Book Review: Justice - What is the right thing to do? By Michael J Sandel

Let me start with what's top of my mind about this book, it's not easy to read. Its quite a philosophical and "big words" book, that makes reading it strenuous and needs your full attention. So it's definitely not your typical read-to-relax book.

Its a book which takes a look at a very difficult question and tries to share all the philosophies available on the topic to help you decide for yourself what you believe in. And gives you loads of examples on the way to understand the drawbacks of these existing philosophies.

The basic question the author is trying to answer is - What is justice? What is the right thing to do?

As simple as this sounds, its one of the toughest questions to answer in an airtight manner. Lets start with a very simple example - you are the driver on a train and you see three workers working on the tracks. You have the option to divert to another track where there is only one worker working. You will end up killing the workers and can't stop it. What will you do?

I guess diverting to the other track here seems like a reasonable thing to do. But what if you are observing this from the top of a mountain, and if you push a person standing next to you in front of the train, the train will stop and the three workers would be saved. (Assume you can't jump yourself as you are too light to stop the train). What would you do?

What worked in the first situation - giving up one life for three, does not work here anymore, does it?

Another example, is selling commodities at a higher price during an earthquake/natural disaster right or not? On the one hand, you are taking advantage of people in distress. But on the other hand, the high prices will attract more people to make an effort and provide the commodities to the affected people. What's the right thing to do here? Is the working of the free market fair or does it somehow infringe on an individual's needs and rights?

Is patriotism correct? How do you justify doing more for your own countrymen than others across the borders? (The author uses this question to justify public apologies by nations. He says that if we take pride in our country's history, we can collectively apologise for our country's past sins too, like Australia for what they did to Aborigines, Europe during colonialism etc)

Is a mercenary army less virtuous than a regular army? We all think so, but why?

As you keep asking more and more of these hypothetical questions, you realise how complicated 'justice' and the 'right' thing can be.

The book brings up these examples and then tries to answer them by discussing some of the biggest philosophies on this topic. Here is my synopsis of what I understood:

Utilitarians believe that greatest good should define what it right. But it opens up the question whether law of numbers justifies throwing away an individual's rights? What if the majority religion in a country makes a law which affects the minorities negatively, is that justified?

Libertarians believe there should be no paternalism, no moral policing and no redistribution of wealth by the government at all. So the individual should be free to decide what is right for him and should be allowed to do that. (Interesting quote by this group of thinkers is "Taxation of earnings from labour is on par with forced labour". You labour on with no benefit to yourself)

Immanuel Kant believes in categorical (unconditional) good with no other ulterior motives than just hypothetical imperatives. (Too much jargon in this theory!). He believes in individual autonomy, freedom and gives importance to individual reason, within the boundaries above. The underlying thought is a belief in human dignity and treating all with respect, in treating human beings as not a means to an end but an end in itself. He also believes that actions should be based on these principles rather than the consequences. For example, according to this theory, telling a murderer who comes to your house looking for your friend the truth that he is hiding there, is the right thing to do, rather than fearing its consequences and not telling the truth.

Rawls has a more selfless view of justice. He says justice should be based on laws that people would agree to if they were all equal and did not know their individual differences . For example, if we did not know about our specific situation in life, we would all vote for an equitable society where economic disparity is low (just in case we are born poor;-) ).

Aristotle's theory is that justice is always honorific (depends on what is valued and considered virtuous in society) and depends on the end goal/mission of the entity (teleos). It answers some questions, but also leads to confusion. For example what is the teleos of a University? Is it to educate the best to be even better, or is it to create an equal and diverse society? The answer to this can justify/negate affirmative action. His theory does say though that the role of politics should be to help build a virtuous society.

In the end there is no theory which is more correct that the other. Its all about what you think is the right thing to do. And I feel that's what Michael actually wanted to say- to each his own view on what is right. As long as everyone understands, that there is no one universal answer to what is right. Its always one's own interpretation. (And surprisingly, that is the toughest thing to do!)