This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize – income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honors. A just society distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why.” – Michael Sandel, Chapter 1: Doing the Right Thing, Page 20
“One way of understanding what Kant means by acting autonomously is to contrast autonomy with its opposite. Kant invents a word to capture this contrast – heteronomy. When I act heteronomously, I act according to determinations given outside me. Here is an illustration: When you drop a billiard ball, it falls to the ground. As it falls, the billiard ball is not acting freely, its movement is governed by the laws of nature – in this case, the law of gravity.” – Michael Sandel, Chapter 5: What Matters is the Motive / Immanuel Kant, Page 96
“As voluntary acts, contracts express our autonomy; the obligations they create carry weight because they are self-imposed – we take them freely upon ourselves. As instruments of mutual benefit, contracts draw on the ideal of reciprocity; the obligation to fulfill them arises from the obligation to repay others for the benefits they provide us.” – Michael Sandel, Chapter 6: The Case for Equality / John Rawls, Page 124
Is This An Overview?
For anyone seeking justice, justice can be based on
different competing methods. Using a
different method to identity how to obtain justice, provide vastly different
outcomes. What defines justice, defines
how society allocates resources. What is
justice to someone using a specific method, can be injustice to others using a
different method. Each method has value,
but each has its limitations. Justice
can be based on welfare, freedom, or virtue.
A utilitarian approach is to find what provides the maximum
utility, that which produces happiness and limits pain. But a collective utilitarian approach can
enable harsh individual treatment. A
market solution to justice provides welfare, as markets enable incentives for
people to supply what others want. But
market prices do not always reflect voluntary exchanges. A libertarian approach is meant to provide
the most freedom, by limiting state activity to enforcing contracts and
protecting people. But that means
limiting collective action. A virtue
approach is meant to provide for what people morally deserve, cultivating
decisions that support actions based on autonomy and reciprocity which promote
the common good. But there are decisions
that take choice away from reciprocity.
Caveats?
This book expresses the complexity of each method of justice, the ways that each method can improve society and the limitations. The explanations for the diverse methods of justice have mixed quality. Having a background in philosophy is not necessary, but can improve an understanding of the claims made about justice.
