This is the last of 3 posts on the approaches to justice that Michael Sandel outlines in his book Justice (as I understand it):
- Maximising welfare: Utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill)
- Respecting freedom: Libertarianism and deontology (Kant).
- Cultivating virtue: Virtue ethics (Aristotle)
Be the best version of yourself
Aristotle's virtue ethics says that justice (and morality more broadly) isn’t mainly about rules or consequences, but instead about cultivating good character.
A just person is someone who lives according to the virtues (like courage, temperance, generosity, honesty, fairness, and wisdom), and avoids the vices (cowardice, greed, dishonesty, injustice).
Aristotle’s idea of the Golden Mean: every virtue is the right balance between extremes. For example:
- Courage is the mean between recklessness and cowardice.
- Generosity is the mean between wastefulness and stinginess.
The ultimate goal is eudaimonia — living a flourishing, fulfilled human life in harmony with reason, community, and virtue.
So:
Ends and means don't matter. Justice is about character. What matters is being the kind of person who acts virtuously.
What are the implications?
The question isn’t "What should I do in this case?" but "What kind of person should I be?"
Morality isn’t absolute rules (like in deontology), nor pure outcomes (like in utilitarianism), but about cultivating practical wisdom (phronesis).
Good laws, communities, and practices should nurture virtue in citizens, not just regulate behavior.
What is virtuous?
Callie Smartt is an acclaimed cheerleader with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair.
People opposed Callie being on the team, especially by the head cheerleader's father, out of resentment. Callie was told to try out like everyone else, in a rigorous gymnastic routine involving splits and tumbles.
Two questions:
- Is it unfair, given her disability? (Fairness)
- Why the resentment against her? (Honor)
For the first question, we can say Callie should be fine to not try out as long as she performs well as a cheerleader.
But it begs the question, what does it mean to perform well as a cheerleader?
- Is it to perform gymnastic tricks? Callie falls short.
- Is it to excite the crowd? Callie does well.
For the second question, what resentment is it? It can't be fear that the head cheerleader will be replaced by Callie, nor is it envy.
Sandel thinks it's because Callie threatens to redefine the social practice of cheerleading which once taken as fixed in its purpose and in the honors it bestowed.
If Callie is bestowed honor, it depreciates the honor accorded to cheerleaders who excel in gymnastics.
Determining the essence of cheerleading can be controversial, because it embroils us in arguments about what qualities are worthy of honor.
Cheerleading is not just about cheering on the team, but it's also about celebrating certain excellences and virtues.
Justice, telos, honor
Two ideas fron Aristotelian philosophy:
- Justice is teleological. Defining rights requires us to figure out the telos (the purpose, end, or essential nature) of the social practice in question.
- Justice is honorific. To reason or argue about the telos of a practice is, at least in part, to reason or argue about what virtues it should honor and reward.
Aristotle thinks justice is connected with (and cannot be separated from) the good life.
For Aristotle, justice means giving people the things they deserve, giving each person his or her due.
Flutes are meant to be played, therefore the best flutes should be given to the best flute players. Not because doing so would produce the most utility for those who listen, but simply because flutes are meant to be played well.
This is teleological reasoning as opposed to utilitarian reasoning.
Teleological thinking
Why would we be frustrated if a Stradivarius violin is bought in an auction by a rich person to be displayed in their living room, instead of being played by a talented violinist?
We might think this is unjust because the outcome is unfitting. It may be due to the teleological thought that a violin is meant to be played.
Plato and Aristotle thought that fire rose because it was reaching for the sky, its natural home. And stones fell for the same reason.
Children have to be educated out of seeing the world as teleologically ordered. Sandel gives an example from Winnie the Pooh.
What is the purpose of politics?
What is political association for?
These days in democracies, we might think the goal of politics changes depending on what the people elect.
Our reluctance to invest politics with a determinate telos, or end, reflects a concern for individual freedom. We view politics as a procedure that enables persons to choose their ends for themselves.
For Aristotle, the purpose of politics is to form good citizens and to cultivate good character.
Nature gave humans the unique capability of language, which is used to tell right from wrong, and good from evil.
Aristotle thinks that humans fulfill their nature when deliberating with others in a polis. He thinks the polis is prior in purpose to the individual.
Why only in politics?
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says the moral life aims at happiness - not happiness in the utilitarian sense of pleasure and pain, but happiness as a way of being.
Moral excellence does not consist in aggregating pleasures and pains but in aligning them, so that we delight in noble things and take pain in base ones.
Aristotle says we don’t become virtuous by learning at home, at class, or by reading a book.
Learning virtue by doing
Like playing an instrument, we learn moral virtue by doing.
"We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."
Aristotle thinks law's primary purpose is to forming right habits in citizens, shaping their character.
But moral virtue is not rote behaviour. Habit is the first step in moral education. Being steeped in virtuous behavior helps us acquire the disposition to act virtuously.
Moral education is about learning to discern the particular features of situations that call for this rule rather than that one.
My take: moral virtue = habit + "practical wisdom"
Moral virtue consists of a mean between extremes.
People with practical wisdom can deliberate well about what is good, not only for themselves but for their fellow citizens, and for human beings in general. Deliberation is not philosophising, because it attends to what is changeable and particular. It is oriented to action in the here and now.
Politics and the Good Life
Politics is not about:
- maximising utility, or
- providing fair rules
It is about expressing human nature.
Aristotle defends slavery
Aristotle thought only men were included in citizenship.
Women and slaves were ineligible.
For Aristotle, justice is a matter of fit. To allocate rights is to look for the telos of social institutions, and to fit persons to the roles that suit them, the roles that enable them to realize their nature.
Liberal theories of justice, from Kant to Rawls, worry that teleological conceptions are at odds with freedom.
For liberals, justice is about choice. To allocate rights is not to fit people to roles that suit their nature; it is to let people choose their roles for themselves.
If I let people decide what my roles should be, how long before that slides into slavery..?
But Aristotle's own theory of justice allows for criticism of his own views on slavery.
Aristotle thinks slavery is just if:
- it is necessary (society needs it)
- it is natural (there are people who are suited to be slaves)
Aristotle thinks some people are meant to be slaves, "natural slaves", who do not try to flee. Others are meant to be free - "natural freemen". But he realises that some slaves are slaves because of bad luck, not because they are "natural slaves". Their slavery would indeed be unjust.
If a slave needs to be coerced to remain enslaved, it is a sign that the slavery is unjust (a bad fit for the person).
- For liberal political theory, slavery is unjust because it is coercive.
- For teleological theories, slavery is unjust because it is at odds with our nature; coercion is a symptom of the injustice.
Consider a dangerous, repetitive job. Is it just?
- For the libertarian, it is just if the workers had freely exchanged their labor for a wage.
- Rawls would further want fair background conditions for this arrangement, to call it just.
- For Aristotle, even consent against fair background conditions is not sufficient; for the work to be just, it has to be suited to the nature of the workers who perform it. Some jobs may simply be unfit for humans.
Casey Martin's golf cart
Sandel introduces the example of Casey Martin, a professional golfer with leg problems wanting to be allowed a golf cart between shots in tournaments.
Other golfers opposed it, defending the ban on carts.
The debate involved the Aristotelian inquiry to determine the telos of golf: is the walking between shots an essential part of the sport?
One judge ruled that the walking isn't an essential part of golfing. So Martin is allowed his cart.
Another judge opposed the idea that it is possible to reason about the telos of a game (in this case golf): games have only amusement as their object, so any of the rules are arbitrary and not "essential".
Sandel disagrees, saying:
- People don't think of sports as games with no real point.
- We could argue which rules improve or corrupt the game.
The golf cart debate is not (only) about fairness (if it were, then why not just allow everyone to use carts?), but rather it is also about honor.
Golfers want to be honored, and this depends on whether their sport is seen as physically demanding. If it isn't then their recognition as athletes could be diminished.
Justice and rights are often, unavoidably, debates about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honor and reward.
Closing thoughts on Justice
I really enjoyed the tour of the 3 major approaches to normative ethics that Sandel offers in Justice. Each example and contrast helped me place each idea in relation to each other.
In my current opinion, I think Aristotle's character-based ethical theory applies most cleanly to the real world. I often find my self deciding what good character I should I cultivate, before I think about the motive and consequences.
Perhaps Sandel's deliberate leaning towards virtue ethics has had an effect on me...
I'll be honest, a lot of it went over my head but writing out notes like this does help.