Chapter 13 Chapter IV Right to Equal Freedom-3

Aristotle said that people are characterized by their sense of both justice and injustice, and their shared understanding of justice gave rise to the city-states of ancient Greece.From our discussion, one can also analogously say that a shared understanding of justice as fairness produces constitutional democracy.After presenting further arguments for the first principles of justice, I have tried to show that the fundamental liberties of democracies are most securely secured by this conception of justice.The conclusions drawn in each case are well known.My purpose has always been to show not only that the principles of justice accord with our considered judgments, but that they furnish the strongest arguments for liberty.On the contrary, the principle of teleology admits at best some of the flimsy arguments in favor of the right to liberty, at least for the right to equal liberty.The right to freedom of conscience and freedom of thought should not be based on philosophical or ethical skepticism, nor should it be based on indifference to religious and moral interests.Between dogmatism and intolerance on the one hand, and the simplification of religion and morality as mere hobbies on the other, the principle of justice is to draw the proper path between the two.Since the theory of justice rests on some inadequate but generally held assumptions, it may gain fairly general acceptance.If men of equal rank can agree on anything, they can also agree on certain principles, and if our liberties derive from these principles, then these liberties must have the strongest foundation.

Now, I want to look more closely at the implications of the primacy of the right to liberty.I do not intend here to argue for this priority (I leave that to § 82), but to begin by elucidating the meaning of the priority of liberty, especially in the light of the example mentioned above.There are several priorities that need to be distinguished.By the primacy of liberty I mean that the principle of equal liberty takes precedence over the second principle of justice.These two principles are arranged in lexical order, so that the requirements of the right to liberty should be satisfied first.No other principle works until this is achieved.The primacy of right over the good, or the primacy of fair opportunity over the difference principle, is not something we need to deal with immediately.

As all the previous examples show, the priority of liberty means that liberty can be limited only for the sake of liberty itself.There are two situations here.One is that fundamental liberties, while still equal, may not be as broad; the other is that fundamental liberties may simply not be equal.If the liberty is less extensive, then the representative citizen must consider it favorable to his liberty in general; and if the liberty is unequal, the liberty of those with less liberty must get greater security.In both cases the reason is to be justified in light of the whole system of liberties.These priority rules have been pointed out on several occasions.

However, a further distinction must be drawn between the two situations in which the right to liberty should be restricted or permitted to be restricted.First, limitations may arise from natural constraints and accidents in human life, or from random events in history and society.Whether these restrictions are just, the question does not arise.For example, even in a well-ordered society, under favorable circumstances, the right to freedom of thought and conscience is subject to reasonable regulation and the scope of the principle of participation is limited.These limitations arise from the more or less fixed conditions of political life.Other restrictions are adapted to the natural features of the human environment, as is the case with children, for example, who are given less freedom.In these cases, the problem is how to discover methods of justice that accommodate some known constraints.

In the second case, injustice already exists, whether in social arrangements or in individual actions.The question here is: what is the just way to deal with injustice.Of course, there may be many justifications for this injustice, and often the person who acts the injustice is convinced that he is pursuing a higher cause.Intolerant and hostile factions are examples of this possibility.However, people's inclination to injustice is not a fixed aspect of social life; the strength of this inclination depends mainly on the social system, especially on whether the social system is just or not.A well-ordered society tends to eliminate, or at least control, people's inclinations to injustice (see Chapter 819), so that, once such a society is established, hostile and intolerant factions are less likely to exist, or Not enough to do harm.How justice requires us to respond to injustice is a completely different question from how to best accommodate the inevitable constraints and random events of human life.

These two situations raise several questions.Strict observance, we recall, is one of the stipulations of the original position; the principles of justice are chosen on the assumption that they will be generally observed.Any non-compliance is disregarded as an exceptional case (Section 25).Arranging these principles in a lexical sequence, the parties choose a conception of justice that applies to favorable conditions and envisions a just society that can be achieved in due course.In this order, these principles then prescribe a security of perfect justice; they are the principles of an ideal theory, with the aim of directing the process of social reformation.But even assuming that these principles are fully applicable for this purpose, we still have to ask to what extent they apply to institutions under less favorable conditions, and whether they confer any control over situations of injustice.In view of these circumstances, these principles and their lexical sequences have not been recognized and therefore they may no longer apply.

I do not intend to provide systematic answers to these questions.Several special cases are discussed below (see Chapter 6).The intuitive idea is to divide the theory of justice into two parts.The first or ideal part assumes strict observance and presents those principles which characterize a well-ordered society in favorable circumstances.It develops the idea of ​​a fundamental structure of perfect justice and spells out the corresponding responsibilities and obligations of people within the fixed limits of human life.It is this part of the theory of justice that concerns me chiefly.The second part is the non-ideal theory, which is advanced after some ideal conception of justice has been chosen; only then do the parties wonder which principles should be adopted under less fortunate conditions.As I have already pointed out, this theory is divided into two rather distinct parts.One section includes guiding principles for how to adapt to natural constraints and historical random events, and the other section includes principles for dealing with injustice.

The ideal part takes theory of justice as a whole and proposes a conception of the just society we seek to achieve.Existing institutions are to be evaluated against this idea, and they should be considered unjust if they deviate from this idea without good reason.The lexical sequence of justice principles specifies which ideal components are relatively more urgent, and the priority rules indicated by this sequence also apply to non-ideal situations.We all, therefore, have a natural duty to abolish every injustice so far as circumstances permit, and to abolish first the most serious injustices, in proportion to the deviation from perfect justice.Of course, this opinion is extremely simplistic.The degree of deviation from the ideal is mainly judged by intuition.However, our judgments are guided by the priorities indicated by the lexical sequences.If we have a reasonably clear idea of ​​what is just, then our deliberate beliefs about justice may come closer to each other, although we cannot say exactly how this more pronounced convergence occurs.Thus, while the principles of justice belong to a theory of an ideal state, they are generally applicable.

Several parts of the theory of non-idealities can be illustrated by different examples, some of which we have already discussed.One case has to do with less extensive liberties.Since there is no inequality of any kind, but all people have a more limited rather than a wider freedom, the question can be evaluated in terms of representative equal citizens.In applying the principles of justice, emphasizing the interest of this representative person is to enforce the principle of the common good (I take this common good to be some general good which in the proper sense is equally beneficial to everyone condition).Several of the preceding examples have concerned a less extensive liberty: the control of liberty of conscience and liberty of thought in a manner consistent with public order, and the limitation of the scope of application of the majority rules falling into this category (Sections 34, 37).These limitations arise from the fixed and unchanging conditions of human life, and thus belong to that part of the non-ideal theory dealing with natural limitations.Since restricting the liberty of the intolerant and restricting the fanaticism of factional struggle involve issues of injustice, these two examples belong to the part of the non-ideal theory.For each of the four cases, however, the argument is made from the point of view of representative citizens.According to the concept of the lexical sequence, the limitation of the scope of liberty for the sake of liberty itself produces a lesser but still equal liberty.

The second case concerns an unequal right to liberty.If some people have more voting rights than others, then the right to political liberty is unequal; is also like this.There are many instances in history that might justify less political liberty.Burke's unrealistic characterization of representation may have had some element of truth when viewed from the perspective of eighteenth-century society.If so, it reflects the fact that not all liberties are of equal value, because it is conceivable that the unequal political liberties at that time might have been made in order to adapt to historical constraints. permissible adjustments, while serfdom and slavery and religious intolerance certainly were not.These limitations do not justify the loss of the right to freedom of conscience and the right to assert the inviolability of the person.The case in favor of certain political liberties and the right to fair equal opportunity is not so convincing.I pointed out earlier (section 11) that if the long-term advantage is sufficiently great to transform a less fortunate society into one capable of enjoying full and equal liberties, it may be justified to give up some of these liberties.This is especially the case if circumstances are in any way unfavorable to the exercise of these rights.Under certain conditions, which are not at present ineradicable, the value of certain liberties may not be so high as to deny consideration to the possibility of compensation to the less fortunate.We need not deny that the value of liberty depends on circumstances in order to recognize the lexical sequence of these two principles of justice.It does need to be pointed out, however, that social conditions which make less equal liberties unacceptable will eventually arise as a result of the adoption of a general conception of justice.At that point, unequal liberty rights are no longer justifiable.This lexical sequence can be said to be a long-term balance inherent in a justice system.Once the disposition to equality is established (though not long), the two principles must be placed in sequence.

I assume in these remarks that it is always those who have less liberty who must be compensated.We should always estimate the situation from the point of view of these men (as viewed from the constitutional convention or legislature).This limitation made it almost certain that the two institutions were tolerable only to the extent that any form of slavery and serfdom as they were known reduced even greater injustice.There may have been some transitional situations where slavery was a little more civilized than the practice at the time.For example, the city-states in ancient Greece did not capture prisoners of war, but usually executed them.Suppose that these city-states, through treaty agreement, no longer kill prisoners of war, but keep them as slaves.Though we cannot admit slavery on the grounds that the greater advantage to some outweighs the loss to others, under those conditions, since all are in danger of being captured in war, the Formal slavery is perhaps less unjust than the existing custom of killing prisoners of war.The conceived servitude, at least not hereditary (assumed to be so), was accepted by the free citizens of the more or less equal city-state.If the treatment of the slaves was not very harsh, the arrangement seemed to be justified as an improvement on the existing system.This arrangement was probably sooner or later abandoned entirely, as the exchange of prisoners of war was a better arrangement, and the return of captured members of society was preferable to slave service.But these considerations, however imaginative, in no way helped to justify hereditary slavery or serfdom by natural and historical constraints.Also, in this matter one cannot use necessity as an excuse, at least not the great benefit to higher forms of culture of these servile arrangements.I will also say below that the principle of perfection can be rejected in the original position (section 50). The question of paternalism deserves some discussion here, too, because it was mentioned in the discussion of equal liberty, and it also has to do with a lesser kind of liberty.In the original position, parties think they are rational beings in society, able to manage their own affairs.They therefore do not recognize any obligation to the self, since it is not necessary for the furtherance of their good.But having chosen an ideal conception of justice, they will wish to see that their faculties are not undeveloped, that they are not, as children are, unable to promote their own interests; Some kind of misfortune or accident and cannot make a decision in its own interest.To guard against their own irrational tendencies, they agree to arrangements of punishment which may be sufficient to induce them to refrain from foolish actions, and to accept certain punishments which are prescribed to counteract the unfortunate consequences of their indiscretions. is reasonable.As a result of these circumstances, the parties have adopted principles which govern when others are entitled to act on their behalf, irrespective of their wishes at the time; The ability to act rationally may sometimes have declined, or may not exist at all. The principle of paternalism is thus a principle that each party might recognize in the original position in order to protect itself from irrationality and weakness in society.Others have the right, and sometimes the need, to act on our behalf, to do what we ourselves might rationally do for ourselves, and this empowerment is only valid if we fail to look after our own good.According to the theory of primary goods, paternalistic decisions are not irrational, nor do they lack an understanding of certain inclinations and interests of the individual to the extent that they are governed by the inclinations and interests of the individual.As we know less and less about a person, we act on his behalf from the vantage point of the primordial position, just as we might act on our own.We worked hard to get him what he would probably need if he wanted anything else.We must be able to demonstrate that, as the person develops or recovers his rational faculties, he will accept the decisions we make on his behalf, and agree with us that we have done what is best for him. However, it is not enough to ask the other party to recognize his status in due time, even if this status will not be justifiably criticized.Consider, therefore, two sufficiently rational and strong-willed beings, professing different religious or philosophical beliefs; suppose that there is some mental process which may convert each party to the other's view, even though it is against their wishes And imposed on them.Let us assume that, in due course, both persons will consciously adopt their new beliefs.But we still cannot see them in this way, because two other conditions are needed here: the paternalistic intervention must be justified by the obvious decline or lack of reason and will; Knowledge of hobbies, or accounts of primary goods, guide paternalistic interventions.These limitations on the generation and scope of paternalistic measures derive from assumptions about the original position.The parties want to safeguard their personal integrity and their ultimate goals and beliefs (whatever those goals and beliefs may be).The principles of paternalism, which prevent us from acting irrationally, can never be said to be wanton attacks on a person's beliefs and personality, so long as they can later be endorsed.More generally, educational methods must likewise respect these limitations (section 78). The strength of justice as fairness seems to come from two sources: the need to justify all inequalities to the most disadvantaged, and the primacy of liberty.This pair of limitations makes justice as fairness theory different from intuitionism and teleology.If we consider the preceding discussion, we can again formulate the first principle of justice and combine it with appropriate precedence rules.Amendments and additions in this respect are, I believe, self-explanatory.This time, the principle is as follows: First principle: Every person shall have an equal right to the broadest and equal total system of fundamental liberties consistent with a similar system of liberties enjoyed by all.Priority rules: The principles of justice should be arranged in lexical order, so that liberty can be limited only for the sake of liberty itself.There are two cases here: (1) less extensive liberties should strengthen the general system of liberties enjoyed by all, and (2) less equal liberties must be acceptable to those with fewer liberties of.It may be remarked again that I must also give a systematic argument for the rule of precedence, although I have examined this rule on several important occasions.It appears to be compatible with our well-thought-out beliefs.But as regards the presentation of the arguments from the point of view in the original position, I shall defer until the third part of the book, when the full significance of the contract theory can be revealed (section 82). For the most part, I have considered the content of the principle of equal liberty and the implications of the primacy of rights that this principle entails.It seems appropriate to mention here Kant's account of the conception of justice from which this principle arose.This interpretation is based on Kant's concept of autonomy.I think it is a mistake to highlight the status of the universality and breadth of Kantian ethics.That moral principles are general and extensive is hardly a new insight for him; and, as we have seen, these two conditions will not in any case help our discussion very much.It is impossible to formulate a theory of morality on such flimsy foundations, and therefore a discussion of Kant's teaching confined to these ideas would render the discussion worthless.The real significance of his point lies elsewhere. Kant, for example, first introduced the concept of moral principles as objects of rational choice.These principles define the moral laws that people can reasonably hope to have in order to control their behavior within a moral community.Moral philosophy becomes the study of the concepts and consequences of a properly prescribed rational decision.This concept had immediate results.For as soon as we regard moral principles as legislation for a sphere of ends, these principles must obviously be not only acceptable to all, but also universal.Finally, Kant postulates that such moral legislation should be unanimously assented on the condition that it embodies man as a free and equal rational being.The description of the original state is an attempt to explain this idea.Here I do not want to argue for this interpretation on the basis of Kant's thesis.Of course, one may wish to interpret his point of view differently.Perhaps it is best to view the following remarks as suggestions for linking the theory of justice as fairness to important arguments in the contractarian tradition of Kant and Rousseau. In my opinion, according to Kant, the essence of a person is that he is a free and equal rational being, and if the principle of action he chooses fully expresses his essence, then his actions are autonomous.The principles on which he acts are not adopted because of his social position or natural endowments, or because of the particular society in which he lives, or those particular things which he happens to desire.To act on these principles is to act heteronomously.The veil of ignorance deprives people in the primitive position of knowledge that would presumably enable them to choose heteronomous principles.As free and equal rational beings, the parties made their choice together knowing only that there were those circumstances that produced the principles of justice needed. Indeed, the arguments in favor of these principles complement Kant's ideas in many ways.For example, it gives such a character to Kant's ideas.That is, the principles selected as applicable to the basic structure of society; and the premises that embody the characteristics of this structure are used to derive the principles of justice.But I think that this and other additions are quite natural, and still quite close to Kant's teaching, at least if a comprehensive study of all his ethical writings would lead to such conclusions.Thus, assuming that the reasoning in favor of principles of justice is correct, we can say that when people act on these principles, they are acting on principles that they might have chosen as rational, independent beings in the original position of equality. .Their principles of action are not determined by social or natural chance events, nor do they reflect the inclinations of the details of their life plans or the hopes which animate them.By acting on these principles men express their nature as free and equal rational beings subject to the universal conditions of human life.Assuming that the essence of a person as a particular being becomes the undoubted determinant, then the manifestation of this essence is to act according to the principles of possible selection.Of course, this choice of each party in the original position is limited by the assumptions above.But if we consciously act on the principles of justice according to convention, we consciously assume the limits of the original position.One reason for doing so, for those who can and wish to do so, is to express the essence of being human. According to Kant, the principle of justice is the categorical imperative.According to Kant's understanding, the so-called categorical imperative is the principle of action that applies to a person according to his nature as a free and equal rational being.The validity of this principle does not presuppose that one has specific desires or goals.A hypothetical imperative, on the contrary, holds that it commands us to take certain steps as efficient means of achieving specific ends.Whether this is a desire for a particular thing, or a desire for something more general, such as a pleasurable emotion or pleasure, the corresponding command is hypothetical.The applicability of this assumption depends on whether a person has goals which, as a condition of being a rational person, he need not have.Arguments in favor of the two principles of justice assume that the parties have no specific goals but that they only want to achieve certain basic goods.It is a legitimate desire for a man to want these things, whatever else he wants.It is therefore part of rationality to want these things, if human nature is considered; and although we assume that every man has some conception of the good, we know nothing of his ultimate goal.Thus, people's preferences for primary goods are only inferred from the most common assumptions about reason and the human condition of life.The categorical imperative applies to us regardless of our specific goals, and in this sense acting on the principles of justice is acting on the categorical imperative.This point fully reflects the fact that random events are not taken as a prerequisite for obtaining these principles. We can also point out that the motivational assumption of mutual indifference fits with Kant's concept of autonomy and adds another reason for this.This assumption has hitherto been used to characterize the environment of justice and to provide a definite notion for guiding the reasoning of the parties.We also know that the concept of benevolence is secondary and therefore unlikely to matter much.We might add, however, that the assumption of mutual indifference is that freedom of choice over a range of final goals must be taken into account.Freedom to adopt certain ideas of the good is limited only by principles deduced from a doctrine which imposes no restrictions on these ideas.It is assumed that mutual disinterest in the original state embodies this concept.We assume, in a fairly general sense, that the parties have opposing claims.If their goals are restricted in some particular way, it seems from the outset to be an arbitrary restriction of freedom.Moreover, if the parties are regarded as altruists, or as seekers of a certain kind of pleasure, then, so far as the arguments in this regard may suggest, the principles chosen may apply only to those who freedom is limited to making choices in accordance with altruism and hedonism.As this argument now shows, the principles of justice concern all persons who have a reasonable plan of life, whatever their content, and they thus embody appropriate restrictions on liberty.It can thus be argued that the restrictions on the idea of ​​the good are the result of an interpretation of the contractual state that places no prior restrictions on the desires that people may have.Thus, there are reasons in favor of the premise about the motives of mutual indifference.This premise is simply a question of the reality of the circumstances of justice, and not just a way to make the theory tractable, but is also tied to Kant's concept of autonomy. However, there is a difficulty that should be explained.Sidgwick made it clear.He said that according to Kant's ethics, there is no more obvious concept than that a person realizes his true self by acting according to the moral law, and if this person should make his actions determined by sensual desires or contingent goals, then He is governed by the laws of nature.But Sidgwick argues that this notion doesn't explain anything.In his view, following Kant, the lives of saints and villains seem alike to be the result of free choice (in terms of the ontological self) and equally governed by natural laws (as in the phenomenal self).Kant does not show at all why the villain does not express his characteristic, free-chosen self in his evil life as the saint does in his noble life.I think that simply assuming, as Kant's account seems likely to concede, that the noumenal ego is capable of choosing a coherent set of principles and acting in accordance with them (whatever they may be) is sufficient to account for one's choice. is the choice of a free and equal rational person, then Sidgwick's objection is decisive.Kant's answer must be: while acting on any set of coherent principles may be the result of a determination of the noumenal ego, such action by the phenomenal ego does not always indicate a free and equal rational being decision.Therefore, if a man realizes his true self by expressing his true self in his actions, if he wishes above all to realize this self, he will be willing to act according to the rational act on those principles of human nature.What is missing from this argument is the part about the concept of representation.Kant did not prove that acting according to the moral law expresses our nature unambiguously, but acting according to the opposite principle does not express our nature. This shortcoming, I think, is remedied by the view of the original state.It is crucial that we have an argument for what principles free and equal rational beings might choose, and that these principles must be applicable in practice.A definite answer to this question requires dealing with Sidgwick's objections.My opinion is this: We think of the original state as the point of view that the ontological self uses to observe the world.The parties, as ontological selves, have complete freedom to choose whatever principles they choose; but they also wish to express their nature as rational, equal members of the conceptual kingdom fully endowed with this freedom of choice, that is, as It is human nature to see the world in this way, and to express this hope in their lives as members of society.They must therefore decide, in their daily lives, which principles, consciously observed, and acted upon, will best demonstrate this freedom in their society, their freedom from the random events of nature and the insidiousness of society. The impact of the accident.If the contractarian argument is correct, these principles are in fact the principles that define the moral law, or, more precisely, the principles of justice that apply to institutions and individuals.The description of the original state illustrates the point of view of the ontological self, that is, that it intends to be a free and equal rational being.Our nature as such beings, reflected in the conditions of choice, is revealed if we act on the principle of possible choices.Thus, men act in ways they might admit in their original position, thereby demonstrating their freedom, their immunity from the random events of nature and society. Thus, the desire to act justly, as it is normally understood, arises in part from the desire to express to the fullest what we are or can be, that is, to be free and equal rational beings with freedom of choice. wish.It is for this reason, I think, that Kant believed that the inability to act according to the moral law can only induce shame, not guilt.This statement is appropriate because, in his view, to act unjustly is to act in a sense that fails to express our nature as free and equal rational beings.Thus, such actions damage our self-esteem, our sense of self-worth, and to experience this loss is shame (section 67).Our actions seem to make us inferior human beings, human beings whose fundamental principles are determined by the random events of nature.Those who think that Kant's moral doctrine is about law and crime greatly misunderstand him.Kant's main purpose is to deepen and justify Rousseau's thought that freedom consists in acting according to the laws we make for ourselves.This kind of thinking leads not to a morality of domineering, but to an ethics of mutual respect and self-respect. Therefore, the original position can be regarded as a procedural interpretation of Kant's concept of autonomy and categorical imperative.The guiding principles of the field of object are the principles which might have been chosen in the original position; and the description of this state enables us to show that to act on these principles is to express our nature as free and equal rational beings. the meaning it has.These ideas are no longer purely a priori, and their relation to human behavior is no longer inexplicable, since the procedural view of the original position enables us to establish this relation.It is true that we depart from Kant's views in some respects.I do not intend to discuss these issues here; but two points should be made.I used to assume that the choice made by the person as ontological self is a collective choice.The sense in which selves are equal is that the chosen principles must be acceptable to other selves.Since all are equally free and rational, each must have an equal say in adopting the general principles of the ethical community.That is to say, each person, as an ontological self, should subscribe to these principles.The villains cannot exhibit this free choice unless their principles are chosen, no matter how much the individual egos wish to choose them.我打算在下文规定一种明确的概念，使这种一致的协议能够最充分地表现甚至是个别的自我的本性（第85节）。这绝不是像这种选择的集体性质看起来可能意味着的那样要否定个人的利益。但目前我不打算讨论这个问题。 其次，我一直假定，各方是知道他们受到人类生活条件的支配的。由于他们处于正义的环境之中，他们就在世界上与其他一些同样面对中等匮乏的限制和相互竞争的要求的人处于同样的地位。人类的自由要受到按照这些自然限制选定的原则的支配。因此，正义即公平理论就是关于人类正义的理论，关于人和人在自然界中的地位的基本事实是这个理论的前提之一。不受这些限制支配的纯粹思想的自由和上帝的自由，不属于这个理论的范围。看来，康德也许是要使他的学说适用于所有这些有理性的人，从而也适用于上帝和天使。人们在世界上的社会地位，在他的理论中似乎并没有决定正义的基本原则的这种作用。我并不认为康德持有这种观点，但我不能在这里讨论这个问题。只要说这样一点就可以了：如果我错了，那么康德对正义即公平的解释比我此时此刻想要假定的更加不符合康德的意图。