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Justice, Happiness, And Self-Knowledge*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Laurence Thomas
Laurence Thomas*
Affiliation:
The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC27514
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Extract

No man can, for any considerable time, wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Platonic view that every just person is, in virtue of being such, happier than any unjust person, since all among the latter are unhappy, strikes a most responsive chord in the hearts of a great many persons. But it would seem that this idea has less of a foothold in reality than it does in our hearts. It is far too difficult to deny that there are unjust persons who are happy. Indeed, some even seem to be happier than many a just person.

So I shall lower my sights. Rather than attempting to defend as sound the Platonic view, I shall argue that the just person is favored to be happier than a certain kind of unjust person whom I shall simply call a masquerader - this is, an individual who is frequently concerned to masquerade as a deeply caring person.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 63 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to many: To conversations with Terrance McConnell, Howard McGary, Jr. and, especially, Stephen Darwall, Christopher Gill and Holly Smith during the early stages of this paper; to my philosophical colleagues at the National Humanities Center: Thomas Hill, Jr., Lance Stell, and Carl Wellman; to John Deigh for his very forthright and penetrating comments as my commentator at the meetings of the American Philosophical Association (Western Division, 1983); to audiences at the Universities of Illinois (at Chicago), Maryland, Nebraska, Virginia, Waterloo, and Vanderbilt University; and to Robert Audi and James Lesher for extensive written comments which both encouraged me and sent me back to the drawing board.

References

A special word of thanks goes to my psychologist friend Robert Gilmore. My intellectual debt to Kurt Baier is greater than words can tell. So is my gratitude.

Support from the National Humanities Center and an off-campus grant from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), both for 1982-83, is gratefully acknolwedged.

1 Recall Philippa Foot's argument against the unjust person in her essay ‘Moral Beliefs,’ Essay 8 in her Virtues and Vices (Los Angeles: University of California Press 1979). Philosophically, this essay is very much akin to her essay. However, the conclusion I am concerned to establish is weaker than the one she sought to establish when she wrote the essay, since she thought that perhaps she could make good Plato's claim. See note 6 of that essay.

2 Cf. Kelly, Harold H. and Thibaut, John W. Interpersonal Relations: A Theory of Interdependence (New York: John Wiley & Sons 1978),Google Scholar and Kelly, Harold H. Personal Relationships (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1979).Google Scholar

3 Cf. discussions in the psychological literature on the psychopath, e.g., Cameron, Norman Personality Development and Psychopathology (Boston: Miflin Company 1963), 651–59Google Scholar and Strongman, K. T. The Psychology of Emotion, 2nd edn (John Wiley: John Wiley & Sons 1978), 96–8.Google Scholar The psychopath is regarded as a person who is psychologically unhealthy because he is emotionally shallow.

4 As often conceived, the egoist is thought to be concerned only with advancing his own interests. He is a selfish, calculating individual who reminds one of a psychopath. Cf. my ‘Ethical Egoism and Psychological Dispositions,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 17 (1980) 73-8. It has not been supposed by everyone, however, that the egoist must be a selfish creature. See Kalin, Jesse ‘In Defense of Egoism,’ in Gauthier, David ed., Morality and Rational Self-Interest (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall 1970) 64–87Google Scholar

5 My understanding of the Republic owes much to the following writers: Cooper, John ‘The Psychology of Justice in the Republic,‘ American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1977) 151–57Google Scholar; Irwin, Terence Plato's Moral Theory (New York: Oxford University Press 1977)Google Scholar; and Vlastos, Gregory Platonic Studies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1973)Google Scholar, especially Vlastos’ essay ‘Justice and Happiness in the Republic.’

6 In writing this section, I have profited considerably from the recent literature in psychology on self-monitoring behavior and self-presentational strategies. See, among others, Snyder, Mark ‘Self-Monitoring of Expressive Behavior,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 30 (1974) 526–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Danheiser, Priscila R. and Graziano, William G. ‘Self-Monitoring and Cooperation as a Self-Presentational Strategy,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42 (1982) 497–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, Edward et. al., ‘Effects of Strategic Self-Presentation on Subsequent SelfEsteem,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 41 (1981) 407–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reiss, Harry T. ‘Self-Presentation and Distributive Justice,’ in Tedeschi, James T. ed., Impression Management Theory and Social Psychological Theory (New York: Academic Press 1981) 269–91.Google Scholar The literature suggests that high self-monitors, that is, people who are remarkably adept at creating the social images of themselves for which the occasion calls, tend to be exclusively concerned with maximizing their own outcomes. Of tremendous significance is that ‘the social world within which high self-monitoring individuals live are characterized by greater partitioning, differentation, and segmentation than those of low selfmonitoring individuals,’ Mark Snyder, ‘The Self in Action’ (in press).

For support, of a very different sort, for the claims of psychology made here, I refer the reader to Bettleheim's, Bruno essay ‘Remarks on the Psychological Appeal of Totalitarianism,’ in his collection of essays Surviving (New York: Vintage Books Edition 1980) 317–32.Google Scholar I quote two passages:

… modern totalitarian society … demands spontaneous assent and total conformity in all life activities, even the most private. It is relatively simple to keep one's mouth shut. But it is much more difficult, when one is in opposition to the society in which one lives, to go through the motions of living as though one were in accord with it (330).

As these dreams show, in totalitarian societies opponents live in the continuous anxiety that they may make a slip, that they may reveal their inner feelings and risk total destruction of themselves and maybe their families. Therefore, opponents have to become perfect actors. But in order to be a perfect actor one not only has to act, but to feel, to live the role (331).

Bettleheim's observations receive support from the black experience in the United States. See Boxill, Bernard Blacks, and Social Justice (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld 1984).Google Scholar In explaining the importance of protest even when it would seem to be of no avail, Boxill writes: ‘… only consummate artistry can enable a person to continuously and elaborately pretend to be servile and still know that he is self-respecting. Unless this strategy is executed by a master, the evidence of servility will seem overwhelming and the evidence of self-respect too ambiguous' (193).

7 In this connection, the work of Erving Goffman must come quickly to mind. See. e.g., his The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday Books 1963)., I have also profited from the writings of Argyle, Michael ‘NonVerbal Communication in Human Social Interaction’ and Eibi-Eibesfeld, I. ‘Similarities and Differences Between Cultures in Expressive Movements,’ both inHinde, Robert A. ed., Non-Verbal Communication (New York: Cambridge University Press 1972) 243–69Google Scholar; 297-314, and Hinde, Robert A. Biological Basis of Human Social Behavior (New York: MacGraw-Hill Book Company 1974)Google Scholar Ch 10. Of late, much attention has been paid to non-verbal behavior in male-female interaction. See, e.g., Mayo, Clara and Henly, Nancy M. Gender and Nonverbal Behavior (New York: Springer-Verlag Inc. 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Goffman, Erving Gender Advertisements (New York: Harper and Row 1979).Google Scholar

8 Thus, observe that a person needn't feel sorry for having harmed someone in order for it to be true that he has apologized for having done so. Hence, we distinguish between sincere and insincere apologies, the mark of the former being that they are accompanied by the appropriate non-verbal displays. I have argued this at length in my ‘Morality, The Self, and Our Natural Sentiments.’ in Irani, I.D. and Myers, Gerald eds., Emotion: Philosophical Studies (New York: Haven Publications 1984).Google Scholar

9 In the Nichomachean Ethics (Bk IX. Ch. 12), Aristotle asks: ‘Is it … true of friends that the most desirable thing for them to do is to live together?' (117lb31), it being clear that the question is to be answered affirmatively. The relevant point here is that because of the spontaneity of interaction that comes with living together, friends who live together have the greatest vantage point from which to observe one another's life.

10 This point is given greater expression in my ‘Morality, The Self, and Our Natural Sentiments.’

11 My thinking here is much influenced by John Cooper's discussion of perception and the practical syllogism in his Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1975), 46-58.

12 I am indebted here to Miller, Jonathan ‘Plays and Players,’ in Hinde, Robert A. ed., Non-Verbal Communication (New York: Cambridge University Press 1972) 359–72.Google Scholar

13 Brian Barry makes this point most forcefully in his review of Fried, Charles Right and Wrong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See The Yale Law fournal 88 (1979) 629-58. For a development of this point in a different direction, see my ‘Law Morality, and Our Psychological Nature,’ in Bradie, Michael and Braybrooke, David eds., Social Justice (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy 1982) 112–23.Google Scholar

14 It would seem that there is no feeling to which we are susceptible to experiencing on account of being a just person which we are not also susceptible to experiencing in virtue of the fact that we deeply care about a person. Taking the sentiment of love as a natural sentiment, this observation gives us a very nice way of understanding John Rawls’ remarks that ‘the moral sentiments are a normal part of life. One cannot do away with them without at the same time dismantling the natural sentiments as well,’ A Theorly of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1971), 489. I have tried to show the importance of love, taken as a natural sentiment, to morality in my ‘Love and Morality: The Possibility of Altruism,’ in Fetzer, James H. ed., Sociobiology and Epistemology (Boston: D. Reidel 1985) 115–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Jesse Kalin, ‘In Defense of Egoism,’ argues that the egoist need not be a completely selfish being. I do not how non-selfish a person might be and yet be an egoist. but I take. it that a masquerader is a minimally non-selfish egoist. And I have tried to show that the egoist has to be further along the continuum of non-selfishness than perhaps Kalin has been inclined to suppose if the egoist's lifestyle is not to give him trouble.

16 Puzo's, Recall Mario The Godfather (New York: Putnam Books 1969).Google Scholar A person who is always in the position to be able to make someone an offer which cannot be refused needn't be much concerned with simulating caring behavior.