Getting Justice Right is Harder Than We Think
“Injustice can occur in two ways: by the violent act of the man who possesses power, and through the false prudence of the sage.” Commutative Justice, Distributive Justice, Market Fundamentalism
Photo by Thomas Ashlock on Unsplash
Getting Justice Right is Harder Than We Think
From an essay I wrote for Religion & Liberty
Despite the universal hungering for justice, injustice often seems to be the actual way of man. Even our efforts to promote justice can lead to injustice. Injustice makes us angry and rouses the passions. Yet justice is a virtue that requires clear thinking, prudence (seeing the world as it is), and temperance (moderation). This means that in the face of injustice we have to discipline our passions so they do not become irrational and create even more injustice. As philosophers like Leo Strauss and Stanley Rosen have explained, Plato’s Republic is Socrates’ attempt not only to refute the tyrannical view that justice is the rule of the strong but also to moderate Glaucon’s passionate desire for justice.
The False Prudence of the Sage
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that
“injustice can occur in two ways: by the violent act of the man who possesses power, and through the false prudence of the sage.”
Unjust acts of violent men are quite clear to us, but we can miss the “false prudence of the sage.” I argue in my forthcoming book, Excluded: How the Poverty Industry Excludes the Poor from Prosperity and Justice, one of the great sources of injustice for the poor is precisely the “false prudence” of policymakers, technocrats, and humanitarians who, filled with good intentions, think they can help by socially engineering people out of poverty. They are like Don Quixote who thinks he “rescues” the farm boy from beatings only to make his situation even worse.
Injustice also comes from the failure to distinguish between what are called commutative and distributive justice. We can create injustice if we apply the wrong kind of justice at the wrong time—e.g., commutative when it should be distributive or vice versa….
The Wrong Kind of Justice Can Lead to Injustice
When we fail to make distinctions among the different types of justice, we can create harm and even injustice. Let’s take some simple examples. One misapplication of justice is when we apply commutative justice to the family—that is, when we tend to see all relationships through the lens of individual market exchange. As Fr. Marcel Guarnizo explains in our podcast discussion, the Nobel Prize economist Gary Becker argues falls into this error when he gives the example that some children are Cadillacs and some are Chevrolets. Parents, Becker argues, should invest more in the Cadillac children. Becker writes:
As consumer durables, children are assumed to provide “utility.” The utility from children is compared with that from other goods via a utility function or a set of curves.
And further,
A family must determine not only how many children it has but also the amount spent on them.… I will call more expensive children “higher quality” children, just as Cadillacs are called higher quality cars than Chevrolets. To avoid any misunderstanding, let me hasten to add that “higher quality” does not mean morally better. If more is voluntarily spent on one child than on another, it is because the parents obtain additional utility from the additional expenditure and it is this additional utility which we call higher “quality.”
Becker notes he is not making a moral claim. He is analyzing fertility rates in the developed world, a complex subject. Nevertheless, Guarnizo’s point here is that the idea of seeing children primarily in economic terms is an error. (See “market fundamentalism” below.) It views children in an instrumentalist manner (as a tool) and the family as a place for commutative justice when it is not. Not to mention that early labelling of some children as a Chevrolet could also be a big mistake even on utilitarian grounds, because you might miss the Rolls Royce potential of a late bloomer. But that is another discussion. (See for example Richard Reeves Of Boys and Men and
by )The proper type of justice for the family is distributive. For example, I have a nine-year-old daughter who can find anything. If I lose my keys, shoes, phone, tennis racket, whatever it is, she can find it. So every night my wife and I give her dinner. One day she didn’t find the book I needed for work, so that evening when the family sat down for dinner, her plate was empty. She looked at me with sad eyes, but I told her that she didn’t find my book, so I didn’t owe her dinner. After all, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
We immediately can see there is something wrong here. It is unjust because the relationship between parents and children is not one of commutative justice. As the father, I have distributive justice responsibilities to my daughter whether she finds my book or not. I receive money from my work (commutative) and I use that money to clothe, feed, educate, and help my children flourish. This is not simply my being a good father. It is a requirement of justice. Not to do so would be unjust. This doesn’t mean I can never deprive my children of a snack or a meal as a punishment for hitting a sibling or not finishing their chores. Nor does it mean I cannot hire my children to complete some chore and pay them for it. But that is not the normal relationship in a family.
It is important to note that this does not mean the family is “socialist.” That is a category error. Socialism is an all-encompassing ideology imposed upon society. It is not a simple description synonymous with “sharing stuff.” Second, socialism rejects private property, but the family owns private property and there is private property within the family. Children can own toys, books, and bicycles that do not belong to the parents, and that they can take when they leave home. Distributive justice does not reject private ownership the way socialism does…
You can read the entire essay where I discuss commutative justice and distributive justice in more detail and how to think about the phrase “market fundamentalism” at Religion & Liberty Online
Reading Recommendation on Justice
Joseph Pieper: The Four Cardinal Virtues
For more on the topic of justice I highly recommend Joseph Pieper’s chapter in the Four Cardinal Virtues. Pieper is one of my favorite 20th century philosophers. I’ll talk about him more in a future newsletter, but the whole book is absolutely worth the effort. He distills the tradition on the cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance, and courage, and gives examples to help us understand and apply them.
Everything by Pieper is worth reading. If you want a good sample of his thought, Ignatius Press published a Joseph Pieper Anthology that is a beautiful collection from his many works. I have given this book as a gift several times.