Sunday, April 2, 2023

Forthcoming ~ Relics: Philosophical and Political Writings, 1966-86, by Virginia DeCourcey.


Relics: Philosophical and Political Writings, 1966-86  by Virginia DeCourcey.

Excerpt: from her essay "Justice as a Metaethical Absolute"
 

       Justice is a word, like Freedom, or the Good, that functions on so many different levels of meaning that it is difficult to know with any certainty what the term connotes. In everyday language, the “just” is apprehended on an intuitive level and usually in the context of fairness: people may say, “That was an unjust thing to do,” “War is never just,” etc.  We intuitively grasp the moral response to real life situations that these statements express.  That intuitive grasp, however, may not come from some innate faculty in man to perceive the moral.

       Perhaps we intuitively grasp the idea of Justice, without analyzing it, because we share in the same language community.  Through many associations and long use we have come to express automatically certain normative judgments that seem sound.  In this regard Justice as an abstraction is most often viewed as a collection of certain ethical statements.

       It is the purpose of this essay, however, to inquire into the function of Justice as an ethical category in language.  While such an approach does not contribute any new normative speculation concerning the ethical correctness of solutions to certain current moral problems, it is hoped that such a linguistic analysis might help to clarify the nature of Justice as an ethical concept, its role as an ideal or absolute in a system of knowledge – as well as shedding light on why we accept as a matter of course certain normative propositions that we intuitively relate to the idea of Justice.

 

Ethical Absolutes: Plato and Kant   

       In terms of language function and implication, Justice is an extremely broad concepts – and roughly belongs to a family of concepts that may include equity, rectitude, fairness.  Although Justice may be used in an overall sense as a term descriptive of a particular condition among men, the term Justice is neither descriptive nor normative in its major language function.

       Both descriptive and normative definitions of Justice, presuppose that the term in its central meaning contains a truth-claim concerning the proper condition of men in society.  Examples of such normative definitions of Justice range from Plato’s internal harmony in the mind, to Kant’s Categorical Imperative.  In The Republic Plato comes close to discovering the unique problem in the language function of Justice, when he dismisses particular empirical instances of Justice as important in the definition of the term.  Of course, Plato implies this argument in his theory of Forms: hence, it is not too meaningful to speak of empirical instances of Justice as they are but shadows of the true quality of Justice which is the eternal Form.  Further, as expressed in the Allegory of the Cave, it is only the supreme knowledge of the Good that brings enlightenment concerning the lesser Forms of Truth, Justice and Beauty.

       Although the ontological approach to the Forms may be rejected, Plato’s argument for the essential non-empirical property of Justice is sound.  The concept of Justice is demonstrably not equivalent to any empirical instances we may find.  Of course, one could take the concept of a tree and argue that as an idea it could never contain all properties of every tree in the sense of description alone.  Hence, a given definition of Justice could not possibly express all nuances of Justice in the human condition.

        However, this argument ignores the ethical language function of such a term as Justice, and reduces the word to a mere descriptive term such as “red,” or “heavy.”  But Justice in its core meaning is not adjectival nor is it concerned with the concrete properties of events or states of affairs.  Such a view is suggested by the fact that no single act can carry with it the automatic connotation of Justice without some reference to a wider context of values and interests.  Identical acts can be considered just and injust depending upon particular circumstances.  Plato’s famous question whether to give back the weapons of a friend who has become insane, is a paradigm of the extreme difficulty of describing any action or condition in itself as either just or injust, and the attribution of a normative content to the concept of Justice itself.

       Kant recognized the impossibility of a definition of Justice based upon empirical description alone, but he argued for a normative content in terms of the Categorical Imperative: To act according to a maxim that can at the same time be valid as a universal law.  Later in his discussion of Justice, Kant includes the ideas of Freedom and Will, finally concluding:

     Hence the universal law of Justice is: act externally in such a way that the free use of your will is compatible with the freedom of everyone according to a universal law. 

       However, it is difficult to define Justice in such a normative sense because the definition is too broad: persons acting compatibly in terms of will in a state of freedom, is not necessarily a condition either of justice or injustice.  All other attempts at normative definitions of Justice in a like sense prove insufficient.  Plato’s own intermediate definitions of Justice as, first, giving to each that which is fitting to him—and, later, Justice as the internal harmony within the mind—describe states of affairs that need not contain the element of Justice.  For example, we might perceive internal harmony in a man yet it is doubtful that we would automatically consider his condition just.  The first definition, giving to each that which is fitting, perhaps comes closer to our own intuitive understanding of Justice—yet it can be argued that this definition is not really sufficient either.  Giving to one man that which is fitting, might conceivably harm another: thus we would not consider such an act as itself just without reference to other considerations.

       The Platonic dialogue the Thaetetus asks the question: what quality, when added to right opinion, gives knowledge?  In like manner we may ask, in reference to the above definitions: what element when added to Plato’s internal harmony—Kant’s compatibility of wills in a condition of freedom—yields Justice?  Just as perception and right opinion may be necessary elements for knowledge, and yet not be equivalent to knowledge; so harmony and freedom may form necessary preconditions for Justice, yet not be Justice at all in terms of providing an adequate definition.

       Thus it can be argued that whatever the definition of Justice may be, as an idea it functions neither as a strict descriptive term of a particular condition among men, nor a normative rule or formula which automatically yields Justice in any given situation.  Yet in terms of language function, concepts usually work in either the first or second capacity.  Justice, as a concept, would seem to share a certain property in language function along with such a concept as knowledge.  With both concepts, the whole appears to be greater than its parts—because neither idea appears to be totally reducible to its analyzable components.

       Justice may be contained in a particular action: e.g., action in accordance with the Golden Rule. Yet the Golden Rule does not exhaust the concept of Justice, and neither does any other normative rule. Yet as the property of "justness" is expressed in particular acts and decisions, so Justice as a concept bears a relationship to any number of normative rules and values. It is this very connection between Justice and the empirical act, between Justice and the normative rule -- that contains the added element which yields justice in any given situation. What is the nature of this connection? When Plato treated Justice as one of the higher Forms, he meant to abstract it as a quality from the empirical world: but at the same time he gave Justice an existence more real and ultimate than any phenomenon in the material realm. Justice as a concept, however, may work on a language level in a way which resembles the functioning of the Forms in Platonic philosophy. The Forms are necessary for Plato foremostly in a logical sense because of his characteristic blending of ontological and epistemological categories. No empirical instances of a phenomenon, no matter how many or how varied, can create the inner logical necessity of an abstract concept. Plato intuited this problem inherent in the structure of language and empirical knowledge, but chose to attribute the necessity of a given concept to an eternal essence or substance -- the existence of which made the concept possible.  Kant seeks to validate certain concepts, such as causation, by postulating the existence of a priori categories in the mind. Thus a somewhat more subtle blending of the categories of knowing and being, permeates the Kantian argument as well. Hence for Kant and Plato, certain concepts are possible on an epistemological level because of either Forms which make up the highest reality, or certain categories which exist internally within the mind.

       When viewed from this perspective, both Plato's and Kant's arguments focus on the problem of the leap from empirical instance to abstract concept. Both of their attempts to bridge the disparity involve setting up absolutes that function both as source and Perimeter for certain concepts.

       Of course, not every concept in a system of knowledge requires an absolute. Plato argued for such absolutes in terms of the higher Ideas of Truth, Justice and Beauty -- making the highest Form that of the Good. Kant formulated absolutes both intuitively in the a priori catagories of space and time, and logically in the synthetic a priori categories. In the division of the noumenal and the phenomenal, Kant makes the further distinction between the world in itself and our description of it.  In a sense, Plato makes the eternal Forms a part of the noumenal world -- objects in themselves that govern our knowledge.

        It can be said that the question to which both Plato and Kant were addressing themselves, is the problem of truth-claims in absolutes in a system of knowledge. This difficulty concerning truth-claims is the first question that must be discussed in the search for a definition of Justice.

       In a system of knowledge, there are two kinds of propositions: the first are descriptive propositions while the second are normative or ethical propositions. The absolutes required for descriptive propositions are certain logical categories in language -- categories such as Kant presents in the Transcendental Analytic. The absolutes needed for ethical propositions are inherently different, but share a nature somewhat similar to the Platonic Forms. However, Plato argued for these absolutes in terms of ontological categories—whereas it is my contention that they are metaethical absolutes, the truth-claims of which are unique in a system of knowledge. An example of such a metaethical absolute is Justice.

       What is the function of a metaethical absolute in a system of knowledge, and how does the absolute of ethics differ from that of logic? The logical absolute is but a form defining the relationship of the subject to the predicate in a proposition: as an absolute, it also contains categories of the possible judgments that can be made about phenomena -- in the sense of Kant's view that every concept is ultimately a judgment. Although the question of material implication in logical propositions is important -- and thus the content of a proposition need not refer to real objects -- yet such propositions in a truth-order have as their major function the description of external phenomena. Metaethical absolutes, which underlie ethical and normative propositions, function differently. Primarily this difference has to do with the kind of phenomena involved: metaethics is concerned with the sphere of categories involving moral decision and action. An important epistemological problem is the determination of whether normative propositions (and thus the metaethical absolutes from which they are derived) contain any valid truth-claims. The real difficulty is that normative statements attempt knowledge, not in terms of what exists, but in terms of what ought to exist in the human condition.





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