Distributive Justice as a Basis for Ethics Courses
David M. Furman
Assistant Professor of Marketing
School of Business
Clayton State University
2000 Clayton State Blvd.
Morrow, Georgia 30260-0285
678-466-4550
DavidFurman@clayton.edu
Lawrence Menter
Visiting Professor of Business Law
School of Business
Clayton State University
With public scrutiny of corporate ethical lapses, there has been a renewed call for more
ethical course content, to say nothing of courses dealing strictly with ethical issues in
business, particularly at the undergraduate level. However, beyond the golden rule, what
will be the basis for these efforts? The suggestion here is that the concept of distributive
justice should form the basis for these courses, as well as for any discussion of corporate
wrongdoing.
Distributive Justice as a Basis for Ethics Courses
The concept of justice has interested social psychologists as well as ethicists for some
time. The concept is an elusive one. When asked, most people would agree that the
establishment of justice is a desirable societal end. Perhaps due to the seemingly ongoing
episodes of corporate governance and malfeasance issues, there has been a renewed effort
on the part of many business schools to emphasize ethics as a learning outcome of course
in all business disciplines. Whereas the concept used to be the province of marketing
courses, the accounting departments have now stepped up their emphasis on ethical
issues.
But beyond that, what are these courses saying should be the moral touchstone of these
efforts? The suggestion here, is that the concept of distributive justice should form the
basis of these efforts. However, there might be some disagreement over the exact
definition of that term. More than that, because of its broad implications, the meaning of
justice itself is often hazy.
According to the dictionary, in its basic form, justice is defined as "the maintenance or
administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of pending claims
and the assignment of merited rewards or punishments” (G. & C. Merriam, p. 628).
Social psychologists have focused on the latter portion of this definition.
Homans (1982, p. xii) proposed three main rules of administrative justice. These rules
are often in competition with each other, “and which one people will apply or what
compromise they will reach between them depends on the persons and the goods and on
other circumstances.”
Homans’ first rule was the rule of distribution according to need. The rule states that of
two or more persons who need a good in short supply, the one who needs it most should
receive it.
Homans’ second rule was the rule of proportionality: “the proposition that one person’s
or group’s contribution bear to another’s should equal the proportion the former’s reward
bears to the latter’s” (p. xii). Homans argued that this second rule was the most relevant,
specifically proportionality between characteristics and outcomes. He examined two
different types of contributions; first, those the person contributes immediately and
second, those that have been acquired from past history or even from being the kind of
person he or she is in terms of such characteristics as seniority, sex, race, and ethnic
group.
The final administrative justice rule proposed by Homans was the rule of equality; that
“all persons, or at least all persons of a certain class, should be rewarded equally (p.
xiv).”
Homans believed that observers must agree on three things to agree on a perception of
justice: the rule of justice, the legitimacy of the kinds of recipient characteristics and
receipts to be taken into account in applying the rule, and the assessments of those
characteristics and receipts. Cohen (1982, p. 119-120) argued that individuals must also
agree on the cause and responsibility to be assigned for the characteristics of recipient
units.
Ross (1980, p. 31) found a parallel between Homan’s views and those which Max Weber
identified in 1904 as a precondition for the rise of capitalism. Ross noted that these
views were consistent with those philosophical positions that have emphasized the
concepts of personal responsibility and free will.
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980, pp. 170-171) set forth a theory of allocation
preferences inherent in social systems. They identified seven procedural components that
shaped the distribution of rewards and resources in a well-structured social system.
These include:
1) The selection of agents who make decisions, collect information, or
safeguard the allocation process.
2) Establishing ground rules for the distribution.
3) Gathering information to be used in the allocation decision.
4) Decision-making, the actual decision process by which rewards and resources
are distributed.
5) Safeguards to ensure that agents who administer the allocation process are
performing their duties properly.
6) Some form of grievance or appeal procedures.
7) A mechanism for changing allocation procedure.
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980, p. 194) identified two aspects of fairness judgments:
cognitive and motivational. They defined cognitive as referring to the fact that judgments
of fairness involve contrasting an existing situation to an abstract standard or rule. The
motivational aspect refers to the fact that “judgments of fairness do not occur unless the
individual is motivated to make them.”
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980, p. 196) also defined procedural rules concerning the
distribution of rewards or resources as “the individual’s belief that fairness exists when
allocated procedures satisfy certain criteria. These criteria may involve the consistency
rule which is a standard procedure that requires allocated procedures to be the same for
different persons and consistent over time.”
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry found that people were most likely to pursue a goal of
fairness in distribution when the role demands emphasized fairness, when other goals
were of minimal importance, when current distributions were blatantly unfair, and when
the social system was pluralistic rather than monolithic.
Rescher (1966, p. 8) identified the principle of utility as the basis for distributive justice.
“We shall base our inquiry into the principle of distributive justice upon an investigation
of the doctrine of utilitarianism. This doctrine is founded upon the principle of utility,
which asserts that utility (or, if you wish, simply the good things of this life) should be
distributed according to the rule of the greatest good of the greatest number.”
Both Barry (1989) and Rawls emphasized the importance of impartiality in distributive
justice. Sociologists examining other aspects of justice have examined Rawls’ classic
work, A Theory of Justice. Rawls believed that for a distributive justice system to be
fairer, the choice of a specific rule must be made behind a “veil of ignorance,” so that no
one would know how each rule of distribution would apply to them. This would prevent
bias to favor a particular rule. Rawls (1971, p. 83) argues that only an allocation of
resources, which maximizes the index of primary goods going to the worst-off group,
would be fair. Reis (1986) believes that Rawls’ theory in this area (determining value
and assessing and entitling inputs) is of significant importance in the theory and practice
of justice. The aforementioned “veil of ignorance” is of paramount importance in the
practice of justice, preventing imbalances in distribution caused by privilege, position, or
power.
Rawls also has his critics. Roemer (1966, pp. 172-173) is critical of Rawls’ criteria for
fairness. Roemer is uncomfortable with Rawls’ basing his theory upon the distribution of
primary goods instead of focusing on emotions such as happiness. Roemer feels that if
Rawls is going to use a concept of morality, it must be grounded in emotional terms
rather than tangible goods.
Brian Barry believes that Rawls views everything as morally arbitrary. Barry (1966, pp.
146, 148) views social justice as based on the basic structure of a society. He defines the
structure as “made up of the institutions that together determine the access (or chances of
access) of the members of a society to resources that are the means to the satisfaction of a
wide variety of issues. These resources can be grouped under three headings: power,
status, and money.” Furthermore, according to Barry, Rawls and Hume both agree that
justice represents the terms of rational cooperation for mutual advantage under the
circumstances of justice.
Reis (1986, p. 199-201) defines the justice motive as the “desire that justice be done.”
He compiled a list of 17 principles derived from folklore, law, history, philosophy, and
social psychology. Each principle identifies a specific recipe for the distribution of
outcomes in distributive justice. Two are of particular interest here. Rule No. 10:
”People are responsible for living up to the moral principles of any groups to which they
voluntarily belong,” and rule No. 11: “One should do good things for other people for its
own sake, irrespective of what they might receive in return.”
Morton Deutsch (p. 142) conceptualizes his view of distributive justice to include its
psychological, physiological, economic, and social aspects. To Deutsch, the concept of
justice is concerned with “the distribution of the conditions and goods which affect the
well-being of the individual members of a group or community. The essential values of
justice are those values that foster effective social cooperation to promote individual well
being.1
There is room for debate on one’s personal view of this concept. But whatever one’s
view, distributive justice is commonly viewed as the basis for justice in American
society. This should be the basis for any classroom discussions concerning ethics. It is
the job of each faculty member, to insure that his or her students have a strong
philosophical grounding in this area. Students who have been exposed to this, hopefully
will continue to use this as a basis for decision making long after they have exited the
classroom.
References
Barry, Brian. 1989. Theories of Justice. Berkeley: University of California.
Cohen, Ronald L. “Perceiving Justice: An Attributional Perspective.” Equity and Justice
in Social Behavior, pp. 119, 120.
Deutsch, Morton. “Equity, Equality, and Need: What Determines Which Value Will Be
Used as the Basis for Distributive Justice?” Journal of Social Issues 31: 142.
G. & C. Merriam Company. 1973. New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield. Page 628.
Hegtvedt, Karen A. and Barry Markovsky. “Justice and Injustice.” 1995. Sociological
Perspectives on Social Psychology.
Homans, George C. 1982. “Foreword.” Equity and Justice in social Behavior, edited by
Jerald Greenberg and Ronald L. Cohen. New York: Academic. Page xii.
Leventhal, Gerald S., Jurgis Karuza. Jr., and William Rick Fry. “Beyond Fairness: a
Theory of Allocation Preferences.” 1980 Justice and Social Interaction- Experimentation
and theoretical research from psychological research. Edited by Gerold Mikula. New
York: pp. 170-171, 194, 196.
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Page 83.
Rescher, Nicholas. 1966. Distributive Justice: A Constructive Critique of the Utilitarian
Theory of Distribution. Indianapolis. Bobbs-Merrill. Page 8.
Roemer, John. E. 1966. Theories of Distributive Justice. Cambridge. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press. Pages 172-173.
Ross, Lee and Richard Nisbett. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of
Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice-Hall. Page 31.