DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.*
IN a large and general sense the author of this work may be said to be, as in a sense all students of political science are, a follower of Aristotle. The reader will recollect that the prob- lem of distributive justice held the attention alike of Plato and Aristotle, but that whereas Plato solved it by Communism, Aristotle held fast to private property, and that much of the Politics is taken up with a criticism of Plato from this point of view. Plato, contends his great disciple, could not solve the problem because he would only produce by Com- munism an appearance of common interests, not a real general interest. Property might be common, but its distribution would still remain a problem, and as great injustice might exist as before. Therefore, said Aristotle, let us stick- to private property as making for liberty and the expression of • Socia Justice: a Crifh'ai Essay. By Westel froodhnry Willoughby. Ph.D., A-soeiate Profewor of Political Science, in the Johns Hopkins University. L–alon : Macmillan and Co. L12..)
personality, but at the same time let us see to it that the wide diffusion of wealth is encouraged, to which end the State must be regulative in its action. Neither Individualism nor Socialism, in short, but a judicious mean which shall make for the pre- dominance of the man of middle estate, is the end which Aristotle advocates. Allowing for differences in the essential nature of the modern problem, this may be said to be the ideal which Professor Willoughby has in view, so far as the distribution of material wellbeing is concerned. It may be held to be the politics of all wise men, for we shall never get beyond the Greek idea of that poise and balance in the State of which Aristotle was the great exponent.
The fundamental idea, then, of Professor Willoughby, in so far as the attitude of the State to the individual is concerned, is that it should be regulative. No a priori theory as to the rigid sphere of the State can be entertained. Indeed, we can, says our author, hardly talk of "the State"; we must ask, what State P We must go to actual institutions to find whether the State is making for those qualities, for that ideal good, which we wish to develop. We should find one condition of things in Turkey, say, and a very different condition in Switzerland. There is a rational justification for State action in Switzerland which is absent in Turkey. The critic might indeed say that Professor Willoughby is a trifle too empirical? but as against the old rigid English laissez-faire and the still more rigid German doctrine of the State with its overwhelming force and universal authority, we find our author extremely sane, and in most respects we are inclined to agree with his conclusions.
The first three chapters treat of Justice, Equality, and Property. The writer denies that " any absolutely valid rules " about justice can be . formulated, but affirms that each particular act of the State can be examined in the light of reason, and can be referred to an ethical motive. Equality can be used in various senses; it is true in what may be termed the spiritual realm as expressing the universal atti- tude in which each man stands towards God, but it is not possible as " an abstract principle of justice." Therefore, we must substitute for it the " idea of Proportionality ; that is, in the proportioning of rewards in each particular case according to some ascertainable conditions of time, place, or person." After considering the theories on which the rights of property rest, the author concludes that " in our present property law no attempt is made to secure a just distribution of wealth." The diagnosis made of our conditions by revolu- tionary writers is partly accepted, but when we come to remedies, Professor Willoughby dissects very ably the Socialist solution of the problem as based on the theory, set forth by Locke and accepted by Ricardo and the so-called " classic" economists, that labour is the sole source of wealth. If it is, then without doubt all wealth must go to the labourer. Such was the inevitable deduction which the great Socialist thinkers drew from the doctrines of English political economy. Professor Willoughby accepts the so-called Austrian school's analysis of interest as not due to exploita- tion of labour, as Marx says, but as expressive of the choice of a future as opposed to a present good. He further shows the extreme difficulty of so arranging a Socialist community as to make the actual distribution of justice in terms of physical wellbeing possible. While, however, the State should not undo the theory or practice of private property, without which man cannot be a free agent, except in such uses where public ownership is manifestly expedient, ethics must condemn any ownership which is not secured by honest means and devoted to honest ends. The true doctrine of property is not that of the Utilitarians, at least as stated by Bentham ; it is that of Hegel : " The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good."
The Individualist objection to coercion by the State as laid down by Mr. Spencer is then considered and condemned. The State is regarded by Mr. Spencer as some entity ab extra; by Professor Willoughby it is held to be an expression of one's true self. Therefore the commands of the State are identical with the inward command of one's moral nature. This, of course, is the German idealist theory, but the diffi- culty of accepting .it as final is that it makes no provision for a conflict between the State and one's higher nature. For
the State does not always show the right. It often happens that the private conscience is ahead of the collective con- science, and the apostolic verdict, " We must obey God rather than mar," comes with irresistible force to the mind. Professor Willoughby treats of this difficulty, but not fully or with convincing power. His idea is that each man must judge the issue for himself, but with the understanding that the chances are that social ethics and the institutions which they embody are right, and that the isolated judgment is to be doubted. Like Mr. Bosanquet, Professor Willoughby clears up, in this analysis of the State's right to coerce, much of the usual misreading of Rousseau. The chapter on the " Ethics of the Competitive Process " is a strong criticism of Mr. Spencer's semi-Anarchism, but it is also a vindication of com- petition and an assertion that, even in a far more Collectivist State than we dream of, competition would still remain a fact. There is in this chapter a very original suggestion that the selective action of governments which had greatly enlarged their sphere of action might bring about a true and highly wrought competition never yet known.
Having considered the question of social justice both from the political and economic points of view, Professor Willoughby comes in the final chapters to the question of punitive justice. He here considers the four theories,— retributive, deterrent, preventive, and reformatory. To the first he makes the same objection that may be made to the Benthamite doctrine of " pleasures and pains " utilities. As you cannot measure pleasures and pains in different human beings, so you cannot adopt any measurement as to retribu- tion. The true idea as to retribution, that is to say, of a punishment for something that is past and beyond recall, is that it is inward, and that it needs infinite wisdom to apportion it. We have here a rational ground for the Christian doctrine of the Last Judgment, but a condemnation of retribution as furnished by any finite tribunal. Yet it is admitted that our jurisprudence is really founded on the retributive justice of the Middle Ages. The defence of this principle by Kant is criticised. So also is the less philosophical but vigorous treatment of the subject by the late Mr. Justice Stephen, who says we should hate the criminal. We should hate his deed, says Professor Willoughby, but we have no moral right to extend our hatred to him. We must bring home to him the fact that we do hate his deed, but we must not found punitive justice on revenge. Professor Willoughby, after considering other theories, appears to conclude that mere punishment of crime is of little avail, that we must punish on a basis of a future good to be attained, but that our efforts must be directed towards the elimination of the causes of crime, chief among which he ranks the failure of distribu- tive justice. The criminal, on the whole, he thinks, may say of the existing State, that while its rationality generally stands good, it is not rational as concerns himself. It has not fully extended to him its justice. Professor Willoughby ends with this quotation from T. H. Green, which he thinks sums up the whole problem :—" The justice of the punishment depends on the justice of the general system of rights; not merely on the propriety with reference to social wellbeing of maintaining this or that particular right which the crime punished violates, but on the question whether the social organism in which a criminal has lived and acted is one that has given him a fair chance of not being a criminal."
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