A Neo-Aristotelian Theory of Social Justice

Adrian J. Walsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429876301
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

First published in 1997. Adrian Walsh develops an original account of social justice using neo-Aristotelian value theory. At the heart of the book is an account of the human good in which human interests are divided into three main categories: the basal interests, the eudaimonian interests and the interests in subjectivity. Subsequently, the distributive goods, to which distributive principles are to apply, are divided into three main spheres; the basal sphere, the eudaimonian sphere and the sphere of subjectivity. While the overall orientation of the project is egalitarian, different distributive principles are applied in each of the three spheres, with the intention ultimately of realising the egalitarian ideal. The main feature of the book is the development of a pluralist egalitarian theory of social justice using a distinctive account of the human good.

1 Distributive justice and the human good

The constructivist challenge

My favoured strategy for developing principles of distributive justice is an internalist one. However, such an approach is not without its critics. Many writers have argued that philosophical anthropology has no proper role to play in political theory. Such critics object that internalism is unacceptable for one or more of the following reasons: (i) the employment of accounts of the human good by state authorities has totalitarian consequences; (ii) the adoption of accounts of the human good is subversive of social order; (iii) the epistemological status of accounts of the human good is problematic given that they are based on empirical data. (This list is not in any way intended to be exhaustive). With these concerns in mind, many such critics are drawn towards externalist strategies which attempt to derive distributive principles without the employment of accounts of the good; and since the advent of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, the most influential of these strategies is a methodological procedure which I shall refer to as constructivism. Constructivism, as the term is used herein, denotes any distributive doctrine which attempts to generate principles of distributive justice via reason or rationality and according to which reason is thought of as being independent and separate from the idea of the human good. (Under this rather general definition Rawls’ theory is a constructivist one).¹

Critics of internalism might be inclined to argue that if principles of distributive justice can be generated without reference to the human good, then the internalist strategy should be avoided. Ex hypothesi, if theorists such as Rawls can generate distributive theory without recourse to such contentious entities, then it would seem prudent to avoid doing so. The pursuit of an internalist strategy seems to require theoretical justification when conceptions of the good are problematic and non-internalist strategies—namely constructivism—are available. The argument can be outlined schematically in the following manner:

• (i) the initial assertion of the problematic nature of the use of accounts of the human good in distributive theory;
• (ii) the demonstration of a method of generating substantive distributive principles without the use of the human good (i.e constructivism);
• (iii) the argument that given that (ii) can be successfully achieved, then what justification can there be for employing such contentious conceptual entities as accounts of the good.

These three claims constitute what I shall call the ‘constructivist challenge’ for the internalist. It is this constructivist challenge with which I shall be concerned in this chapter.

The line of response to the constructivist challenge I shall adopt involves casting doubt on the idea that constructivist methodology does in fact simultaneously provide both substantive distributive principles and theory which is free from the taint of conceptions of the human good. With this aim in mind, the work of two leading constructivists, Rawls and Kant, will be examined, with a special focus on their constructivist approaches and their explicit renunciations of what I have labelled internalist methodology. Both theorists provide methodological approaches which may be appropriated by those who wish to mount the constructivist challenge. (However of the two theorists more importance will be attached to the critique of Rawls primarily because his works are more directly related to distributive theory). The general line of argumentation against both theorists will involve demonstrating that in order to generate substantive forms of practical reason, these constructivists smuggle in accounts of the human good, even though at an explicit level they renounce such conceptions.² The aim of the critiques in this chapter will be simply to cast sufficient doubt on the constructivist projects of both Kant and Rawls to enable us to meet the constructivist challenge.

Section A: Kantian constructivism

I begin my response to the constructivist challenge by considering the ethical work of Immanuel Kant. Analysis of Kantian ethics might seem, at first sight, a rather strange place to initiate a discussion of the constructivist challenge to internalist distributive theory, especially when one considers that Kant was not so much concerned with issues of distributive justice as he was with principles of right action. Furthermore, Kant’s methodological objections are to what might be termed moral internalism (i.e. the belief that moral principles may be derived from accounts of the human good). He makes little explicit reference to internalism in the realm of distributive theory. While it is true that he makes pronouncements on issues of political theory (i.e about the rule of law, property rights etc³), Kant does not provide explicit commentary on appropriate distributive methodology. What Kant does provide us with is an ethics of duty: an ethics of duty in which the determinant of the moral acceptability of human actions is a formal test grounded ultimately in reason.

Nevertheless, despite these caveats, I think that there are good reasons to begin my defence of the internalist project at this point. Firstly, Kant’s arguments contra moral internalism and his constructivist procedure for generating moral maxims can be easily transferred to the distributive sphere. Thus his arguments provide potential ammunition for those who would mount the constructivist challenge. Secondly, I believe that discussion of Kantian ethics sheds light on the constructivist project in general, it reveals problems which also plague constructivist accounts of distributive justice. In particular, it throws critical attention on the work of John Rawls. This first section on Kant, then, may be thought of, in part, as a primer for the later section on Rawls.

However, before examining Kantian theory in detail, it is important that the aim of this section not be misinterpreted. I am not concerned here with the provision of an exhaustive explication of Kant’s ethical work, but rather with an examination of those aspects of his thought which bear on my internalist project, namely: (i) his critique of internalist moral theory and; (ii) his positive account of ethics in which moral principles are derived from reason.

Kant’s antagonism to Aristotelian moral projects

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant declares that moral principles should not be derived from empirically-grounded beliefs about human nature. Empirically-derived beliefs can furnish no practical laws and cannot be part of a pure philosophy.⁴ Hence moral principles derived from accounts of the human good should be rejected. We might extrapolate from this that, according to Kant, principles of distributive justice derived from the human good could also not belong to a philosophia pura. Let us consider these claims more closely.

In order to apprehend properly Kant’s thinking on this issue, one must recall the distinction which he draws in the Critique of Pure Reason between purely rational and empirical concepts and principles. Purely rational concepts and principles are apprehended a prion, whereas empirical ones are derived from observation. Kant believed that ideas of the human good are necessarily empirical because they are derived from observation of human behaviour.⁵ Hence, for Kant, there exists a clear divide between ideas of reason and ideas of the human good. Reason and the discipline of philosophical anthropology are clearly distinct.

At the heart of the Kantian project is a concern with the kind of motivation which should activate the will. He argues that proper moral rules cannot be derived from experience, rather they should be derived from a priori principles.⁶ Kant believed that tiie pure will is not directed by empirically-derived principia. That which is required of us, i.e. our moral duty, cannot be derived from the supersensuous. Here we can specify at least three separate reasons why Kant might object to the use of the human good in the formulation of moral theory; (i) his belief that empirical knowledge gained via induction is epistemologically problematic; (ii) his belief that ideas of the good are at bottom intrinsically selfish and; (iii) his belief that the will motivated by inclination is not autonomous or free. Let us explore each of these is greater detail.

Firstly, Kant argues that principles derived from experience are notoriously unreliable. This epistemological objection is to be found in the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant argues that all apparently a priori reasoning about the good in the end comes down to nothing but experience raised by induction to generality; a generality which he believes is so tenuous that everyone must be allowed countless exceptions in order to adapt his choice of a way of life to his particular inclination and his particular susceptibility to satisfaction.⁷ Knowledge of what makes us happy ultimately reduces to experience and Kant believes that it would be unwise to seek a priori principles from experience.⁸ Secondly (and probably more importantly), Kant believes that accounts of the human good are ultimately principles of self-love, and self-love cannot be the proper ground of true morality. He suggests mat “when one’s happiness is made the determining ground of the will, the result is the direct opposite of the principle of morality.”⁹ Principles of morality must be based on grounds which are devoid of self-love. Thirdly, Kant argues mat the human will, being purely rational, should not be motivated by ideas or principles derived from empirical inclination. According to Kant, any moral theory which attempts to derive the moral law from empirically derived considerations of human nature or the human good is heteronomous. Kant labelled the so-called principle of happiness (which dominated ancient Greek moral thinking) the principle of heteronomy. For one’s will to be determined by principles of the human good is to permit ‘heteronomy of the will’; to act upon such motivation is to act heteronomously. Kant inveighs against the influence of heteronomous theories of morality on our thinking for he believed heteronomy of the will to be the source of all spurious theories of morality.¹⁰

Kant contrasts heteronomous action with autonomous action. A rational person, he argues, is autonomous. The autonomous, truly free, person affirms his freedom by acting upon principles which are neither coerced by others nor determined by information grounded in experience. Moral goodness, or autonomous action, lies in the perfection not of the faculties but of the will.¹¹ Such a definition of freedom may seem odd to the modern mind, for we inhabit a cultural context in which freedom is typically defined solely in terms of freedom from the coercion of either institutions or other persons. Of course, Kant would accept that this is in fact an important part of what it is to be free. However, in addition to freedom from the coercion of others, Kant sees autonomy or freedom as consisting of action which is not guided by principles derived from human interests or desires.¹² Thus in order to be truly free, the will must be guided by motivations which issue from outside of itself; the will must not be determined by external empirical causes.¹³

For these reasons, Kant was antagonistic to ethical projects (such as Aristotelianism) which employ ideas of the human good and which we may refer to as forms of moral internalism. In the Groundwork, Kant argued that morality and morally good ends cannot be derived from (or based on) philosophical anthropology. Kant regarded the philosophy of eudaimonism as the epitome of moral confusion. He believed that deducing the Moral Law from the good was the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• Section One: Justice and the Human Good
• 1 Distributive Justice and the Human Good
• 2 Distributive Justice and the Necessity of Sacrifice
• 3 The Human Good, Others and Justice
• Section Two: The Normative Elements of Distributive Justice
• 4 A Neo-Aristotelian Theory of Value
• 5 Respect for Persons as Ends
• Section Three: Distributive Justice
• 6 Distributive Justice and the Principle of Equal Well-Being
• 7 The Basal Sphere
• 8 The Sphere of Subjectivity
• 9 The Sphere of Subjectivity
• 10 Epilogue
• Bibliography