Justice For All

by Bill Creasy

Humanists like to approach the problem of good and bad behavior, or morality vs. immorality, in a rational way. Philosophers and theologians have struggled for millenia to construct rules of right and wrong. Some of the systems of rules are summarized well by Lewis Vaughn and Austin Dacey, The Case for Humanism: an Introduction (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003).

Austin Dacey, CFI representative to the UN, wrote in the book Secular Conscience (Prometheus, 2008) that religion and morality should be discussed in public. Otherwise they can't be criticized. The discussion should be held to the same public standards as any other public statement. He says that secularists have imposed a "gag order" to try to stop religious people from imposing religion, but gagged themselves from discussing values.

Dacey gave an excellent talk at the MDC meeting on March 7, 2009, about his work at the UN. Several Muslim countries are trying to pass UN resolutions to prevent criticism of Islam, which Dacey and other NGOs are arguing against. It is important for secular people to defeat these kinds of resolutions that seek to protect a religion rather than individual rights. Some of the defense of religion is being done for political reason, to help despotic governments suppress political dissent. But it is assisted by people who don't want to subject religious ethics to criticism.

Although it is important to criticize religion, it can still be difficult for secular people to discuss morality and ethics. It can be a complex subject that requires detailed, step-wise statements. As Sam Harris has stated, the discussion can be made more difficult by saying that we are atheists, since that word evokes negative connotations.

There may be an alternative, to change the subject to justice rather than ethics. Justice seems to be different from morality in a significant way, in that everyone talks about justice. Crime novels and TV shows are based on "getting" the people who "did it." Some of the most popular TV shows, like Law and Order and CSI, are based on finding and punishing wrong-doers and bringing them to justice.

Is there a difference in content between talking about morality and talking about justice? We could talk about many nuances of the differences. Justice is about right and wrong actions, but in a context of dealing with someone who has already done what is blameworthy in a social context. In other ways, comparing ideas about morality with justice is an apples and oranges comparison.

But why are some actions universally recognized as bad actions? People know what qualifies as bad behavior, and they find it easy to talk about, especially if someone else does the unacceptable behavior.

At the October, 2008, meeting of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia (FSGP), Paul H. Robinson, Colin S. Diver Prof. of Law at U. Penn. Law School, addressed this topic (contact info: http://phr.law.upenn.edu). He noted that the sense of justice is an intuitive cognitive system that is fast and effortless, while reasoning is slow and takes effort. For justice, there often isn't a reasoned answer, but rather an intuitive feeling.

According to Robinson, social scientists have done experiments in which they present people with scenarios to judge. The scenarios describe a range of socially unacceptable behaviors, from lying and fraud, physical agression, theft, deceit, to murder. People in the study consistently rank the scenarios in the same order from least to most unacceptable. There is a remarkably unusual amount of agreement for a social science. People's intuitions about justice are nuanced, and there is a lot of agreement. People also agree on severity of punishment for the actions.

Social influence and norms are much more powerful in affecting behavior than official sanctions, and they are also cheaper.

Robinson concluded by noting that people assume the law is what they think it should be. But it isn't always. The justice system should agree with people's intuition, or it gets the reputation of not having the right priorities, but it doesn't always do that. There is a social science literature on the importance of reputation, and the reputation of the system for trying to be just is important for keeping social order.

So in summary, Robinson's view is not that justice deals with simpler problems than ethics, but that justice is intuitive, so it doesn't necessarily require much conscious thought at all. It makes sense why this should be the case from an evolutionary perspective. Humans evolved as social animals that require cooperation. But people will only cooperate as long as it seems fair and they feel that they are not being taken advantage of. If one person perceives someone else acting badly, even only with disrespect or unfairness, that person should get the reputation for being unworthy of cooperation. This type of evaluation of others' actions must be done continuously to keep society working. Some scientists have argued that the need to consider other people's actions was a major impetus for the large size of primate and human brains.

Perhaps the intuitive nature of justice is the reason that theists think it has a divine origin. The sense of justice seems to arise from nowhere, as a basic part of the world. Of course, it only appears that way because human perception is always filtered by the sense of justice. But a theist, not aware of the intuition, may attribute justice to the will of God.

For communicating with non-philosophically inclined people, humanists should be aware that they care about justice more than ethics. Arguments that are put in the language and perspective of justice may have more impact than detailed rational discussions.

Bill Creasy is the president of WASH and coordinator of the Baltimore chapter. This article was originally published in the April 2009 issue of WASHline, the newletter of the Washington Area Secular Humanists.