John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
Implementing Global Standards of Justice and the Common Good
(A Theoretical Perspective on Global Responsibility)
1. Preliminaries: Background, Context and Presuppositions
Much contemporary philosophical work on justice written in English hearkens back to John Rawls’ celebrated book
A Theory of Justice. Rawls argued that a scheme for distributing benefits and burdens is just only if it would be
rational for everyone governed by it to consent to its details, provided that pertinent individual circumstances that
would advantage or disadvantage each participant were concealed ‘behind a veil of ignorance’ in the famous
‘original position’ in which consent to be bound (by a set of rules) is granted. (Rawls, 1974) Rawls’ theory
prompted extensive discussion. Some focused on the details of Rawls’ theory, and in particular the formulation of
the conditions of consent. For example, Thomas Scanlon proposed a modification of Rawls’ standard, arguing that
the scheme of distribution should be one that would be unreasonable for any person to reject, given that person’s
conception of right and wrong. We would then in a position to enter into contractualist agreements on a reasonable
basis with others who share that conception of right and wrong. (Scanlon, 1998, p. 191) This is an important
elaboration of Rawls’ position. Details of this sort, however, might seem to be less important to many than the fact
that Rawls’ theory apparently reduces justice to fairness, defined relative to procedure, and therefore does not
involve any reference to the common good. We shall argue for a Humean approach to justice that involves essential
reference to the common good of those who are bound by the demands of any particular scheme or conception of
justice. The demands of global justice will therefore presuppose a common conception of the good to which all
human beings can be reasonably expected to subscribe.1
1a. Sometimes the unfair is just
To be sure, the suggestion that Rawls’ theory ‘reduces’ justice to fairness presupposes more than a little, in
particular, that there is more to justice than fairness. That there is more to justice than fairness is suggested by facts
like these: Women are called to bear the considerable burdens of continuing the species, and grandparents are
typically called to pick up where derelict parents leave off. These and other impositions appear to be unfair, but
perhaps not unjust. Indeed, some would say that it is unjust for grandparents to refuse undeserved aid to children
and grandchildren, even if the demand for aid is unfair as well as undeserved. When it comes to justice, sometimes
the common good (of grandchildren, children and grandparents) trumps fairness. This thought will no doubt be
difficult for many, but perhaps it will become more appealing as this paper develops.
1b. Sometimes the fair is unjust
There is much to be said for Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness, at least in quotidian contexts of Western liberalism;
for examples: Equal rights for women; equal pay for equal work; one person, one vote; a day’s pay for a day’s work
(and a day’s work for a day’s pay). It is not completely wrong to think of everyday life as a game, which is fair
when no one is given ‘unfair’ advantage; not by the rules and certainly not by the referees. Perhaps, then one might
argue that a just outcome of a game is nothing more than a fair outcome; but notice how easily and naturally ‘fair
1
I gratefully acknowledge the kind, perspicacious comments, suggestions and criticism of the participants at the International Conference of
Ethics and Practices of Responsibility, November 19-20, 2012, which was hosted and sponsored by Universite Paris 8 (BQR), CERPHI, LabtopParis 8, Institut Universitaire de France, ISP Paris Ouest, and sponsored by USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences (USC Center for
International Studies, USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics), USC Shoah Foundation. In particular I thank Nonon Grange (University
of Paris 9) and Lyn Boyd Judson (Levan Institute USC) for their extensive commentary, critical remarks and suggestions.
1
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
call’ and ‘fair game’ roll from the lips, but how awkward ‘just game’ and ‘just call’ sound. Some may argue that it
really isn’t ever fair to enter into an agreement that might disadvantage the weaker to an extreme degree. Yet, in
board games like chess (and a cynic might argue in U.S. bankruptcy law), it is certainly fair to take away as
opponent’s pieces (possessions) in accordance with the rules, no matter how severe the disadvantage. In fact,
disadvantaging opponents is the point of games like chess. In life, as in board games, it may be fair play to take
away all that another has, but I shall claim that it is never just. Life isn’t a game, and the difference between life
and a game is not that the stakes are higher, but rather that justice includes yet supersedes fairness.
In a celebrated essay, Bernard Williams argues against utilitarianism on the grounds that impartial morality appears
to fail us just at the point at which the moral makes stringent, just and partial demands. Williams reminds us that a
man who asks himself whether or not he should risk his life to save his drowning wife -- rather than maximizing
utility more broadly conceived -- has asked himself ‘one question too many.’ (Williams, 1981, p. 646) It wouldn’t
have mattered that years before the two had agreed not to allow ‘sentimentality’ to undermine their utilitarian
commitments. Indeed, given their agreement it would not have been unfair of the man to withhold support from his
drowning wife in the horrific event, but it would have been nonetheless unjust, in the way that it might be fair yet
unjust to demand the repayment of a loan by a deeply distressed debtor.
One might try to assimilate particular duties, for example, to family or country or, perhaps, even religious duties to
impartial morality. In Rawls’ case, our conception of fairness might seek to incorporate the dreadful burdens of war
or distressed family life or the demands of the poor into its schemes of fair expectations. Perhaps in principle the
fair could be brought into accord with the just in this way, but it is not easy to see how the argument could be
pressed successfully in practice. Exactly how are we supposed to rectify the injustice in an outcome in which one
conscript’s body is exploded by artillery while another does clerical work in safety? Never mind if the two drew
straws to see who would bear the greater burden of war, and each accepted his lot and was therefore treated fairly.
The injustice lay in both the asymmetry of suffering and in the suffering itself; however fair the method by which
the asymmetry was established.
One soldier was denied the common good of life and bodily integrity; the other
emerged unscathed. Can we shrug of injustice in life as we have shrugged off unfairness in games?2 I think not, but
even if we could, an unjust war would remain unjust, despite a fair, impartial distribution of its burdens and benefits.
The right conclusion to draw, I believe, that the fair is limited to the parameters of rules and procedures to which all
have conscientiously agreed; however, the just takes the good into account. That is why (1b) sometimes the fair is
unjust, and, for that matter, why (1a) sometimes the unfair is just. Of course, Rawls is aware of objections like
these, and goes to great lengths to counter them. He insists that in the sense that justice is fairness, it is a political
notion and not a moral notion. The essence of his position is that justice in this sense is a matter of positive law.
Here we are concerned with two issues: one is whether or not the justice sought by positive law can be fully
explicated as a type of fairness; the other is whether or not it is reasonable to hope for global implemental of
schemes of justice based on the famous ‘original position’ or something derived from it. As to the first, it my view
is that questions of desert (what one deserves) as opposed to entitlement (what one is entitled to under the law)
cannot be separated because we cannot see why we should have entitlements to what we do not deserve, and cannot
Here as elsewhere, it is worth recalling President Kennedy’s famous observation that ‘life is unfair.’ President Kennedy made this remark at his
28th full press conference on March 21, 1962, when he was questioned about the fairness of calling up reservists (for possible conflict in
Vietnam). The full text of the remark is: ‘There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war, and some are wounded, and some men
never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic, and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in military or in
personal life to assure complete equity. Life is unfair.’ The president was surely correct about the difficulties that arise in assuring complete
equity (that is, justice). I grant that he too appears to have ‘reduced’ justice (viz. equity) to fairness, but isn’t it obvious that whatever procedure
is used to determine who is killed, wounded, leaves the county, goes to Antarctica or stays in San Francisco, the outcome the president described
is unjust, however fair the procedure might have been. The president implicitly concedes as much when he acknowledges the difficulties in
assuring ‘complete equity.’ Justice requires equitable treatment under the law (divine, moral, or temporal), not merely a fair procedure to
determine who is treated inequitably.
2
2
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
see why we should not have entitlements to what we do deserve.3 But even if this is not true, it is obvious that we
shall have great difficulty implementing a system of entitlements if they are at variance with what people think they
deserve.
2. A Politically Liberal Conception of Justice, from the Global Point of View
Rawls’ theory of justice has prompted attempts to generalize his analysis of justice and apply it globally. One
attempt that can be conceived in this way was developed in 1979 soon after the publication of A Theory of Justice.
(Beitz, 1979) According to this way of looking at things, a just distribution of benefits and burdens from a global
perspective would meet the standards described in A Theory of Justice. This has become known as the
Cosmopolitan Approach to distributive justice; it imagines a ‘global original position’. 4 But Rawls himself
recognizes the inherent difficulty in this position, as there are traditional, hierarchical societies that lack the ideal of
‘liberal citizenship’ and hence do not grant all their citizens equal treatment under the law. Rawls insists that
fairness among the various peoples of the world will be promoted if peoples themselves, through their
representatives to global fora, participate in ‘a second original position’ that would guarantee a fair distribution of
burdens and benefits among peoples. (Rawls, 1999, p. 115) Thus, Rawls himself rejects the idea that global justice
will be sufficiently granular to take into account putatively unfair distributions of burdens and benefits to individuals
that are internal to political societies, especially those societies that are not liberal by Western standards. Actually,
the risks that the Rawlsian model runs at the global level are, in my judgment, much greater than even Rawls
suspects.
Rawlsian liberalism rejects the idea that just outcomes must take into account substantive conceptions of the good
that cannot be assimilated into schemes of fairness adopted by people who are ‘behind the veil of ignorance’ (and
hence unaware of their own prospects under proposed schemes of fairness). But the inherent weakness in this
approach is striking and even obvious as soon as we consider attempts to establish just schemes by those who have
radically different conceptions of the good or, indeed of rationality itself. For example, in some tribal contexts,
retribution for individual acts of injustice may be focused on those who had nothing to do with the real or imagined
wrong in the first place. The rape of a woman of one tribe may be redressed by the forced, public, repeated
penetration of women from the tribe of the offending rapist – never mind that the poor women violated in retribution
had nothing whatever to do with the original real or imagined wrong. I say ‘forced, public, repeated penetration’
rather than ‘repeated, public rape’ because from the standpoint of collective morality the women who were violated
in revenge were not treated unjustly and hence not ‘raped.’ In certain traditional societies the pride and dignity of
the tribe is deemed to be a foundational good, which is to say, a good by which other goods are judged. It is the
pride and dignity of the tribe that is supposedly vindicated by act of revenge, even when individuals bear the guilt
for the collective and suffer horrific ‘punishments’ despite the fact that they themselves have done nothing ‘wrong’
– other, of course, than being in the ‘wrong’ tribe. Lest we Westerners too eagerly congratulate ourselves on our
own sense of justice, perhaps we would do well to recall, for example, that in the American game of baseball, it is
fairly standard (and therefore fair?) for a pitcher to avenge a hit batter by throwing at a batter of the opposing team –
even though object of retribution had nothing whatever to do with, the original offense. The point of this is that
when it comes to justice on a global scale, we cannot even agree on whether justice is essentially individual or
collective, much less on whether or not it involves than a ‘fair’ distribution of burdens and benefits, whatever that
may be.
3
I add the following thought. People writing in the Kantian tradition believe that the fact (and only the fact) that something is morally good or
right gives us a reason for action that in and of itself trumps all other reasons. But then, if the politically just is independent of the moral, how
can the fact of its political justice be a reason for seeking it?
4
Recently Gillian Brock has proposed an elaborate, updated version of the Cosmopolitan Approach in which he argues for egalitarianism that
focuses on equalizing respect, recognition and power. (Brock 2009, p. 318f) His proposal goes beyond suggestions made by Sen, who argues
that justice requires equal opportunity for the development of capabilities (Sen, 2000, pp 18-20; 40 – 1) and even beyond Anderson who focuses
on the demands of morality for respectful treatment of others. (Anderson, 1999, pp. 287 – 337)
3
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
This brings us to an even deeper difficulty that concerns rationality itself. A rational person forms beliefs on the
basis of reason. But what are the standards by which a reason is rationally deemed to be a good reason? There has,
of course, been thorough discussion of this issue. Some believe that all judgments are rendered from some
perspective, which is not to say that there is or could be a unique perspective, ideally a neutral perspective, from
which all judgments would be by definition reasonable. In fact, when it comes to the distribution of burdens and
benefits, we are all likely to think that our own ‘demographic’ is more likely to be undervalued than overvalued.
This suggests that reason itself may be inherently biased and to that extent subjective. Some argue that basic science
and technology make sense of objectivity – at least to the extent that natural science and its associated technologies
elicit universal agreement, if only because they ‘work.’ Indeed, the hypotheses of science and technology are open
to repeatable, public tests (experiments and observations). All can see for themselves whether or not airplanes fly,
vaccines reduce the spread of disease; antibiotics cure bacterial infections. But can we possibly say the same for
moral and political values -- and in particular for justice?
Rawls himself acknowledges that non-liberal societies may have strikingly different conceptions of the good from
our own. He believes that differing conceptions of the good need not interfere with the (political) institution of
justice. But as argued earlier, this seems to me to be mistaken. It is not in principle unreasonable to count
something as an injustice if it diminishes one’s own well-being from one’s own point of view. Many will say,
correctly in my view, that it is selfish and immoral to object to diminutions in one’s own well-being, especially if
they are the only way to avoid greater hardships on others. But that is quite different from claiming that the
objection is unreasonable. Why shouldn’t the reasonable be defined by that which maximizes one’s own wellbeing? Indeed, isn’t that how it is defined by egoists; by great egoists like Epicurus, Hobbes and Spinoza? Perhaps
it will be objected that sometimes a diminution of one’s own share is fair. If what is fair is good, by definition, then
it surely would be unreasonable to object to what is fair on the grounds that it diminishes one’s own well-being. But
suppose that what is good really is just one’s own well-being.
Actually, this last point is not (and was not meant to be) a criticism of Rawls. Rawls has, I think, successfully
captured what liberal Western societies deem to be fair and has argued successfully that all reasonable people in
those societies might reasonably accept the Rawlsian criterion of fair distribution of burdens and benefits. But I
have urged that we must be careful about defining justice by this standard and evaluating other societies by it,
particularly those who base their social order on non-contractualist schemes, like schemes inspired by religious
faiths that are grounded in texts widely deemed to be authoritative. Rawls himself insists that liberal political states
(basically Western-style democracies) and ‘decent hierarchical societies’ which do not accept the liberal ideal of
equal citizenship but nonetheless acknowledge ‘basic rights’ (like equality under the law) should be respected by
the ‘law of peoples’. ‘Outlaw states,’ however, that violate human rights may be justifiably opposed, even forcibly,
viz. militarily. (Rawls, 1999, pp. 82ff) Furthermore, there are peoples who a ‘burdened by unfavorable conditions,’
and liberal societies may be obligated to make reasonable efforts to relieve their distress. It seems to me that all this
does not get us very far when it comes to defining and implementing global justice. Rawls himself concedes that his
theory presupposes that in liberal, constitutional democracies, ‘comprehensive doctrines of truth or right’ are
replaced by the ‘political reasonable as addressed by citizen to citizen.’ (Rawls, 1999, p. 205) This presupposition
does not hold for most political societies or nation states. The point is that it is not realistic to suppose that most
political bodies will accept the conception of justice as fairness that Rawls thinks is commended by the ‘politically
reasonable.’ If that is true, implementing politically liberal theory of justice at a global level is unrealistic. Rawls
concedes as much. For Rawls liberal people will ‘act to gradually shape all not yet liberal societies in a liberal
direction, until eventually (in the idea case) all societies are liberal’. (Rawls, 1999, p. 82f) This means that ‘decent
hierarchical peoples,’ outlaws states (which do not recognize individual rights) and states ‘suffering from
unfavorable conditions’ all are ideally to be transformed peacefully to politically liberal states. As observed earlier,
according to Rawls outlaw states might in extremis be brought to the liberal fold by force, that is war. In my view
this missionary zeal goes beyond the reasonable. It attempts to proselytize a conception of the reasonable that is
commended by Western science and technology but which cannot be plausibly extended to matters of faith and
morals. Rawls almost concedes as much when he draws a distinction between (the stronger) Enlightenment
liberalism (which seeks to extinguish all religion from ‘public reason’ and presumably from public policy discourse)
4
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
from (the weaker) political liberalism, which tolerates religion (and comprehensive doctrines of the good) as long as
those conceptions of the good are not allowed to interfere with the conception of fairness to be implemented at either
the local or global level It does not seem to me that Rawls’ vision of political liberalism commends or is likely to
commend itself to all peoples. In fact, there are many schemes by which societies can be organized; conceiving of a
global standard of justice that can be supported and implemented world-wide is not exclusively a matter for Western
liberalism. Whatever our conception of justice, we can hardly expect others to support its implementation if its
policies threaten their conception of their own good.5 In any case, even if the Rawlsian hope is eventually realized
and competing conceptions of reasonableness are brought into accord so that liberal, constitutional democracy is
everywhere accepted, there is still the present problem of implementing global justice.
3. A Humean Alternative
Having complained that Rawls’ analysis of justice, conceived as fairness, falls short of a full analysis of justice, it is
now our responsibility to do better. The heart of our complaint is that justice involves goodness, but in the final
analysis Rawls’ notion of justice as fairness only takes account of the procedure by which we determine rules to
allocate benefits and burdens. To see how justice is linked to goodness, I turn away from contemporary Kantian
analyses (viz. Rawls and contractualists generally) to the model provided by Hume. Let me concede at the outset
that Hume’s analysis of justice is outdated, quaint in places and naïve in others. I shall be sure to point out the
features that appear to be antiquated. However antiquated and unbelievable much of Hume’s analysis is, the core of
his theory is still relevant and insightful, and sadly disparaged.
According to Hume, the fundamental social unit is the family, based upon the union of a woman and a man, which
includes their children. In the case of nuclear families, we need not worry about justice, because husbands will
willingly and even eagerly work to please their wives, and wives will favor their husbands with the rewards of
domestic life. (Hume, Treatise, III:II:II:5) This initial foray into the natural state of relations among women and
men risks ridicule. Indeed, many people think that the nuclear family is not the touchstone of justice but rather the
icon of injustice, a relic of an earlier patriarchal age.6 But we press ahead, fearlessly, if not foolishly as well.
Complications arise as families become extended, and especially as they turn into clans. There the natural affinity
among people is not as strong as it is in the nuclear family. Both the nuclear family and the somewhat larger groups
including families (like extended families and clans) face the primordial challenge of securing their safety
(especially from predatory beasts) and providing the necessaries of life.
Achieving those goods requires
coordinated effort. At the level of the nuclear family, the project of seeking the common good is likened by Hume
to people paddling a boat to a destination. They quickly learn that their efforts must be coordinated, lest they run off
course, perhaps in circles. Each person has a task, paddling from one side of the boat or the other, or perhaps
handling the rudder, or bailing water that has spilled into the boat or seeped in through leaky planks on the bottom.
The common good they seek is, of course, the destination. This is how a nuclear family operates in seeking to
preserve its safety and secure the necessaries of life. Because of the natural affection for each other, various
members willingly and cheerfully perform different functions. Their affection for each other makes it unnecessary
to establish rules or set artificial incentives for all to do their respective parts.
The matter is somewhat different for extended families, clans and, especially, political societies or states. There the
common good may become more complicated, as it may come to include cultural amenities, the arts and sciences, as
well as various luxuries that make life more commodious. How to pursue those goods is complicated, involving
commerce, which inevitably involves competition for the same goods with other groups. Complications will arise
5
By the way, nothing would please me -- and probably my readers-- more than for something like Rawls’ vision to be realized, but of course that
is only to be expected, as I am a liberal person living in a liberal, constitutional democracy.
6
See Rawls (1999, pp. 156 – 164), especially p. 160 where Rawls refers to Mill’s, ‘On the Subjection of Women.’ In this connection also see
Mill himself (Mill, 1988, originally published 1869, pp. 22 -26; especially p. 22), where Mill writes: ‘No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and
in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is,’ and p. 35 where Mill explicitly compares ‘despotism in the family’ with political despotism, claiming
‘no word can be said for despotism in the family which cannot be said for political despotism.’
5
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
not only because peoples differ in what they conceive as a good life but also because of the differences in the
circumstances their joint efforts are likely to encounter, a point wisely emphasized by Montesquieu. (Montesquieu,
1949 (originally 1748 in French, 1756 in English), especially pp. 221 - 235) The ship of state is more complicated
that a small boat. Most importantly, many on the ship are strangers to each other, and have little incentive, at least
initially, to assist each other. Indeed, people are not naturally inclined to help strangers, and where strangers are
concerned, the selfish side of human nature is dominant. That is where the rules of justice come in: They are
conventions that assign responsibilities and the inevitable rewards and sanctions for failing to meet them.
Ideally, those on the ship of state will come to identify with each other and with their projects. This results in
public-spiritedness and a love of one’s own country; it sparks a willingness to make sacrifices to promote the
common good. In other words, the participants have come to know what Rousseau described as amore proper,
which perhaps amounts to taking the common good, as defined by the general will, as one’s own good.7 Now, in
fact many political societies (in Rawls’ sense) and nation-states have conceived (and do currently conceive) a
common good. Sometimes it is in association with a religion; other times with a mythology; always with what is
more broadly defined as its ‘culture.’ They give a nation is peculiar identity. It is true that there are nations that do
not see themselves or their destiny as defined by a common, substantive good. For them it is as though the only
value to be universally respected is tolerance for the values of others, as long as those tolerated do not seek to
impose their conceptions of the good on others. Many liberal, constitutional democracies purport follow this
pattern. Yet, even in those cases, it would really be quite difficult to argue that their members do not share
substantive conceptions of the good. It is almost impossible to imagine (although some libertarians try to imagine) a
collective that conceives the common good to be nothing more than protection from outsiders. As Hume reminds
us, larger social and political units exist in order to promote the goods of life, like art, and science, which come to
define culture, and to require the institutions of commerce to facilitate their development.
Here I think we find in Hume the connective tissue between the institutions of justice and the common good. But
just what is the common good of peoples and nations? Could it be that there simply is not (and perhaps could not
and should not be) a world culture? Can it be that humankind is a ship without a destination – from nowhere; to
nowhere? There is not much to go on; indeed, as we have seen, we have yet to agree about the nature of justice,
even whether it is individual or collective.
4. Global Goods
It will surely be remonstrated that nations do not by nature have an inclination to support each other; they do so out
of self interest. One way to approach issues concerning global justice would be to establish institutions that would
define the obligations of justice among nations and peoples and then enforce those obligations, even by military
means as a last resort. This system would mimic domestic systems of justice as they are described, for example, by
Hume. In fact, progress in this direction has been slow. First, there aren’t universally accepted standards of justice
for distributing burdens and benefits among peoples, nations and their autonomous regions. Second, even if there
were agreement on the principles of justice, we are a very long way from establishing institutions that would have
the authority and power to enforce those standards. Is there another way?
No matter how well we argue, we cannot expect to convince others of our views if we argue from premises that they
reject. If we are going to institute a system of global justice that nations have an incentive to observe, we’ll need to
begin with principles that all nations accept. Are there any? As a matter of fact there are several points of
agreement. The first is that it is in the interest of all to preserve the planet on which we live. It is obvious that there
is nothing within light years that is even remotely as suitable to human life as Earth. Protecting its environment is
7
Hume invited Rousseau to England in 1766 and there can be no doubt that the two influenced each other greatly and saw eye-to-eye on many
issues, especially on the goodness of human nature and the tendency of political and religious authorities to undermine that intrinsic goodness and
frustrate its expression. Compare, for example, Rousseau and Hume on the point of the family. (Rousseau, Cole, tr., (1906, originally published
1762), pp. 4 -5. Also, see especially Ibid. pp. 13 -19.) See also (Rawls, 1999, pp. 34-35, 47 for an acknowledgment of Rousseau’s contribution
in assessing the motivation determinants of political loyalty.)
6
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
therefore a universal interest. Secondly, sustaining a population of seven billion people involves an enormous
infrastructure even to provide the basics of healthy life, including potable water, clean air, protection from
contagious disorders, and decent, nutritious food. Coping with natural disasters involves making common purpose
that could promote cooperation at the global level. Thirdly, the means of achieving environmental sustainability and
a minimally satisfactory distribution of resources requires a global financial system that facilitates commerce
through a functioning credit system.
Some may mistakenly argue that there is a divergence of interest when it comes to the global distribution of
resources. What difference, it may be argued, do the ‘have-nots’ make to the ‘haves’? This argument is mistaken
because a principal source of conflict and ultimately war is the ultimate misallocation of resources, under which
some people suffer for lack of the basics while others over-consume luxuries. Conflict and war undermine progress
in developing common goods, like infrastructure as well as a healthy environment. Indeed, rational people must
wonder just how many more wars can humanity (or eco-system Earth) bear. Although these goals are merely a
beginning in developing a global system of justice, they are at least principles that every rational person can endorse
and hence may be a touchstone of global conscience. This last point may seem to be naïve, but the paper echoes
Hume in arguing that ultimately conscience and fellow-feeling rather than coercive force are the primary means of
establishing and maintaining the institutions of justice, both at the domestic level and the global level.
4a. Protecting the Planet
Recently there has been extraordinary attention paid to protecting our planet. All peoples and nations live on the
same planet, and are interdependent for various goods, for examples: Providing mechanisms that restrain the
introduction of foreign creatures that disrupt local ecologies; keeping Oxygen in the air at levels that can sustain
highly developed neurological systems, maintaining the average temperature of Earth at a level that is consistent
with agricultural productivity, keeping pollution under control to the extent that toxic materials are sequestered or
removed entirely from the environment, minimizing the threat of pandemics, radically altering eco-systems and even
the course of evolution itself by mindlessly introducing foreign species to regional eco-systems, establishing
procedures to predict and deflect asteroids that may literally impact Earth and would adversely affect world-wide
ecology, These are obviously all common goods that no person could reasonably reject, and are all ecological
goods; they are essential to human life, in some cases all life, of Earth. They are what are necessary to keep our ship
afloat.
4ai. Disruptive Foreign Species
Importation of foreign species to a region can disrupt its ecosystem, to an extreme degree. A good example is the
ecosystem of the Everglades in Florida, where the Melaleuca tree (now officially designated as a ‘weed’) and the
Burmese python threaten to take over the eco-system and alter the course of its evolution. In Australia the
Melaleuca has been used to soak up water in wetlands, and thus it has naturally found itself at home in the
Everglades. But its introduction to the Everglades has been a disaster. Much native vegetation and wildlife
dependent has vanished because the Melaleuca is itself a habitat for insects that are dangerous to the local flora
(Silver, Cressida, ‘A Century of Melaleuca Invasion in South Florida,’ p. 1)
Or consider this! Recently, a Burmese python with 87 eggs was captured in the Everglades. The Burmese python
population has grown substantially (estimates range as high as 150,000) and presently preys upon virtually all of the
wildlife in the Everglades. (Sedensky, 2012) The introduction of this new animal to the region threatens to further
disrupt the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades because the python is capable of destroying virtually all the native
wildlife.
These examples are illustrative of a global threat as the world ‘shrinks;’ travel expands, and exotic, newly born little
creatures are mindlessly relocated in new environs. How to protect unique environmental eco-systems from the
invasion of foreign species is obviously a matter of global concern and offers an opportunity for international
7
John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
cooperation. Some may argue that concerns of this sort only press upon the conscience of socially conscious
Westerners. Perhaps so, but the worry here is not a fine point of concern only to the ‘refined,’ but rather a worry
about the course of evolution on Earth, a point I have developed elsewhere. (Dreher, 2011)
4aii. Exploitation of the Environment
The importation of foreign life forms is only one danger facing the environment. Exploitation of resources also
threatens to do its share of ecological damage, in particular to the atmosphere. There is considerable evidence that
tropical deforestation is now playing an important role in global warming. Unfortunately, warming climates are
associated with longer hot, dry seasons, which in turn dry out trees, resulting in further deforestation. (Snow and
Snow, 2010, p. 323) The disruption of the ‘hydrologic cycle’ has further deleterious effects on climates, in both
Europe and North America.
The motivation for deforestation is the use of the newly exposed land for agriculture and the exploitation of
minerals. This raises an important issue of balancing the economic needs of developing nations with the need to
reverse the current global warming trend. ‘Balancing’ here is another word for justice. Obviously justice seeks to
balance the good of all human beings (and perhaps all living things) with the economic needs of smaller sets of
people, especially in developing areas. There are important arguments for some sort of balancing of the common
good with the particular needs of people living in tropical regions. One suggestion is that developing tropical
regions through deforestation must be restricted to the provision of ’necessities’ rather than luxuries for the
indigenous population as well populations benefiting from its exports. This raises the important question about just
how to distinguish luxuries from necessities, and whether the wider, global community has a duty of justice to
compensate regions that restrict development for the wider good and therefore sacrifice ‘luxuries’ that other enjoy.
(For an extensive and enlightened discussion, see: Roberts-Semple, 2010, pp. 313-20.)
Here justice requires us to balance a substantive common good with a sense of fairness that takes account of the
contingencies of history. But it is obvious that this balance is achievable only if there is a just solution that honors
global needs is accepted worldwide, implying that the common good that to be addressed is the good of humankind.
Without some identification with humankind, it is difficult to imagine individual peoples or nation-states moving in
a direction that will promote the good of all.
4aiii. Pollution Due to Energy Production
A major danger to the environment is the generation of electric power and the associated need to control carbonbased and radioactive pollution. Here, due to limitations of space, I discuss only issues concerning the most serious
aspects of the problem, which include the end-of-cycle treatment of nuclear waste. In this respect Areva (a
consortium of companies of companies managed by the government of France) has played a leading rule in using
MOX (a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides) to reprocess uranium and plutonium into ‘ultimate nuclear
waste’ consisting of approximately 4% of the original material. This waste is vitrified, which amounts to storing it
in glass logs. The process optimizes the life of the original nuclear fuel and minimizes the ‘ultimate waste.’
Belgium, Switzerland and the United States have followed the leading role of France. (Ling, 2009)
Reprocessing radioactive waste created in the production of electricity is challenging enough, but dealing with
nuclear disasters (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima) is even more demanding. The recent earthquake in
east Asia has demonstrated how important nuclear power is in reducing toxic emissions from carbon-based
generating plants, because nuclear power plants have at least temporarily been replaced by plants that burn carbonbased fuel. Important strategies for reducing the need for electric power also include conservation and more
efficient electric appliances. Arguably these measures will be necessary despite corrective actions taken to reduce
the risk of nuclear disasters. (Matsuhashi, et. al. 2012, pp. 1 – 16)
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John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
The use of nuclear power involves risks that can threaten the environment but also promises the enormous benefit of
reducing carbon-based emissions, as implied above. Identifying safe practices is a matter of obvious concern
inasmuch as radiation and carbon based wastes attending the generation of electric power do not know national
boundaries. Cooperation involves fairness, but also commitment to the obvious common good of a global policy
that seeks low carbon emissions and nuclear safety.
4b. Economic Issues
As previously mentioned, in addition to ecological goods, there are economic goods that are of global significance.
These are goods that depend upon global financial systems that facilitate the production of goods and services,
making commerce possible and making it possible for various regions to emphasize the production of what they can
produce most efficiently. This is of course a huge topic. Having stressed the theme of planetary survival, I discuss
attendant economic issues.
4bi. Economic Issues in the Construction of Environmentally Acceptable Manufacturing
If developing countries are going to improve living standards for their peoples, they will need to augment the
production of electric power. The common good (planetary survival) requires that electric energy be produced in
ways that maximize efficiency and minimize environment damage. But the advanced technology that is necessary
for that purpose is extremely expensive. How to pay for it? This raises questions not only of fairness but also of the
common good. To state the issues delicately, developed countries bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility
for environmental damage to date. Perhaps this suggests to some that it may be fair to allow developing countries to
race ahead with minimal concern for the environment. But though it may be fair to allow developing countries to
indulge in low cost but damaging energy solutions, it is contrary to the common good. The only possible way to
realize the goals of the common good and to achieve fairness with respect to cost, is to ask developed countries to
subsidize the construction of technologically advanced generating equipment in developing countries that minimize
environmental risk and damage. It seems to me that this is a fairly obvious and uncontroversial point that has been
developed elsewhere, and that reinforces the general thesis of this essay. See, for example (Reck, 2010, pp. 21 – 30)
4bii. Global Financial Systems
As suggested above, economic development that respects planetary needs will involve extremely complex financial
arrangements. These arrangements involve issues concerning free trade, the re-location of manufacturing facilities
to keep environmental damage to a minimum, and a fair distribution of associated burdens. Constructing global
financial systems to facilitate ‘free trade’ and to establish necessary credit facilities will prove to be especially
challenging. In particular, both fairness and respect for the common good of environmentally sensitive economic
growth will require sacrifice. Here the moral, economic and environment interact in enormously complicated ways.
(For a current, detailed discussion, see James, 2012) Exploration of those complicated issues is beyond the scope of
this paper. The point that I want to make here is that what counts in fixing those arrangements is not merely ‘fair
trade’ or ‘fairly sharing the economic burdens imposed by respect by the environment’ (though they surely count for
much) but also the fact that the goals to be reached are imposed upon us by our common conceptions of goodness
and justice.
In this respect the issue of the redistribution of wealth arises. An example concerns the duty to help those in need,
for example in the context of disasters that call for relief on a global scale. (See 4biii below.) More broadly,
however, there is a question of whether colonialism and imperialism require compensation at a global level to
peoples and/or nations that were exploited. This, of course, is an issue of fairness (hence justice), but it is also an
issue of the common good, the sort of world that we seek to create and would value. That the potential of peoples
and regions of Earth should remain unrealized for lack of capital seems to be contrary to the common good of
humankind.
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John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
4biii Natural Disasters and Infrastructure for Disaster Relief
Recently the USS Enterprise was ‘formally retired’ in Norfolk Virginia. The USS Enterprise is a gigantic nuclear
powered aircraft carrier that has been a part of U.S. Navy for over fifty years. It is over 1100 feet long and rises to
the height of a skyscraper from water line on the hull to the flight deck. After its nuclear reactors are extracted, the
ship will be scrapped. (Dobuzinskis, et. al, 2012)
The decommissioning of the Enterprise leads one to wonder whether or not the great warship could be reasonably
turned into a symbol of peace. Preparing for disasters, natural or man-made, becomes more pressing as the world
population grows and more and more people in densely populated regions are at risk. Maintaining the Enterprise as
a floating hospital and supply ship at the ready to provide relief for great masses of people in time of trouble would
serve the common good of mankind by making provision for all those who suddenly find themselves in parlous
circumstances. That goes not only for people and communities within Western nations but for nations themselves,
especially those not adequately equipped to deal with catastrophes. One might argue that ‘charity’ of this sort would
be desirable and even praiseworthy, but global justice does not require it. Yet, if there is global justice, I have
argued that there must be a common good that all are responsible to promote, in accordance with a fair distribution
of burdens and benefits.
5. Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that a fair scheme of distribution of burdens and benefits is just only if it serves the good
common. On a global scale that common good is the preservation of the planet itself, and other related goods, and
the institutions that are necessary or at least useful in promoting that good. I have identified a series of institutions
that promote the common, global good. These include (4ai) international restrictions on the importation of foreign
species that threaten the evolution of particular eco-systems; (4aii) international restrictions on the development of
lands for agriculture and mining that generate de-forestation that threatens to generate a global warming, feedback
loop; (4aiii) development of electric generating capacity that includes the use of nuclear energy by vitrifying
‘ultimate nuclear waste,’ viz the recycling of MOX; (4bi) provision for subsidizing the development of
technologically advanced energy production among developing nations; (4bii) the funding of credit facilities to
supplement direct aid to developing countries for projects that promote the common good by restoring the health of
the planet; (4biii) infrastructure that is capable of responding to catastrophes that require global response. These
measures all promote common goods that are essential to the survival of our planet and the well-being of its people,
which is to say the good for all. Perhaps as peoples and nation states work together to achieve common goals, they
will, as Hume hoped, put their differences behind them (or aside) and take pride and therefore pleasure in their joint
accomplishments. An appeal to common goods and, one hopes, the fellow-feeling that is typically aroused by the
joint pursuit of common goods, is more likely to produce favorable outcomes than appeals that focus merely on
schemes of fair distribution that reasonable or rational people might endorse -- appeals that are likely to fall upon
deaf ears or to be rejected on a priori grounds or out of over-developed nationalist commitments. This is not to say
that contactualist schemes of fairness are not important; they are important even essential – but only in contexts
where all are motivated to accept those schemes as necessary components of the effort to promote the common
good. Perhaps this insight is captured in the received wisdom that it is easier to elicit service and sacrifice in times
of adversity when the good of all is threatened than it is in times of prosperity, when the common good is taken for
granted or, indeed, overlooked entirely.
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John H Dreher
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
USC Levan/University of Paris-D8
Paris
Nov 20, 2012, revised Jan 14, 2013
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