Oldal 125 [125]
OCR
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.
