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To help the reader quickly navigate this lengthy essay, here are the links to the main headings and ideas:

Cite this essay as:

YIDING, SONG. (2021, Jan 31). Long and Wordy: A Critique of the Newmanian Conception of Justice [essay]. Retrieved from https://PerceptronV.github.io/philosophy/2021/01/31/A-Critique-of-the-Newmanian-Conception-of-Justice

Introduction and Scope

Justice has long been heralded as one of the uniting features of mankind: wherever we be, whoever we are, regardless of race, gender and ethnicity, everyone has their own sense of justice. Perhaps this is because justice is an inevitable result of our innate desire to explain intent.[1] Yet even with the rapid footsteps of modern globalisation, individual senses of justice still hasn’t converged into a universal conception. And perhaps such a conception is bound to never happen, and that the plurality of opinions is what guarantees improvement. In spirit of this philosophical crossfire since the dawn of civilisation, debating the exact principles of justice, I’d like to offer my opinions on the Newmanian interpretation of justice, as detailed in Alexander Newman’s brilliant essay: What does Justice mean?

Having read through Newman’s ideas on justice, I’d like to evaluate the soundness of, what I believe, have been the most important points in his essay: his objection to Rawls’ theory of justice in that justice shouldn’t be equated to fairness, and his argument, in agreement with Thrasymachus, that justice is purely a ‘tool for enforcing the law’.

Before I delve into my response, however, I’d like to define the scope of justice here as that of social justice. That is, loosely defined, the justice of the major social institutions, and the justice of their regulations concerning the distribution of advantages, assignments of rights and duties, and so on. It does not concern theories of the right relating to individuals.[2] This I understand to be the primary subject of interest in Newman’s essay, with its frequent emphasis on ‘implementing justice’, and the foundations of all moral theories based on societal governance.

Objection to the Newmanian Interpretation and Criticism of Rawls

Newman’s upside-down oversimplification of Rawls

I believe that Newman has understood Rawls’ theory upside-down. I do agree that Rawls’ theories are indeed strongly egalitarian (or highly biased towards fairness, as Newman would argue), in the sense that unless a distribution of social rights and goods are to the advantage of the most fortunate as well as the least fortunate, it is not to be preferred over an equal distribution.[3] (This is possible, provided only that the extra riches made by the more advantaged, can be transformed, either directly or indirectly, into the benefits of the least advantaged; e.g. higher employment rates, advances in technology)

However, it is important to note that this egalitarian conception is a result of Rawls’ theory, not its starting point. Rawls termed his theory as ‘justice as fairness’, which may offhand seem to speak in favour of Newman’s interpretation that Rawls is essentially defending ‘the principle of justice equating to fairness’. However, as Rawls explained it himself, ‘justice as fairness’ merely conveys the idea that ‘the principles of justice [in Rawls’ theory] are agreed to in an initial situation that is fair’. Indeed, Rawls even proceeded to acknowledge that ‘the name does not mean that the concepts of justice and fairness are the same, any more than the phrase “poetry as metaphor” means that the concepts of poetry and metaphor are the same’.[4]

In short, Rawls is not arguing fairness is the same concept as justice, or even that fairness leads to justice; rather, precisely the other way round, he is stating that a detailed deliberation on the ideas of justice must entail a theory that places weight on fairness. To term simply, as Newman did, that Rawls’ theories lead to the notion that ‘justice equates fairness’, is like making the following argument:

  1. A car is manufactured in an initial environment that is noisy
  2. A car makes a lot of noise on the road
  3. Therefore, the concept of a car equates to noise

This argument obviously an oversimplification.

Newman’s failure to attack Rawls’ main premises

This initial situation that Rawls spoke of is the veil of ignorance, analogous to the state of nature in many social contract theories. However, it is important to distinguish that in Rawls’ theory, behind the veil of ignorance, individuals choose what they believe will be the best principles of social justice, but without knowledge of his ‘place in society’, ‘class position or social status’, ‘distribution of natural assets and abilities [e.g. skill, intelligence, strength]’, ‘conceptions of the good’, ‘special psychological propensities’, etc.[5] Rawls believes that in such an initial position, the theory of social justice these individuals would choose shall prioritise an egalitarian theory, over say, utilitarian ones. This is the key to Rawls’ argument, which can be simplified down to this:

  1. The veil of ignorance is the appropriate initial position for individuals to decide the most ideal theory of social justice (and therefore societies should operate under such a theory)
  2. Individuals behind the veil of ignorance would necessarily choose a strongly egalitarian theory, or specifically, one that resembles Rawls’ two principles of justice
  3. Therefore, the ideal theory of justice is an egalitarian one

Meanwhile, Newman failed to address the incorrectness of neither premise 1 nor premise 2. Hence, Rawls’ theory stands sound in front of his criticisms.

Objection to Newman’s trivialising of the role of ‘fairness’

As a more direct objection to Newman’s argument, if fairness is not prioritised in justice, what metric should be? Our lives are heavily shaped by two natural contingencies completely arbitrary from a moral point of view: our initial position in the social ladder, and our distribution of natural assets (intelligence, skills, appearance, strength, and the like). If such arbitrariness are not accounted for in a society, can we ever say that it is just? Thus we begin to understand Rawls’ difference principle: the idea that ‘the social order is not to establish and secure the more attractive prospects of those better off unless doing so is to the advantage of those less fortunate’[6]. For since the availability of these ‘attractive prospects’ are so influenced by natural lotteries, by what basis are the richer entitled to more when the poor suffers? If we prioritise security and pleasure, these are subject to the usual criticisms of utilitarianism; and although they might be easier to carry out in practice, the quantifiability of pleasure poses the old objection.

Objection to Newman’s ‘idealistic’ argument

Newman also mentioned that Rawls’ principle is ‘idealistic and aspires to achieve a perfect society it fails to understand what applied justice truly is’. It is not exactly clear what he means by this, and Newman offers no further elaboration, other than that justice shouldn’t be equated to fairness. It should be noted that any complete moral theory should describe the state of an ideal society, so are inherently ‘idealistic’. It is not a flaw of Rawls’ theories alone. Indeed, Rawls clearly sets this out in the beginning chapters of A Theory of Justice, writing:[7]

[A] limitation on our discussion is that for the most part I examine the principles of justice that would regulate a well-ordered society. Everyone is presumed to act justly to do his part in upholding just institutions … Thus I consider primarily what I call strict compliance as opposed to partial compliance theory. The latter … comprises such topics as the theory of punishment, … just war, … various ways of opposing unjust regimes, ranging from civil disobedience and conscientious objection…, compensatory justice, … weighing one form of institutional injustice against another …

The two principles of justice that Rawls sets out are of course, under the premise of ‘strict compliance’. When arguing their practicality in modern-day societies, Newman thus made the mistake of attacking ‘strict compliance theories’ by assuming them as ‘partially compliant’.

Readers may still contend that Rawls’ ideas of a perfect society are impossible to attain, and that creating an ideal theory does not contain any value. To address this and similar objections, Rawls himself offers the following defence for his theory, saying:[8]

The reason for beginning with an ideal theory is that it provides, I believe, the only basis for the systematic grasp of these more pressing problems [the pressing problems of partial compliance theory that we are face with in everyday life]. The discussion of civil obedience, for example, depends upon it.

It should be noted that Rawls did not shy away from the partial compliance theory, even devoting several chapters to it in A Theory of Justice[9]. This is beyond the scope of this essay, but readers should understand that whilst Rawls did postulate an ideal theory, he also included methods of moving forward from modern imperfections in the direction of a perfect society governed by his principles, such as through civil disobedience and conscientious refusal.

Maybe Newman would appeal to intuitionism instead, in saying that there can be no moral theory close to satisfactory, and that we can only rely on our intuition in judgements, balancing multiple competing claims. In this case, no moral theory is satisfactory, and instead the task of creating justice is delegated the the arbitrary beliefs of the ruling class — which seems to be precisely what Newman believes, and leads us nicely onto the next subject: justice as a mere tool for enforcing the will of authorities.

Objection to the Newmanian-Thrasymachus conception of justice

Summary of the Newmanian-Thrasymachus conception of justice

Finally, let us discuss Newman’s version of Thrasymachus’s theory of justice (who surely has the most convoluted name among political philosophers).

Let me summarise Newman’s argument as follows (with substantial quoting):

a1. The strong in society rule (strong being defined as the affluent and financially well off)

a2. The least advantaged have a minimal prospect of becoming strong in one generation

a3. Therefore, the elitist upper class often ends up with the power to create laws and enforce justice to protect themselves, while the less affluent are underrepresented and so cannot take part in governance

Following from conclusion a3, Newman proceeded to argue that:

b1. As a3 stated, the law is often used today only by the upper class to enforce their power, and hence to protect themselves

b2. Therefore, the upper class’ assertion of power through laws become the sole criterion of justice

Evaluation of premises and Newman’s fallacy of begging the question

Newman’s theory presupposes a form of moral nihilism, which I do agree in. This belief may be briefly illustrated with Mackie’s ‘argument from relativity’:[10]

  1. There is a great deal of moral disagreement.
  2. The best explanation for the existence of moral disagreement is that there are no objective moral facts.
  3. We have good reason to believe that there are no objective moral facts.

However, I disagree with Newman in that laws do not form our only conception of justice. Newman’s premises (a1 and a2) are plausible, having been backed by considerable empirical evidence, but at the conclusion a3 he begins to beg the question. In a3, he speaks the upper class as holding the power and position of ‘creating laws’ and ‘enforcing justice’ to protect themselves. Yet Newman does not offer a reason as to why power and position gives them the role of ‘enforcing justice’. Indeed, why should it be that power equates justice? This seems only possible if laws define justice. Yet, this is what we’ve been trying to prove all along, and so we cannot use a conclusion to prove one of its premises.

Objection from Empirical Evidence

To take the better part of Newman’s argument, I have corrected for this logical fallacy in part b, and only appealed to power as a source of justice. I believe what Newman really wanted to say is that since the law is often an object of abuse by governments to further their own ends (b1), therefore these laws form our sole criterion of justice (b2). The jump from b1 to b2, however, is problematic too, especially without further elaboration. It is not clear at all why laws would limit people’s conception of justice, particularly in light of the many revolutions that happened throughout history.

Moreover, the following argument may undermine the line of reasoning in question:

  1. Some societies rule according to local laws

  2. a) Not all societies that rule according to their respective local laws are regarded as just

    b) Not all laws in societies that rule according to their respective local laws are regarded as just

  3. Therefore, laws do not form our conception of justice

Indeed, it should be clarified that what the laws tell us is right, isn’t always what we believe is right, and therefore nor should it be interpreted as the sole definition of justice.

Conclusion

I believe Newman has put together an essay with amazing clarity and conciseness. However, his oversimplification and looseness of understanding of Rawls’ theories have led to several objections; whilst his own theories contains a logical fallacy and an unsound argument.

I hope that Newman would be able to take into account my various objections above, and hopefully we will see him formulating a more refined conception of justice, all in the spirit of a good, old, philosophical debate.


Endnotes

[1] Perhaps justice is a natural extension of purposefulness — that quality which separates the conscious from the unconscious, and which requires intent, and therefore some form of justification. Indeed, conscience, the origin of our sense of justice, is related in its etymology to the word ‘conscious’, further alluding to the idea that more complex purposes often need to be evaluated in terms of its righteousness, contributing to a sense of justice.

[2] Here I follow John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition, Belknap Press (Harvard), 1999, p.6, “The Subject of Justice”

[3] Ibid. pp.65-66, “Democratic Equality and the Difference Principle “

[4] Ibid. p.11, “The Main Idea of the Theory of Justice”

[5] Ibid. p.11, “The Main Idea of the Theory of Justice”

[6] Ibid. p.65, “Democratic Equality and the Difference Principle “

[7] Ibid., p.7-8, “The Subject of Justice”

[8] Ibid., p.8, “The Subject of Justice”

[9] See Ibid, §§55-59 (“The Definition of Civil Disobedience”, “The Definition of Conscientious Refusal”, “The Justification of Civil Disobedience”, “The Justification of Conscientious Refusal”, “The Role of Civil Disobedience”)

[10] See Mackie, J.L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Penguin Books, 1991, pp.35-37, “The Subjectivity of Values” and Miriam Schoenfield. 24.00 Problems of Philosophy. Lecture 6 (Mackie’s “Moral Skepticism”). Fall 2019. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.