erations presented in §29). I wish to consider this notion in more detail
both for its own sake and to prepare the way for the discussion of other
matters such as the basis of equality and the priority of liberty.
To be sure, the criterion of stability is not decisive. In fact, some
ethical theories have flouted it entirely, at least on some interpretations.
Thus Bentham is occasionally said to have held both the classical princi-
ple of utility and the doctrine of psychological egoism. But if it is a
psychological law that individuals pursue only interests in themselves, it
is impossible for them to have an effective sense of justice (as defined by
the principle of utility). The best that the ideal
legislator can do is to
design social arrangements so that from self- or group-interested motives
citizens are persuaded to act in ways that maximize the sum of well-be-
ing. In this conception the identification of interests that results is truly
artificial: it rests upon the artifice of reason, and individuals comply with
the institutional scheme solely as a means to their separate concerns.
2
This sort of divergence between principles of right and justice and
human motives is unusual, although instructive as a limiting case. Most
traditional doctrines hold that to some degree at least human nature is
such that we acquire a desire to act justly when we have lived under and
benefited from just institutions. To the
extent that this is true, a concep-
tion of justice is psychologically suited to human inclinations. Moreover,
should it turn out that the desire to act justly is also regulative of a rational
plan of life, then acting justly is part of our good. In this event the con-
ceptions of justice and goodness are compatible and the theory as a whole
is congruent. The task of this chapter is to explain how justice as fairness
generates its own support and to show that it is likely to have greater
stability than
the traditional alternatives, since it is more in line with the
principles of moral psychology. To this end, I shall describe briefly how
human beings in a well-ordered society might acquire a sense of justice
and the other moral sentiments. Inevitably we shall have to take up some
rather speculative psychological questions; but all along I have assumed
that general facts about the world, including
basic psychological princi-
ples, are known to the persons in the original position and relied upon by
them in making their decisions. By reflecting on these problems here we
survey these facts as they affect the initial agreement.
It may prevent misunderstanding if I make a few remarks about the
2. While Bentham is sometimes interpreted as a psychological egoist, he is not by Jacob Viner,
“Bentham and J. S. Mill: The Utilitarian Background” (1949), reprinted in
The Long View and the
Short
(Glencoe, Ill., Free Press, 1958); see pp. 312–314. Viner also gives
what must be the correct
rendering of Bentham’s conception of the role of the legislator, pp. 316–319.
399
69. A Well-Ordered Society
concepts of equilibrium and stability. Both of these ideas admit of consid-
erable theoretical and mathematical refinement but I shall use them in an
intuitive way.
3
The first thing to note perhaps is that they are applied to
systems of some kind. Thus it is a system that is in equilibrium, and it is
so when it has reached a state that persists indefinitely over time so long
as no external forces impinge upon it. In order to define an equilibrium
state
precisely, the boundaries of the system have to be carefully drawn
and its determining characteristics clearly set out. Three things are essen-
tial: first, to identify the system and to distinguish between internal and
external forces; second, to define the states of the system, a state being a
certain configuration of its determining characteristics; and third,
to spec-
ify the laws connecting the states.
Some systems have no equilibrium states, while others have many.
These matters depend upon the nature of the system. Now an equilibrium
is stable whenever departures from it, caused say by external distur-
bances, call into play forces within the system that tend to bring it back to
this equilibrium state, unless of course the outside shocks are too great.
By contrast, an equilibrium is unstable when a movement away from it
arouses forces within the system that lead to even greater changes. Sys-
tems are more or less stable depending upon the strength of the internal
forces that are available to return them to equilibrium.
Since in practice
all social systems are subject to disturbances of some kind, they are
practically stable, let us say, if the departures from their preferred equilib-
rium positions caused by normal disturbances elicit forces sufficiently
strong to restore these equilibria after a decent length of time, or else to
stay sufficiently close to them. These definitions are unhappily vague but
they should serve our purposes.
The relevant systems here, of course, are the basic structures of the
well-ordered societies corresponding to the different conceptions of jus-
tice. We are concerned
with this complex of political, economic, and
social institutions when it satisfies, and is publicly known by those en-
3. For the notions of equilibrium and stability applied to systems, see, for example, W. R. Ashby,
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