A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

Partly this desire to emulate springs from viewing their attributes as
prerequisites for their more privileged positions, but it is also a compan-
ion effect to the Aristotelian Principle, since we enjoy the display of more
complex and subtle activities and these displays tend to elicit a desire in
us to do these things ourselves. Thus when the moral ideals belonging to
the various roles of a just association are lived up to with evident inten-
tion by attractive and admirable persons, these ideals are likely to be
adopted by those who witness their realization. These conceptions are
perceived as a form of good will and the activity in which they are
exemplified is shown to be a human excellence that others likewise can
appreciate. The same two psychological processes are present as before:
other persons act with evident intention to affirm our well-being and at
the same time they exhibit qualities and ways of doing things that appeal
to us and arouse the desire to model ourselves after them.
The morality of association takes many forms depending upon the
association and role in question, and these forms represent many levels
of complexity. But if we consider the more demanding offices that are
defined by the major institutions of society, the principles of justice will
be recognized as regulating the basic structure and as belonging to the
content of a number of important ideals. Indeed, these principles apply to
the role of citizen held by all, since everyone, and not only those in public
life, is meant to have political views concerning the common good. Thus
we may suppose that there is a morality of association in which the
members of society view one another as equals, as friends and associates,
joined together in a system of cooperation known to be for the advantage
of all and governed by a common conception of justice. The content of
this morality is characterized by the cooperative virtues: those of justice
and fairness, fidelity and trust, integrity and impartiality. The typical
vices are graspingness and unfairness, dishonesty and deceit, prejudice
and bias. Among associates, giving into these faults tends to arouse feel-
ings of (association) guilt on the one side and resentment and indignation
on the other. These moral attitudes are bound to exist once we become
attached to those cooperating with us in a just (or fair) scheme.
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71. The Morality of Association

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72. THE MORALITY OF PRINCIPLES
72. The Morality of Principles
Someone attaining to the more complex forms of the morality of associa-
tion, as expressed say by the ideal of equal citizen, has an understanding
certainly of the principles of justice. He has also developed an attachment
to many particular individuals and communities, and he is disposed to
follow the moral standards that apply to him in his various positions and
which are upheld by social approval and disapproval. Having become
affiliated with others and aspiring to live up to these ethical conceptions,
he is concerned to win acceptance for his conduct and aims. It would
seem that while the individual understands the principles of justice, his
motive for complying with them, for some time at least, springs largely
from his ties of friendship and fellow feeling for others, and his concern
for the approbation of the wider society. I should now like to consider the
process whereby a person becomes attached to these highest-order princi-
ples themselves, so that just as during the earlier phase of the morality of
association he may want to be a good sport, say, he now wishes to be a
just person. The conception of acting justly, and of advancing just institu-
tions, comes to have for him an attraction analogous to that possessed
before by subordinate ideals.
In conjecturing how this morality of principles might come about
(principles here meaning first principles such as those considered in the
original position), we should note that the morality of association quite
naturally leads up to a knowledge of the standards of justice. In a well-or-
dered society anyway not only do those standards define the public con-
ception of justice, but citizens who take an interest in political affairs, and
those holding legislative and judicial and other similar offices, are con-
stantly required to apply and to interpret them. They often have to take up
the point of view of others, not simply with the aim of working out what
they will want and probably do, but for the purpose of striking a reason-
able balance between competing claims and for adjusting the various
subordinate ideals of the morality of association. To put the principles of
justice into practice requires that we adopt the standpoints defined by the
four-stage sequence (§31). As the situation dictates, we take up the per-
spective of a constitutional convention, or of a legislature, or whatever.
Eventually one achieves a mastery of these principles and understands the
values they secure and the way in which they are to everyone’s advantage.
Now this leads to an acceptance of these principles by a third psychologi-
cal law. This law states that once the attitudes of love and trust, and of
friendly feelings and mutual confidence, have been generated in accord-
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The Sense of Justice

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ance with the two preceding psychological laws, then the recognition that
we and those for whom we care are the beneficiaries of an established and
enduring just institution tends to engender in us the corresponding sense
of justice. We develop a desire to apply and to act upon the principles of
justice once we realize how social arrangements answering to them have
promoted our good and that of those with whom we are affiliated. In due
course we come to appreciate the ideal of just human cooperation.
Now a sense of justice shows itself in at least two ways. First, it leads
us to accept the just institutions that apply to us and from which we and
our associates have benefited. We want to do our part in maintaining these
arrangements. We tend to feel guilty when we do not honor our duties and
obligations, even though we are not bound to those of whom we take
advantage by any ties of particular fellow feeling. It may be that they have
not yet had sufficient opportunity to display an evident intention to do
their share, and are not therefore the objects of such feelings by the
second law. Or, again, the institutional scheme in question may be so
large that particular bonds never get widely built up. In any case, the
citizen body as a whole is not generally bound together by ties of fellow
feeling between individuals, but by the acceptance of public principles of
justice. While every citizen is a friend to some citizens, no citizen is a
friend to all. But their common allegiance to justice provides a unified
perspective from which they can adjudicate their differences. Secondly, a
sense of justice gives rise to a willingness to work for (or at least not to
oppose) the setting up of just institutions, and for the reform of existing
ones when justice requires it. We desire to act on the natural duty to
advance just arrangements. And this inclination goes beyond the support
of those particular schemes that have affirmed our good. It seeks to
extend the conception they embody to further situations for the good of
the larger community.
When we go against our sense of justice we explain our feelings of
guilt by reference to the principles of justice. These feelings, then, are
accounted for quite differently than the emotions of authority and asso-
ciation guilt. The complete moral development has now taken place and
for the first time we experience feelings of guilt in the strict sense; and the
same is true of the other moral emotions. In the child’s case, the notion of
a moral ideal, and the relevance of intentions and motives, are not under-
stood, and so the appropriate setting for feelings of (principle) guilt does
not exist. And in the morality of association, moral feelings depend es-
sentially on ties of friendship and trust to particular individuals or com-
munities, and moral conduct is based in large part on wanting the ap-
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72. The Morality of Principles

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proval of one’s associates. This may still be true even in the more de-
manding phases of this morality. Individuals in their role as citizens with
a full understanding of the content of the principles of justice may be
moved to act upon them largely because of their bonds to particular
persons and an attachment to their own society. Once a morality of
principles is accepted, however, moral attitudes are no longer connected
solely with the well-being and approval of particular individuals and
groups, but are shaped by a conception of right chosen irrespective of
these contingencies. Our moral sentiments display an independence from
the accidental circumstances of our world, the meaning of this inde-
pendence being given by the description of the original position and its
Kantian interpretation.
But even though moral sentiments are in this sense independent from
contingencies, our natural attachments to particular persons and groups
still have an appropriate place. For within the morality of principles the
infractions which earlier gave rise to (association) guilt and resentment,
and to the other moral feelings, now occasion these feelings in the strict
sense. A reference to the relevant principle is made in explaining one’s
emotions. When the natural ties of friendship and mutual trust are pres-
ent, however, these moral feelings are more intense than if they are ab-
sent. Existing attachments heighten the feeling of guilt and indignation,
or whatever feeling is called for, even at the stage of the morality of prin-
ciples. Now granting that this heightening is appropriate, it follows that
violations of these natural ties are wrongs. For if we suppose that, say, a
rational feeling of guilt (that is, a feeling of guilt arising from applying
the correct moral principles in the light of true or reasonable beliefs)
implies a fault on our part, and that a greater feeling of guilt implies a
greater fault, then indeed breach of trust and the betrayal of friendships,
and the like, are especially forbidden. The violation of these ties to par-
ticular individuals and groups arouses more intense moral feelings, and
this entails that these offenses are worse. To be sure, deceit and infidelity
are always wrong, being contrary to natural duties and obligations. But
they are not always equally wrong. They are worse whenever bonds of
affection and good faith have been formed, and this consideration is
relevant in working out the appropriate priority rules.
It may seem strange at first that we should come to have the desire to
act from a conception of right and justice. How is it possible that moral
principles can engage our affections? In justice as fairness there are
several answers to this question. First of all, as we have seen (§25), moral
principles are bound to have a certain content. Since they are chosen by
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The Sense of Justice

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rational persons to adjudicate competing claims, they define agreed ways
of advancing human interests. Institutions and actions are appraised from
the standpoint of securing these ends; and therefore pointless principles,
for example, that one is not to look up at the sky on Tuesdays, are rejected
as burdensome and irrational constraints. In the original position rational
persons have no reason for acknowledging standards of this kind. But
secondly, it is also the case that the sense of justice is continuous with the
love of mankind. I noted earlier (§30) that benevolence is at a loss when
the many objects of its love oppose one another. The principles of justice
are needed to guide it. The difference between the sense of justice and the
love of mankind is that the latter is supererogatory, going beyond the
moral requirements and not invoking the exemptions which the principles
of natural duty and obligation allow. Yet clearly the objects of these two
sentiments are closely related, being defined in large part by the same
conception of justice. If one of them seems natural and intelligible, so is
the other. Moreover, feelings of guilt and indignation are aroused by the
injuries and deprivations of others unjustifiably brought about either by
ourselves or third parties, and our sense of justice is offended in the same
way. The content of the principles of justice accounts for this. Finally, the
Kantian interpretation of these principles shows that by acting upon them
men express their nature as free and equal rational beings (§40). Since
doing this belongs to their good, the sense of justice aims at their well-be-
ing even more directly. It supports those arrangements that enable every-
one to express his common nature. Indeed, without a common or overlap-
ping sense of justice civic friendship cannot exist. The desire to act justly
is not, then, a form of blind obedience to arbitrary principles unrelated to
rational aims.
I should not, of course, contend that justice as fairness is the only
doctrine that can interpret the sense of justice in a natural way. As Sidg-
wick notes, a utilitarian never regards himself as acting merely for the
sake of an impersonal law, but always for the welfare of some being or
beings for whom he has some degree of fellow feeling.
13
The utilitarian
view, and no doubt perfectionism as well, meets the condition that the
sentiment of justice can be characterized so that it is psychologically
understandable. Best of all, a theory should present a description of an
ideally just state of affairs, a conception of a well-ordered society such
that the aspiration to realize this state of affairs, and to maintain it in
being, answers to our good and is continuous with our natural sentiments.
13.