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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1123
the ability to correctly identify interests. To this Rawls answers," in
effect, that for the creation of a logical formula he reguired not human
beings but logical subjects. Yet it is hard to make good decisions precisely
because one has to do justice between the claims of flesh and blood
human beings, whose claims are irreconcilable and whose interests are
debatable and contradictory, which is exactly why one cannot claim that
what they hold just actually is just. Real human beings in concrete
situations do not even necessarily agree on what counts as an advantage
or disadvantage at all. Ihus, the determination of advantages and
disadvantages, without which one cannot speak of justice, already
presupposes a tacit choice of values which rules out the neutrality of
applying the formula recommended by Rawls — in effect the Pareto
principle. There is no fairness independent of our convictions on good
and evil.
But fairness demands even more than this. No principle of equality
would be sufficiently fair towards those who, for one reason or another,
experience a situation of lasting suffering. According to the common
understanding current today, they need more than should be theirs by
right; positive discrimination should be exercised towards them. To this
I would add only that everyone experiences lasting detrimental situations
for a shorter or longer period at some point in their life: they become
sick or poor, old, a child, disabled, a student, uneducated, in further
education, a wayfarer, with many children or none, part of a religious,
ethnic or linguistic minority, etc. In such moments preferential treatment
is essential for them. No formula of just distribution can account for
this realisation, however: to live a human life, everyone needs more than
they are due. They need preferential, devoted help from others. Only
mutual willingness to sacrifice is just.
According to this, only the third basic principle, fraternity, can
reconcile the dilemma of freedom and equality; anything else is but vain
effort. A just distribution of our due is important, but it is not the most
important thing and the fair principles of distribution do not form a
closed system that can be formalised. Justice only works among those
already held together by something even greater: mutual loyalty.
However, this realisation does not ease our task of applying the principle
of justice to the new dimensions most important from the perspective
15 John Rawls: Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical. In Philosophy and Public
Affairs 14.2, 1985.