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The Morality of Inclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

Allen Buchanan
Allen Buchanan
Affiliation:
Philosophy, University of Arizona
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Extract

Today we are witnessing two dramatic processes: the fragmentation of old states and empires, followed by the emergence of new states and new forms of political association; and the construction of new economies out of the ruins of state socialism. These two processes—the redrawing of political boundaries and the creation of economies—are not independent of one another. In some cases, the desire for a new, more productive economy supplements other motives for state-breaking and state-making. In others, even if the fragmentation of political union results from other factors, such as ethnic divisions or the resurgence of nationalism against a weakened imperial center, the fragments may sort themselves out into new states, federations, or commonwealths, according to what they believe to be maximally productive economic units.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Summer 1993 , pp. 233 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1993

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References

1 In some cases in which the “haves” secede from the “have nots” or the “haves” simply refuse to include the “have nots” in new arrangements once the state is shattered, the “haves” may view themselves as morally justified in taking either of these courses because they believe that the preexisting state engaged in regional exploitation or discriminatory redistribution (also called “internal colonialism”) toward them. (For a discussion of this grievance and its role in secessionist movements, see Buchanan, Allen, Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec [Boulder: Westview Press, 1991], esp. ch. 1.)Google Scholar In what follows I will leave this moral complication aside and focus on whether self-interest alone, rather than the endeavor to escape exploitation, can justify excluding some from the state in these circumstances.

2 Again, I wish to emphasize that the question that concerns us here is whether there are general obligations of inclusion. Even in the absence of any general obligations, longstanding patterns of cooperation may generate legitimate expectations of continuance, which in turn may ground what may be called “transitional” special obligations. These are obligations on each party not to cease cooperation unilaterally, precipitously, and without compensation or special transitional arrangements designed to minimize the adverse impact of a cessation of cooperation on the other party.

3 I attempt to begin the task of remedying the lack of a moral theory of secession in Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce.

4 See, for example, Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 11–17Google Scholar; and Barry, Brian, A Treatise on Social Justice, vol. 1, Theories of Justice (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

5 Among the exceptions are some rather unsystematic works on the morality of immigration and emigration and on the decision not to grant full citizenship to “guest workers.” See, for example, Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 31–94.Google Scholar

6 Buchanan, Allen, “Justice as Reciprocity Versus Subject-Centered Justice” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 19, no. 3 (1990), pp. 227–52.Google Scholar

7 It might be thought that some representatives of the tradition I have labeled “justice as self-interested reciprocity,” such as Hobbes, hold that one is obligated to form cooperative schemes with enforced rules of peaceful cooperation and that this amounts to an obligation to include others in such arrangements. In support of this claim, one might cite Hobbes's Second Law of Nature: “That a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defense of himselfe he shall think it necessary, to lay down his right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow men against himselfe” (Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan [New York: Penguin Books, 1968], p. 190)Google Scholar. However, all the Second Law requires is that one include whoever is necessary in order to achieve security from one's physical destruction (and to achieve commodious living). The Second Law does not imply that there are any obligations of inclusion that represent restrictions on the pursuit of self-interest.

A proponent of justice as self-interested reciprocity might more plausibly argue that this view does allow the possibility of different levels of strengths of obligations and can encompass some obligations, though of an inferior nature, to individuals who are not within the boundaries of the state. For example, purely rationally self-interested citizens of one state (who have toward one another what we might call “primary obligations,” due to their direct and actual cooperative relationships with one another) might have “secondary obligations” toward citizens of other states, to whom they are perhaps only indirectly related in more limited schemes of cooperation, or with whom they may become co-participants in a cooperative scheme in the future. Thus, justice as self-interested reciprocity might be thought to be capable of explaining the existence of some limited obligations to those who lie beyond the boundaries of one's state. The central point, however, is that justice as self-interested reciprocity, so far as it includes a view about the state, maintains that the function of the state is to enforce obligations amosng those who are co-participants in a cooperative scheme, and that whatever obligations exist to include individuals within the state are owed only to those who are co-participants in the cooperative scheme.

8 In The Republic, Glaucon offers a version of justice as self-interested reciprocity:

People say that injustice is by nature good to inflict but evil to suffer. Men taste both of its sides and learn that the evil of suffering it exceeds the good of inflicting it. Those unable to flee the one and take the other therefore decide it pays to make a pact neither to commit nor to suffer injustice. It was here that men began to make laws and covenants, and to call whatever the laws decreed “legal” and “just.”

Plato, , Tiie Republic, trans, and ed. Larson, Raymond (Arlington Heights, IL: AHM, 1979), bk. 2, section 359, p. 32.Google Scholar

Epicurus suggests a similar view in his Kuriai Doxai (“Key Doctrines”). See, for example, Key Doctrine 32: “Nothing is just or unjust in relation to those creatures which were unable to make contract over not harming one another and not being harmed”; and Key Doctrine 33: “Justice was never anything per se, but a contract regularly arising at some place or other in people's dealings with one another, over not harming or being harmed.” See The Hellenistic Philosopher, trans. Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 127.Google Scholar

In Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume at least hints at justice as self-interested reciprocity when he speculates that creatures otherwise like us, but powerless to harm us, would at most hope to be treated mercifully, but could not expect to be treated justly. See Hume, , Enquiries, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A. and Nidditch, P. H., 3d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 190–91.Google Scholar

Epicurus, Glaucon, and (perhaps) Hume present what might be called the “negative” version of justice as self-interested reciprocity—emphasizing that it is the ability of others to harm us (and our self-interest in avoiding that harm) that is the basis of their rights and our obligations. David Gauthier, the most explicit, rigorous, and systematic proponent of justice as self-interested reciprocity, expounds the “positive” version of the view, emphasizing the idea that justice (and morality generally) applies only to those who are or can be co-participants in a mutually beneficial cooperative scheme. See Gauthier, , Morals ty Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 113–56.Google Scholar

9 Gauthier does allow the possibility of one pre-cooperative right—the right not to have one's condition worsened by the action of others (the Proviso). (See Gauthier, , Morals by Agreement, pp. 205, 214–23)Google Scholar. However, in my view this one exception to the general thesis that rights are derived from an agreement among rational bargainers and that rights and obligations exist only among those who are net contributors to a cooperative scheme, is an ad hoc and thoroughly unmotivated addition to the basic conception of justice as self-interested reciprocity with which Gauthier operates. The function of the Proviso is to soften the harshness of the theory—by importing some considered moral judgments which reflect limitations on what we may do to others in the pursuit of our own interests. However, the appeal of justice as self-interested reciprocity is supposed to be that it does not rely on considered moral judgments, but instead accepts only those moral principles and judgments which can be shown to be grounded in self-interested rationality.

10 As noted earlier, according to some versions of justice as self-interested reciprocity, including that of Epicurus, the ability to harm is said to be what qualifies one for membership in the community of beings to whom justice is owed. The notion that what makes one a being who falls within the scope of justice is one's strategic capacities (either to benefit or to harm) is broad enough to encompass these views.

11 Buchanan, Allen, “The Right to a ‘Decent Minimum’ of Health Care” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 13, no. 1 (1983), pp. 55–78.Google Scholar

12 Utilitarianism is a subject-centered theory, but it can be argued that it does not provide a secure grounding for universal rights. According to rule utilitarianism, attributions of rights are appropriate when and only when the recognition of these rights for those to whom they are attributed maximizes overall utility. A utilitarian case can be made for not attributing rights to some persons who are so disabled that they are unable to make net contributions to overall utility, even if they are capable of rational agency. Thus, utilitarianism may lead to the exclusion of some persons from the domain of justice when Kantianism, for example, would not, even though both are subject-centered theories.

13 Locke, John, Second Treatise of Civil Government, ed. Macpherson, C. B. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1980), p. 11.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., pp. 11–16.

15 Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Gregor, Mary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 122.Google Scholar

16 Ibid.

17 Buchanan, Allen, “Justice and Charity” Ethics, vol. 97, no. 3 (04 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Ibid., pp. 556–57.

19 See, for example, Cohen, G. A., “Wilt Chamberlain and Robert Nozick: How Patterns Preserve Liberty,” in Justice and Economic Distribution, ed. Arthur, J. and Shaw, W. H. (Engle-wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978), pp. 246–62Google Scholar; and Buchanan, Allen, Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1982), pp. 64–70.Google Scholar

20 In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 26–35Google Scholar, Nozick docs suggest some reasons in favor of the libertarian rights he largely assumes. The leading idea is that only these rights meet the fundamental moral imperative of not treating persons as mere means but as ends in themselves. However, although this line of argument may be able to support the claim that there is a right to liberty and a right to private property, it seems incapable—at least without further premises which Nozick nowhere supplies—of showing that only the very strong libertarian versions of these rights capture this basic requirement of morality. See Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).Google Scholar

21 Buchanan, , Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market, pp. 64–70.Google Scholar

22 Rawls, , A Theory of Justice, pp. 243–48.Google Scholar

23 Gauthier, , Morals by Agreement, p. 18 n. 30.Google Scholar

24 I am indebted to Tom Christiano for clarifying this strategy. In an excellent and original unpublished paper entitled “The Incoherence of Hobbesian Justifications of the State,” Christiano makes the important point that this claim about justification is essential to contractarian views such as those of Hobbes and Gauthier. He then argues that such views necessarily fail to satisfy their o;vn standard for adequate justification. His argument can be seen as one interpretation of what Rawls views as a “natural” objection to contractarian views and which I consider presently.

25 See Buchanan, , “Justice as Reciprocity Versus Subject-Centered Justice,” pp. 239–41Google Scholar (see note 6 above).

26 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, p. 21:Google Scholar

We shall want to say that certain principles of justice are justified because they would be agreed to in an initial situation of equality. I have emphasized that this original position is purely hypothetical. It is natural to ask why, if this agreement is never actually entered into, we should take any interest in these principles, moral or otherwise. The answer is that the conditions embodied in the description of the original position are ones that we do in fact accept. Or if we do not, then perhaps we can be persuaded to do so by philosophical reflection.

27 This point is made by Tom Christiano in “The Incoherence of Hobbesian Justifications of the State.”

28 Rawls, , A Theory of Justice, p. 21.Google Scholar

29 Rawls contends that the correct principles of justice for the most fundamental social institutions are those which would be agreed upon from a choice situation (the “original position”) which exemplifies our deeply held conceptions of fairness and the normative conception of persons as being free and equal. An important feature of the original position which is designed to ensure fairness or impartiality in the choice of principles of justice is the “veil of ignorance.” We are to imagine the parties in the original position as choosing under severe informational constraints: no one knows his or her place in the distribution of wealth, nor even the content of his or her particular conception of the good. Rawls argues that one of the principles that would be agreed upon under such conditions is the difference principle, which requires that social and economic inequalities are to work to the greatest advantage of the worst off. In criticizing Rawls, (“Rawls and Marxism” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 3, no. 2 [1974], pp. 167–91)Google Scholar, Richard Miller argues that parties in the original position would not agree on the difference principle because conflicts of interests among classes would undermine the possibility of agreement in the original position. For example, if one considers the possibility that one will be a capitalist in an unjust capitalist society, then one would not agree to the difference principle, though one might be willing to agree to it if one only considered the possibility of being a poor worker. Since one is supposed to evaluate proposed principles of justice from the perspective of each representative position in society, no agreement on a principle such as the difference principle is possible in the original position, according to Miller.

What has gone wrong here is that Miller has raised against Rawls the natural objection, without realizing that Rawls himself raised this objection precisely in order to dissociate his own view from the sort of view against which that objection is telling! Rawls's point is not that principles of justice must be acceptable from the point of view of the actual self-interest of every individual, even the most arbitrarily advantaged individual in a radically unjust society. (That would be an excessive criterion, after all.) For Rawls, the parties in the original position are not to rank principles of justice from the perspective of the actual interests of real-world individuals (including those of the recipients of unjust benefits). They are to rank principles from the standpoint of the interests which Rawls ascribes to them as idealized parties in the original position. Those interests, according to Rawls, are the two “highest-order” interests (a) in critically formulating, revising, and effectively pursuing a conception of the good, and (b) in expressing their sense of justice. To my knowledge Rawls never makes the mistake Miller attributes to him. He never mistakenly contends that even the greatest beneficiaries of injustice will, strictly from the standpoint of their self-interest, agree to principles of justice that would deprive them of their ill-gotten gains. Nor does he embrace the extremely implausible assumption that an adequate justification for a set of principles of justice requires that they be acceptable to the greatest beneficiaries of injustice. Rawls would be committed to both of these views if he subscribed to the view of justification held by Gauthier and other proponents of justice as self-interested reciprocity, but a charitable reading of both Rawls's response to the natural objection and his description of the parties in the original position clearly shows that he does not. For a more detailed analysis of Miller's objection, and for my reply to it in defense of Rawls, see Buchanan, Allen, Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Uttlefield, 1982), pp. 145–47.Google Scholar