Equality and Justice (Part 3)
It's a truism that equality is justice (or justice is equality). But what is equality? Read part 3 of 6.
I developed this series in 2012 when I was in my 20’s trying to clarify my own thoughts on the weighty topic. It was originally published on a blog which is now discontinued.
In part 2, I concluded that society has to create incentives for the strong to not attack the weak while—in the state of nature—they can, and that incentivized state would be the state of justice in the society.
That means in the hypothetical simple society comprising of two men, one physically weak and the other physically strong, justice would be where the physically strong enjoys overall more benefits than the physically weak.
The silent benefit to the weak being he would not be attacked by the strong.
The additional benefits to the strong over and above those to the weak would be incentives for the strong to not attack the weak. Otherwise, what reason would the strong have to not attack the weak?
To summarize the point:
The one who is favored by nature, and thus would prevail over others in the state of nature, will continue to enjoy higher benefits (in the form of incentives not to attack the others while he can) in the just society.
Note that this conclusion is arrived at from a hypothetical simple two-person society. By adding complex variables the end result is going to change, but the equation will essentially hold.
For example, according to the aforementioned rule, a criminal who is physically more powerful should be enjoying more benefits if society is just than a common man who is physically weak. But instead, in society we actually have criminals in jail and that's perfectly just. Common people certainly enjoy more benefits than criminals.
You would say: of course, screw the rule which says the criminal should be enjoying more benefits!
Now look closer. Is the rule really breaking? No, because ours is not a simple two-person society. Even though the criminal may be physically strong, he is in minority. Would he have prevailed had our society been the state of nature? No, because his strength is way less than the collective strength of those he would have to fight.
The rule says, he who is favored by nature such that he would prevail over the others in the state of nature would enjoy higher benefits in the just society. The criminal being in minority isn't really favored by nature in a broad view.
Thus, the original two-person world conclusion holds perfectly if we properly account for complexities of our society.
So let's make it into a maxim:
He who is favored by nature would enjoy higher benefits in the just society.
After accounting for numerous layers of complexities between the hypothetical two-person society and the actual society, one should be able to see that it is following this rule of justice that the governments have policies of redistribution of income.
If a large section of society is making less money (is poor) and enjoys less wellbeing, what would keep them from creating chaos in society by attacking the rich?
Hence we tax the rich, and give benefits such as public distribution of food, health benefits, other numerous subsidies and suchlike (mostly) to the poor out of those taxes.
Discounting all complexities, in the simple two-person society this would mean if one person is rich and the other is poor, and if the poor is physically strong enough to make the rich person's life difficult by attacking him for his wealth, then the rich person will have to share his wealth with the physically strong poor person in order to live peacefully.
So, in the hypothetical simple two-person society, the physically strong poor person enjoys higher overall benefits than the physically weak rich, because he would get equal share of wealth as the other without having the brains to create wealth, simply for he is favored by nature.
The state of justice in the actual society would be based on the same basic equation.
Argument of morality
Some people would say that even if one is favored by nature and would prevail over the other had our society been the state of nature, since we are not merely animals living in the state of nature but civilized humans, we should strive for equality without force.
Meaning, the one favored by nature should not require incentives to keep from attacking the weak. That is because it is simply not moral to do so.
Does this argument hold water?
To understand that, we will have to understand what morality is. Where morality originates from and what it purports to achieve.
To be continued…