Philosophical Review

Social Justice by Richard B. BrandtReview by: John RawlsThe Philosophical Review, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Jul., 1965), pp. 406-409Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2183372 .

Accessed: 23/10/2013 04:37

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Philosophical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 147.156.148.8 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:37:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

these great philosophers agreed upon is something which philosophers in mid-twentieth century America have lost and should recover. Have we lost the beliefs that thinking is an activity, that ideas must make a difference, that progress can be achieved by knowledge? At a minimum it is unpardonable simply to say so with no careful examination of what we are doing. It is certainly true that most contemporary philosophers are wrestling with very difficult problems, often of an essentially analytic character. Few competent philosophers are writing popular essays-a fact which the author seems deeply to deplore. The antidote to this, however, if you want one, should be popular essays on the important relevance of the hard work which is now being done.

The author's own way of condemning recent philosophy may be exemplified in the following sentences from the closing pages:

Gone is the conception of reason as the presence of form and order in every- thing and as the quest for purposes and grounds. Instead reason becomes a power of arranging facts according to relational principles which have no ground in those facts. Experience, as brute fact, excludes reason; reason, as empty form, stands outside of experience. The two are connected in nothing but the most external fashion. The most serious immediate consequence is that reason is confined to its formal function and a general skepticism over the power of reason in practical life comes to prevail.

Who is here being discussed? JAMES WARD SMITH

Princeton University

SOCIAL JUSTICE. Edited by RIcHARD B. BRANDT. Englewood Cliffs, N. J., Prentice Hall, Inc, i962. Pp. Vi, i69. $I.95.

The editor of this collection of five essays remarks in his preface that the philosophical revolution of recent decades has touched the notion of social justice only lightly. While a great deal has been written about the more general concepts of the right and the good, there has been relatively little on the notion ofjustice, and even the simplest questions about it have yet to be satisfactorily answered. The essays in this volume (three by philosophers and one each by an economist and a consti- tutional lawyer) are intended as a start in clearing up one part of this area, that of social justice. But in fact the essays are quite general in nature, and taken together they represent a careful examination of the concept ofjustice and its place in social theory and jurisprudence. The collection is a valuable one indeed, and all the more important, in my opinion, because I suspect that the questions of analytic ethics,

406

This content downloaded from 147.156.148.8 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:37:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

which of late philosophers have tended to concentrate upon, do not admit of an answer without a relatively full understanding of substan- tive normative concepts and their associated principles and, among these, the concept of justice has a central place.

The first essay, by W. K. Frankena, sketches a conception of social justice as involving a kind of basic equality. He proposes the principle that men are to be treated as equals not because they are equal in any particular respect-which might give a foothold for a meritarian view of justice-but simply because they are human, that is, have emotions and desires and a capacity for thought, and hence are capable of enjoying a good life. All men are in fact similarly capable of enjoying a good life in some form, as animals are not, and this justifies the prima facie requirement that they be treated as equals. Frankena contrasts his view with that of Rashdall which he interprets as suggesting that two people are to be treated as equals only if they are capable of equally good lives. In Frankena's opinion a just society is one which so far as possible makes the same relative contribution (at least in the long run) to the good life of every individual whether or not their conceptions of the good are equally valuable, and provided that a certain minimum is assured for all. The other principles or precepts ofjustice-for exam- ple, those having to do with reward and punishment-are to be justi- fied in terms of this more fundamental principle.

The next essay, by Gregory Vlastos, has as its aim to work out the basis ofjust inequalities within the framework of an egalitarian natural- rights view. He thinks that the case for inequality has been made clear enough in the tradition from the aristocratic and the utilitarian sides, but that the grounds for the recognized inequalities within a natural- rights view have yet to be adequately presented. Vlastos argues that such a view may admit just inequalities without inconsistency if and only if it provides grounds for equal human rights which are also grounds for unequal rights of others sorts. That is, the grounds for the inequalities allowed must be in terms of the same principles which require an equality of rights to begin with, or which are derivative from these principles. What a natural-rights view excludes is that inequalities should be tolerated on considerations which override these principles. By making a careful distinction between merit and worth, Vlastos would appear to propose an egalitarian view similar to Frankena's and opposed to Rashdall's, but in a footnote (pp. 52 f.) he seems to draw back by stipulating that equality depends on capacity. He says that where the capacity for freedom is severely limited, the right to freedom is correspondingly limited. This seems to abandon or to

407

9

This content downloaded from 147.156.148.8 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:37:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

qualify drastically the egalitarian intentions of the essay, but never- theless Vlastos is successful in indicating the basis within a natural- rights view for the various social inequalities which rely on a notion of merit.

The final essay, by Alan Gewirth, is a systematic study of what he takes as the three principles of political justice: that political power must rest on the consent of the governed, that the results of the political process may not infringe the equal rights or the freedom of each indi- vidual, and that the results of the political process must tend to achieve, or at least aim at achieving, certain goods for everyone and for the community. Moreover, he regards these three principles as intimately related in that they may each be interpreted to include the other two. The essay is a careful examination of these principles more or less independently from the others and yet in such a way that the connec- tions are made clear. Gewirth suggests in one place (p. I26) that the humanistic egalitarian conception of justice which the three principles express can be defended by showing that the rationale of honest discussion involves not only sincerity and truthfulness but also a mutuality or equality of consideration in the sense of treating inter- locutors as equals; and hence that it requires the recognition of human- istic and egalitarian rules of justice. Taken together, the essays by the three philosophers come out strongly for some form of an egalitarian conception ofjustice in the natural-rights tradition broadly understood; and this suggests that this tradition would win more support among philosophers than often supposed.

The two remaining essays, by the economist Kenneth Boulding and the constitutional lawyer Paul Freund, are less concerned with the basic philosophical problems of justice. Yet it would a mistake for philosophers to overlook the important questions which they discuss. Boulding's topic is the place of the notion of justice in social theory. Since conceptions of justice are fundamental in determining political discontent, he believes that they are an essential variable in determin- ing the evolution of society over time, and he formulates and discusses briefly a number of empirical hypotheses in this connection. Phi- losophers might do well to consider how they can make their accounts of justice sufficiently precise so that they can have a part in the kind of social theory Boulding has in mind. Freund's essay serves to bring home the enormous difficulties involved in formulating an interpre- tation of justice which will be clear and systematic enough to be of much help in settling the complex issues which arise in constitutional law. By means of a series of examples (pp. 99- I I o), Freund illustrates

408

This content downloaded from 147.156.148.8 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:37:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

forcibly the perplexities which arise. Any philosopher who thinks that he can give an analysis of the concept of justice might try it out on these examples; he will be led to see, I think, why those who have to deal with these issues are likely to have a certain ambivalence toward the oversimplified theories which so far philosophers have been able to provide. This collection of essays should be carefully considered by anyone setting out to do better in this regard.

JOHN RAWLS

Harvard University

409

This content downloaded from 147.156.148.8 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:37:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions