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A Theory of Justice

Daniel C. Maguire

To speak of justice is to reach for the foundations of human existence. Justice is notone virtue among the lot. It is the cornerstone of human togetherness. To survive andthrive a little we need justice like a body needs blood. To try to define justice is toaddress the most profound questions ever to challenge the human mind. The Americanapproach has been to dodge these questions. Our public philosophy does not contain anexplicit theory of justice. All our laws are, of course, expressions of some concept of justice, but those laws exist in a matrix of confused and contradictory concepts of justice.American scholars have not paid their debts to justice theory. This leaves a gaping holein the center of our polity.What I offer here owes many debts to some classical Greek, Hebrew, andmedieval theories of justice. There is richness in these theories to be mined and refinedand so they are a solid foundation for the theory of justice I develop here. The classicaldefinition begins with deluding simplicity:

Justice is the virtue that

renders to eachhislher own.

"To each his/her own" is the persistent core formula for justice that hasspanned the literature from Homer through Aristotle, Cicero, Ambrose, Augustine, andRoman law, and it is still seen as the axiomatic core of justice theory. (The Latin for "toeach his/her own" is

suum cuique

which is neither sexist or clumsy. Our his/her islinguistically ungraceful but morally imperative since justice is all-inclusive and must not be defined in sexist terms.) The simplicity and consistency of this definition arewelcomed as a start, but it is only a start. It is like the skin which must then be peeledaway to reveal the layers of reality beneath.Justice is the first assault upon egoism. Egoism would say: "To me my own."Justice says, "Wait. There are other

selves.”

Personal existence is a shared glory. Eachof those other subjects is of great value and commands respect. The ego has a tendency todeclare itself the sun and center of the universe. Justice breaks the news to the ego thatthere are no solar gods in the universe of persons. Justice is the attitude of mind thataccepts the others-all others-as subjects in their own right. Justice asserts that one's ownego is not absolute and that one's interests are related. In the simple concession that eachdeserves his/her own, the moral self comes to grips with the reality and value of other selves. Justice is thus the elementary manifestation of the other-regarding character of moral and political existence. The alternative to justice is social disintegration because itwould mean a refusal to take others seriously.But let us peel away another layer. When you say, "To each his/her own," youface the question "Why?" Why take others seriously? Why not just "to me my own?" Tomove from pure egoism to

justice is nothing more or less than the discovery of the valueof persons, or, in the common term, the discovery of "the sanctity of life." Justice impliesindebtedness. You

owe

his/her own to each. But indebtedness is grounded in worth. The

each is worth his/her own. Justice is thus founded upon a perception of the worth of persons. We show what we think persons are worth by what we ultimately concede isdue to them. Talk of justice would sound like gibberish if we had no perception of thevalue of persons.All of which leads to a jarring conclusion. If we deny persons justice, we havedeclared them worthless! Justice, you see, is not the best we can do in reaction to thevalue of persons. Friendship is. Aristotle did well to point out that friends have no needof justice. In friendship a higher, more generous dynamism is operative. You don't tellnewlyweds they owe one another signs of affection in simple justice. Love will take careof that. Justice, however, is the least we can do for persons. It is the first response to thevalue of persons, the least we can do in view of that value. In friendship and in love werespond lavishly. Justice is concerned with the minimal due. Less than this we could notdo without negating the value of the person. To be perfectly consistent, if we deny justiceto persons we ought to kill them because we have declared them worthless. Their liquidation would be perfectly in order.These are grim tidings in the political order. Love does not make the politicalworld go around; justice is the most we can achieve. Love can flourish at theinterpersonal level, but it would be a mad romantic who said that, at this point in moralevolution, love can be the energy of the social order. In the political realm, only justicestands between us and barbarity. In this realm, when justice fails, persons perish. Indifferent words, justice is incipient love and the only form love takes in political life. Notice, I started out saying "To each his/her own," with a warning that there ismore to the phrase than meets the eye. This led to the worth of persons as the only reasonwhy we should acknowledge the other

"eaches"

and render them at least their minimaldue. Denying that implies they are worthless, and is thus murderous in intent. And thisleads to the next key question: How does

need

relate to justice?Most would concede that justice means giving to each what each deserves.Justice, in other words, is based upon deserts. Here quickly the ways part betweenindividualists and the defenders of genuine social justice. The individualist would saythat your deserts and entitlements come from your own achievements or as gifts fromother achievers. The theory of social justice concedes this but goes on to say that youalso deserve in accordance with your needs. Needs too give entitlement. The essentialneeds of each are also "his/her own." "To each his own" translates into "To eachaccording to his/her merits and earned entitlements" and "To each according to his/her needs." Need gives entitlement because of the worth of the needing person. Needs, of course, like rights, can conflict with one another.

Basic needs issue into rights

when their neglect would effectively deny the human worth of the needy.

Or in other words, essentialneeds create inalienable fights.