Various philosophers on justice

This first post will explore what the good and just life is according to various philosophers and groups throughout history. I’ve been reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s book Whose Justice? Which Rationality? It’s been such a good book that I decided to synthesize some of my thoughts on it in this post. Assume that this post is preliminary, and I may make addendums in later posts.

The Homeric period raised various questions concerning justice and virtue, attempting to answer them through “success”. The Homeric answer generally assumed a cosmic order. To be “dikaios” means to conduct one’s actions and affairs in accordance with this order (page 14). To know what is just is to know what is the overarching and cosmic structure as well as one’s role within the structure. “Agathos” can loosely be translated as “good” and “arête” can be translated as excellence or virtue. Though the words are distinct, there is certainly some relation between “good” and “virtuous”. In the Homeric tradition, thinking well (what might be termed “phronesis”) is a matter of discerning what arête and “dike” require. It also requires subjecting one’s “thumos” (passion, spirit, etc.) to reason and to the cosmic order. Individuals always acted qua host, or some other role. Conflict within oneself arose when these roles contradicted, and that is when phronesis needed to determine that “dike” and one’s response to align one’s actions with the “dike”. Excellence, in the Homeric tradition, was evaluated by fairness in competition and usefulness of standards. The best person would subject himself to the fair rules of the game, and the onlookers would recognize who performed most excellently within these standards. These types of activities that determined excellence involved qualities of mind, body, and character. Achievement was knowing how to apply the rules of the game but also make the game fair. Therefore, achievement proceeds both by rule-breaking (in the course of determining what rules are fair for all members) as well as rule-keeping.

Now, holding in abeyance all questions of determining what rules are fair and how the rules ought to be changed for each discipline and competition, one might ask how one could compare different goods to each other? The Homeric answer is the polis, or the city. The polis identifies the place of each good within the patterns of the day, month, and year – for all individuals (which, one must remember, is always qua certain roles). Under normal conditions, each person can only hope to be effective in obtaining what they want as well as being excellent in what they do by cooperating with others. This cooperation will always seem as if it was the result of some contract, which eventually played out with the Socratic condemnation.

I admit that this introduction is quite long, but please recognize that one can only understand later thinkers against the backdrop of their own context and running assumptions.

At this point, I want to discuss Plato. Plato put forth a more cosmic view of justice. Perhaps because of his concern with Socrates’ death, Plato argued that justice need not be recognized by others to still be intrinsically valuable. Whether or not others recognize it, justice is still cosmically-recognized insofar as it is intrinsically valuable. Plato believed that Socrates was condemned unjustly, and he argued that Socrates was still better off being a just man that was condemned than, in Plato’s counterfactual situation, a man who is unjust but viewed as just (with all the benefits, honors, and recommendations that accompany being well-liked and recognized as just). Secondly, Plato believed that reason was best performed by a dialectical questioning. At least for Socrates, the best answer was one that was coherent, consistent, and non-contradictory. Plato assumed a Socratic “priority of definition” principle, which maintained that one cannot teach what one does not know, and one’s knowledge is determined by how one’s definition stands up to criticism. Socrates, the lovely gadfly, would criticize and question others’ definitions (such as of justice) through dialectical questioning. Thirdly, Plato also believed that reason was useful in determining how to live, for it was only by ordering the passions and the thumos into a coherent self that justice was attained. Justice in the polis corresponded to justice in oneself, and Plato agreed with the Homeric assumption that the polis requires organization of certain roles, roles that must be played in order for the polis to prosper and succeed. Lastly, Plato argued that “like produces like”, so he posited forgetfulness to maintain knowledge. All humans “know” everything, so recollection is how one can get back to knowledge. And recollection, I mentioned earlier, occurs through dialectical questioning.

Aristotle both furthered Plato’s thoughts but made his own crucial (and distinctive) additions. Aristotle was more polis-centered than Plato because the good life, he argued, requires more than just justice. The good life also requires a modicum of external goods (such as wealth, honor, recognition, prestige, etc.) The virtue of magnanimity requires wealth, favors, and recognition – according to Aristotle, the good life requires being recognized as great and virtuous and one displays one’s wealth and virtuousness by one’s generosity. Aristotle also ordered the passions and the thumos by reason in accordance with the polis. Whereas Plato seemed to think that justice in the self was sufficient, Aristotle emphasized the role of the polis in organizing all of society’s members and in valuing each of the roles and goods within the society. Aristotle encouraged a polis where fair rules of the game are organized, where excellence is recognized, and the just state required proper satisfaction of these requirements. Aristotle also recognized the diversity of “arête” by concluding that the polis is necessary for organizing and recognizing excellence in the diversity of goods. Whereas Plato could be seen as having a more cosmic focus, Aristotle provided a meaningful balance back to the polis and to the proper ordering of society.

Epicurus entered the scene with his exhortation to achieve pleasure. However, Epicurus did not mean pleasure in the sense that many associate with hedonism. Epicurus actually believed that the highest pleasure required first a basis in peaceful non-pain. I forget what the actual Greek word is, but Epicurus believed that without this peaceful state of non-pain, one cannot have true and meaningful pleasure. Only after one has subjected one’s many desires to achieve this peaceful state can one actually pursue (or at least meaningfully pursue) pleasure. Epicurus did not seem to care much for the polis or the society in which he lived, instead exhorting a more individualistic or commune-centered perspective. The polis did not hold as strong of a draw for him as it did for Aristotle.

Various sectarian groups, such as the Cynics or the Skeptics, arose that questioned many of the assumptions ruling the day. They questioned how far reason should go in controlling the passions and one’s thumos. Some would brave the cold by walking in the snow barefoot, or wearing a bare coat as a way of controlling their body and their desires. Others questioned the good of the polis, or the value of justice that is not recognized by society (such as Glaucon’s counter-example). Some simply decided that power ought to be pursued, and justice un-valuable. Others just gave up on providing any answer and taught their students how to use rhetoric to achieve whatever their students desired (while making money off their teachings).

The Stoics, particularly as expressed in Marcus Aurelius, argued that reason is harmony with the universe, with “dike”, with fate. In many ways, they are similar to Plato’s thought, which valued cosmic justice even when no humans recognized it. The Stoics also bore striking resemblances to Epicurus’ peaceful, non-want, non-bliss state as the foundation of pleasure. Marcus Aurelius focused on working as hard as one could to achieve one’s desires, but he always reminded his audience that one is subject to fate’s capricious dictates. As long as one’s reason is aligned with cosmic reason, though, one has nothing to fear. The gods do not exist, and they do not punish us, he said. Therefore, we are free to live in the world as we will, knowing that as long as we live in accordance with the universal dike, we shall be acting in harmony with it and receiving peace from this knowledge. This reminds me a lot of Baruch Spinoza, if one is looking for a modern philosopher that blends metaphysics with ethics (in particular, with Stoic metaphysic and Stoic ethics). The Stoics certainly had a cosmic emphasis, not a polis emphasis.

Augustine brought the tide back to an Aristotelian primacy upon the polis. Augustine believed that there must be a certain societal order in which to place all goods. He believed there must be a universal GOOD that unifies and relativizes and values each other smaller good. He termed it the City of God. In the City of God, rules and societal regulations and societal roles are ordered by God’s decree. He also believed that a restless heart only finds itself in God. As compared to the Stoic or Epicurean answer, Augustine believed that all searching for rest could only properly be satisfied by resting in God. Justice and morality was realized not by dialectical reasoning or by a priori truths or by aligning oneself with fate; rather, Augustine argued that justice and morality was made possible only by divine revelation. Augustine also changed human phenomenology with his notion of the will. Prior to Augustine, so MacIntyre writes, people assumed that bad behavior was the result of bad values or ignorance. People either valued money, so they stole, or they laundered money because they didn’t know it was wrong. Augustine argued, from his own experience, that one can know the right thing, and desire to do the right thing, but still not do it because one is enslaved to sin.

I’m going to skip over Aquinas right now. Sorry.

Immanuel Kant reinforced a primacy of reason, though still agreeing with the generally-Enlightenment dictates of universalization, reason’s power, and individual autonomy. In Kant’s thinking, justice was achieved by every individual following the categorical imperative (which is essentially a universalism doctrine). If you can universalize a maxim, then that is the moral thing to do. And treating people as ends and not as means, just as one does for oneself, is another formulation he gives later. Essentially, I argue, contra many Kant scholars, I might add, Kant’s ethics was simply an ethics of universalization. Whereas previous philosophers had grounded justice in some all-encompassing Good that organizes all other goods, or in some polis that organizes other goods, or in justice that is personal to the individual and intrinsically valuable apart from societal recognition, Kant grounds justice in reason, particularly practical reason. Kant ignores all passions, saying that passions may accord with the right behavior, but they are purely tangential and should not be taken into account for proper moral behavior. Kant was also extremely individualistic, just as most Enlightenment folk were. Proper justice for all was achieved by each individual following reason (as Kant understood it).

The Scottish Common Sense School reverted back to Cartesian doctrines. They believed that there are certain universal principles that all reasonable people agree with, and if everyone obeyed these principles, then society would achieve the perfectly just state. (Some of these principles entail the belief in the Christian God.) The Scottish Common Sense philosophers disagreed with Kant’s strict limits concerning reason, saying that one could actually prove the existence of God, not merely make room for it for “practical” reason’s purposes. They also believed that a just society was based on people obeying the reason that is “clear” and before their eyes. Just societies are not divinely-ordained or ordered by divine revelation, as Augustine believed, nor are they by following the cosmic “dike” of the Homeric imagination. In some ways, the Scottish common sense school agreed with Kant’s priority on the individual, on individuals obeying reason (though they disagree, of course, on what this reason actually is), and on Kant’s focus on obeying reason.

Postmodernism is largely a rejection of Enlightenment thought. Postmoderns reject all claims to universality, to all appeals that claim to be a priori or “obvious”. Postmoderns also reject a strongly individualistic bias, arguing in favor of community or groups that operate according to paradigms. Postmoderns typically view traditions (whether religious, philosophical, ethical, social, etc.) as being cohesive, coherent, and final. They also typically view traditions as “sticky,” which means that one cannot get out of them. Because everyone is trapped within their own social context and tradition, one is not in a place to judge or condemn other traditions or perspectives. Essentially, without a big picture, all traditions are isolated and isolating.

Contemporary society, it seems to me, rejects many of these postmodern claims. There is an emphasis on community, yes, which is a residue of postmodernism. However, there is also a balance on the individual – questions, such as “what is your individual experience?” are extremely important in today’s contemporary society. People are less prone to ask “are you Christian” and more prone to ask “What are your thoughts about God?” More and more academics are claiming double-identity for religious traditions, which isn’t possible in a postmodern context which assumes traditions are isolating and isolated. Contemporary society seems more focused on the polis if the polis is understood as family, friend circles, work circles, etc. and not the lump sum of “society” or “city” “city of God” or “Christians”.

In all these cases, I believe that the question of the good life is being questioned and being explored. What is justice, and what does it look like? What should I do? Should I accord myself with the universe, or with others, or with myself? Are these interrelated? Is the universe against me, and I must struggle against it? Or is the universe hanging out by itself, and it just leaves me alone? Is the universe something I ought to harmonize myself with? These are all questions that philosophers have been asking, and discussing, for thousands of years. These questions I find personally very interesting, and perhaps my later thoughts will discuss more of my answers to some of these questions.

And other questions, of course, too.