Sandel, Locke, and Rawls on Justice and the Common Good

Introduction: Sandel's Call for Civic Virtue

In Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, Michael Sandel defends the idea of reintroducing the concept of "virtue" into American political debates (261–269). Sandel contends that political discourse has become impoverished in recent decades, reduced to only two concerns: welfare and freedom. Welfare has to do with economics, and freedom has to do with respecting people's rights (Sandel 262). Rather than limiting political debates to questions about how to grow the economy or what laws are needed to protect the rights of aggrieved groups, Sandel would have public policymakers address a more fundamental question: what constitutes a "good life," and what can government do to promote the prospects of a good life among its citizens?

Sandel quotes from a March 18, 1968 speech by Senator Robert F. Kennedy in which, going beyond the problems of poverty and injustice the nation faced at the time, Kennedy criticized Americans' complacency and challenged them to examine their core values. Sandel would like more political leaders to take up this challenge. To that end, he suggests four principles along which such an examination of core values might be organized: (a) citizenship, sacrifice, and service; (b) the moral limits of markets; (c) inequality, solidarity, and civic virtue; and (d) a politics of moral engagement.

Sandel's Four Principles of the Common Good

The principle of citizenship, sacrifice, and service argues against purely privatized notions of the good life. Sandel asserts that a just society must include a strong sense of community and concern for the common good. Although ideals of civic duty and responsibility to the nation remain themes of military service, civic duty and self-sacrifice on behalf of the nation are no longer emphasized in public schools to the extent they once were. Sandel would like to see mandatory public service programs that promote shared sacrifice for the good of the nation.

The principle of the moral limits of markets refers to the trend of contracting out traditional government services to private businesses. Examples include private mercenary armies such as Blackwater, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan alongside U.S. armed forces, and for-profit prisons. Sandel would like to see politicians directly debate which public services should appropriately be run by government bureaucracies and which are better organized according to market norms and the profit motive.

The principle of inequality, solidarity, and civic virtue addresses the divisive issue of rich versus poor. Sandel bemoans the tendency for income inequality to corrode social solidarity, so that the wealthy live in a different America than the poor—attending private schools, living in gated communities, and enjoying greater access to superior health care and legal representation. Sandel suggests that progressive taxation of the wealthy can be justified not in the name of income redistribution per se, but rather as a means of building a shared infrastructure of public services—public transportation, health care, schools, parks, museums, libraries, and so forth—to a level at which citizens at all socioeconomic levels would benefit from them.

Finally, the politics of moral engagement argues against relegating "core values" to the private domain of religion, as may result from a misplaced interpretation of the separation of church and state as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Rather than keeping values out of public discourse, Sandel proposes that core ethical positions should be open for political debate. This would entail an invitation for religious believers to enter a dialogue with non-believers in political forums. Faith-based values should be seriously considered by nonbelievers and debated against secular values as part of the national public discourse.

Contrasting Approaches: Libertarianism and Liberal Egalitarianism

Sandel contrasts his approach to social justice with two competing approaches: libertarian and liberal egalitarian. Libertarians argue for minimal government regulation, limited mostly to enforcing business contracts and protecting private property claims, in order to maximize freedom for businesses and consumers in a competitive capitalist marketplace. Liberal egalitarians are concerned with social justice and advocate legal protections and government programs to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are protected from exploitation, victimization, or falling below a minimal level of poverty.

John Locke (1632–1704) and John Rawls (1921–2002) have written works of political philosophy that are relevant to these debates. In The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Locke argues that a primary purpose of government is to protect private property from theft, making his arguments relevant to libertarianism. Rawls argues in his A Theory of Justice that leaving wealth distribution entirely to market forces results in social injustices, in which some members of society receive less than their due while excessive wealth concentrates in the hands of an undeserving few—an outcome he concludes is morally unjustifiable. Rawls's critique of unfair wealth distribution is thus relevant to liberal egalitarian concerns.