Justice: A Selfish Virtue?

Introduction:

The question of whether justice is truly a selfless virtue – motivated only by the concern for others, rather than oneself – is a debate that has troubled philosophers for centuries. Here, justice is conceived as those acts which seek to – and are successful in – achieving a fair outcome, for the advantage of the other party. For brevity, this conception of justice will not be developed further, and instead the old philosophical test of calling things that look and sound like ducks, ducks (that is, to assume that we are able to distinguish between selfish and selfless, and just and unjust, without involved philosophical reasoning). However, further amelioration will be found over the course of analysing when and where which acts are and are not just.

During the course of the essay, the conception of justice as an act which can be committed both by individuals, as well as groups of individuals, will be analysed. The essay begins with assessing whether justice is a selfish virtue among individuals, before asking the same question of institutions; this is because, as institutions are themselves groups of individuals, we cannot begin an account of justice in institutions without first providing an account for their constituent parts.

Additionally, it is important to note that this essay takes the act of justice to be synonymous with the virtue of justice. Whilst many philosophers of past have discussed the tracking of moral character on moral worth, this essay maintains simplicity to focus on the core of the analysis by assuming that individuals and institutions which possess the virtue of justice must definitionally act in just ways.

Some ideas are simplified for the purpose of a concise analysis – in particular Schopenhauer, in which his argument about non-egoistic acts of “freely willed justice, pure loving kindness and real noble-mindedness” is taken to be interchangeable with an argument about the virtue of justice (1840:189). Whilst in reality, Schopenhauer’s argument about justice is far more nuanced and complex, there is not sufficient time here to flesh out this position in full. We must also note that whilst Rawls’ doesn’t explicitly defend his theory from a position of selflessness or altruism – instead, he argues that altruism as a social value is unreliable, due to its ‘imperfect distribution’ – yet, underlying his account of just acts is a contention that such acts are at least not explicitly selfish (which is the question of our investigation).

As such, the essay begins with asking the question of whether non-egoistic, selfless acts can exist among individuals – as it is impossible to speak of justice as being anything other than selfish, if such acts do not exist. The question of whether individuals can have selfish motivations in performing just acts is then assessed (in another way, the essay establishes whether justice is purely a selfless virtue or not). Having critically discussed justice for individuals, this essay will consider the virtue among institutions – that is, whether just institutions act under the influence of selfish or selfless motivations.

Overall, when considering individuals, it is clear that not only can truly selfless acts exist, in fact just acts (and so the virtue of justice) are most convincingly explained by selfless reasons. Furthermore, when considering institutions, clearly acts can at least sometimes be explained by selfish motivations.

1. The virtue of justice in individuals.

a. The existence of selfless acts.

First, we consider the nature of justice within individuals. Here, the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer is of particular relevance; Schopenhauer mounts a significant case for the true selflessness of just acts which are purportedly non-egoistic. Before we can assess this motivation, however, we must critically evaluate whether we can even speak of truly non-selfish acts in the first place.

Schopenhauer explains that an act of the relevant kind here is of “freely willed justice, pure loving kindness and real noble-mindedness”, and that the incentive behind it is “the ultimate ground of morals” (1840:189). Non-egoistic incentives are opposite to egoistic incentives, in which, “seeing the countless individuals…in a practical respect, takes himself alone as real”, making ones’ pleasure the primary goal (1840:191). Acts of the moral kind then, for Schopenhauer, are acts of freely-willed justice and loving kindness, motivated by an incentive which places others as the primary aim. For example, a rich man returning the lost belongings of a poor man, even though no one is around to witness it (1840:186).

A psychological egoist, however – believing that all acts have a self-interested, egoistic motive – may argue that whilst appearingto be of moral value, such acts are in fact still motivated by personal gain: be that “belief in a future recompense”, better standing in their community, or just to feel better about themselves (and so egoistic) (1840:185).

Schopenhauer recognises this; “a considerable portion of actions done from loving kindness…occur out of ostentation” (1840:185). Yet, he maintains there are acts of the kind described, and takes the case of Arnold von Winkelried, “who embraced as many enemy spears as he could” in battle, sacrificing himself to save his men (1840:196). In this case, it is indeed difficult to see how egoism can be the motivation, since the act leads to the destruction of the self (whilst according to egoism, the act is done in the interest of the self).

It is worth considering here the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche (1878) offers a powerful counter: the action is still egoistic, since Winkelried’s action had as its end the escape from a distressing emotional state, and not the wellbeing of his comrades, despite leading to his sacrifice. He writes: “all he is really concerned with, therefore, is the discharge of his emotion; to relieve his state of tension he seizes the spears of his enemies and buries them into his own flesh” (1878:74).

On the face of this, it appears that egoism has an answer for anything. Schopenhauer admits: “there is always…the possibility that an egoistic motive had influenced the doer of a just or good action”, yet still maintains that to propose egoism as an explanation here is incredulous (1840:138). This is convincing – though Schopenhauer doesn’t deny the possibilitythat Nietzsche could be correct, but instead suggests that the likelihood is incredibly low. Without dismissing this, it does indeed seem that Nietzsche’s critique is more dogmatic than realistic – aiming at proving egoism at all costs, rather than the more reasonable explanation of a selfless act. This is especially questionable due to the difficulty of imagining cases where the horror of battle can be worse than ending one’s life, potentially able to span many more decades of pleasure in the future. It is unsurprising then, that the concept of psychological egoism has not conclusively been established science either; Sober and Wilson (1998), for instance, conclude that pure psychological egoism does not naturally occur in humans, or many other animals for that matter. Whilst it is impossible to ever know what is inside another’s mind, it seems undeniable that in certain cases, non-egoistic incentives are the most convincing explanations. We cannot conclusively dismiss the case of egoism – but likewise, the psychological egoist cannot categorically eliminate selflessness as the cause for just acts. Furthermore, many would rightly agree with Cartwright(2012), who argues that psychological egoism “seems suspect, given the elastic and fungible nature of its explanations” (2012:351).

b. The existence of selfish yet just acts.

Having established the likely existence of selfless acts, we need to ask whether acts of justice motivated by concern for oneself, or of others. In approaching this, it is perhaps best to take the counterfactual, and locate the question that would disprove Schopenhauer: can any act of justice be explained by selfish motivations? If this isn’t the case, then we will be able to categorically deny the statement – at least among individuals’ acts – that justice is a selfish virtue.

At the foundation of his argument, Schopenhauer explains that “no action can happen without sufficient motive”, and unless a stronger counter-motive exists, the action must happen (1840:198). Further, “each motive has a relation to well-being or woe” of a subject (1840:198). This produces three incentives for action: egoism, a desire for an agent’s own wellbeing; compassion, a desire for another’s weal; and malice, a desire for another’s woe. For an act to be just, and thus hold the “stamp of moral worth”, such acts must express a loving kindness for humanity and freely-willedjustice (1840:199). Here Schopenhauer argues that egoistic incentives do not meet this criteria – “egoism and moral worth of an action totally exclude one another” – since egoism aims at an agent’s own wellbeing and moral actions aim at another’s (1840:198). This is important because only in regarding others can a sense of loving kindness of humanity be expressed, something that is obviously eliminated in cases of egoism (e.g. Nietzsche’s previous interpretation of Winkelried’s sacrifice). Notably, just acts cannot be explained by the incentive of malice either, since this aims at the woe, rather than wellbeing, of another. In this way, the remaining incentive is compassion, since it is focused on the wellbeing of others, at least initially seeming to meet the criteria of moral value.

To elevate his argument beyond elimination, Schopenhauer elucidates his notion of compassion. He argues that the reason that compassion is able to override counter-motives of egoism and malice, is that “I directly suffer along with him, feel his woe as otherwise I feel only mine, and so will his well-being immediately” (1840:200). In this way, compassion allows one to feel the suffering of another, and act to relieve that pain as if it were an egoistic incentive. Metaphysics of this aside, we can understand compassion as requiring some degree of identification between the individuals, such one can truly feel sympathy with the other, and “share the suffering in him, in spite of the fact that his skin does not enclose [their] nerves” (1840:166).

This identification has led some to argue that compassion is another form of psychological egoism, whereby one acts to relieve the suffering of another as if it were his own, because it is his own; Jacquette (2005) argue that “when I witness the sufferings of another person I am in a sense really seeing myself in pain”, so the proceeding action from compassion is “a disguised form of egoism” (2005:230). Schopenhauer, however, is very clear that “he is the sufferer, not us: and it is precisely in his person, not ours that we feel the pain…we feel his pain as his, and do not imagine it is ours” (1840:203). This is convincing, since at the phenomenal level, individuation of persons is clearly a reasonable assumption – not least as if it were not, then the meaning of ego itself would be radically different to its usage here (as there would only be a single ‘self’ to act in interest).

However, Jacquette does raise the interesting point that in feeling the pain of the other, I still feel some pain, and so act to relieve that feeling for myself, and so is another form of egoism, not of selfless justice. Here, it is perhaps useful to distinguish between ‘feeling’ and ‘sharing’ pain – in the former, we do the bare minimum to relieve our suffering, but in the latter, we act to relieve the primary source of the suffering, located in another person. For instance, a poor man walking past a homeless person on the street may feel sympathy for them yet walk past – doing the bare minimum to relieve themselves of the pain – in which case they are merely feeling the pain. However, if they stopped to help the homeless person, perhaps to buy them food or offer them shelter, they would be doing far more than is necessary to relieve only themselves of the pain from compassion, and therefore acting against the egoistic rationality proposed. The outcome of one’s own suffering being relieved is the same in either case, though in the latter – where suffering is shared – egoism cannot explain why the poor man acts with loving kindness and justice. As a result, egoism and selfishness is again an incomplete explanation of the incentive that forms the basis of genuine acts of justice.

In this way, not only can we see that acts of genuine selflessness most likely exist, but also that in such cases of helping the homeless person – that is, of cases of acts of freely-willed justice – it appears nearly impossible for selfish incentives to convincingly provide a full account of why individuals act in this way. Given this unsatisfying explanation, it seems far more coherent to adopt Schopenhauer’s account of the virtue of justice – as one underlined by compassion and a genuine care for others, as if they were ourselves.

2. The virtue of justice in institutions

However, it would be a limitation of this investigation if simply stop at the virtue of justice at the level of the individual. In the modern era, justice is far more often expressed on local, national, and even international levels. Be this redistributive programs of national governments, or the development goals of international NGOs; whilst formed from individuals, we cannot assume that institutions are merely the sum of their parts. Thus, an investigation into justice in these bodies is required. Specifically, we are asking whether it is possible for a just institution to act selfishly in the execution of its functions. It is far beyond the scope of this work to engage in extensive analysis to determine whether most institutions act in this way or not, however.

Here, the philosophy of the late John Rawls is of particular use. Rawls (1971) argues that institutions are themselves formed from a certain kind of justice. He explains that “justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought”. For Rawls, social institutions provide “a way of assigning rights and duties…and they define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation” (1971:3-4). It is this idea which is central to Rawls’ approach – that society ought to be organised in such a way as to create a fair outcome for all members, and that social institutions ought to be the means to achieve this end.

Notably, Rawls is not contending that any particular end should be of equality, but instead that it should be fairness. Unequal distributions can be justified, as long as it is “to everyone’s advantage”(1971:13). The final state of society, then, may be unequal, but it is only the end of social institutions, in essence, to give individuals the freedom to choose the kind of lives they want to live. In his ‘thin’ theory of the good, for instance, Rawls argues that the distribution of primary social goods is one such issue which is governed by the principles of justice; primary goods being those goods including human rights, access to housing, healthcare, education, etc. In many ways, this conception of justice is not too dissimilar to the Modern Liberal notion of ‘equality of opportunity’, which is adopted as justification for many social welfare and healthcare systems, globally.

Whilst clearly possessing contemporary relevance to institutions, the most important element for this account is not merely Rawls’ conception of just acts, but his justification for such redistribution (we have already seen his motivation behind this as the ‘advantage for all’). Crucially, Rawls believes that such a distribution of resources in society is not explicitly selfish – that is (to borrow from Schopenhauer), to act in one’s own advantage above others – given his thought experiment, the ‘Veil of Ignorance’. Rawls asks us to imagine a theoretical circumstance, in which we are subject to a ‘double ignorance’; that is, an ignorance of social position (of race, class, health, intellect, etc), as well as of conception of the good (of our own interests and beliefs once we are in society). Once in this ‘original position’, he asks us (a population of people) to collectively decide on the design of a society of which we would happily live. Since we are ignorant of where we will end up, Rawls argues that we will rationally choose one in which the social goods and benefits of society are distributed to everyone’s advantage; people would not risk living homeless or poor, even if you could by luck be born into a high class, for instance.

On the other hand, Rawls himself does suggest that individuals in the original position act with a certain degree of selfishness, since it is in their rational self-interest to pick a society in which they have the best chance of being guaranteed a basic safety net. The assumptions about the risk-seeking or risk-averse nature of individuals aside, this selfishness is clearly less than half of the selfishness proposed in the counterargument – and in Rawls’ case, this selfishness would not reasonably lead many to suggest that he is arguing that his social institutions are ‘selfish’ in providing care for the poor (at least by his account alone). In fact, as was apparent in Schopenhauer’s case, just acts may vary in degree of selfishness, as comparing giving some money to a homeless person and dedicating one’s life to helping the homeless, reveals. Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that any person will act with some level of selfishness in almost all their actions, but that this does not deny clearly selfless actions of their title on account of a slight element of selfishness (which may more clearly be named ‘self-preservation’ than egoism).

This aside, the structure of Rawls’ overall argumentation is largely convincing – it is indeed the case that if many people we not assured of where in society they would be born, they would choose a far fairer outcome for all. In many ways, this explains why it is often those at the top of society who, since they have already attained their social position, are most resilient to redistribution in society (and vice versa to those who have attained a marginalised or disadvantaged social position). Whilst this point makes up the substance of Rawls’ argument, it seems that ignorance of the conception of the good is a strange condition to suppose. That is, whilst it is somewhat challenging to imagine oneself outside of our own race, class, intellect, or even bodies, it seems near impossible to also imagine being in the original position without any beliefs at all. How then, would it be even possible to have a conception of ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’ without any normative grounding or ideological framework to weigh up competing factors? Rawls’ theory suggests that the idea of the ‘good’ can be ‘thinned’ out to just be a means for everyone to realise their own ends (whatever they are) – yet this evaluation is itself a form of ideology and cannot be taken as a neutral position within the original position. In this way, it seems to me to be largely untenable to hold the second condition of ignorance – both for the aforementioned reason, as well as that a ‘social contract’ for these institutions in practice would be invalid if people agreed to it without social position and an ignorance of the good (so is limited in justifying already-existing institutions). This critique was notably made by Robert Nozick, in his in 1974 work, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”.

The end of this critique is not to immediately prove social institutions act in selfishly just ways – but to allow the presence of pluralism within the original position. That is, if the second ignorance is assumed, we can see that there is general homogeneity among people in their position; by contrast, if people are no longer ignorant of their normative groundings and ideological frameworks, then it is plain to see there is now a pluralism of competing ideas and values. This is a key criticism mounted by Williams (1985), who argues that Rawls assumes a strong consensus about what justice is and how it should be achieved in the original position – and so a more robust theory should account for the pluralism actually present in society.

This point is crucial, since if we allow for pluralism within Rawls’ thought experiment, then it is no great jump to assume that groupings of beliefs and values will emerge. So, given a certain question over the design of a society, those individuals which share common or similar normative groundings and/or ideological frameworks may come to a common ‘accept’ or ‘reject’. In this case, we may see an emergence of majority and minority interests within the original position. Whichever method Rawls’ society would take to decide the design of society, this would involve overruling the will of some groupings in the original position.

Given this assumption, we begin to see the cracks in Rawls’ account. Yet, to fully answer the question of our investigation, we need to establish whether it is possible for institutions themselves to express a will – beyond just the individual wills expressed by its members. This assumption is justified; in the modern world, whole companies, governments, and charities are talked of as being more than just a collection of their members (and so, for instance, critique can be placed on ‘Google’ as a whole, or ‘the British government’). Furthermore, it has been codified in foundational documents (constitutions, memorandums of association, etc.) that institutions maintain a certain purpose or mission, and – whilst shaped by the will of its members – that this ‘will’ exists with a liability on the concept of the institution in cases where actions go wrong (e.g. how it ‘makes our country look bad’ or it ‘reflects badly on the company’). If we cannot talk of a ‘collective will’ in this way, then it would be practically impossible to talk about the actions of institutions at all, since to do so would involve a calculation of the aggregate of all the views of the governing structures and members (i.e. its constituent parts). We can also contend, then, that if there is such thing as a ‘collective will’, that there must also be a ‘collective selfishness’ – i.e. when one acts in its own will, over and above the will of another.

Before continuing, it is important to note that we are only arguing between whether such a societal design – and thus action by social institutions – is conceived of as selfish or not, not on account of its justice. This delineation is made on the grounds of means and ends. Put simply, it seems reasonable given the accounts thus far, that to act to the advantage of another’s ends is ‘just’ or ‘fair’, but to act in another’s means or ‘will’ is ‘selfless’. To make this clearer, take the example of a group of poor farmers in Southern USA. Perhaps a social institution in this case (say, the federal government) may decide to urbanise the villages the farmers live in, and remove their fields of crops with housing, hospitals, and schools. This draws on Rawls’ ‘different principle’ – that social institutions ought to eliminate inequalities which do not work to the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society.

In this case, we can see that the act may indeed be ‘just’ – that is, it acts to the advantage of all in the area. The farmers’ ‘ends’ – their material condition, including wealth – has become better, and thus the act is indeed fair and just. However, opposition may still be levelled if this development was undertaken without the consent of the farmers. In that case, whilst the action remains just, clearly the will of the farmers – that is, their will as to whether they want the project to go ahead or not (irrespective of its outcome) – have been placed below the will of the social institution. Thus, if the institution itself can indeed have its own will, then the ‘means’ of acting in one’s own will, and essentially in violating the will of the subject, is to act selfishly (i.e., to place one’s will above another’s). This provides us with a counterfactual to Rawls’ account: a circumstance in which an institution can act justly, yet selfishly.

Therefore, to prove the possibility of at least one instance in which just institutions can be selfish, all we must do is assume that collective selfishness can exist at an institutional level. Once we do, it is plain to see – given the huge pluralism that exists in many western nations, such as the United States – that at least one group’s will shall at any particular decision be overruled by the will of another group. In these real cases, it can be seen that no matter how just the action taken is, it is still necessarily a case of selfish action, as the will of the institution is acted on by the institution, regardless of the will of the affected parties. Though perhaps in some ways reductive (ignoring, for instance, the different ways institutions attempt to ‘bring in’ different interest groups and achieve compromise), it nevertheless demonstrates the principle that justice on the institutional level can be a selfish virtue.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, then, we can see that for individuals, it is difficult to see how truly just acts could ever be motivated by egoistic, selfish interests. This is derived from both the possibility of truly selfless acts, as well as the impossibility of truly just selfish acts. Whilst it cannot ever be categorically proven – as Schopenhauer admits, “in experience only the deed is given every time, while the impulses are not open to view” – selflessness remains the best explanation of the phenomenon of freely-willed justice (1840:196).

In contrast, on the level of institutions, we can see that despite the nature of its constituent parts, it becomes nearly impossible – when dealing with groups of people – to eliminate the possibility of any particular just act from being selfish. That is, that the will of a social institution can (and often does) require to make its own will supreme over others – even if to do so is to act fairly, and to the advantage of the overruled group. Here, it is not necessary to prove that all just acts by institutions must be selfish, but just that it is sometimes a selfish virtue.

Bibliography:

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• Jacquette, Dale: “The Philosophy of Schopenhauer” (2005) (Acumen, 2005).
• Nietzsche, Friedrich: “Human, All Too Human” (1878) Trans. by R.J. Hollingdale. (Cambridge University Press, 1986).
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• Rawls, John: “Justice as Fairness” (1971) in “A Theory of Justice” (Harvard University Press, 1971).
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