On Justice

Two quite interesting posts over at Catallarchy. The first post, written by Micha Ghertner, entitled “Many kinds of objective justice," explores whether justice can be objectively determined, or, if justice is only subjective.  I left one comment, in the thread discussing Micha’s post, in regards to objectively simplifying the matter under consideration by removing Marxist ideology from the objective analysis of justice.

The second post, written by Qiwi Lisolet, is entitled Is Justice Real? Qiwi’s post brings up the subjects of peace and prosperity, and, in the comment thread, equality.  Instead of leaving a comment in the thread, I’ll address these three, peace, prosperity and equality, here.

Equality, like peace and prosperity, is a nebulous term.  I think the only equality, that can be equal for all individuals, is the equality to be free from coercion.  There will never be equality of material possessions, there will never be equality of income, there will never be equality of intellect or educational level attained, or willingness to work, or food to eat, or shoes to wear.  Asking for equality in things, outside of freedom of coercion, is akin to asking for equality in the amount of snow, sunshine or rain received in your little part of the world.  It isn’t going to be equal.

Equality of peace and prosperity can be thought of in the same vein, and, the same conclusion will be arrived at.  Peace and prosperity are not going to be equally distributed, like rice was supposed to be in the book King Rat or opportunity and goods were supposed to be in the workers paradise of the Soviet Union.  It will not happen.  There will be wars, famines, poor people, rich people, smart people, dumb people, peace and prosperity will not be equally distributed.

Even achieving the equality of freedom from coercion is far from us.  There will always be individuals who will not play the game according to the rules of equality in freedom from coercion.  It will not happen, because there will always be inequality.  It is all around us.  If equality is so fervently desired, one may as well wish they were an cyanobacteria.

I think justice can be objectively determined, if and when, individuals are willing to admit that equality is utopian and inequality is fact.

Posted by on 01/29 at 10:56 AM

  1. Part of the point I was trying to make was that the supposed “value” of “equality” is meaningless the way most collectivists use it--if one refuses to specify what one wants equality of, and for whom, one is just making noises that have no referent in the real world.

    I think we agree Mr. Venlet, that the only equality worth having is equality of authority--which is how I describe the concept you call “equality in freedom from coercion”.  It is certainly the only form of equality among humans that can be secured without initiating force.

    The reason I brought up the concept of “equality” as it relates to the collectivist theory of justice, is that I believe that the nebulous claim that collectivists “value equality” as a component of their theory of justice renders their it totally incoherent.

    Posted by  on  01/29  at  12:48 PM

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