Virtue Ethics - Distributive Justice and Care Ethics

Distributive Justice

Justice as a Virtue

Plato maintains that justice is the individual and state’s ultimate virtue. This can be achieved when all of their fundamental elements are effective and in harmony.¹

Individual Soul	State	Virtue
Reason	Rulers	Wisdom
Spirit/Passion	Military/Soldiers	Courage
Appetite/Desire	Merchants/Workers	Temperance

Aristotle distinguishes justice in 2 senses:

1. In a general sense (lawfulness): States try to cultivate good habits among citizens through its laws, and it is when all citizens abide by these laws that justice is achieved.
2. In a particular sense (fairness): Justice can also be achieved when states fairly distribute benefits and burdens among its citizens (distributive justice) and address existing injustices (corrective justice).

QUOTE

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. — John Rawls

Kinds of Justice

1. Retributive Justice
   • Refers to the fair imposition of punishments.
2. Compensatory Justice
   • Refers to the fair way of compensating people.
3. Distributive Justice
   • Refers to the fair allocation of benefits (e.g., income) and burdens (e.g., workload).
4. Procedural Justice
   • Refers to the fairness of the decision-making process (usually associated with due process).

Theories of Distributive Justice

Distributive justice is the most fundamental kind of justice that underlies many of the other kinds; for example, punishments and compensations are forms of benefits and burdens, and a due process is just a standard for distribution/allocation.

When is a distribution just?

Distribution Basis	Theory of Justice
Equality	Egalitarianism
Contribution	Capitalist Justice
Needs	Socialist Justice
Effort	Justice as Fair Opportunity
Maximum Aggregate Good	Utilitarian Justice
Principles Fairly Chosen	Justice as Fairness
Respect for Moral (Property) Rights	Libertarian Justice

1. Egalitarian Justice
   • Political Egalitarianism: equality of rights
   • Economic Egalitarianism: equality of resources
   • Luck Egalitarianism: inequalities may be fair or unfair; unfair inequalities come from factors outside of our control.
2. Capitalist Justice
   • The greater the contribution, the greater the share in the distribution.
3. Socialist Justice
   • The greater the need, the greater the share in the distribution.
4. Justice as Fair Opportunity
   • The greater the effort, the greater the share in the distribution.
5. Utilitarian Justice
   • Any form of distribution is just as long as it promotes the maximum aggregate welfare for everyone involved.
6. Justice as Fairness
   • A distribution is just when it fairly follows the principles that everyone involved chose.² John Rawls includes the following principles:
     • principle of equality: Basic rights and liberties should be equal.
     • principle of fair inequality: Socioeconomic inequalities should promote the interests of the least-advantaged citizens and provide equal opportunities for everyone.
7. Libertarian Justice
   • The just distribution is one that respects the property rights of everyone involved in the distribution.

Ethics of Care

Overview of Care Ethics

Care Ethics criticizes the rationalist and universalist approach of Kantian and Utilitarian theories for being distant from realistic moral experiences. Moreover, it differs from Aristotelian virtue ethics in a way that it tries to be less male-oriented in terms of its moral attributes.

Many associate it with feminist philosophy because women philosophers and psychologist developed it, thereby expressing the moral experiences of women. Nevertheless, some argue that it is universal because care is not exclusive to women.

Philosophers created it to address their criticisms of traditional moral theories, which include the following:

1. Traditional moral theories are designed for interactions with autonomous strangers (universality and impartiality), whereas this theory heavily emphasize the role of preserving human relationships in one’s moral life.
2. Traditional moral theories treat morality as objective/impartial and purely rational, while this feminist moral theory values the desire to care for others.

Contributions of Gilligan and Noddings

There are plenty of contributors to care ethics; two of the earlier contributors were Carol Gilligan (a psychologist) and Nel Noddings (a feminist philosopher).

Views Advanced by Gilligan

Gilligan asserts that men and women have dissimilar conceptions of morality: men’s conception focuses on resolving conflicting moral rights (since they tend to adopt an individualistic perspective of the self); and women’s conception underscores the importance of care in morality (since they typically adopt an interdependent and connected view of the self).

Besides this, she also claims that men and women go through different stages of morality: men follows the stages according to Kohlbergs theory; whereas, women follow the stages specified by Gilligan.

The Female Stages of Moral Development (according to Gilligan):

1. Level One: Individual Survival Orientation
   • Transitions from selfishness to responsibility
2. Level Two: Goodness as Self-sacrifice
   • Transitions from goodness to truth
3. Level Three: The Morality of Nonviolence

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

1. Pre-Conventional Stage: the right action only concerns to what brings pleasure
2. Conventional Stage: the right action involves loyalty to others and respecting the law and social customs
3. Post-Conventional Stage: the right action follows abstract/universal moral principles

Views Advanced by Noddings

Noddings view on morality follows the idea of Hume, wherein morality is founded on our feelings; therefore, our moral duties or ethical care is derived from our natural care (what we want to do). As humans, it is inherent to help and care for others; when we care, we follow the impulses that tell us to act on behalf of another.

She described the caring-relationship structure to be composed of one-caring and another one-cared for, where they both must reciprocally care for each other.

Two key features of the masculine/traditional ethical view that this view oppose:

1. Impartiality
   • Evaluating a situation using impartial principles are insufficient because they may remove morally relevant details.
2. Universality
   • Noddings believe that each situation should be examined from a case-to-case basis because universalizing it will diminish the factors that give rise to the moral question(s).
   • Furthermore, because each situation and person involved differs, general rules should not be applicable.

This view suggests that we primarily make moral judgments to amplify our moral awareness and sensitivity. Its goal is to consider them under the light of care; this is because we can never separate ourselves from caring relationships with others.

Some Criticisms

1. Some claim that care ethics projects a kind of slave morality that ascribes value to the oppression of women.³
2. Care ethics reinforces oppression of women by restricting them to caring gender roles. Justice, self-development, and autonomy is necessary to truly promote gender equality and liberate women from oppression.
3. Care ethics is criticized for being parochial—placing greater value on the needs of people one is closer to.

Sources

1. Module 7 Presentation (Lecture Slides)

Footnotes

1. When effective and in harmony, one element can result in a virtue; whereas, if all elements were effective and in harmony, it results in justice. ↩

2. i.e., not biased to one’s situation ↩

3. Friedrich Nietzsche uses the term slave morality to refer to the oppressed people’s tendency to develop moral theories that reaffirm their subservient traits as virtues. ↩