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justiceHarvard.html
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justiceHarvard.html
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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<title>Justice</title>
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<p><em>Published:</em> May 05, 2021</p>
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<h1>Justice</h1>
<h3>Lecture Notes of the 2009 Series at Harvard taught by Micheal Sandel along with some
personal opinions.</h3>
<div class="publishing-info-mobile">
<p><em>Published:</em> May 05, 2021</p>
<p><em>Status:</em> Finished</p>
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<h2>Contents</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-0">Libertarian View of Government</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-1">What makes Income Distribution just</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-2">Nozick’s Argument against Taxation</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-3">Objections to Libertarianism</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#section-4">Connection between labour and property</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-5">Right to Private Property</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#section-6">State of Nature</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-7">What can the majority decide?</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#section-8">What's the Right Thing To Do?</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-9">Freedom is the opposite of necessity</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-10">Kant's Conception of Freedom</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-11">Kant's Conception of Morality</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-12">What is the supreme principle of morality</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-13">The Categorical Imperative</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-14">Moral Force of Actual Contracts</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#section-15">Theories of Distributive Justice</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-16">Rawls' Difference Principle</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-17">Objections to Rawls' Difference Principle</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#section-18">Arguments FOR affirmative action</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#section-19">Aristotle's Views</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-20">Objection to Aristotle's Teleological Sense of
Justice</a></li>
<li><a href="#section-21">Views of Obligation</a></li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><a href="#section-22">Further Reading</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="divider-short"></div>
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<article class="big">
<p><em>The "Justice: What is the right thing to do?" lectures were my first introduction to
concepts of philosophy and various theories of justice. This blog post is a
collection of the notes I scribbled while listening to the lectures, one every day.
There is no obvious structure to the notes other than what I managed to get after
typing everything, the results can be seen on the contents bar. In a nutshell,
Michael Sandel explains theories around
justice, morality and ethics. In order to do so, he starts with a case study to
juxtapose different theories of justice and morality. For example, the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem">Trolley Problem</a>.The
question is: What do you do?
<br><br>Note: The file was originally hosted on GitHub<input type="checkbox"
id="cb-1" /><label for="cb-1"><sup id="footnote-1"><span
class="node-link">1</span></sup></label><span><br><br>1: <a
href="https://github.com/kyscg/Paper2Pulp/blob/master/notes/Justice%20with%20Micheal%20Sandel.md">Justice
with Micheal Sandel</a></a><br><br></span></em>
</p>
<h2 id="section-0"><a href="#section-0">Libertarian View of Government</a></h2>
<ul>
<li>No paternal legislation (seat belt laws, motorcycle laws etc.). They are human
choices and the government has no
right to coerce people.</li>
<li>No morals legislation. The State should not try to promote virtues or enact moral
legislation.</li>
<li>No redistribution of income from the rich to the poor (soft libertarians approve of
slight taxation for judicial
system, peace force, etc.)</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="section-1"><a href="#section-1">What makes Income Distribution just</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>Justice in acquisition (how legally did people make their money?)</li>
<li>Justice in transfer (did the distribution arise from the operation of free
consent?). An example is buying and
trading on the free market.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="section-2"><a href="#section-2">Nozick's Argument against Taxation</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>Taxation = Taking of earnings</li>
<li>Taking of earnings = forced labour (it is essentially the State laying claim to
certain hours of a person's
life)</li>
<li>Forced labour = slavery (If I don't have the sole right to my labour, it means
the State owns part of me)
</li>
</ul>
<p>Violates the fundamental libertarian idea of self-possession<br><br><em>Digression: What
would happen if public services like fire engines and ambulances can suddenly be
made private and
available to only subscribers</em></p>
<h3 id="section-3"><a href="#section-3">Objections to Libertarianism</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>Poor need money more.</li>
<li>Taxation by consent of the governed is not exactly coercion. This objection means to
say by agreeing to be a
part of society and electing someone who'll govern them, the rich have already
agreed to be taxed.</li>
<li>
<p>The successful owe a debt to society. <em>I personally think this makes sense but
this responsibility should
be felt by the rich and successful, we shouldn't expect everyone to feel
this way. There are loads
of people who have battled extremely constricting societal trappings to get
to where they are and we
cannot blame them for feeling they don't owe anything to anyone</em>.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Luck is involved in making money. <em>To make things clear, this objects to the
labour argument against
taxation</em>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Underlying premise: Do we really <strong>own</strong> ourselves in a society?</p>
<h2 id="section-4"><a href="#section-4">Connection between labour and property</a></h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself.
</p>
<p>The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.</p>
<p>Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature has provided, and left it in,
he has mixed his labour
with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.
</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="section-5"><a href="#section-5">Right to Private Property</a></h3>
<p>How can there be a right to private property, without consent, before government and
legislators arrive on the scene to
define property.</p>
<p>There were some interesting arguments about the taking over of Native American land by
the European settlers.</p>
<h2 id="section-6"><a href="#section-6">State of Nature</a></h2>
<p>The only way to leave the state of nature is by an act of <strong>consent</strong> where
we all agree to give up the
enforcement power and to create a government / community where there will be a
legislature to make law and where
everyone agrees in advance to abide by what the <strong>majority</strong> decides.</p>
<h3 id="section-7"><a href="#section-7">What can the majority decide?</a></h3>
<p>Remember that the majority cannot decide on your life, liberty and property. So,
there's a dilemma here. On one hand, we'd like the problem of property rights to
be resolved but on the
other hand, we all know that the majority cannot decide on the life, liberty and
property of individuals as it would
mean undermine the inherent principle of self-possession.</p>
<p>Property is natural in one sense but conventional in another, it's natural in the
sense that we have a
fundamental unalienable right, that the <strong>institution of property</strong> exist
and be respected by the
government. But what counts as taking up property is defined by the government.</p>
<h2 id="section-8"><a href="#section-8">What's the Right Thing To Do?</a></h2>
<p>According to Immanual Kant, when we, like animals, seek pleasure or the satisfaction of
desires or the avoidance of
pain, we aren't really acting freely, we're acting as the slaves of those
appetites. <em>Personally, I
couldn't agree more. Freedom is not choosing Twitter and McDonalds over
Instagram and KFC, it is not needing
to choose any of them at all.</em></p>
<h3 id="section-9"><a href="#section-9">Freedom is the opposite of necessity</a></h3>
<h3 id="section-10"><a href="#section-10">Kant's Conception of Freedom</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>To act freely = to act autonomously = act according to a law I give myself.</li>
<li><strong>To act freely is not to choose the best means to a given end, it's to
choose the end itself for
it's own sake.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="section-11"><a href="#section-11">Kant's Conception of Morality</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>Moral worth of an action depends on motive.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="section-12"><a href="#section-12">What is the supreme principle of morality</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>Duty vs. Inclination</li>
<li>Autonomy vs. Heteronomy</li>
<li>Categorical Imperative vs. Hypothetical Imperative</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="section-13"><a href="#section-13">The Categorical Imperative</a></h3>
<p>The Formula of Universal Law</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Note: this is just a test, but not a reason onto itself which would contradict Kant.<br>
</p>
<p>The Formula of Humanity as an End</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I say that man, and in general, every rational being, exists as an end in himself,
not merely as a means for
arbitrary use by this or that will.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="section-14"><a href="#section-14">Moral Force of Actual Contracts</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>How do they bind or obligate?</li>
<li>How do they justify the terms they produce? <em>They don't, for example, the
United States constitution had
once agreed to slavery</em>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Rawls says that the way to think about justice is from the standpoint of a hypothetical
contract behind a veil of
ignorance that creates a condition of equality by ruling out or enabling us to forget
for the moment, the
differences in power and knowledge that could, even in principle, lead to unfair
results.</p>
<h2 id="section-15"><a href="#section-15">Theories of Distributive Justice</a></h2>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Belief System</th>
<th>Justice Theory</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Libertarian</td>
<td>Free Market System</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Meritocracy</td>
<td>Fair Equality of Opportunity</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Egalitarian</td>
<td>Rawls' Difference Principle</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 id="section-16"><a href="#section-16">Rawls' Difference Principle</a></h3>
<p>Rawls does not say that the only way to remedy / compensate for differences in natural
talents and abilities is to
have a kind of leveling equality (a guaranteed equality of outcome) but people may
gain/benefit from their good
fortune, only on terms that work to the advantage of the least well-off.</p>
<h3 id="section-17"><a href="#section-17">Objections to Rawls' Difference Principle</a>
</h3>
<ul>
<li>What about incentives? (If taxes go up to 70%, 80%, why would people be motivated to
earn money?)</li>
</ul>
<p>Rawls has an answer to this objective, he says that the rich are to gain, but not too
much as to make everyone lose
the motivation needed. In effect, keep the tax rate optimal.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but
only to cover the costs of
training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less
fortunate as well. ~ John Rawls
</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>What about effort?</li>
<li>What about self-ownership?</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>Life isn't fair. It is tempting to believe that the government can rectify what
nature has spawned. ~ Milton
Friedman</p>
<p>The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons
are born into society at some
particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the
way that our institutions
deal with these facts. ~ John Rawls</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="section-18"><a href="#section-18">Arguments FOR affirmative action</a></h2>
<ul>
<li>Corrective : For differences in educational backgrounds</li>
<li>Compensatory : For past wrongs (<em>until when though?</em>)</li>
<li>Diversity : For educational experience and for society as a whole.</li>
</ul>
<p>Is it possible and is it desirable to detach questions of distributive justice from
questions of moral desert and
questions of virtue</p>
<h3 id="section-19"><a href="#section-19">Aristotle's Views</a></h3>
<p><em>Extremely interesting and thought-provoking in my opinion</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Justice involves two factors: things and the persons to whom the things are assigned.
In general, we say that
persons who are equal should have equal things assigned to them. ~ Aristotle</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To whom should the best tennis courts in the university go to? To the best players or
everyone on a turn basis /
first-come-first-serve basis</p>
<p>Aristotle took distributive justice to be mainly not about income and wealth but about
offices and honours. Who
should have the right to rule? Who should be a citizen?</p>
<p>Aristotle says that it is the nature of man to live in a <em>polis</em> (politics) as it
is only there that we use
our faculty of language to the fullest to debate right and wrong.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A man, who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political
association , or who has no need to
share, because he's already self-sufficient, such a person must be either a
beast or a God. ~ Aristotle</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He says that part of the point of politics is to honour people like Pericles, it
isn't just that Pericles should
have the dominant say because he has the best judgement and that will lead to the best
outcomes, to the best
consequences to the citizens. That is true, and it is important, but a further reason
people like Pericles should
have the greatest measure of offices and honours and political authority and sway in the
<em>polis</em> is that the
<strong>point of politics is to single out and honour those who possess the relevant
virtue</strong>.
</p>
<h3 id="section-20"><a href="#section-20">Objection to Aristotle's Teleological Sense of
Justice</a></h3>
<p>If certain roles are fitting/appropriate to me, where does that leave my right to choose
my social roles, my life
purposes for myself?</p>
<p><strong>What room does teleology leave from freedom?</strong></p>
<h3 id="section-21"><a href="#section-21">Views of Obligation</a></h3>
<blockquote>
<p>Man is essentially a story-telling animal. That means I can only answer the question
'What am I to do?'
if I can answer the question of 'what story/stories do I find myself a part
[of]?. ~ Alastair MacIntyre</p>
<p>I'm never able to seek for the good / exercise the virtues only qua (as)
individuals ...we all approach our
own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity. I am someone's
son/daughter, a citizen of
this/that city. I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation.</p>
<p>These constitute the given of my life, my <strong>moral starting point</strong>. This
is, in part, what gives my
life its moral particularity</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="section-22"><a href="#section-26">Further Reading</a></h2>
<ol>
<li>
<p><a
href="https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Dialogues-Euthyphro-Apology-Classics/dp/0872206335/"><em>Five
Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo</em></a>, by Plato
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://justiceharvard.org/justice-whats-the-right-thing-to-do/"><em>Justice:
What’s the Right Thing to Do?</em></a>, by Michael Sandel</p>
</li>
</ol>
<div id="footnotes">
<p>1: <a
href="https://github.com/kyscg/Paper2Pulp/blob/master/notes/Justice%20with%20Micheal%20Sandel.md">Justice
with
Micheal Sandel</a>
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<p><em>Published:</em> May 05, 2021</p>
<p><em>Status:</em> Finished</p>
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