Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy.

• Date: 22 September 1992
• Author: Milovanovic, Dragan
• Published date: 22 September 1992
• Author: Milovanovic, Dragan

Jeffrey Reiman, Justice and Modern Moral Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990, 322 pp.

Jeffrey Reiman has written a stimulating and provocative book on the nature of morality. In a clear prose, well accessible to students, practitioners, and well-informed alike, he explicates his moral principles based on the requirements of nonsubjugation. Not to be conceived of as a blueprint, but rather a set of ideals and principles that may orient practice, his moral principles are relevant for a critical examination of what subjects owe to each other in capitalism, socialism, and communism. Whether capitalism itself, given other contemporary systems, may provide the least amount of subjugation is an open question for Reiman (p. 257). All told, Reiman critically examines, in a clear-headed, nondogmatic style the wherewithal of morality in contemporary society.

Reiman, who at many points acknowledges his indebtedness to Rawls' treatise, A Theory of Justice (1971), clearly spells out his key assumptions (truth claims) and methodology. By "subjugation" he means the denial without justification of a person's attempt to actualize her or his free will (p. 10), or any limitations on a person pursuing her/his sovereign interests (p. 72). He assumes throughout that his principles apply to rational people (which, at the outset, presents a potential tautology as to explaining the differences between sane and insane people; and which can also be challenged by an external critique by way of the postmodernist's alternative, of a "decentered" subject, an agent seen as more determined than determining, more constituted by discourse itself). In fact, he sees the subject as a rationally constructed entity seeking to manifest its desires (its "sovereign interests"). Due to the subject's immortality and finite existence within a society of scarcity, he tells us, self-interest inevitably leads to the potential for some people to subjugate others. Hence, underpinning his approach is a desire to find the moral principles that would reduce subjugation. Differing from Rawls' more intuitive approach, Reiman claims that "reason" is the answer to subjugation.

To further his aim of deducing the principles of morality, he first investigates the traditional theorists of social contract theory -- Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and the works of Kant and Marx. After doing a superb, scholarly comparison of each, he is led to Rawls, who he claims has essentially the correct approach to clarifying justice principles, but falls short because of his inadequate presentation of why specifically the social contract is the road to notions of justice. In other words, Rawls is accused of lacking a theoretical foundation behind his intuitively deduced moralistic truth claims. Reiman's answer to this is, in a word, "reason." Reason -- the "capacity to make correct inferences from propositions" (p. 9) -- which he deduces formally and substantively, requires that we do not subjugate others. His methodology, then, is first directed at a search for the relevant conditions under which any suspicions of subjugation may be rebutted. Toward this end, he organizes his book into two main parts. One part explores "natural justice," the other "social justice."

In specifying principles of natural justice, he delineates an original position of the nomadic desert tribe; here, acts are highly visible and in the singular, and responsibility is less problematic than in a society marked by a more crystallized social structure. In this setting, he deduces the principles of justice that are owed by all to each other. Here, for example, are included the traditional "negative freedoms" of noninterference. He also deduces that these specific principles would include:

1. Retributive principles in the form of lex talionis (not so much because

   of the infliction of pain itself, but because it forces recognition

   by the lawbreaker of his/her equality with the victim whom she/he

   has temporarily placed in a subordinate role);

2. The right to self-defense; and

3. The torturing of torturers, killing of killers, raping of rapists, etc.

   Though demanded by reason, Reiman finds good reason (left unspecified)

   for not taking this path (p. 198).

   More "advanced" societies ("settled territorial society," p. 227) are marked by a crystallized social structure (developed around the 17th century). Social structure is "a pattern of behavior by means of which all or virtually all the members of a society effectively force their fellows to limit their actions to a range of acceptable alternatives" (p. 213). Here, reason demands social justice. In this society, compared to nomadic desert tribes, patterns of actions may subjugate, more often in invisible form; that is, subjugation is not necessarily conscious and intentional. In fact, social structure is a conglomerate of social positions offering differentials in life chances (p. 229). Yet forced cooperation exists. Reason here demands "positive freedoms" (p. 228) -- those freedoms that must exist as a quid pro quo to forced cooperation (i.e., freedoms to certain benefits that are produced by collective action; here, also, for law breakers, reason demands "proportional retribution" according to Reiman). The question then becomes "what are the principles governing the freedom-constraining actions that make up a social structure that everyone, subject to the conditions of the natural context, could be given the best reasons for accepting, compared to any other possible principles" (p. 229).

   In answering this question, Reiman states his two moral principles (p. 3):

1. Whether or not people cooperate to produce benefits, they owe each

   other noninterference, easy rescue, respect for natural ownership,

   trustworthiness, intergenerational solicitude, and punishment no

   greater than lex talionis and deterrence require -- and these are owed

   to everyone equally.

2. Where people do cooperate to produce...