1
/
of
0
New York : Macmillan; London, Macmillan & Co., ltd.
Social justice; a critical essay
Social justice; a critical essay
Regular price
$0.00 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$0.00 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.
This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
CHAPTER III EQUALITY The idea of desert implies that of impartiality. Impartiality, it should be noted, is distinct from that of equality. It requires merely that where favor is shown, some sound reason should exist for doing so. As Mill says, " Impartiality as an obligation of justice may be said to mean being exclusively influenced by considerations which it is supposed ought to influence the particular case in hand, and resisting the solicitation of any motives which prompt to conduct different from what these considerations would dictate."l The exclusion of preferences based on irrelevant considerations does, indeed, often lead to an equality of treatment, but this is an accidental result, not a necessary consequence. Therefore, to repeat, in admitting the idea of impartiality as an essential element in the idea of justice we are not committed to any doctrine of equality. At first thought it might seem that a rigid application of this doctrine of impartiality would require us to stigmatize as unjust all preferences based upon mere affection, that is, upon feelings of friendliness or love which are not wholly predicated upon a conscious estimate of worth in the one for whom the friendliness or love is felt. It would thus seem that the mother's greater love for her own than for another's offspring would, in the greater number of cases, stand condemned. 1 Utilitarianism, Chapter V. This point has been seized upon and argued with great force by Godwin in his Political Justice. " In a loose andgeneral way," he says, " I and my neighbor are both of us men; and of consequence entitled to equal attention. But in reality it is probable that one of us is a being of more worth and importance than the other. A man is of more worth than a beast because, being possessed of ...
This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
CHAPTER III EQUALITY The idea of desert implies that of impartiality. Impartiality, it should be noted, is distinct from that of equality. It requires merely that where favor is shown, some sound reason should exist for doing so. As Mill says, " Impartiality as an obligation of justice may be said to mean being exclusively influenced by considerations which it is supposed ought to influence the particular case in hand, and resisting the solicitation of any motives which prompt to conduct different from what these considerations would dictate."l The exclusion of preferences based on irrelevant considerations does, indeed, often lead to an equality of treatment, but this is an accidental result, not a necessary consequence. Therefore, to repeat, in admitting the idea of impartiality as an essential element in the idea of justice we are not committed to any doctrine of equality. At first thought it might seem that a rigid application of this doctrine of impartiality would require us to stigmatize as unjust all preferences based upon mere affection, that is, upon feelings of friendliness or love which are not wholly predicated upon a conscious estimate of worth in the one for whom the friendliness or love is felt. It would thus seem that the mother's greater love for her own than for another's offspring would, in the greater number of cases, stand condemned. 1 Utilitarianism, Chapter V. This point has been seized upon and argued with great force by Godwin in his Political Justice. " In a loose andgeneral way," he says, " I and my neighbor are both of us men; and of consequence entitled to equal attention. But in reality it is probable that one of us is a being of more worth and importance than the other. A man is of more worth than a beast because, being possessed of ...