Equality and Justice

Imagine a long race with hundreds of competitors. Midway through the race, the organizers place everyone at the same position, from which they would run together and share the prizes equally. Is this justice?

Consider another race in which the participants start at arbitrary positions along the track but finish at the same place. Is this justice either?

The race here is human life, the competitors are individuals in society, the organizers are governments, and the prizes are socio-economic status.

The socialist-communist conception of justice resembles the first race. It identifies an injustice in distribution and seeks to correct it with equality-so that everyone has equal socio-economic status and society’s resources are distributed equally. In this system it can clearly be seen that individuals have limited scope to progress and gain higher returns through merit. On the other hand there would also be some undeserving people who are gaining disproportionate returns from society. Surely a system which incentivises low merit over high merit would not be just even if it has achieved ideal equality. But nevertheless it accomplishes one crucial component of justice-that is, an equal starting point for all.

The second race represents the liberal-capitalist system. Every individual performs according to their ability and gets proportionate returns. But everyone is born into an arbitrary position, meaning that people have an unfair advantage/disadvantage when it comes to opportunities. Status is determined as much by luck as by merit. So this system is not just either, however, it achieves another critical component of justice: proportionality.

So here it is clear that the prevalent economic inequality is unjust because it gives some people unfair advantages/disadvantages over others; but equality is unjust as well, as individuals do not get proportional returns to their merit and have limited opportunities. The aim is to find and establish a different sort of inequality that ensures just distribution. Inequality is not injustice; in fact, justice is to be found in a specific type of inequality.

Economic injustice consists of giving everyone a fair and equal starting point from which their ability and work determine their returns. Further, after such a system is established (justice in acquisition), it is necessary to ensure ‘justice in transfer’ and ‘rectification of injustice’, which can be done by the market system of mutually beneficial transactions and the legal system respectively. Thus all three components of Nozickian justice are achieved.

Social justice can be thought of as a state in which individuals are accorded fair social status and treatment. It is also used in terms of groups and their relative social standing. One major approach to social justice calls for intervention to provide equality in status and opportunities for disadvantaged individuals and groups, while another approach stresses non-intervention to preserve meritocracy and freedom.

The example of affirmative action illustrates the role of equality in social justice. Marginalized identities, which formerly had low social status, are lower on many social indicators, and perceive themselves to be disadvantaged, argue that they are victims of an injustice due to inequality add demand policies that prefer or discriminate in favour of them. They claim that since they are victims of social injustice, giving special status to them is not unjust but rather promotes justice. This is where the distinction between equality and justice comes in. Affirmative action promotes intergroup equality at the cost of justice. Creating an injustice to counter and injustice gives equality but double injustice. Society must consider what is its ultimate goal — equality or justice?

In the course of establishing a just order, often a need arises to correct historical injustices. But people have also grossly misused corrective action to commit more injustice and further their own gains. Rectification of past injustice should be undertaken with extreme caution and only under stringent conditions as given below:

· Rectification is to be done in terms of individuals or defined entities, not abstract ones such as social identity groups.

· Before rectification is undertaken, the injustice must be proved before and held by a court of law through due legal process.

· Compensation is to be provided only to the same individual as the victim of the injustice. If the victim is dead, then restorative compensation can be distributed according to his or her will.

· An injustice done to a member of some group in the past cannot be compensated to a different person who is just a member of the same group. In other words, a person of the same group identity cannot use that as a basis to claim or get compensation.

· The liability for an injustice is also limited to the perpetrator and cannot be arbitrarily extended to kin or to people of the same identity unless there is definite involvement. If an individual commits an injustice as part of their membership in a defined entity it is that entity which is liable.

· Both the right to compensation and the liability for an injustice can only be transferred if there is involvement of other individuals or in the case that a party has died and their position inherited by another party. A limit should also be set on the maximum transferability of an injustice.

· If in doubt over corrective action, it is wiser to err on the side of inaction. Rectification can never be completely just and can often get into complications; sometimes it is better to let an injustice pass rather than end up creating a greater injustice.

One further consideration of equality in justice is that in any theory or system of justice, each human counts as an equal unit, and none are to be given extra consideration. Justice is the condition of the collective of humanity; injustice also affects everyone, whether they gain or lose from it. A conception of justice which prioritizes or focuses mostly on one group — the people of low status or of high status, the poor or the rich, the most disadvantaged or the most advantaged — is creating an injustice itself. Justice is to be done to everybody, for everybody.

Inequality is not the root of injustice; rather, it is the heredity of inequality that is unjust. In both the economic and social domain, there are all kinds of people and all levels of status. It is not wrong for people to differ in status, but it is wrong for people to gain a status undeservedly. It is wrong for people to be born low without opportunities to improve, and to be born high without having done anything to deserve it. Justice is not compatible with chance or fate. As Froz Tibby once remarked on the condition of the poor: ‘The injustice is not that they have nothing, but that they were born with nothing.’

Justice lies neither in absolute inequality nor in total inequality. When everyone starts the race of life from the same line and gets prizes according to their performance, that is justice.

Originally published at https://www.theextraterrestrial.blog on October 4, 2021.