A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

The Foundations of Character,
2nd ed. (London, Macmillan,
1920), pp. 55f.
426
The Sense of Justice

---

joyful in the other’s presence, or to feel sorrow when he suffers. The
moral sentiments are in some ways more complex. In their complete form
they presuppose an understanding and an acceptance of certain principles
and an ability to judge in accordance with them. But assuming these
things, the liability to moral feelings seems to be as much a part of the
natural sentiments as the tendency to be joyful, or the liability to grief.
Love sometimes expresses itself in sorrow, at other times in indignation.
Either one without the other would be equally unusual. The content
of rational moral principles is such as to render these connections intelli-
gible.
Now one main consequence of this doctrine is that the moral feelings
are a normal feature of human life. We could not do away with them
without at the same time eliminating certain natural attitudes. Among
persons who never acted in accordance with their duty of justice except as
reasons of self-interest and expediency dictated there would be no bonds
of friendship and mutual trust. For when these attachments exist, other
reasons are acknowledged for acting fairly. This much seems reasonably
obvious. But it also follows from what has been said that, barring self-de-
ception, egoists are incapable of feeling resentment and indignation. If
either of two egoists deceives the other and this is found out, neither of
them has a ground for complaint. They do not accept the principles
of justice, or any other conception that is reasonable from the standpoint
of the original position; nor do they experience any inhibition from guilt
feelings for breaches of their duties. As we have seen, resentment and
indignation are moral feelings and therefore they presuppose an explana-
tion by reference to an acceptance of the principles of right and justice.
But by hypothesis the appropriate explanations cannot be given. To deny
that self-interested persons are incapable of resentment and indignation is
not of course to say that they cannot be angry and annoyed with one
another. A person without a sense of justice may be enraged at someone
who fails to act fairly. But anger and annoyance are distinct from indigna-
tion and resentment; they are not, as the latter are, moral emotions. Nor
should it be denied that egoists may want others to recognize the bonds of
friendship and to treat them in a friendly way. But these desires are not to
be mistaken for ties of affection that lead one to make sacrifices for one’s
friends. No doubt there are difficulties in distinguishing between resent-
ment and anger, and between apparent and real friendship. Certainly the
overt manifestations and actions may seem the same when viewing a
limited span of conduct. Yet in the longer run the difference can usually
be made out.
427
74. Moral and Natural Attitudes

---

One may say, then, that a person who lacks a sense of justice, and who
would never act as justice requires except as self-interest and expediency
prompt, not only is without ties of friendship, affection, and mutual trust,
but is incapable of experiencing resentment and indignation. He lacks
certain natural attitudes and moral feelings of a particularly elementary
kind. Put another way, one who lacks a sense of justice lacks certain
fundamental attitudes and capacities included under the notion of human-
ity. Now the moral feelings are admittedly unpleasant, in some extended
sense of unpleasant; but there is no way for us to avoid a liability to them
without disfiguring ourselves. This liability is the price of love and trust,
of friendship and affection, and of a devotion to institutions and traditions
from which we have benefited and which serve the general interests of
mankind. Further, assuming that persons are possessed of interests and
aspirations of their own, and that they are prepared in the pursuit of their
own ends and ideals to press their claims on one another—that is, so long
as the conditions giving rise to questions of justice obtain among them—
it is inevitable that, given temptation and passion, this liability will be
realized. And since being moved by ends and ideals of excellence implies
a liability to humiliation and shame, and an absence of a liability to
humiliation and shame implies a lack of such ends and ideals, one can say
of shame and humiliation also that they are a part of the notion of
humanity. Now the fact that one who lacks a sense of justice, and thereby
a liability to guilt, lacks certain fundamental attitudes and capacities is
not to be taken as a reason for acting as justice dictates. But it has this
significance: by understanding what it would be like not to have a sense
of justice—that it would be to lack part of our humanity too—we are led
to accept our having this sentiment.
It follows that the moral sentiments are a normal part of human life.
One cannot do away with them without at the same time dismantling the
natural attitudes as well. And we have also seen (§§30, 72) that the moral
sentiments are continuous with these attitudes in the sense that the love of
mankind and the desire to uphold the common good include the princi-
ples of right and justice as necessary to define their object. None of this is
to deny that our existing moral feelings may be in many respects irra-
tional and injurious to our good. Freud is right in his view that these
attitudes are often punitive and blind, incorporating many of the harsher
aspects of the authority situation in which they were first acquired. Re-
sentment and indignation, feelings of guilt and remorse, a sense of duty
and the censure of others, often take perverse and destructive forms, and
blunt without reason human spontaneity and enjoyment. When I say that
428
The Sense of Justice

---

moral attitudes are part of our humanity, I mean those attitudes that
appeal to sound principles of right and justice in their explanation. The
reasonableness of the underlying ethical conception is a necessary condi-
tion; and so the appropriateness of moral sentiments to our nature is
determined by the principles that would be consented to in the original
position.
20
These principles regulate moral education and the expression
of moral approval and disapproval, just as they govern the design of
institutions. Yet even if the sense of justice is the normal outgrowth of
natural human attitudes within a well-ordered society, it is still true that
our present moral feelings are liable to be unreasonable and capricious.
However, one of the virtues of a well-ordered society is that, since arbi-
trary authority has disappeared, its members suffer much less from the
burdens of oppressive conscience.
75. THE PRINCIPLES OF MORAL PSYCHOLOGY
75. Principles of Moral Psychology
We must soon examine the relative stability of justice as fairness in the
light of the sketch of moral development. But before doing this I should
like to make a few remarks about the three psychological laws. It will
help to have a statement of them before us. Taking for granted that they
represent tendencies and are effective other things being equal, they can
be rendered as follows.
First law: given that family institutions are just and that the parents
love the child and manifestly express their love by caring for his good,
then the child, recognizing their evident love of him, comes to love
them.
Second law: given that a person’s capacity for fellow feeling has
been realized by acquiring attachments in accordance with the first
law, and given that a social arrangement is just and publicly known by
all to be just, then this person develops ties of friendly feeling and trust
toward others in the association as they with evident intention comply
with their duties and obligations, and live up to the ideals of their
station.
Third law: given that a person’s capacity for fellow feeling has been
realized by his forming attachments in accordance with the first two
laws, and given that a society’s institutions are just and are publicly
known by all to be just, then this person acquires the corresponding
20. Mill observes in