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InequalityJustice 10 - 08 Feb 2010 - Main.JeffreyPan
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| | Is inequality inherently unjust? If so, what can be done to reconcile justice with a world defined by scarcity of resources and the continual creation of unequal relationships? This twiki entry has the goal of providing various perspectives on the question of inequality and its link to justice.
First entry: | | | But regardless, I return to my main point, which is that even with a $2 million cap on yearly income, there would still be people to do all the jobs that are being done now, even if a bunch of rich people left. Our economy would not be hurt. | |
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> | -- MatthewZorn - 05 Feb 2010
Morality and Injustice
The discussion here of inequality and injustice would be incomplete without a discussion of the moral basis of law. After all, how can inequality be unjust unless we assume that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"?
William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, described this inherent, natural law in the following way:
"When [God] created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws"
It was only after establishing this basis for law that Blackstone asserted the following about inequality:
"The law not only regards life and member, and protects every man in the enjoyment of them, but also furnishes him with everything necessary for their support. For there is no man so indigent or wretched, but he may demand a supply sufficient for all the necessities of life, from the more opulent part of the community, by means of several statutes enacted for the relief of the poor." (http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone)
Unfortunately, the prevalent theory about law in most law schools today is the Instrumentalist Theory advocated by Oliver Wendell Holmes. This theory views law as just a tool, an instrument used to achieve the evolving goals of modern society. Holmes claimed:
"Men make their own laws... these laws do not flow from some mysterious omnipresence in the sky, and... judges are not independent mouthpieces of the infinite." (Francis Biddle, Justice Holmes, Natural Law and the Supreme Court, (1960) p. 49)
Not surprisingly, Holmes' attitude towards humanity is one of indifference:
"I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or to a grain of sand" (Holmes-Pollock Letters, ed. Mark Dewolfe Howe, vol. 2).
With such a view of humanity, there is no reason to find inequality unjust. It is only by establishing the inherent dignity of human beings that we can begin to discuss the relationship between inequality and injustice.
-- JeffreyPan - 08 Feb 2010 | | | |
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