we have only shown what justice is not, with no persuasive account of
its actual nature (ibid., pp. 14-21, 25-31; 338c-345b, 349c-354c). Likewise, in Gorgias,
Plato has Callicles espouse the view that, whatever conventions might seem to dictate,
natural justice dictates that superior people should rule over and derive greater benefits
than inferior people, that society artificially levels people because of a bias in favor of
equality. Socrates is then made to criticize this theory by analyzing what sort of
superiority would be relevant and then arguing that Callicles is erroneously advocating
injustice, a false value, rather than the genuine one of true justice (Gorgias, pp. 52-66;
482d-493c; see, also, Laws, pp. 100-101, 172; 663, 714 for another articulation of
something like Thrasymachus’ position).

In the second book of Plato’s Republic, his brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, take over
the role of primary interlocutors. They quickly make it clear that they are not satisfied
with Socrates’ defense of justice. Glaucon reminds us that there are three different sorts
of goods—intrinsic ones, such as joy, merely instrumental ones, such as money-making,
and ones that are both instrumentally and intrinsically valuable, such as health—in order
to ask which type of good is justice. Socrates responds that justice belongs in the third
category, rendering it the richest sort of good. In that case, Glaucon protests, Socrates has
failed to prove his point. If his debate with Thrasymachus accomplished anything at all, it
nevertheless did not establish any intrinsic value in justice. So Glaucon will play devil’s
advocate and resurrect the Sophist position, in order to challenge Socrates to refute it in
its strongest form. He proposes to do this in three steps: first, he will argue that justice is
merely a conventional compromise (between harming others with impunity and being
their helpless victims), agreed to by people for their own selfish good and socially
enforced (this is a crude version of what will later become the social contract theory of
justice in Hobbes); second, he illustrates our allegedly natural selfish preference for being
unjust if we can get away with it by the haunting story of the ring of Gyges, which provides
its wearer with the power to become invisible at will and, thus, to get away with the most
wicked of injustices—to which temptation everyone would, sooner or later, rationally
succumb; and, third, he tries to show that it is better to live unjustly than justly if one can
by contrasting the unjust person whom everyone thinks just with the just person who is
thought to be unjust, claiming that, of course, it would be better to be the former than the
latter. Almost as soon as Glaucon finishes, his brother Adeimantus jumps in to add two
more points to the case against justice: first, parents instruct their children to behave
justly not because it is good in itself but merely because it tends to pay off for them; and,
secondly, religious teachings are ineffective in encouraging us to avoid injustice because

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the gods will punish it and to pursue justice because the gods will reward it, since the gods
may not even exist or, if they do, they may well not care about us or, if they are concerned
about human behavior, they can be flattered with prayers and bribed with sacrifices to let
us get away with wrongdoing (Republic, pp. 33-42; 357b-366e). So the challenge for
Socrates posed by Plato’s brothers is to show the true nature of justice and that it is
intrinsically valuable rather than only desirable for its contingent consequences.

In defending justice against this Sophist critique, Plato has Socrates construct his own
positive theory. This is set up by means of an analogy comparing justice, on the large
scale, as it applies to society, and on a smaller scale, as it applies to an individual soul.
Thus justice is seen as an essential virtue of both a good political state and a good
personal character. The strategy hinges on the idea that the state is like the individual
writ large—each comprising three main parts such that it is crucial how they are
interrelated—and that analyzing justice on the large scale will facilitate our doing so on
the smaller one. In Book IV, after cobbling together his blueprint of the ideal republic,
Socrates asks Glaucon where justice is to be found, but they agree they will have to search
for it together. They agree that, if they have succeeded in establishing the foundations of
a “completely good” society, it would have to comprise four pivotal virtues: wisdom,
courage, temperance, and justice. If they can properly identify the other three of those
four, whatever remains that is essential to a completely good society must be justice.
Wisdom is held to be prudent judgment among leaders; courage is the quality in
defenders or protectors whereby they remain steadfast in their convictions and
commitments in the face of fear; and temperance (or moderation) is the virtue to be found
in all three classes of citizens, but especially in the producers, allowing them all to agree
harmoniously that the leaders should lead and everyone else follow. So now, by this
process-of-elimination analysis, whatever is left that is essential to a “completely good”
society will allegedly be justice. It then turns out that “justice is doing one’s own work and
not meddling with what isn’t one’s own.” So the positive side of socio-political justice is
each person doing the tasks assigned to him or her; the negative side is not interfering
with others doing their appointed tasks. Now we move from this macro-level of political
society to the psychological micro-level of an individual soul, pressing the analogy
mentioned above. Plato has Socrates present an argument designed to show that reason
in the soul, corresponding to the leaders or “guardians” of the state, is different from both
the appetites, corresponding to the productive class, and the spirited part of the soul,
corresponding to the state’s defenders or “auxiliaries” and that the appetites are different
from spirit. Having established the parallel between the three classes of the state and the
three parts of the soul, the analogy suggests that a “completely good” soul would also have
to have the same four pivotal virtues. A good soul is wise, in having good judgment
whereby reason rules; it is courageous in that its spirited part is ready, willing, and able to
fight for its convictions in the face of fear; and it is temperate or moderate, harmoniously
integrated because all of its parts, especially its dangerous appetitive desires, agree that it
should be always under the command of reason. And, again, what is left that is essential
is justice, whereby each part of the soul does the work intended by nature, none of them
interfering with the functioning of any other parts. We are also told in passing that,
corresponding to these four pivotal virtues of the moral life, there are four pivotal vices,
foolishness, cowardice, self-indulgence, and injustice. One crucial question remains

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unanswered: can we show that justice, thus understood, is better than injustice in itself
and not merely for its likely consequences? The answer is that, of course, we can because
justice is the health of the soul. Just as health is intrinsically and not just instrumentally
good, so is justice; injustice is a disease—bad and to be avoided even if it isn’t yet having
any undesirable consequences, even if nobody is aware of it (ibid., pp. 43, 102-121; 368d,
427d-445b; it can readily be inferred that this conception of justice is non-egalitarian; but,
to see this point made explicitly, see Laws, pp. 229-230; 756-757).

Now let us quickly see how Plato applies this theory of justice to a particular social issue,
before briefly considering the theory critically. In a remarkably progressive passage in
Book V of his Republic, Plato argues for equal opportunity for women. He holds that,
even though women tend to be physically weaker than men, this should not prove an
insuperable barrier to their being educated for the same socio-political functions as men,
including those of the top echelons of leadership responsibility. While the body has a
gender, it is the soul that is virtuous or vicious. Despite their different roles in
procreation, child-bearing, giving birth, and nursing babies, there is no reason, in
principle, why a woman should not be as intelligent and virtuous—including as just—as
men, if properly trained. As much as possible, men and women should share the
workload in common (Republic, pp. 125-131; 451d-457d). We should note, however, that
the rationale is the common good of the community rather than any appeal to what we
might consider women’s rights. Nevertheless, many of us today are sympathetic to this
application of justice in support of a view that would not become popular for another two
millennia.

What of Plato’s theory of justice itself? The negative part of it—his critique of inadequate
views of justice—is a masterful series of arguments against attempts to reduce justice to a
couple of simplistic rules (Cephalus), to treating people merely in accord with how we feel
about them (Polemarchus), and to the power-politics mentality of exploiting them for our
own selfish purposes (Thrasymachus). All of these views of a just person or society
introduce the sort of relativism and/or subjectivism we have identified with the Sophists.
Thus, in refuting them, Plato, in effect, is refuting the Sophists. However, after the big
buildup, the positive part—what he himself maintains justice is—turns out to be a
letdown. His conception of justice reduces it to order. While some objective sense of
order is relevant to justice, this does not adequately capture the idea of respecting all
persons, individually and collectively, as free rational agents. The analogy between the
state and the soul is far too fragile to support the claim that they must agree in each
having three “parts.” The process-of-elimination approach to determining the nature of
justice only works if those four virtues exhaust the list of what is essential here. But do
they? What, for example, of the Christian virtue of love or the secular virtue of
benevolence? Finally, the argument from analogy, showing that justice must be
intrinsically, and not merely instrumentally, valuable (because it is like the combination
good of health) proves, on critical consideration, to fail. Plato’s theory is far more
impressive than the impressionistic view of the Sophists; and it would prove extremely
influential in advocating justice as an objective, disinterested value. Nevertheless, one
cannot help hoping that a more cogent theory might yet be developed.

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b. Aristotle
After working with Plato at his Academy for a couple of decades, Aristotle was
understandably most influenced by his teacher, also adopting, for example, a virtue
theory of ethics. Yet part of Aristotle’s greatness stems from his capacity for critical
appropriation, and he became arguably Plato’s most able critic as well as his most famous
follower in wanting to develop a credible alternative to Sophism. Book V of his great
Nicomachean Ethics deals in considerable depth with the moral and political virtue of
justice. It begins vacuously enough with the circular claim that it is the condition that
renders us just agents inclined to desire and practice justice. But his analysis soon
becomes more illuminating when he specifies it in terms of what is lawful and fair. What
is in accordance with the law of a state is thought to be conducive to the common good
and/or to that of its rulers. In general, citizens should obey such law in order to be just.
The problem is that civil law can itself be unjust in the sense of being unfair to some, so
that we need to consider special justice as a function of fairness. He analyzes this into two
sorts: distributive justice involves dividing benefits and burdens fairly among members of
a community, while corrective justice requires us, in some circumstances, to try to restore
a fair balance in interpersonal relations where it has been lost. If a member of a
community has been unfairly benefited or burdened with more or less than is deserved in
the way of social distributions, then corrective justice can be required, as, for example, by
a court of law. Notice that Aristotle is no more an egalitarian than Plato was—while a sort
of social reciprocity may be needed, it must be of a proportional sort rather than equal.
Like all moral virtues, for Aristotle, justice is a rational mean between bad extremes.
Proportional equality or equity involves the “intermediate” position between someone’s
unfairly getting “less” than is deserved and unfairly getting “more” at another’s expense.
The “mean” of justice lies between the vices of getting too much and getting too little,
relative to what one deserves, these being two opposite types of injustice, one of
“disproportionate excess,” the other of disproportionate “deficiency” (Nicomachean, pp.
67-74, 76; 1129a-1132b, 1134a).

Political justice, of both the lawful and the fair sort, is held to apply only to those who are
citizens of a political community (a polis) by virtue of being “free and either
proportionately or numerically equal,” those whose interpersonal relations are governed
by the rule of law, for law is a prerequisite of political justice and injustice. But, since
individuals tend to be selfishly biased, the law should be a product of reason rather than
of particular rulers. Aristotle is prepared to distinguish between what is naturally just and
unjust, on the one hand, such as whom one may legitimately kill, and what is merely
conventionally just or unjust, on the other, such as a particular system of taxation for
some particular society. But the Sophists are wrong to suggest that all political justice is
the artificial result of legal convention and to discount all universal natural justice (ibid.,
pp. 77-78; 1134a-1135a; cf. Rhetoric, pp. 105-106; 1374a-b). What is allegedly at stake
here is our developing a moral virtue that is essential to the well-being of society, as well
as to the flourishing of any human being. Another valuable dimension of Aristotle’s
discussion here is his treatment of the relationship between justice and decency, for
sometimes following the letter of the law would violate fairness or reasonable equity. A
decent person might selfishly benefit from being a stickler regarding following the law

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exactly but decide to take less or give more for the sake of the common good. In this way,
decency can correct the limitations of the law and represents a higher form of justice
(Nicomachean, pp. 83-84; 1137a-1138a).

In his Politics, Aristotle further considers political justice and its relation to equality. We
can admit that the former involves the latter but must carefully specify by maintaining
that justice involves equality “not for everyone, only for equals.” He agrees with Plato
that political democracy is intrinsically unjust because, by its very nature, it tries to treat
unequals as if they were equals. Justice rather requires inequality for people who are
unequal. But, then, oligarchy is also intrinsically unjust insofar as it involves treating
equals as unequal because of some contingent disparity, of birth, wealth, etc. Rather,
those in a just political society who contribute the most to the common good will receive a
larger share, because they thus exhibit more political virtue, than those who are inferior in
that respect; it would be simply wrong, from the perspective of political justice, for them
to receive equal shares. Thus political justice must be viewed as a function of the common
good of a community. It is the attempt to specify the equality or inequality among people,
he admits, that constitutes a key “problem” of “political philosophy.” He thinks we can all
readily agree that political justice requires “proportional” rather than numerical equality.
But inferiors have a vested interest in thinking that those who are equal in some respect
should be equal in all respects, while superiors are biased, in the opposite direction, to
imagine that those who are unequal in some way should be unequal in all ways. Thus, for
instance, those who are equally citizens are not necessarily equal in political virtue, and
those who are financially richer are not necessarily morally or mentally superior. What is
relevant here is “equality according to merit,” though Aristotle cannot precisely specify
what, exactly, counts as merit, for how much it must count, who is to measure it, and by
what standard. All he can suggest, for example in some of his comments on the desirable
aristocratic government, is that it must involve moral and intellectual virtue (Politics, pp.
79, 81, 86, 134, 136, 151, 153; 1280a, 1281a, 1282b, 1301a-1302a, 1307a, 1308a).

Let us now consider how Aristotle applies his own theory of justice to the social problem
of alleged superiors and inferiors, before attempting a brief critique of that theory. While
Plato accepted slavery as a legitimate social institution but argued for equal opportunity
for women, in his Politics, Aristotle accepts sexual inequality while actively defending
slavery. Anyone who is inferior intellectually and morally is properly socio-politically
inferior in a well-ordered polis. A human being can be naturally autonomous or not, “a
natural slave” being defective in rationality and morality, and thus naturally fit to belong
to a superior; such a human can rightly be regarded as “a piece of property,” or another
person’s “tool for action.” Given natural human inequality, it is allegedly inappropriate
that all should rule or share in ruling. Aristotle holds that some are marked as superior
and fit to rule from birth, while others are inferior and marked from birth to be ruled by
others. This supposedly applies not only to ethnic groups, but also to the genders, and he
unequivocally asserts that males are “naturally superior” and females “naturally inferior,”
the former being fit to rule and the latter to be ruled. The claim is that it is naturally
better for women themselves that they be ruled by men, as it is better for “natural slaves”
that they should be ruled by those who are “naturally free.” Now Aristotle does argue only
for natural slavery. It was the custom (notice the distinction, used here, between custom

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and nature) in antiquity to make slaves of conquered enemies who become prisoners of
war. But Aristotle (like Plato) believes that Greeks are born for free and rational self-rule,
unlike non-Greeks (“barbarians”), who are naturally inferior and incapable of it. So the
fact that a human being is defeated or captured is no assurance that he is fit for slavery, as
an unjust war may have been imposed on a nobler society by a more primitive one. While
granting that Greeks and non-Greeks, as well as men and women, are all truly human,
Aristotle justifies the alleged inequality among them based on what he calls the
“deliberative” capacity of their rational souls. The natural slave’s rational soul supposedly
lacks this, a woman has it but it lacks the authority for her to be autonomous, a (free
male) child has it in some developmental stage, and a naturally superior free male has it
developed and available for governance (ibid., pp. 7-11, 23; 1254a-1255a, 1260a).

This application creates a helpful path to a critique of Aristotle’s theory of justice. If we

feel that it is unjust to discriminate against people merely on account of their gender
and/or ethnic origin, as philosophers, we try to identify the rational root of the problem.
If our moral intuitions are correct against Aristotle (and some would even call his views
here sexist and racist), he may be mistaken about a matter of fact or about a value
judgment or both. Surely he is wrong about all women and non-Greeks, as such, being
essentially inferior to Greek males in relevant ways, for cultural history has demonstrated
that, when given opportunities, women and non-Greeks have shown themselves to be
significantly equal. But it appears that Aristotle may also have been wrong in leaping
from the factual claim of inequality to the value judgment that it is therefore right that
inferiors ought to be socially, legally, politically, and economically subordinate—like Plato
and others of his culture (for which he is an apologist here), Aristotle seems to have no
conception of human rights as such. Like Plato, he is arguing for an objective theory of
personal and social justice as a preferable alternative to the relativistic one of the
Sophists. Even though there is something attractive about Aristotle’s empirical (as
opposed to Plato’s idealistic) approach to justice, it condemns him to the dubious position
of needing to derive claims about how things ought to be from factual claims about the
way things actually are. It also leaves Aristotle with little viable means of establishing a
universal perspective that will respect the equal dignity of all humans, as such. Thus his
theory, like Plato’s, fails adequately to respect all persons as free, rational agents. They
were so focused on the ways in which people are unequal, that they could not appreciate
any fundamental moral equality that might provide a platform for natural human rights.

2. Medieval Christianity
When Christian thinkers sought to develop their own philosophies in the middle ages
(“medieval” meaning the middle ages and “middle” in the sense of being between
antiquity and modernity), they found precious basic building-blocks in ancient thought.
This included such important post-Aristotelians as the enormously influential Roman
eclectic Cicero, such prominent Stoics as Marcus Aurelius (a Roman emperor) and
Epictetus (a Greek slave of the Romans), and neo-Platonists like Plotinus. But the two
dominant paths that medieval philosophy would follow for its roughly thousand year
history had been blazed by Plato and Aristotle. More specifically, Augustine uses Platonic
(and neo-Platonic) philosophy to the extent that he can reconcile it with Christian

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thought; Aquinas, many centuries later, develops a great synthesis of Christian thought
(including that of Augustine) and Aristotelian philosophy. A great difference, however,
between their philosophies and those of Hellenic thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle
stems from the commitment of these Christians to the authority of the Hebrew and
Christian scriptures. Aquinas would later agree with Augustine (who is accepting the
mandate of Isaiah 7:9) that the quest for philosophical understanding should begin with
belief in religious traditions (Choice, pp. 3, 32). Both the Old Testament and the New
Testament call for just behavior on the part of righteous people, with injustice being a sin
against God’s law, the references being too numerous to cite (but see Job 9:2, Proverbs
4:18, Proverbs 10:6-7, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Matthew 5:45, Philippians 4:8, and Hebrews
12:23). The claim that God’s justice will prevail in the form of divine judgment is both a
promise for the just and a threat for the unjust. Righteousness is identified with mercy as
well as with justice (e.g., Micah 6:8 and Matthew 5:7) and involves our relationship with
God as well as with fellow humans. The ten commandments of the Old Testament
(Exodus 20:1-17) are prescriptions regarding how the righteous are to relate to God as
well as to one another. In the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth interprets how the
righteous are to live (Matthew 22:36-40) in terms of love of both God and their neighbors;
the concept of one’s neighbor is meant to extend even to strangers, as is illustrated in the
parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). In the Beatitudes beginning the Sermon
on the Mount, Jesus expands on this gospel of love by advocating that his followers go
beyond the duties of justice to behave with compassion in certain supererogatory ways
(Matthew 5:3-12). All of this scriptural tradition essentially influenced medieval thinkers
such as Augustine and Aquinas in a way that distinguishes them from ancient Greek
philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle.

a. Augustine

Aurelius Augustine was born and raised in the Roman province of North Africa; during
his life, he experienced the injustices, the corruption, and the erosion of the Roman
Empire. This personal experience, in dialectical tension with the ideals of Christianity,
provided him with a dramatic backdrop for his religious axiology. Philosophically, he was
greatly influenced by such neo-Platonists as Plotinus. His Christian Platonism is evident
in his philosophical dialogue On Free Choice of the Will, in which he embraces Plato’s
view of four central moral virtues (which came to be called “cardinal,” from the Latin
word for hinges, these being metaphorically imaginable as the four hinges on which the
door of morality pivots). These are prudence (substituted for wisdom), fortitude or
courage, temperance, and justice. His conception of justice is the familiar one of “the
virtue by which all people are given their due.” But this is connected to something new
and distinctly Christian—the distinction between the temporal law, such as the law of the
state, and the eternal, divine law of God. The eternal law establishes the order of God’s
divine providence. And, since all temporal or human law must be consistent with God’s
eternal law, Augustine can draw the striking conclusion that, strictly speaking, “an unjust
law is no law at all,” an oxymoron (Choice, pp. 20, 11, 8; cf. Religion, p. 89, for an analysis
of justice that relates it to love). Thus a civil law of the state that violates God’s eternal
law is not morally binding and can be legitimately disobeyed in good conscience. This
was to have a profound and ongoing influence on Christian ethics.

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In his masterpiece, The City of God, Augustine draws the dramatic conclusion from this
position that the Roman Empire was never a truly just political society. He expresses his
disgust over its long history of “revolting injustice.” Rome was always a pagan, earthly
city, and “true justice” can allegedly only be found in a Christian “city of God.” The just,
rather than the powerful, should rule for the common good, rather than serving their own
self-interest. He strikingly compares unjust societies, based on might rather than on
right, to “gangs of criminals on a large scale,” for, without justice, a kingdom or empire is
merely ruled by the arbitrary fiat of some leader(s). A genuinely just society must be
based on Christian love, its peaceful order established by the following of two basic rules—
that people harm nobody and that they should try to help everyone to the extent that they
can do so (City, pp. 75, 67, 75, 138-139, 873).

Despite his Christian commitment to love and peace, Augustine is not a pacifist and can
support “just wars” as morally permissible and even as morally obligatory. Every war
aims at the order of some sort of established peace; while an unjust war aims to establish
an unjust peace of domination, a just war aims to establish a “just peace.” He agrees with
Cicero that a just war must be defensive rather than aggressive (ibid., pp. 861-862, 866,
868-869, 1031). In a letter (# 138) to Marcellinus, Augustine uses scripture to deny that
Christian doctrine is committed to pacifism, though wars should be waged, when
necessary, with a benevolent love for the enemy. In a letter (# 189) to Boniface, he
maintains that godly, righteous people can serve in the military, again citing scripture to
support his position. He repeats the view that a just war should aim at establishing a
lasting and just peace and holds that one must keep faith with both one’s allies and one’s
enemies, even in the awful heat of warfare. Augustine’s most important treatment of the
just war theory is contained in his writing Against Faustus the Manichean, where he
analyzes the evils of war in terms of the desire to harm others, the lust for revenge and
cruelty, and the wish to dominate other people. In addition to the condition that a just
war must aim at establishing a just and lasting peace, a second condition is that it must be
declared by a leader or body of leaders, with the “authority” to do so, after deliberating
that it is justified. Again Augustine makes it clear that he is no pacifist (Political, pp. 209,
219-223).

While this is a very valuable application of his theory of justice, this doctrine of the just
war standing the test of time to this very day, the general theory on which it is based is
more problematic. The unoriginal (and uninspired) conception of justice as giving others
their due had already become familiar to the point of being trite. It remains vulnerable to
the serious problems of vagueness already considered: what is the relevant criterion
whereby it should be determined who deserves what, and who is fit to make such a
judgment? But, also, Augustine should have an advantage over the ancient Greeks in
arriving at a theory of justice based on universal equality on account of the Christian
doctrine (not to mention because of the influences of Cicero, the Stoics, and Plotinus) that
all humans are equally children of God. Unfortunately, his zealous Christian evangelism
leads him to identify justice itself, in a divisive, intolerant, polemical way, with the
Christian church’s idea of what God requires, so that only a Christian society can possibly
qualify as just, as if a just political society would need to be a theocracy. Thus, while he
has some sense of some moral or spiritual equality among humans, it does not issue in

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equal respect for all persons as free, rational agents, allowing him, for example, to accept
the institution of slavery as a just punishment for sin, despite the belief that God
originally created humans as naturally free, because of the idea that we have all been
corrupted by original sin (City, pp. 874-875).

b. Aquinas

As Augustine is arguably the greatest Christian Platonist, so Thomas Aquinas, from what
is now Italy, is the greatest Christian Aristotelian. Nevertheless, as we shall see, his theory
of justice is also quite compatible with Augustine’s. Aquinas discusses the same four
cardinal moral virtues, including that of justice, in his masterpiece, the multi-volume
Summa Theologica. No more a socio-political egalitarian than Plato, Aristotle, or
Augustine, he analyzes it as calling for proportional equality, or equity, rather than any
sort of strict numerical equality, and as a function of natural right rather than of positive
law. Natural right ultimately stems from the eternal, immutable will of God, who created
the world and governs it with divine providence. Natural justice must always take
precedence over the contingent agreements of our human conventions. Human law must
never contravene natural law, which is reason’s way of understanding God’s eternal law.
He offers us an Aristotelian definition, maintaining that “justice is a habit whereby a man
renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will.” As a follower of Aristotle,
he defines concepts in terms of genus and species. In this case, the general category to
which justice belongs is that it is a moral habit of a virtuous character. What specifically
distinguishes it from other moral virtues is that by justice, a person is consistently
committed to respecting the rights of others over time. Strictly speaking, the virtue of
justice always concerns interpersonal relations, so that it is only metaphorically that we
can speak of a person being just to himself. In addition to legal justice, whereby a person
is committed to serving the “common good” of the entire community, there is “particular
justice,” which requires that we treat individuals in certain ways. Justice is a rational
mean between the vicious extremes of deficiency and excess, having to do with our
external actions regarding others. Like many of his predecessors, Aquinas considers
justice to be preeminent among the moral virtues. He agrees with Aristotle in analyzing
particular justice into two types, which he calls “distributive” and “commutative”; the
former governs the proportional distribution of common goods, while the latter concerns
the reciprocal dealings between individuals in their voluntary transactions (Law, pp. 137,
139, 145, 147, 155, 160, 163, 165).

Aquinas applies this theory of justice to many social problems. He maintains that natural
law gives us the right to own private property. Given this natural right, theft
(surreptitiously stealing another’s property) and robbery (taking it openly by force or the
threat of violence) must be unjust, although an exception can arise if the thief and his
family are starving in an environment of plenty, in which case, stealing is justified and,
strictly speaking, not theft or robbery at all. Secondly, Aquinas refines the Augustinian
just war theory by articulating three conditions that must jointly be met in order for the
waging of war to be just: (a) it must be declared by a leader with socio-political authority;
(b) it must be declared for a “just cause,” in that the people attacked must be at fault and
thus deserve it; and (c) those going to war must intend good and the avoidance of evil. It

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is not justifiable deliberately to slay innocent noncombatants. It is legitimate to kill
another in self-defense, though one’s intention should be that of saving oneself, the taking
of the other’s life merely being the necessary means to that good end (this, by the way, is
the source of what later evolves into the moral principle of “double effect”). Even acting
in self-defense must be done in reasonable proportion to the situation, so that it is wrong
to employ more force than is necessary to stop aggression. Even killing another
unintentionally can be unjust if done in the course of committing another crime or
through criminal negligence. Thirdly, while Aquinas thinks we should tolerate the
religious beliefs of those who have never been Christians, so that it would be unjust to
persecute them, he thinks it just to use force against heretics who adhered to but then
rejected orthodox Christianity, even to the point of hurting them, as in the Inquisition, for
the good of their own souls. In an extreme case of recalcitrant heretics who will not be
persuaded to return to the truth of Christianity, it is allegedly just that they should be
“exterminated” by execution rather than being allowed to corrupt other Christians by
espousing their heterodox religious views. Fourth, like Augustine, Aquinas accepts
slavery, so long as no Christian is the slave of a non-Christian (ibid., pp. 178-183, 186, 221,
224, 226, 228, 250, 256, 253), and considers it just that women should be politically and
economically “subject” to men. Although he considers women to be fully human, he
agrees with Aristotle that they are “defective and misbegotten,” the consequence allegedly
being inferior rational discretion (Summa, pp. 466-467).

From a critical perspective, his general theory of justice is, by now, quite familiar, a sort of
blend of Aristotle’s and Augustine’s, and marked by the same flaws as theirs. His
applications of the theory can be regarded as indicative of its problematic character: (a)
given the assumption of a right to own private property, his discussion of the injustices of
theft and robbery seems quite reasonable; (b) assuming that we have a right to self-
defense, his analysis of the legitimacy of killing in a just war does also; (c) his attempted
defense of the persecution of religious heretics, even unto death, invites suspicions of
dogmatic, intolerant fanaticism on his part; and (d) his acceptance of slavery and the
political and economic subjection of women as just is indicative of an empirical
orientation that is too uncritically accepting of the status quo. Here again the Christian
belief that all humans are personal creatures of a loving God is vitiated by an insufficient
commitment to the implications of that, regarding socio-political equality, so that only
some humans are fully respected as free, rational agents. The rationalistic theories of
Plato and Augustine and the classical empirical theories of Aristotle and Aquinas all leave
us hoping that preferable alternatives might be forthcoming.

3. Early Modernity
Although only half as much time elapses between Aquinas and Hobbes as did between
Augustine and Aquinas, from the perspective of intellectual history, the period of
modernism represents a staggering sea-change. We have neither the time nor the space
to consider the complex causal nexus that explains this fact; but, for our purposes, suffice
it to say that the Protestant Reformation, the revolution of the new science, and the
progressive willingness publicly to challenge authority (both political and religious)
converge to generate a strikingly different philosophical mentality in the seventeenth

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century. In the previous century, the Protestant Reformation shattered the hegemony of
the Roman Catholic Church, so that thinkers need not feel so constrained to adhere to
established orthodoxy. The naturalistic worldview of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries that eventuated in an empirical and experimental (non-dogmatic) methodology
in both natural and political science set an example for philosophers. Thinkers of the
modern era became increasingly comfortable breaking from the mainstream to pursue
their own independent reasoning. Although the influence of great ancient philosophers
like Plato and Aristotle and of great medieval thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas
would persist, there was no returning to their bygone perspectives. This vitally affects
moral and political theory, in general, and views on justice, in particular. As we shall see
in this section, views of justice as relative to human needs and interests became
prominent as they had not been for a couple of millennia. This will locate Hobbes and
Hume closer to the Sophists than had been fashionable since pre-Socratic times in
philosophy, regarding justice as a social construct.

a. Hobbes

Whereas Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas all offer accounts of justice that
represent alternatives to Sophism, Thomas Hobbes, the English radical empiricist, can be
seen as resurrecting the Sophist view that we can have no objective knowledge of it as a
moral or political absolute value. His radical empiricism does not allow him to claim to
know anything not grounded in concrete sense experience. This leads him in Leviathan,
his masterpiece, to conclude that anything real must be material or corporeal in nature,
that body is the one and only sort of reality; this is the philosophical position of
materialistic monism, which rules out the possibility of any spiritual substance. On this
view, “a man is a living body,” only different in kind from other animals, but with no
purely spiritual soul separating him from the beasts. Like other animals, man is driven by
instinct and appetite, his reason being a capacity of his brain for calculating means to
desirable ends. Another controversial claim here is that all actions, including all human
actions, are causally determined to occur as they do by the complex of their antecedent
conditions; this is causal determinism. What we consider voluntary actions are simply
those we perform in which the will plays a significant causal role, human freedom
amounting to nothing more exalted than the absence of external restraints. Like other
animals, we are always fundamentally motivated by a survival instinct and ultimately
driven by self-interest in all of our voluntary actions; this is psychological egoism. It is
controversial whether he also holds that self-interest should always be our fundamental
motivation, which is ethical egoism. In his most famous Chapter XIII, Hobbes paints a
dramatic and disturbing portrait of what human life would be like in a state of nature—
that is, beyond the conventional order of civil society. We would be rationally distrustful
of one another, inclined to be anti-social, viewing others as threats to our own satisfaction
and well-being. Interpersonal antagonism would be natural; and, since there would exist
no moral distinctions between right and wrong, just and unjust, violent force and
fraudulent deception would be desirable virtues rather than objectionable vices. In short,
this would be a state of “war of every man against every man,” a condition in which we
could not reasonably expect to survive for long or to enjoy any quality of life for as long as
we did. We are smart enough to realize that this would be a condition in which, as

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Hobbes famously writes, “the life of man” would inevitably be “solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short.” Fortunately, our natural passions of fear, desire, and hope motivate
us to use reason to calculate how we might escape this hellish state. Reason discovers a
couple of basic laws of nature, indicating how we should prudently behave if we are to
have any reasonable opportunity to survive, let alone to thrive. The first of these is
double-sided: the positive side holds that we should try to establish peace with others, for
our own selfish good, if we can; the negative side holds that, if we cannot do that, then we
should do whatever it takes to destroy whoever might be a threat to our interests. The
second law of nature maintains that, in order to achieve peace with others, we must be
willing to give up our right to harm them, so long as they agree to reciprocate by
renouncing their right to harm us. This “mutual transferring of right,” established by
reciprocal agreement, is the so-called social contract that constitutes the basis of civil
society; and the agreement can be made either explicitly or implicitly (Leviathan, pp. 261-
262, 459-460, 79, 136, 82, 95, 74-78, 80-82; for comparable material, see Elements, pp.
78-84, 103-114, as well as Citizen, pp. 109-119, 123-124).

What is conspicuously missing here is any sense of natural justice or injustice. In the
state of nature, all moral values are strictly relative to our desires: whatever seems likely
to satisfy our desires appears “good” to us, and whatever seems likely to frustrate our
desires we regard as “evil.” It’s all relative to what we imaginatively associate with our
own appetites and aversions. But as we move from this state of nature to the state of civil
society by means of the social contract, we create the rules of justice by means of the
agreements we strike with one another. Prior to the conventions of the contract, we were
morally free to try to do whatever we wished. But when a covenant is made, then to break
it is unjust; and the definition of injustice is no other than the not performance of
covenant. What is not unjust, is just in civil society. This turns out to be the third law of
nature, that, in the name of justice, we must try to keep our agreements. In civil society,
we may justly do anything we have not, at least implicitly, committed ourselves not to do.
A just person typically does just actions, though committing one or a few unjust actions
does not automatically render that person unjust, especially if the unjust behavior stems
from an error or sudden passion; on the other hand, a person who is typically inclined to
commit unjust actions is a guilty person. Still, if we are as selfishly motivated by our own
desires as Hobbes maintains, why should we not break our word and voluntarily commit
injustice, if doing so is likely to pay off for us and we imagine we might get away with it
(remember the problem posed by Glaucon with the story of the ring of Gyges)? Clearly
one more element is needed to prevent the quick disintegration of the rules of justice so
artificially constructed by interpersonal agreement. This is the power of sovereign
authority. We need laws codifying the rules of justice; and they must be so vigilantly and
relentlessly enforced by absolute political power that nobody in his right mind would dare
to try to violate them. People simply cannot be trusted to honor their social commitments
without being forced to do so, since “covenants without the sword are but words, and of
no strength to secure a man at all.” In other words, we must sacrifice a great deal of our
natural liberty to achieve the sort of security without which life is hardly worth living. In
civil society, our freedom is relative to the lack of specified obligations, what Hobbes calls
“the silence of the law.” If we worry that this invests too much power in the government,
which may abuse that power and excessively trample on our freedom, the (cynical)

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response is that this is preferable to the chaos of the state of nature or to the horrors of
civil war (Leviathan, pp. 28-29, 89, 93, 106, 109, 143, 117; for comparable material, see
Elements, pp. 88-89, Citizen, pp. 136-140, and Common, p. 34). One of the most crucial
problems of political philosophy is where to strike the balance between personal liberty
and public order; Hobbes is, perhaps, more willing than most of us to give up a great deal
of the former in order to secure the latter.

As we have with earlier thinkers, let us see how Hobbes applies this theory of justice, as a
prelude to evaluating it critically. He compares the laws of civil society to “artificial
chains” binding us to obey the sovereign authority of the state in the name of justice. The
third law of nature, the law of justice, obliges us to obey the “positive” laws of the state.
Any deliberate violation of civil law is a “crime.” Now the social problem to be considered
is that of criminal punishment. This deliberately inflicts some sort of “evil” on an alleged
criminal for violating civil law. Its rationale is to enforce obedience to the law itself and,
thus, to promote security and public order. Hobbes lays down various conditions that
must be met in order for such an infliction of evil to qualify as legitimate “punishment,”
including that no retroactive punishment is justifiable. He also analyzes five sorts of
criminal punishment—“corporal, or pecuniary, or ignominy, or imprisonment, or exile,”
allowing for a combination of them; he also specifies that the corporal sort can be capital
punishment. It would be wrong for the state deliberately to punish a member of civil
society believed to be innocent; indeed, strictly speaking, it would not even qualify as
“punishment,” as it fails to meet an essential part of the definition. The severity of
punishment should be relative to the severity of the crime involved, since its rationale is
to deter future violations of civil law (Leviathan, pp. 138, 173, 175, 185, 190, 203-208,
230; see, also, Elements, pp. 177-182, and Citizen, pp. 271-279; near the end of his verse
autobiography—Elements, p. 264—Hobbes writes, “Justice I Teach, and Justice
Reverence”).

While this is a decent consequentialist theory of crime and punishment, the more general
view of justice from which it is derived is far more problematic. It does stand in sharp
contrast to the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. It does revive
something like the Sophist theory to which they were all advocating alternatives. And it
does reflect the naturalistic approach represented by the new science. However, all the
foundational elements supporting it are quite dubious: the radical empiricism, the
materialism, the determinism, the egoism, the moral relativism, and the narrow
conception of human reason. Without these props, this theory of justice as artificially
constructed by us and purely a function of our interpersonal agreements seems entirely
arbitrary. But in addition to its being insufficiently justified, this theory of justice would
justify too much. For example, what would prevent its involving a justification of slavery,
if the alternative for the slaves were death as enemies in a state of nature? Even apart
from the issue of slavery, in the absence of any substantive human rights, minorities in
civil society might be denied any set of civil liberties, such as the right to adopt religious
practices to which they feel called in conscience. Hobbes’s conception of justice is
reductionistic, reducing it to conventional agreements that seem skewed to sacrifice too
much liberty on the altar of law and order.

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b. Hume
As a transition between Hobbes and Hume, brief mention can be made of John Locke, the
most important political philosopher between them. (The reason he is not being
considered at length here is that he does not offer a distinctive general theory of justice.)
In his masterful Second Treatise of Government, Locke describes a state of nature
governed by God’s law but insecure in that there is no mechanism for enforcing it, when
the natural rights of property—comprising one’s life, liberty, and estates—are violated. In
order to protect such property rights, people agree to a social contract that moves them
from that state of nature to a state of political society, with government established to
enforce the law. Another great social contract theorist between Hobbes and Hume who is
worth mentioning here (again he gives us no distinctive theory of justice) is Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. In The Social Contract, he maintains that, in a well-ordered society, the
general will (rather than the will of any individual or group of individuals) must prevail.
True freedom in society requires following the general will, and those who do not choose
to do so can legitimately be forced to do so. A human being is allegedly so transformed by
the move from the state of nature to that of civil society as to become capable of such
genuine freedom as will allow each citizen to consent to all the laws out of deference to the
common good. David Hume, an eighteenth-century Scottish thinker, who is very
influenced by Locke’s focus on property while rejecting the social contract theory of
Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, is an interesting philosopher to consider in relation to
Hobbes. Like Hobbes, Hume is a radical empiricist and a determinist who is skeptical of
justice as an objective, absolute virtue. But Hume does not explicitly embrace
materialism, is not a psychological or ethical egoist, and famously attacks the social
contract theory’s account of moral and political obligation on both historical grounds
(there is no evidence for it, and history shows that force rather than consent has been the
basis of government) and philosophical grounds (even if our ancestors had given their
consent, that would not be binding on us, and utility is a more plausible explanation of
submission than genuine agreement) alike (Essays, pp. 186-201). In the third section of
his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume argues that “public utility is the
sole origin of justice.” To place that claim in context, we can note that, like Hobbes,
Hume sees all values, including that of justice, as derived from our passions rather than
(as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas thought) from reason. Any virtue, he
maintains, is desirable in that it provides us with the pleasant feeling of approval; and any
vice, including that of injustice, is undesirable in that it provides us with the painful sense
of disapproval. In order to qualify as a virtue, a quality must be “useful or agreeable to
the person himself or to others.” It is possible for some virtues to be rich enough to fit
appropriately in more than one of these four categories (for example, benevolence seems
to be useful and agreeable to both the benevolent person and to others); but justice is
purportedly a virtue only because it is useful to others, as members of society. Hume
offers us a unique and fascinating argument to prove his point. He imagines four
hypothetical scenarios, in which either human nature would be radically different (utterly
altruistic or brutally selfish) or our environment would be so (with everything we desire
constantly and abundantly available or so destitute that hardly anyone could survive),
allegedly showing that, in each of them, justice would not be a virtue at all. His
conclusion is that justice is only a virtue because, relative to reality, which is intermediate

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among these extremes, it is beneficial to us as members of society. He also refuses to
identify justice with “perfect equality,” maintaining that the ideal of egalitarianism is both
“impracticable” and “extremely pernicious to human society.” For Hume, the rules of
justice essentially involve protecting private property, although property rights are not
absolute and may be abridged in extreme cases where “public safety” and the common
good require it. Even international relations normally require that “rules of justice” be
observed for mutual advantage, although public utility can also require that they should
be suspended (Enquiry, pp. 20, 85, 72, 21-25, 28-35; see also Essays, pp. 20, 202).
Though different from Hobbes’s theory, this one also leans towards the Sophist view of
justice as conventional and relative.

In his masterpiece, A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume makes the striking claim,
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,” which rules out all forms of
ethical rationalism. He also makes a remarkable distinction between descriptive language
regarding what “is, and is not,” on the one hand, and prescriptive language concerning
what “ought, or ought not” to be, on the other, challenging the possibility of ever
justifying value claims by means of any factual ones, of logically inferring what should be
from what is. The second part of Book 3 of Hume’s Treatise deals extensively with
justice. Here he calls it an “artificial” but “not arbitrary” virtue, in that we construct it as
a virtue for our own purposes, relative to our needs and circumstances, as we experience
them. It is valuable as a means to the end of social cooperation, which is mutually
“advantageous.” An especially beneficial, if unnatural, convention is respecting others’
property, which is what the rules of justice essentially require of us. The psychological
grounds of our sense of justice are a combination of “self-interest” and “sympathy” for
others. He holds a very conservative view of property rights, in that, normally, people
should be allowed to keep what they already have acquired. Indeed, justice normally
comprises three principles—“of the stability of possession, of its transference by consent,
and of the performance of promises.” He rejects the traditional definition of justice as
giving others their due, because it rashly and wrongly assumes that “right and property”
have prior objective reality independent of conventions of justice. Internationally, the
rules of justice assume the status of “the law of nations,” obliging civilized governments
to respect the ambassadors of other countries, to declare war prior to engaging them in
battle, to refrain from using poisonous weapons against them, and so forth. The rationale
for such principles of international justice is that they reduce the horrors of war and
facilitate the advantages of peace. By respecting other societies’ possessions, leaders
minimize the likelihood of war; by respecting the transference of possessions by mutual
consent, they enhance the possibilities of international trade; and by keeping their
promises, they create a climate for peaceful alliances. A bit later, Hume adopts a position
which, in the twentieth century, has been called a “rule utilitarian” view of justice, writing
that, though individual acts of justice might be contrary to public utility, they ought to be
performed if they are conducive to “a general scheme or system” of conduct that benefits
society as a whole (Treatise, pp. 266, 302, 311, 307, 312, 315, 320-321, 323, 337-338, 362-
363, 370-371). Yet the rules of justice that are normally conducive to public utility are
never absolute and can be legitimately contravened where following them would seem to
do more harm than good to our society. He applies this view to the issue of civil
disobedience, which is normally unjust because it threatens “public utility” but can be

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justified as a last resort “in extraordinary circumstances” when that same public utility is
in jeopardy (Essays, pp. 202-204). Whether that is or is not the case in specific
circumstances becomes a judgment call.

Hume is important here because of a convergence of several factors. First, like the
Sophists and Hobbes, he makes justice a social construct that is relative to human needs
and interests. Second, like Hobbes, he associates it fundamentally with human passions
rather than with reason. Third, the virtue of justice and the rules of justice are essentially
connected to the protection of private property. And, fourth, he considers public utility to
be the sole basis of justice. This theory would prove extremely influential, in that Kant
will take issue with it, while utilitarians like Mill will build on its flexibility. This sort of
flexibility is both a strength and a weakness of Hume’s theory of justice. While it may be
attractive to allow for exceptions to the rules, this also creates a kind of instability. Is
justice merely an instrumental good, having no intrinsic value? If that were the case, then
it would make sense to say that the role of reason is simply to calculate the most effective
means to our most desirable ends. But then, assuming that our ends were sufficiently
desirable, any means necessary to achieve them would presumably be justifiable—so that,
morally and politically, anything goes, in principle, regardless how revolting. Finally,
notice that Hume himself, because of the empirical nature of his practical philosophy,
fails to avoid the “is-ought” trap against which he so deftly warned us: because some end
is sufficiently desired, whatever means are necessary, or even most effective, to achieve it
ought to be pursued. Is this the best we can do in our pursuit of an adequate theory of
justice?

4. Recent Modernity
Moving from one of the greatest philosophers of the Enlightenment to the other, we shall
see that Kant will take more seriously the “is-ought” challenge than Hume himself did. As
justice is both a moral and a political virtue, helping to prescribe both a good character
and right conduct, the question of how such obligations arise is crucial. For Hume, we
ought to pursue virtue (including justice) because it (allegedly) is agreeable and/or useful
to do so. But, then, what is the logical link here? Why should we, morally speaking, act
for the sake of agreeableness and utility? For Kant, the reason we should choose to do
what is right has nothing to do with good consequences. It is merely because it is the right
thing to do. Conceding that prescriptive “ought” claims can never be logically deduced
from any set of factually descriptive “is” claims, Kant will forsake the empirical approach
to justice (of Hobbes and Hume) in favor of the sort of rationalistic one that will revert to
seeing it as an absolute value, not to be compromised, regardless of circumstances and
likely consequences. Then we shall consider the utilitarian response to this, as developed
by the philosopher who is, arguably, the greatest consequentialist of modern times, John
Stuart Mill, who, as an empiricist, like Hobbes and Hume, will make what is right a
function of what is good.

a. Kant

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Immanuel Kant, an eighteenth-century German professor from East Prussia, found his
rationalistic philosophical convictions profoundly challenged by Hume’s formidable
skepticism (as well as being fascinated by the ideas of Rousseau). Even though he was not
convinced by it, Kant was sufficiently disturbed by it that he committed decades to trying
to answer it, creating a revolutionary new philosophical system in order to do so. This
system includes, but is far from limited to, a vast, extensive practical philosophy,
comprising many books and essays, including a theory of justice. It is well known that
this practical philosophy—including both his ethical theory and socio-political philosophy
—is the most renowned example of deontology (from the Greek, meaning the study or
science of duty). Whereas teleological or consequentialist theories (such as those of
Hobbes and Hume) see what is right as a function of and relative to good ends, a
deontological theory such as Kant’s sees what is right as independent of what we conceive
to be good and, thus, as potentially absolute. Justice categorically requires a respect for
the right, regardless of inconvenient or uncomfortable circumstances and regardless of
desirable and undesirable consequences. Because of the “is-ought” problem, the best way
to proceed is to avoid the empirical approach that is necessarily committed to trying to
derive obligations from alleged facts.

This is precisely Kant’s approach in the foundational book of his system of practical
philosophy, his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. He argues, in its Preface, that,
since the moral law “must carry with it absolute necessity” and since empiricism only
yields “contingent and uncertain” results, we must proceed by way of “pure practical
reason, “ which would be, to the extent possible, “purified of everything empirical,” such
as physiological, psychological, and environmental contingencies. On this view, matters
of right will be equally applicable to all persons as potentially autonomous rational agents,
regardless of any contingent differences, of gender, racial or ethnic identity, socio-
economic class status, and so forth. If Kant can pull this off, it will take him further in the
direction of equality of rights than any previous philosopher considered here. In order to
establish a concept of right that is independent of empirical needs, desires, and interests,
Kant argues for a single fundamental principle of all duty, which he calls the “categorical
imperative,” because it tells us what, as persons, we ought to do, unconditionally. It is a
test we can use to help us rationally to distinguish between right and wrong; and he offers
three different formulations of it which he considers three different ways of saying the
same thing: (a) the first is a formula of universalizability, that we should try to do only
what we could reasonably will should become a universal law; (b) the second is a formula
of respect for all persons, that we should try always to act in such a way as to respect all
persons, ourselves and all others, as intrinsically valuable “ends in themselves” and never
treat any persons merely as instrumental means to other ends; and (c) the third is a
“principle of autonomy,” that we, as morally autonomous rational agents, should try to act
in such a way that we could be reasonably legislating for a (hypothetical) moral republic of
all persons. For the dignity of all persons, rendering them intrinsically valuable and
worthy of respect, is a function of their capacity for moral autonomy. In his Metaphysics
of Morals, Kant develops his ethical system, beyond this foundation, into a doctrine of
right and a doctrine of virtue. The former comprises strict duties of justice, while the
latter comprises broader duties of merit. Obviously, it is the former category, duties we
owe all other persons, regardless of circumstances and consequences, that concerns us

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here, justice being a matter of strict right rather than one of meritorious virtue. At the
very end of his Metaphysics of Morals, Kant briefly discusses “divine justice,” whereby
God legitimately punishes people for violating their duties (Ethical, pp. 2-3, 30-44, 36,
48, 158-161).

In his Metaphysical Elements of Justice, which constitutes the first part of his
Metaphysics of Morals, Kant develops his theory of justice. (His concept of Rechtslehre—
literally, “doctrine of right”—has also been translated as “doctrine of justice” and
“doctrine of law.”) For Kant, justice is inextricably bound up with obligations with which
we can rightly be required to comply. To say that we have duties of justice to other
persons is to indicate that they have rights, against us, that we should perform those
duties—so that duties of justice and rights are correlative. Three conditions must be met
in order that the concept of justice should apply: (a) we must be dealing with external
interpersonal behaviors; (b) it must relate to willed action and not merely to wishes,
desires, and needs; and (c) the consequences intended are not morally relevant. A person
is not committing an injustice by considering stealing another’s property or in wanting to
do so, but only by voluntarily taking action to appropriate it without permission; and the
act is not justified no matter what good consequences may be intended. According to
Kant, there is only one innate human right possessed by all persons; that is the right freely
to do what one wills, so long as that is “compatible with the freedom of everyone else in
accordance with a universal law.” Thus one person’s right freely to act cannot extend to
infringing on the freedom of others or the violation of their rights. This leads to Kant’s
ultimate universal principle of justice, which is itself a categorical imperative: “Every
action is just [right] that in itself or in its maxim is such that the freedom of the will of
each can coexist together with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal
law.” Although the use of coercive force against other persons involves an attempt to
restrict their freedom, this is not necessarily unjust, if it is used to counteract their unjust
abuse of freedom—for example, in self-defense or punishment or even war. Kant
approvingly invokes three ancient rules of justice: (1) we should be honest in our dealings
with others; (2) we should avoid being unjust towards others even if that requires our
trying to avoid them altogether; and (3) if we cannot avoid associating with others, we
should at least try to respect their rights (Justice, pp. 29, 38, 30-31, 37; see also Lectures,
pp. 211-212).

Kant distinguishes between natural or private justice, on the one hand, and civil or public
justice, on the other. He has an intricate theory of property rights, which we can only
touch upon here. We can claim, in the name of justice, to have rights to (a) physical
property, such as your car, (b) the performance of a particular deed by another person,
such as the auto shop keeping its agreement to try to fix your car, and (c) certain
characteristics of interpersonal relationships with those under our authority, such as
obedient children and respectful servants. Someone who steals your car or the auto
mechanic who has agreed to fix it and then fails to try to do so is doing you an injustice.
Children, as developing but dependent persons, have a right to support and care from
their parents; but, in turn, they owe their parents obedience while under their authority.
Children are not the property of their parents and must never be treated like things or
objects; and, when they have become independent of their parents, they owe them

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nothing more than gratitude. Similarly, a master must respect a servant as a person. The
servant may be under contract to serve the master, but that contract cannot be permanent
or legitimately involve the giving up of the servant’s personhood (in other words, one
cannot justifiably enter into slavery). While the master has authority over the servant,
that must never be viewed as ownership or involve abuse. This all concerns private or
natural justice, having to do with the securing of property rights. Next let us next
consider how Kant applies his theory of justice to the problem of crime and punishment,
in the area of public or civil justice, involving protective, commutative, and distributive
justice, the requirements of which can be legitimately enforced by civil society. When a
person commits a crime, that involves misusing freedom to infringe the freedom of others
or to violate their rights. Thus the criminal forfeits the right to freedom and can become a
legitimate prisoner of the state. Kant considers the rule that criminals should be
punished for their crimes to be “a categorical imperative,” a matter of just “retribution”
not to be denied or even mitigated for utilitarian reasons. This extends to the ultimate
punishment, the death penalty: justice requires that murderers, the most heinous
criminals, should suffer capital punishment, as no lesser penalty would be just. A third
application to consider here is that of war. This is in the international part of public
justice that Kant calls “the Law of Nations.” He adopts a non-empirical version of the
social contract theory, interpreting it not as a historical fact mysteriously generating
obligations but rather as a hypothetical idea of what free and equal moral agents could
reasonably agree to in the way of rules of justice. Unlike Hobbes, he does not see this as a
basis for all moral duty. It does account for the obligation we have to the state and other
citizens. But states have duties to other states, so that there is an international law of
nations. Even though different states, in the absence of international law, are in a natural
condition of a state of war, as Hobbes thought, he was wrong to think that, in that state,
anything rightly goes and that there is no justice. War is bad, and we should try to
minimize the need for it, although Kant is not a pacifist and can justify it for purposes of
self-defense. Kant proposes an international “league of nations” to help provide for
mutual “protection against external aggression” and, thus, to discourage it and reduce the
need to go to war. Still, when war cannot be avoided, it should be declared rather than
launched by means of a sneak attack; secondly, there are legitimate limits that prohibit,
for example, trying to exterminate or subjugate all members of the enemy society; third,
when a war is over, the winning party cannot destroy the civil freedom of the losing
parties, as by enslaving them; and, fourth, certain “rights of peace” must be assured and
honored for all involved. Thus the ultimate goal of international relations and of the
league of nations should be the ideal of “perpetual peace” among different states that
share our planet (Justice, pp. 41, 43, 91-95, 113, 136-141, 146, 151-158; for more on Kant’s
version of the social contract theory, see Writings, pp. 73-85, and for more on his views
on war and “perpetual peace,” see Writings, pp. 93-130). Thus we see Kant applying his
own theory of justice in three areas: in the area of private law having to do with the
securing of property rights, in the area of public law having to do with retributive
punishment for crimes committed, and in the area of international justice concerned with
war and peace.

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What shall we critically say about this theory? First, it argues for a sense of justice in
terms of objective, non-arbitrary right—against, say, Hobbes and Hume. Second, this
sense of justice is of a piece with Kant’s categorical imperative, in that the rules of justice
(e.g., regarding property rights, punishment, and war) are universalizable, designed to
respect persons as intrinsically valuable, and conforming to the principle of autonomy.
Third, if Hume is correct in suggesting that we can never logically infer what ought to be
from what actually is, then Kant’s is the only theory we have considered thus far that can
pass the test. To focus the issue, ask the question, why should we be just? For Plato, this
is the way to achieve the fulfillment of a well-ordered soul. For Aristotle, the achievement
and exercising of moral virtue is a necessary condition of human flourishing. For
Augustine and Aquinas, God’s eternal law requires that we, as God’s personal creatures,
should be just, with our salvation at stake. For Hobbes, practicing justice is required by
enlightened self-interest. For Hume, even though our being just may not benefit us
directly all the time, it is conducive to public utility or the good of the society of which we
are members. But for each of these claims, we can ask, so what? If any combination of
these claims were to turn out to be correct, we could still legitimately ask why we should
therefore be just. Are we to assume that we ought to do whatever it takes to achieve a
well-ordered soul or to flourish or to comply with God’s will or to serve our own self-
interest or public utility? Why? Consider Kant’s answer: we should try to be just because
it’s the right thing to do and because it is our duty, as rational, moral agents, to try to do
what is right. Kant’s analysis of justice works well; and, given that, his applications to
property rights, crime and punishment, and war and peace are also impressive. Yet his
theory is commonly rejected as too idealistic to be realistically applicable in the so-called
“real world,” because it maintains that some things can be absolutely unjust and are, thus,
categorically impermissible, regardless of likely consequences. His theory as we have
considered it here is a paradigmatic example of the view of justice being advocated in this
article, as essentially requiring respect for persons as free, rational agents. Yet Kant’s
inflexibility in other points of application, such as in his absolute prohibition against lying
to a would-be murderer in order to save innocent human life (Ethical, pp. 162-166), his
idea that women and servants are merely “passive citizens” unfit to vote, and his
categorical denial of any right to resistance or revolution against oppression (Justice, pp.
120, 124-128), is problematic here, inviting an alternative such as is represented by Mill’s
utilitarianism.

b. Mill

Let us consider a bit of Karl Marx (and his collaborator Friedrich Engels) as a quick
transition between Kant and Mill. Kant represents the very sort of bourgeois conception
of justice against which Marx and Engels protest in their call, in The Communist
Manifesto, for a socialistic revolution. Marx explains the ideal of socio-economic equality
he advocates with the famous slogan that all should be required to contribute to society to
the extent of their abilities and all should be allowed to receive from society in accordance
with their needs. John Stuart Mill, a nineteenth-century English philosopher, was aware
of the call for a Communist revolution and advocated progressive liberal reform as an
alternative path to political evolution. Whereas Kant was the first great deontologist, Mill
subscribed to the already established tradition of utilitarianism. Although earlier British

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thinkers (including Hobbes and Hume) were proto-utilitarians, incorporating elements of
the theory into their own worldviews, the movement, as such, is usually thought to stem
from the publication of Jeremy Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation in 1789. He there proposes the “principle of utility,” which he also later calls
the “greatest happiness” principle, as the desirable basis for individual and collective
decision-making: “By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or
disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to
have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.”
That single sentence establishes the ultimate criterion for utilitarian reasoning and the
root of a great movement. A famous lawyer named John Austin, under whom Mill
studied, wrote a book of jurisprudence based on Bentham’s “principle of general utility.”
Mill’s father, James Mill, was a friend and disciple of Bentham and educated his only son
also to be a utilitarian. Near the end of his life, Mill observed that it was the closest thing
to a religion in which his father raised him. And, if he was not the founder of this secular
religion, he clearly became its most effective evangelist. In Utilitarianism, his own great
essay in ethical theory, Mill gives his own statement of the principle of utility (again
employing a curiously religious word): “The creed which accepts as the foundation of
morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse
of happiness.” He immediately proceeds to interpret human happiness and unhappiness
(as Bentham had done) in hedonistic terms of pleasure and pain (Utilitarianism, pp. 33-
34, 329, 257). This presents the deceptive appearance of a remarkably simple rubric for
practical judgment: if an action generates an excess of pleasure over pain, that
contributes to human happiness, which is our greatest good, making the action right; on
the other hand, if an action generates an excess of pain over pleasure, that contributes to
human unhappiness, which is our greatest evil, making the action wrong. But what is
deceptive about this is the notion that we can sufficiently anticipate future consequences
to be able to predict where our actions will lead us. (Notice, also, that unlike Kantian
deontology, which makes what is right independent of good consequences, utilitarianism
makes the former a function of the latter.)

Mill acknowledges that concern about a possible conflict between utility and justice has
always been “one of the strongest obstacles” to the acceptance of utilitarianism. If
permanently enslaving a minority could produce overwhelming happiness for a majority
(he was personally opposed to slavery as an unconscionable violation of human liberty),
then, given that utility is the value that trumps all others, why shouldn’t the injustice of
slavery be accepted as a (regrettably) necessary means to a socially desirable end, the
former, however unfortunate, being thus justified? Mill thinks that the key to solving this
alleged problem is that of conceptual analysis, that if we properly understand what
“utility” and “justice” are all about, we shall be able to see that no genuine conflict
between them is possible. We have already discerned what the former concept means and
now need to elucidate the latter. Mill lays out five dimensions of justice as we use the
term: (1) respecting others’ “legal rights” is considered just, while violating them is
unjust; (2) respecting the “moral right” someone has to something is just, while violating
it is unjust; (3) it is considered just to give a person what “he deserves” and unjust to deny
it; (4) it is thought unjust to “break faith” with another, while keeping faith with others is

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just; and (5) in some circumstances, it is deemed unjust “to be partial” in one’s judgments
and just to be impartial. People commonly associate all of these with justice, and they do
seem to represent legitimate aspects of the virtue. (Interestingly, Mill rejects the idea “of
equality” as essential to our understanding of justice, a stand which would be problematic
for Marxists.) As he seeks his own common denominator for these various dimensions of
justice, he observes that justice always goes beyond generic right and wrong to involve
what “some individual person can claim from us as his moral right.” This entails the
legitimate sense that anyone who has committed an injustice deserves to be punished
somehow (which connects with Kant). Mill thinks all this boils down to the idea that
justice is a term “for certain moral requirements, which, regarded collectively, stand
higher in the scale of social utility,” being more obligatory “than any others.” But this
means that justice, properly understood, is a name for the most important of “social
utilities” (ibid., pp. 296-301, 305, 309, 320-321). Therefore there purportedly cannot be
any genuine conflict between utility and justice. If there ever were circumstances in
which slavery were truly useful to humanity, then presumably it would be just; the reason
it is (typically) unjust is that it violates utility. The main goal here is to reduce justice to
social utility, in such a way as to rule out, by definition, any ultimate conflict between the
two. Thus, the social role played by our sense of justice is allegedly that it serves the
common good.

Mill’s other great work is On Liberty, which provides us with a connecting link between
this utilitarian theory and applications of it to particular social issues. The problem Mill
sets for himself here is where to draw a reasonable line between areas in which society can
rightly proscribe behavior and those in which people should be allowed the freedom to do
as they will. When is it just to interfere with a person’s acting on personal choice? To
solve this problem, which is as relevant today as it was a century and a half ago, he
proposes his “one very simple principle” of liberty, which he states in two slightly different
ways: (1) the “self-protection” version holds that people can only legitimately interfere
with the freedom of action of others to protect themselves from them; (2) the “harm”
version maintains that force can only be justifiably used against other members of
community to prevent their harming others. It is not acceptable to use power against
others to stop them from hurting only themselves. Mill candidly admits that this
principle is reasonably feasible only with regard to mature, responsible members of
civilized societies—not to children or to the insane or even necessarily to primitive peoples
who cannot make informed judgments about their own true good. He decisively
renounces any appeal to abstract rights as a basis for this principle, basing it simply on
“utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of a man as a
progressive being.” Notice that this presupposes that we can distinguish between other-
regarding behavior, which may be justifiably regulated, and purely self-regarding
behavior, which may not be. If that turns out to be a false distinction, then Mill’s theory
may collapse. At any rate, he articulates at least three areas of social life in which people’s
liberty should be “absolute and unqualified”: (a) that of freedom of thought and
expression; (b) that of freedom of personal lifestyle; and (c) the freedom to associate with
others of one’s choice, so long as it is for peaceful purposes. He seems confident that
utility will always require that freedom be protected in these areas (ibid., pp. 135-138). In

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other words, on this liberal utilitarian view, it would always be unjust for an individual or
a social group, in a civilized society, deliberately to interfere with a responsible, rational
person’s actions in any combination of these areas.

Let us now see how Mill applies his utilitarian theory to three problems of justice that are
still timely today. First of all, the issue of punishment is one he considers in
Utilitarianism, though his discussion is aimed at considering alternative accounts rather
than conclusively saying what he himself thinks (we might also observe that, in this short
passage, he attacks the social contract theory as a useless fiction) (ibid., pp. 311-313). As a
utilitarian, he favors the judicious use of punishment in order to deter criminal activity.
He believes in the utility/justice of self-defense and sees the right to punish as anchored
in that. In 1868, as an elected member of Parliament, he made a famous speech in the
House of Commons supporting capital punishment on utilitarian grounds. Although it is
clear that he would like to be able to support a bill for its abolition, the lawful order of
society, a necessary condition of societal well-being, requires this means of deterring the
most heinous crimes, such as aggravated murder. He even thinks it a quicker, more
humane punishment than incarcerating someone behind bars for the rest of his life. Mill
does worry about the possibility of executing an innocent person, but he thinks a carefully
managed legal system can render this danger “extremely rare” (“Punishment,” pp. 266-
272). Thus his utilitarian theory provides him with a basis for supporting capital
punishment as morally justifiable. A second famous application of his utilitarian theory
of justice Mill makes is to the issue of equal opportunity for women. In the very first
paragraph of The Subjection of Women, Mill maintains that “the principle which regulates
the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to
the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement;
and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or
privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.” So he does not call for the
preferential treatment of “affirmative action” but only for equal opportunity. Unlike
contemporary feminists, he does not appeal to women’s human rights as his rationale, but
only to the maximization of “human happiness” and the liberty “that makes life valuable”
(Subjection, pp. 1, 26, 101). Here, again, we have an issue of social justice to which his
utilitarian theory is applied, generating liberal conclusions. Our third issue of application
is that of international non-intervention. Mill’s general principle here is that using force
against others is prima facie unjust. Although defensive wars can be justifiable, aggressive
ones are not. It can be justifiable to go to war without being attacked or directly
threatened with an attack, for example, to help civilize a barbarian society, which, as such,
allegedly has no rights. It can be justifiable to save a subjected population from the
oppression of a despotic government (“Non-Intervention,” pp. 376-383). All of this is
presumably a function of utilitarian welfare. Once more, a still timely moral issue has
been addressed using the utilitarian theory of justice.

These applications all plausibly utilize the values and reasoning of utilitarianism, which,
by its very nature, must be consequentialist. From that perspective, the deterrence
approach to punishment, including capital punishment, seems appropriate, as do Mill’s
call for equal opportunity for women and his measured position on international
interventionism. Surely, the premium he places on human happiness is admirable, as is

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his universal perspective, which views all humans as counting. The problem is in his
assumptions that all values are relative to consequences, that human happiness is the
ultimate good, and that this reduces to the maximization of pleasure and the
minimization of pain. The upshot of this position is that, in principle, nothing can be
categorically forbidden, that, given sufficiently desirable ends, any means necessary to
achieve them can be justified. If we really believe that there can be no genuine conflict
between justice and utility because the former is merely the most important part of the
latter, then the rules of justice are reducible to calculations regarding what is generally
conducive to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people—mere inductive
generalizations which must permit of exceptions; at least Mill’s ambiguity leaves him
open to this interpretation. There would seem to be a tension in Mill’s thought: on the
one hand, he wants to respect the liberty of all (civilized) responsible persons as rational
agents; but, on the other hand, his commitment to utilitarianism would seem to
subordinate that respect to the greatest good for the greatest number of people, allowing
for the possibility of sacrificing the interests of the few to those of the many.

5. Contemporary Philosophers
From its founding, American political thought had an enduring focus on justice. The
Preamble to the American Constitution says that one of its primary goals is to “establish
justice.” Founding father James Madison, in 1788, wrote in The Federalist Papers that
justice should be the goal of all government and of all civil society, that people are willing
to risk even liberty in its pursuit. American schoolchildren are made to memorize and
recite a Pledge of Allegiance that ends with the words “with liberty and justice for all.” So
justice is an abiding American ideal. We shall now consider how one of America’s greatest
philosophers, John Rawls, addresses this ideal. We should notice how he places a greater
emphasis on equality than do most of his European predecessors—perhaps reflecting the
conviction of the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.”
(This greater emphasis may reflect the influence of Marx, whom he occasionally
mentions.) After considering the formidable contributions of Rawls to justice theory and
some of its applications, we shall conclude this survey with a brief treatment of several
post-Rawlsian alternatives. A key focus that will distinguish this section from previous
ones is the effort to achieve a conception of justice that strikes a reasonable balance
between liberty and equality.

a. Rawls
Rawls burst into prominence in 1958 with the publication of his game-changing paper,
“Justice as Fairness.” Though it was not his first important publication, it revived the
social contract theory that had been languishing in the wake of Hume’s critique and its
denigration by utilitarians and pragmatists, though it was a Kantian version of it that
Rawls advocated. This led to a greatly developed book version, A Theory of Justice,
published in 1971, arguably the most important book of American philosophy published in
the second half of the last century. Rawls makes it clear that his theory, which he calls
“justice as fairness,” assumes a Kantian view of persons as “free and equal,” morally
autonomous, rational agents, who are not necessarily egoists. He also makes it clear early

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on that he means to present his theory as a preferable alternative to that of utilitarians.
He asks us to imagine persons in a hypothetical “initial situation” which he calls “the
original position” (corresponding to the “state of nature” or “natural condition” of
Hobbes, but clearly not presented as any sort of historical or pre-historical fact). This is
strikingly characterized by what Rawls calls “the veil of ignorance,” a device designed to
minimize the influence of selfish bias in attempting to determine what would be just. If
you must decide on what sort of society you could commit yourself to accepting as a
permanent member and were not allowed to factor in specific knowledge about yourself—
such as your gender, race, ethnic identity, level of intelligence, physical strength,
quickness and stamina, and so forth—then you would presumably exercise the rational
choice to make the society as fair for everyone as possible, lest you find yourself at the
bottom of that society for the rest of your life. In such a “purely hypothetical” situation,
Rawls believes that we would rationally adopt two basic principles of justice for our
society: “the first requires equality in the assignment of basic rights and duties, while the
second holds that social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and
authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in
particular for the least advantaged members of society.” Here we see Rawls conceiving of
justice, the primary social virtue, as requiring equal basic liberties for all citizens and a
presumption of equality even regarding socio-economic goods. He emphasizes the point
that these principles rule out as unjust the utilitarian justification of disadvantages for
some on account of greater advantages for others, since that would be rationally
unacceptable to one operating under the veil of ignorance. Like Kant, Rawls is opposed to
the teleological or consequentialist gambit of defining the right (including the just) in
terms of “maximizing the good”; he rather, like Kant, the deontologist, is committed to a
“priority of the right over the good.” Justice is not reducible to utility or pragmatic
desirability. We should notice that the first principle of justice, which requires maximum
equality of rights and duties for all members of society, is prior in “serial or lexical order”
to the second, which specifies how socio-economic inequalities can be justified (Theory,
pp. 12-26, 31, 42-43). Again, this is anti-utilitarian, in that no increase in socio-economic
benefits for anyone can ever justify anything less than maximum equality of rights and
duties for all. Thus, for example, if enslaving a few members of society generated vastly
more benefits for the majority than liabilities for them, such a bargain would be
categorically ruled out as unjust.

Rawls proceeds to develop his articulation of these two principles of justice more
carefully. He reformulates the first one in terms of maximum equal liberty, writing that
“each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with
a similar liberty for others.” The basic liberties intended concern such civil rights as are
protected in our Constitution—free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience,
the right to private property, the rights to vote and hold public office, freedom from
arbitrary arrest and seizure, etc. The lexical priority of this first principle requires that it
be categorical in that the only justification for limiting any basic liberties would be to
enhance other basic liberties; for example, it might be just to limit free access of the press
to a sensational legal proceeding in order to protect the right of the accused to a fair trial.
Rawls restates his second principle to maintain that “social and economic inequalities are
to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s

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advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.” Thus socio-economic
inequalities can be justified, but only if both conditions are met. The first condition (a) is
“the difference principle” and takes seriously the idea that every socio-economic
difference separating one member of society from others must be beneficial to all,
including the person ranked lowest. The second condition is one of “fair equality of
opportunity,” in that socio-economic advantages must be connected to positions to which
all members of society could have access. For example, the office of the presidency has
attached to it greater social prestige and income than is available to most of us. Is that
just? It can be, assuming that all of us, as citizens, could achieve that office with its
compensations and that even those of us at or near the bottom of the socio-economic
scale benefit from intelligent, talented people accepting the awesome responsibilities of
that office. Just as the first principle must be lexically prior to the second, Rawls also
maintains that “fair opportunity is prior to the difference principle.” Thus, if we have to
choose between equal opportunity for all and socio-economically benefiting “the least
advantaged” members of society, the former has priority over the latter. Most of us today
might be readily sympathetic to the first principle and the equal opportunity condition,
while finding the difference principle to be objectionably egalitarian, to the point of
threatening incentives to contribute more than is required. Rawls does consider a “mixed
conception” of justice that most of us would regard as more attractive “arising when the
principle of average utility constrained by a certain social minimum is substituted for the
difference principle, everything else remaining unchanged.” But there would be a
problem of fairly agreeing on that acceptable social minimum, and it would change with
shifting contingent circumstances. It is curious that his own theory of “justice as fairness”
gets attacked by socialists such as Nielsen (whom we shall consider) for sacrificing
equality for the sake of liberty and by libertarians such as Nozick (whom we shall also
consider) for giving up too much liberty for the sake of equality. Rawls briefly suggests
that his theory of justice as fairness might be applied to international relations, in general,
and to just war theory, in particular (ibid., pp. 60-65, 75, 83, 302-303, 316, 378).

Rawls applies his theory of justice to the domestic issue of civil disobedience. No society
is perfectly just. A generally or “nearly just society” can have unjust laws, in which case its
citizens may or may not have a duty to comply with them, depending on how severely
unjust they are. If the severity of the injustice is not great, then respect for democratic
majority rule might morally dictate compliance. Otherwise, citizens can feel a moral
obligation to engage in civil disobedience, which Rawls defines as “a public, nonviolent,
conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about
a change in the law or policies of the government.” Certain conditions must be met in
order that an act of civil disobedience be justified: (1) it should normally address
violations of equal civil liberties (the first principle of justice) and/or of “fair equality of
opportunity” (the second part of the second principle), with violations of the difference
principle (the first part of the second principle) being murkier and, thus, harder to justify;
(2) the act of civil disobedience should come only after appeals to the political majority
have been reasonably tried and failed; (3) it must seem likely to accomplish more good
than harm for the social order. Yet, even if all three of these conditions seem to be met
and the disobedient action seems right, there remains the practical question of whether it
would be “wise or prudent,” under the circumstances, to engage in the act of civil

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disobedience. Ultimately, every individual must decide for himself or herself whether
such action is morally and prudentially justifiable or not as reasonably and responsibly as
possible. The acts of civil disobedience of Martin Luther King (to whom Rawls refers in a
footnote) seem to have met all the conditions, to have been done in the name of justice,
and to have been morally justified (ibid., pp. 350-357, 363-367, 372-376, 389-390, 364n).

Rawls’s second book was Political Liberalism. Here he works out how a just political
conception might develop a workable “overlapping consensus” despite the challenges to
social union posed by a pluralism of “reasonable comprehensive doctrines.” This, of
course, calls for some explanation. A just society must protect basic liberties equally for
all of its members, including freedom of thought and its necessary condition, freedom of
expression. But, in a free society that protects these basic liberties, a pluralism of views
and values is likely to develop, such that people can seriously disagree about matters they
hold dear. They will develop their own “comprehensive doctrines,” or systems of beliefs
that may govern all significant aspects of their lives. These may be religious (like
Christianity) or philosophical (like Kantianism) or moral (like utilitarian). Yet a variety of
potentially conflicting comprehensive doctrines may be such that all are reasonable. In
such a case, social unity requires respect for and tolerance of other sets of beliefs. It
would be unjust deliberately to suppress reasonable comprehensive doctrines merely
because they are different from our own. The problem of political liberalism nowadays is
how we can establish “a stable and just society whose free and equal citizens are deeply
divided by conflicting and even incommensurable religious, philosophical, and moral
doctrines.” What is needed is a shared “political conception of justice” that is neutral
regarding competing comprehensive doctrines. This could allow for “an overlapping
consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines,” such that tolerance and mutual
respect are operative even among those committed to incompatible views and values, so
long as they are reasonable (Liberalism, pp. 291-292, 340-342, 145, xviii, 13, 152n., 59-60,
133, 154-155, 144, 134). Thus, for example, a Christian Kantian and an atheistic
utilitarian, while sincerely disagreeing on many ethical principles, philosophical ideas,
and religious beliefs, can unite in mutually accepting, for instance, the American
Constitution as properly binding on all of us equally. This agreement will enable them
mutually to participate in social cooperation, the terms of which are fair and reciprocal
and which can contribute to the reasonable good of the entire society.

Near the end of his life, Rawls published The Law of Peoples, in which he tried to apply
his theory of justice to international relations. Given that not all societies act justly and
that societies have a right to defend themselves against aggressive violent force, there can
be a right to go to war (jus ad bellum). Yet even then, not all is fair in war, and rules of
just warfare (jus in bello) should be observed: (1) the goal must be a “just and lasting
peace”; (2) it must be waged in defense of freedom and security from aggression; (3)
reasonable attempts must be made not to attack innocent non-combatants; (4) the human
rights of enemies (for example, against being tortured) must be respected; (5) attempts
should be made to establish peaceful relations; and (6) practical tactics must always
remain within the parameters of moral principles. After hostilities have ceased, just
conquerors must treat their conquered former enemies with respect—not, for example,
enslaving them or denying them civil liberties. Rawls adds a very controversial “supreme

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emergency exemption” in relation to the third rule—when a relatively just society’s very
survival is in desperate peril, its attacking enemy civilian populations, as by bombing
cities, can be justifiable. More generally, Rawls applies his theory of justice to
international relations, generating eight rules regarding how the people of other societies
must be treated. While we do not have time to explore them all here, the last one is
sufficiently provocative to be worth our considering: “Peoples have a duty to assist other
peoples living under unfavorable conditions that prevent their having a just or decent
political and social regime.” This, of course, goes beyond not exploiting, cheating,
manipulating, deceiving, and interfering with others to a positive duty of trying to help
them, at the cost of time, money, and other resources. Justice demands that we try to
assist what Rawls calls “burdened societies,” so that doing so is not morally
supererogatory. What is most interesting here is what Rawls refuses to say. While
different peoples, internationally speaking, might be imagined in an original position
under the veil of ignorance, and Rawls would favor encouraging equal liberties and
opportunities for all, he refuses to apply the difference principle globally in such a way as
to indicate that justice requires a massive redistribution of wealth from richer to poorer
societies (Peoples, pp. 94-96, 98-99, 37, 106, 114-117).

From a critical perspective, Rawls’s theory of civil disobedience is excellent, as are his
theory of political liberalism and his version of the just war theory, except for that
“supreme emergency exemption,” which uncharacteristically tries to make right a
function of teleological good. His views on international aid seem so well worked out that,
ironically, they call into question part of his general theory of justice itself. It does not
seem plausible that the difference principle should apply intrasocietally but not
internationally. The problem may be with the difference principle itself. It is not at all
clear that rational agents in a hypothetical original position would adopt such an
egalitarian principle. The veil of ignorance leading to this controversial principle can
itself be questioned as artificial and unrealistic; one might object that, far from being
methodologically neutral, it sets up a bias (towards, for example, being risk-aversive) that
renders Rawls’s own favored principles of justice almost a foregone conclusion. Indeed,
the “mixed conception” that Rawls himself considers and rejects seems more plausible
and more universally applicable—keeping the first principle and the second part of the
second but replacing the difference principle with one of average utility, constrained by
some social minimum, adjustable with changing circumstances. Thus we could
satisfactorily specify the requirements of an essentially Kantian conception of justice, as
requiring respect for the dignity of all persons as free and equal, rational moral agents.
While less egalitarian than what Rawls offers, it might prove an attractive alternative. To
what extent should liberty be constrained by equality in a just society? This is a central
issue that divides him from many post-Rawlsians, to a few of whom we now briefly turn.

b. Post-Rawls

Rawls’s monumental work on justice theory revitalized political philosophy in the United
States and other English-speaking countries. In this final subsection, we shall briefly
survey some of the most important recent attempts to provide preferable alternatives to
Rawls’s conception of justice. They will represent six different approaches. We shall

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consider, in succession, (1) the libertarian approach of Robert Nozick, (2) the socialistic
one of Kai Nielsen, (3) the communitarian one of Michael Sandel, (4) the globalist one of
Thomas Pogge, (5) the feminist one of Martha Nussbaum, and (6) the rights-based one of
Michael Boylan. As this is merely a quick survey, we shall not delve much into the details
of their theories (limiting ourselves to a single work by each) or explore their applications
or do much in the way of a critique of them. But the point will be to get a sense of several
recent approaches to developing views of justice in the wake of Rawls.

(1) Nozick

Nozick (a departmental colleague of Rawls at Harvard) was one of the first and remains
one of the most famous critics of Rawls’s liberal theory of justice. Both are fundamentally
committed to individual liberty. But as a libertarian, Nozick is opposed to compromising
individual liberty in order to promote socio-economic equality and advocates a “minimal
state” as the only sort that can be socially just. In Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974),
especially in its famous chapter on “Distributive Justice,” while praising Rawls’s first book
as the most important “work in political and moral philosophy” since that of Mill, Nozick
argues for what he calls an “entitlement conception of justice” in terms of three principles
of just holdings. First, anyone who justly acquires any holding is rightly entitled to keep
and use it. Second, anyone who acquires any holding by means of a just transfer of
property is rightly entitled to keep and use it. It is only through some combination of
these two approaches that anyone is rightly entitled to any holding. But some people
acquire holdings unjustly—e.g., by theft or fraud or force—so that there are illegitimate
holdings. So, third, justice can require the rectification of unjust past acquisitions. These
three principles of just holdings—“the principle of acquisition of holdings, the principle of
transfer of holdings, and the principle of rectification of the violations of the first two
principles”—constitute the core of Nozick’s libertarian entitlement theory of justice.
People should be entitled to use their own property as they see fit, so long as they are
entitled to it. On this view, any pattern of distribution, such as Rawls’s difference
principle, that would force people to give up any holdings to which they are entitled in
order to give it to someone else (i.e., a redistribution of wealth) is unjust. Thus, for
Nozick, any state, such as ours or one Rawls would favor, that is “more extensive” than a
minimal state and redistributes wealth by taxing those who are relatively well off to
benefit the disadvantaged necessarily “violates people’s rights” (State, pp. 149, 183, 230,
150-153, 230-231, 149).

(2) Nielsen

Nielsen, as a socialist (against both Rawls and Nozick) considers equality to be a more
fundamental ideal than individual liberty; this is more in keeping with Marxism than with
the liberal/libertarian tradition that has largely stemmed from Locke. (Whereas
capitalism supports the ownership and control of the means of producing and distribution
material goods by private capital or wealth, socialism holds that they should be owned
and controlled by society as a whole.) If Nozick accuses Rawls of going too far in
requiring a redistribution of wealth, Nielsen criticizes him for favoring individual liberty
at the expense of social equality. In direct contrast to Rawls’s two liberal principles of
justice, in “Radical Egalitarian Justice: Justice as Equality,” Nielsen proposes his own two

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socialistic principles constituting the core of his “egalitarian conception of justice.” In his
first principle, he calls for “equal basic liberties and opportunities” (rather than for merely
“equal basic liberties”), including the opportunities “for meaningful work, for self-
determination, and political participation,” which he considers important to promote
“equal moral autonomy and equal self-respect.” Also (unlike Rawls) he does not claim
any lexical priority for either principle over the other. His sharper departure from Rawls
can be found in his second principle, which is to replace the difference principle that
allegedly justified socio-economic inequality. After specifying a few qualifications, it calls
for “the income and wealth” of society “to be so divided that each person will have a right
to an equal share” and for the burdens of society “also to be equally shared, subject, of
course, to limitations by differing abilities and differing situations.” He argues that his
own second principle would better promote “equal self-respect and equal moral
autonomy” among the members of society. Thus we might eliminate social stratification
and class exploitation, in accordance with the ideals of Marxist humanism (“Equality,” pp.
209, 211-213, 222-225).

(3) Sandel

Sandel, as a communitarian, argues (against Rawls and Nozick) that the well-being of a
community takes precedence over individual liberty and (against Nielsen) over the socio-
economic welfare of its members. While acknowledging that Rawls is not so “narrowly
individualistic” as to rule out the value of building social community, in Liberalism and
the Limits of Justice, he maintains that the individualism of persons in the original
position is such that “a sense of community” is not a basic “constituent of their identify as
such,” so that community is bound to remain secondary and derivative in the Rawlsian
theory. To deny that community values help constitute one’s personal identity is to
render impossible any preexisting interpersonal good from which a sense of right can be
derived. Thus, for Sandel, Rawls’s myopic theory of human nature gives him no basis for
any pre-political natural rights. So his conception of justice based on this impoverished
view must fail to reflect “the shared self-understandings” of who they are as members of
community that must undergird the basic structure of political society. Through the
interpersonal relationships of community, we establish “more or less enduring
attachments and commitments” that help define who we are, as well as the values that will
help characterize our sense of justice as a common good that cannot be properly
understood by individuals detached from community. Thus justice must determine what
is right as serving the goods we embrace in a social context—“as members of this family or
community or nation or people, as bearers of this history, as sons and daughters of that
revolution, as citizens of this republic” rather than as abstract individuals (Limits, pp. 66,
60-65, 87, 150, 172-174, 179, 183, 179).

(4) Pogge

Pogge develops a globalist interpretation of justice as fairness that, in a sense, is more

consistent than Rawls’s own. More specifically, it not only accepts the difference principle
but wants to apply it on an international level as well as nationally. In “An Egalitarian
Law of Peoples,” Pogge observes that Rawls means his theory of justice to be relatively
“egalitarian.” And, as applied intranationally, so it is. But, as applied internationally, it is

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not. As he says, there is a disconnect “between Rawls’s conception of domestic and of
global justice.” (We should note that, like Sandel’s critique, which we just considered,
Pogge’s is not a complete theory of justice, but more a modification of Rawls’s own.)
While Rawls does believe that well-off societies have a duty to assist burdened societies,
he rejects the idea of a global application of his difference principle. What Pogge is
proposing is a global egalitarian principle of distributive justice. He thinks that this will
address socio-economic equalities that are to the detriment of the world’s worst-off
persons. What he proposes is “a global resources tax, or GRT.” This means that, although
each of the peoples of our planet “owns and fully controls all resources within its national
territory,” it will be taxed on all of the resources it extracts. If it uses those extracted
resources itself, it must pay the tax itself. If it sells some to other societies, presumably at
least part of the tax burden will be borne by buyers in the form of higher sales prices.
“The GRT is then a tax on consumption” of our planet’s resources. Corporations
extracting resources (such as oil companies and coal mining companies) would pay their
taxes to their governments which, in turn, would be responsible for transferring funds to
disadvantaged societies to help the global poor. Such payments should be regarded as “a
matter of entitlement rather than charity,” an obligation of international justice. If the
governments of the poorer states were honest, they could disburse the funds; if they were
corrupt, then transfers could go through United Nations agencies and/or
nongovernmental organizations. At any rate, they should be channeled toward societies
in which they could improve the lot of the poor and disadvantaged. (Of course, less well-
off societies would be free to refuse such funds, if they so chose.) But, one might wonder,
would well-off societies only be motivated to pay their fair share by benevolence, a sense
of justice, and possible shame at being exposed for not doing so? No, there could be
international sanctions: “Once the agency facilitating the flow of GRT payments reports
that a country has not met its obligations under the scheme, all other countries are
required to impose duties on imports from, and perhaps also similar levies on exports to,
this country to raise funds equivalent to its GRT obligations plus the cost of these
enforcement measures.” Pogge believes that well-off societies should recognize that his
more egalitarian model of international relations is also more just than Rawls’s law of
peoples (“Egalitarian,” pp. 195-196, 210, 199-202, 205, 219, 224).

(5) Nussbaum

Nussbaum, like Pogge (and unlike Nozick and Nielsen), does not so much reject Rawls’s
liberal conception of justice as extend its explicit application. In Sex and Social Justice,
she argues for a feminist interpretation of justice, using what she calls a “capabilities
approach” that connects with “the tradition of Kantian liberalism,” nowadays represented
by Rawls, tapping into their “notions of dignity and liberty,” as a foundation for discussing
the demands of justice regarding “women’s equality and women’s human rights.” The
feminism she embraces has five key dimensions: (1) an internationalism, such that it is
not limited to any one particular culture; (2) a humanism, such as affirms a basic equal
worth in all human beings and promotes justice for all; (3) a commitment to liberalism as
the perspective that best protects and promotes the “basic human capacities for choice
and reasoning” that render all humans as having an equal worth; (4) a sensitivity to the
cultural shaping of our preferences and desires; and (5) a concern for sympathetic

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understanding between the sexes. She expresses an appreciation for the primary goods at
the core of Rawls’s theory, while asserting that his analysis does not go far enough. She
offers her own list of ten “central human functional capabilities” that must be respected
by a just society: (1) life of a normal, natural duration; (2) bodily health and integrity,
including adequate nourishment and shelter; (3) bodily integrity regarding, for example,
freedom of movement and security against assault; (4) freedom to exercise one’s senses,
imagination, and thought as one pleases, which includes freedom of expression; (5)
freedom to form emotional attachments to persons and things, which includes freedom of
association; (6) the development and exercise of practical reason, the capacity to form
one’s own conception of the good and to try to plan one’s own life, which includes the
protection of freedom of conscience; (7) freedom of affiliation on equal terms with others,
which involves provisions of nondiscrimination; (8) concern for and possible
relationships with animals, plants, and the world of nature; (9) the freedom to play, to
seek amusement, and to enjoy recreational activities; and (10) some control over one’s
own political environment, including the right to vote, and one’s material environment,
including the rights to seek meaningful work and to hold property. All of these
capabilities are essential to our functioning as flourishing human beings and should be
assured for all citizens of a just society. But, historically, women have been and still are
short-changed with respect to them and should be guaranteed their protection in the
name of justice (Sex, pp. 24, 6-14, 34, 40-42).

(6) Boylan

Boylan has recently presented “a ‘rights-based’ deontological approach based upon the
necessary conditions for human action.” In A Just Society, he observes that human goods
are more or less deeply “embedded” as conditions of human action, leading to a hierarchy
that can be set forth. There are two levels of basic goods. The most deeply embedded of
these, such as food, clothing, shelter, protection from physical harm, are absolutely
necessary for any meaningful human action. The second level of basic goods comprises
(less) deeply embedded ones, such as basic knowledge and skills such as are imparted by
education, social structures that allow us to trust one another, basic assurance that we will
not be exploited, and the protection of basic human rights. Next, there are three levels of
secondary goods. The most embedded of these are life enhancing, if not necessary for any
meaningful action, such as respect, equal opportunity, and the capacity to form and follow
one’s own plan of life and to participate actively and equally in community, characterized
by shared values. A second level of secondary goods comprises those that are useful for
human action, such as having and being able to use property, being able to benefit from
one’s own labor, and being able to pursue goods typically owned by most of one’s fellow
citizens. The third level of secondary goods comprises those that are least embedded as
conditions of meaningful action but still desirable as luxuries, such as being able to seek
pleasant objectives that most of one’s fellow citizens cannot expect to achieve and being
able to compete for somewhat more than others in one’s society. The more deeply
embedded goods are as conditions of meaningful human action, the more right to them
people have. Boylan follows Kant and Rawls in holding an ultimate moral imperative is
that individual human agents and their rights must be respected. This is a matter of
justice, distributive justice involving a fair distribution of social goods and services and

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retributive justice involving proper ways for society to treat those who violate the rules. A
just society has a duty to provide basic goods equally to all of its members, if it can do so.
But things get more complicated with regards to secondary goods. A just society will try
to provide the first level of secondary goods, those that are life enhancing, equally to all its
members. Yet this becomes more problematic with the second and third levels of
secondary goods—those that are useful and luxurious—as the conditions for meaningful
human action have already been satisfied by more deeply embedded ones. The need that
people have to derive rewards for their work commensurate with their achievement would
seem to militate against any guarantee of equal shares in these, even if society could
provide them, although comparable achievement should be comparably rewarded.
Finally, in the area of retributive justice, we may briefly consider three scenarios. First,
when one person takes a tangible good from another person, justice requires that the
perpetrator return to the victim some tangible good(s) of comparable worth, plus
compensation proportionate to the harm done the victim by the loss. Second, when one
person takes an intangible good from another person, justice requires that the perpetrator
give the victim some tangible good as adequate compensation for the pain and suffering
caused by the loss. And, third, when one person injures another person through the
deprivation of a valued good that negatively affects society, society can justly incarcerate
the perpetrator for a period of time proportionate to the loss (Society, pp. x, 53-54, 56-58,
131, 138, 143-144, 164-167, 174-175, 181, 183).

In conclusion, we might observe that, in this rights-based alternative, as in the previous

five (the libertarian, the socialistic, the communitarian, the globalist, and the feminist) we
have considered, there is an attempt to interpret justice as requiring respect for the
dignity of all persons as free and equal, rational moral agents. This historical survey has
tracked the progressive development of this Kantian idea as becoming increasingly
prominent in Western theories of justice.

6. References and Further Readings

a. Primary Sources
Thomas Aquinas, On Law, Morality, and Politics, ed. William P. Baumgarth and
Richard J. Regan, S.J. (called “Law”). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1988.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican
Province, Vol. One (called “Summa”). New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin, Second Edition (called
“Nicomachean”). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.
Aristotle, On Rhetoric, trans. George A. Kennedy (called “Rhetoric”). New York:
Oxford University Press, 1991.
Aristotle, Politics, trans. C. D. C. Reeve (called “Politics”). Indianapolis: Hackett,
1998.
Augustine, The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (called “City”). London:
Penguin Books, 1984.
Augustine, Of True Religion, trans. J. H. S. Burleigh (called “Religion”). Chicago:
Henry Regnery, 1959.

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Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas Williams (called “Choice”).
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993.
Augustine, Political Writings, trans. and ed. Michael W. Tkacz and Douglas Kries
(called “Political”). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994).
Michael Boylan, A Just Society (called “Society”). Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2004.
Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law, ed. J. C. A. Gaskin (called “Elements”).
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
Thomas Hobbes, Man and Citizen, ed. Bernard Gert (called “Citizen”).
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991.
Thomas Hobbes, Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right, ed. Alan
Cromartie and Quentin Skinner (called “Common”). Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008.
David Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. J. B. Schneewind
(called “Enquiry”). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.
David Hume, Political Essays, ed. Knud Haakonssen (called “Essays”). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J.
Norton (called “Treatise”). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Immanuel Kant, Ethical Philosophy, trans. James W. Ellington, Second Edition
(called “Ethical”). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (called “Lectures”). New
York: Harper & Row, 1963).
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysical Elements of Justice, trans. John Ladd, Second
Edition (called “Justice”). Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.
Immanuel Kant, Political Writings, trans. H. B. Nisbet, ed. Hans Reiss, Second
Edition (called “Writings”). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C. B. Macpherson. Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1980.
Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. Lawrence H. Simon. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
John Stuart Mill, “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” in Essays on Politics and
Culture, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb (called “Non-Intervention”). Garden City, NY:
Anchor Books, 1963.
John Stuart Mill, “Capital Punishment,” in Public and Parliamentary Speeches, ed.
John M. Robson and Bruce L. Kinzer (called “Punishment”). Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1988.
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (called “Subjection”). Mineola, NY:
Dover, 1997.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism and Other Writings, ed. Mary Warnock (called
“Utilitarianism”). Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1962.
This anthology also contains some Bentham and some Austin.
Kai Nielsen, “Radical Egalitarian Justice: Justice as Equality” (called
“Equality”). Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1979.

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 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (called “State”). New York: Basic
Books, 1974.
Martha C. Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice (called “Sex”). New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999.
Plato, Five Dialogues, trans. G. M. A. Grube (called “Dialogues”). Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1981.
Plato, Gorgias, trans. Donald J. Zeyl. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.
Plato, The Laws, trans. Trevor J. Saunders (called “Laws”). London: Penguin
Books, 1975.
Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1992.
Thomas W. Pogge, “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples” (called
“Egalitarian”). Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1994.
John Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (called “Papers”). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (called “Peoples”). Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1999.
John Rawls, Political Liberalism (called “Liberalism”). New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (called “Theory”). Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1971.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, trans. G. D. H. Cole. Mineola, NY:
Dover, 2003.
Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (called “Limits”). New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Robin Waterfield, trans., The First Philosophers (called “First”). New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000.

b. Secondary Sources

John Arthur and William H. Shaw, ed., Justice and Economic Distribution.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978.
This is a good collection of contemporary readings, especially one by Kai
Nielsen.
Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
The articles on Aristotle’s “Ethics” and “Politics” are particularly relevant.
Brian Barry, Justice and Impartiality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
This is a good study.
Brian Barry, Theories of Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
This discussion makes up in depth what it lacks in breadth.
Hugo A. Bedau, ed., Justice and Equality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
1971.
This is an old but still valuable anthology.

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H. Gene Blocker and Elizabeth H. Smith, ed., John Rawls’ Theory of Social Justice.
Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1980.
This is an early but still worthwhile collection of papers, with “Justice and
International Relations,” by Charles R. Beitz, being particularly provocative.
Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1977.
See, especially, the chapter on “Justice and Rights,” which contains a critique
of Rawls’s theory.
Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1970.
The fourth chapter, on “Justice and Personal Desert,” is especially relevant.
Samuel Freeman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rawls. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
Like all the books in this series, this one offers a fine array of critical articles,
with the one by Martha C. Nussbaum being particularly noteworthy.
John-Stewart Gordon, ed. Morality and Justice: Reading Boylan’s A Just
Society. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009.
14 essays by scholars from 8 countries. There is a reply by Boylan.
Richard Kraut, ed., Plato’s Republic: Critical Essays. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1997.
See, in particular, the articles by John M. Cooper and Kraut himself.
Rex Martin and David A. Reidy, ed., Rawls’s Law of Peoples. Oxford: Blackwell,
2006.
In particular, see “Do Rawls’s Two Theories of Justice Fit Together,” by
Thomas Pogge.
David Miller, Principles of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1999.
This is a good contemporary treatment.
David Fate Norton, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hume. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
See, especially, “The Structure of Hume’s Political Theory,” by Knud
Haakonssen.
Thomas W. Pogge, Realizing Rawls. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.
This is a constructive critique of Rawls’s early work.
Louis P. Pojman, Global Political Philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
The fifth chapter focuses on justice.
Wayne P. Pomerleau, Twelve Great Philosophers. New York: Ardsley House, 1997.
This contains discussions of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes,
Hume, Kant, Mill, and (a bit on) Rawls.
Tom Regan and Donald VanDeVeer, ed., And Justice for All. Totowa, NJ: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1982).
An interesting collection, with a particularly penetrating article by Kai Nielsen.
Henry S. Richardson, “John Rawls (1921-2002),” in the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
This is a very good overview article.

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 Paul Ricoeur, The Just, trans. David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000.
This is interesting as a contemporary treatment from the continental tradition.
Allen D. Rosen, Kant’s Theory of Justice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.
This is a valuable, in-depth analysis.
Alan Ryan, ed., Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
This is a very good anthology of classical and contemporary readings.
Michael J. Sandel, ed., Justice: A Reader. New York: Oxford University Press,
2007.
This is an interesting anthology of readings that includes Sandel’s own article
on “Political Liberalism.”
Gerasimos Santas, Goodness and Justice. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
This is an in-depth examination of Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian views.
Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2009.
This is a wide-ranging recent study.
John Skorupski, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Mill. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
See, especially, “Mill’s Utilitarianism,” by Wendy Donner.
Robert C. Solomon and Mark C. Murphy, ed., What Is Justice?, Second Edition.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
This is a nice and well-organized collection of classical and contemporary
texts.
James P. Sterba, The Demands of Justice. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1980.
This is a good monograph.
James P. Sterba, ed., Justice: Alternative Political Perspectives, Fourth Edition.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2003.
This is a well-organized collection that includes a classic feminist critique of
Rawls, taken from Justice, Gender and the Family, by Susan Okin.
Gregory Vlastos, ed., Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, Vol. II. Garden City,
NY: Anchor Books, 1971.
See, especially, “Justice and Happiness in the Republic,” by Vlastos himself.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Third Edition. New York: Basic Books,
2000.
This is an in-depth contemporary exploration of the topic.
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
This is a comprehensive study.
Eric Thomas Weber, Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism: On the Epistemology of
Justice. London: Continuum, 2010.
This is a good recent comparative analysis.
Jonathan Westphal, ed., Justice. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996.
This is one of the best anthologies of classic texts on this subject.

Author Information

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Wayne P. Pomerleau
Email: [email protected]
Gonzaga University
U. S. A.

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