Jusletter IT

The question of the origins of our moral tendencies – one of the crucial questions of moral psychology – can be tackled from three different perspectives: purely biological, purely sociological, and a mixed one – biological-sociological. Each of these perspectives relies on specific assumptions. The purely biological perspective assumes that our moral tendencies are innate – deeply embedded in our nature as a result of biological processes – and that thereby nothing really important is added to them in the process of socialization. Accordingly, this perspective assumes that human nature is essentially good. By contrast, the purely sociological perspective assumes that our moral tendencies arise only in the process of socialization. The assumption underlying this perspective may be either that human nature is deeply flawed, so that human innate antisocial tendencies have to be counteracted in the process of socialization, or that human beings are born with no morally relevant tendencies whatsoever – neither moral nor immoral – so that their moral tendencies have to be developed in the process of socialization. As we can see, the purely sociological perspective has two varieties: the pessimistic one, which assumes that the human mind is not a blank slate but is equipped with antisocial tendencies, and the more optimistic one, which assumes that the human mind is a blank slate upon which everything has to be written and can be written with equal ease. There is little to be said in favour of the purely biological perspective. By denying the role of the process of socialization in the development of our moral tendencies, this perspective is too evidently at odds with our commonsense knowledge about human nature. However, the other extreme perspective – the purely sociological one – is also, though less obviously, implausible. Even though many notable thinkers professed one of the views about human nature underlying this perspective, i.e., the view that human nature is deeply flawed or the view that the human mind is a blank slate (orquasi -blank slate), these views seem to be untenable in the light of results of various biological sciences. One can give many biological arguments for the claim that human beings are born with a number of moral predispositions. These arguments come, e.g., from evolutionary theory, which says that empathy, kin altruism, reciprocal altruism are biological adaptations, from primatology, which ascertains the existence of various moral predispositions in our closest relatives – nonhuman primates, and from neurobiology, which teaches us that moral-decision making involves evolutionary old – «emotional» – parts of our brains. Thus, rather unsurprisingly, what seems to be the correct perspective for the analysis of our moral tendencies is the mixed one. It is therefore within this framework that I shall provide an analysis of one of such tendencies, namely, our sense of justice. Thus, the analysis is based on and develops the insight that our sense of justice can be decomposed into two different types: predispositions for the sense of justice, which can be explained on purely biological grounds, and a full-blown sense of justice, which cannot be explained on purely biological grounds. I shall call the former type «the rudimentary sense of justice» and the latter type «the genuine sense of justice». Thus, I shall argue that only the rudimentary sense of justice is a biological adaptation, i.e., it was preserved by natural selection, as it increased the chances of survival and reproductive success of those who were endowed with it. I shall also argue that the rudimentary sense of justice is «Janus-faced», i.e., it is rational-emotional in character – it is greed constrained by our capacity to anticipate the reactions of other peopleplus a bundle of emotions: envy, the instinct for retaliation, gratitude, forgiveness, and the sense of guilt.¹ Before I present a more detailed account of these two types of justice, I shall present some elementary distinctions regarding the very concept of justice, because the types of justice are defined with reference to the concept of justice.

One can distinguish two basic varieties of the concept of justice: material justice and retributive justice. Material justice can refer to two different situational contexts: the context of distributing goods or burdens between many persons (in this context I call material justice «distributive justice») and the context of exchanging goods and burdens between two persons (in this context material I call material justice «exchange-regulating justice»² ). The principles of distributive justice may take various forms, e.g., «to each according to her needs», «to each according to her desert», «to each an equal share». The principles of exchange-regulating justice are, e.g., «to each according to what she has agreed upon» or «the goods being exchanged should be of equal value». The second variety of the concept of justice is retributive justice. The principles of retributive justice specify what punishment should be imposed on persons who violated the requirements of just distribution prescribed by distributive justice and the requirements of just exchange prescribed by exchange-regulating justice (the clause «inter alia » is justified because retributive justice refers not only to the infringements of principles of justice, e.g., to cheating in exchanges, but also to the infringements of other moral norms, e.g., the norm which prohibits doing physical harm to other people or the norm which prohibits taking their property). The basic principle of retributive justice is «to each such a punishment which corresponds to the level of her guilt and the seriousness of harm which she has caused by her action». The common name «justice» for the otherwise different principles of material justice and retributive justice is justified by the fact that all these principles can be regarded as the specifications of the classical definition of justice proposed by the Roman lawyer Ulpianus (based on Aristotle’s analysis inNicomachean Ethics ), according to which justice consists in granting each person her due (suum cuique trubuere ).³

Bythe genuine sense of justice I understand a virtue, i.e., a trait of human character, which embraces a cognitive element – the clear awareness of sophisticated principles of justicequa principles of justice, and a motivational element – the disposition to comply with these principles for the sole reason that they are principles of justice, i.e., out of pure respect for justice. Bythe rudimentary sense of justice I understand a virtue, i.e. a trait of human character, which embraces a cognitive element – the dim awareness of basic principles of justice (not necessarilyqua principles of justice), and motivational element – the disposition to comply with these principles for other reasons than pure respect for justice. The principles of justice accepted by the agent endowed with the rudimentary sense of justice are simple, not sophisticated, not clearly articulated, while the principles of justice accepted by the agent endowed with the genuine sense of justice are complex, sophisticated, clearly articulated. The agent endowed with the rudimentary sense of justice is motivated to act justly by egoistic motives and/or by certain emotions, while the agent endowed with the genuine sense of justice is motivated to act justly by the very content of the principles of justice. The rudimentary sense of justice is not a phenomenonsui generis , as it can be decomposed into its simpler, constituent elements, while the genuine sense of justice is a phenomenonsui generis . Of course, even though there are important differences between both forms of the sense of justice it may be impossible in many circumstances to state if a just action is a manifestation of the rudimentary sense of justice or of the genuine sense of justice. For instance, the fact that an agent who has received unjustly more goods than others decides to share her goods with the others may just as well be a manifestation of her genuine sense of justice as of her rudimentary sense of justice (e.g., she may fear the negative consequences of the others’ envy). Clearly, both forms of the sense of justice are just pure types: one can distinguish some intermediate forms between them which combine somehow the elements of the genuine sense of justice and the rudimentary sense of justice.

As mentioned, I shall argue for two main theses: first, that the rudimentary sense of justice is a biological adaptation, i.e., that it was preserved by natural selection, as it increased the chances of survival and reproductive success of those who were endowed with it; second, that evolutionary theory suggests that the rudimentary sense of justice is «Janus-faced», i.e., it is rational-emotional in character – it is constrained greed coupled with a bundle of emotions: envy, the instinct for retaliation, gratitude, and the sense of guilt. The second thesis does not imply, however, that constrained greed and the above mentioned emotions always act simultaneously. Rather, they constitute a group of «mechanisms» that underlie various forms of the rudimentary sense of justice manifesting themselves in various contexts (this is exactly what is implied by saying that the rudimentary sense of justice as understood here is «a pure type»). As can be readily seen, my account of the rudimentary sense of justice will be naturalistic not only in the sense that it assumes that this form of the sense of justice can be explained by appealing only to scientific methods (and thereby without assuming that it has been implanted in us by God or without positing that it constitutes some mysterious faculty to perceive moral facts) but also in the sense that it assumes that this form constitutes an evolutionary adaptation (and not some accidental by-product of evolution). By contrast, my account of the genuine sense of justice is naturalistic only in the former sense, as it assumes that even though the «transition» from the stage of the rudimentary sense of justice to the stage of the genuine sense of justice can be explained by scientific methods, the genuine sense of justice is not a biological adaptation but, rather, a manifestation of our capacity for abstract thinking.

I shall now turn to presenting the evolutionary account of the rudimentary sense of justice. My claim is that it embraces two elements:constrained greed and a bundle of emotions . I shall argue that these «mechanisms» tend to lead tojust actions , which is why, their heterogeneity notwithstanding, they can be construed as constituting a (rudimentary) form of the sense of justice.

The first element of the rudimentary sense of justice is greed constrained by the capacity to anticipate reactions of other people. It seems plausible to argue that natural selection would favour people displaying constrained greed, i.e., a tendency to maximize their goods moderated by the cognizance of the fact that exceedingly aggressive pursuing of goods could engender a negative reaction of others and in consequence preclude achieving these goods. It would therefore favour those people who, while pursuing their own interests, were able to take into account the interests of others. Constrained greed generates various behaviours in various contexts of justice. In the context of distributive justice and exchange-regulating justice it functions in the following way. An agent who is greedy, i.e., desires to get the whole of a given good for herself, but simultaneously reasonable, i.e., cognizant of the fact that the realization of her desire is not possible (as this desire is very likely to engender a negative reaction on the part of the other potential beneficiaries of the good and, consequently, lead to her receiving no part of the good at all) will arguably act in accordance with the norm prescribing equal division. This is the most «obvious» or «salient» principle of justice, as it enables each person to receive as large a part of the good as it is possible compatible with the same parts for the other persons. Arguably, apart from egalitarian principles of justice constrained greed may also generate simple meritorious principles of justice directed against potential free-riders. In the context of retributive justice constrained greed functions in a different way. An agent who is greedy, i.e., wants to avoid the costs of punishing the wrongdoer, but is simultaneously cognizant of the fact that not punishing the wrongdoer may encourage her to do subsequent acts of wrongdoing with regard to the agent and thereby make the agent sustain larger costs than the costs of punishing the wrongdoer, is likely to act in accordance with some principle of retributive justice. As it seems, then, greed constrained by the capacity to anticipate the reactions of other people to unconstrained greed and to compare the potential consequences of this reaction with the consequences of constraining greed is sufficient to generate many kinds of just actions.

The account of the rudimentary sense of justice presented in the previous is not complete, as evolution seems to have worked in a more complicated or, rather, more «cautious» way: it supplemented the fragile rational mechanism of constrained greed with a bundle of emotions which serve the same evolutionary goals as this mechanism. In other words, an agent’s mere rational calculations, if carried out in a correct way, would suffice for her to reap maximum benefits from cooperative interactions. The problem is that humans cannot be expected to consistently carry out such calculations in a correct way. This explains in a general way why natural selection buttressed constrained greed by natural various emotions: envy, the instinct for retaliation, gratitude, the sense of guilt. These emotions supplement, correct, or substitute for such calculations, thereby moving an agent to undertake actions which she would have undertaken were she able to carry out all the necessary calculations for reaping possibly high benefits from cooperative interactions. These emotions, then, support constrained greed in realizing evolutionary aims, i.e., direct human behaviour in ways that were adaptive over evolutionary time. I do not claim that the above list of emotions is complete (arguably, it could be supplemented by other emotions, e.g., by forgiveness), that a person must display them all to be said to possess the rudimentary sense of justice, or that they all have to operate simultaneously. I claim that they are just main emotions with which evolution equipped us in order to reap maximum gains from cooperative interactions and which constitute typical elements of our rudimentary sense of justice. I shall now examine these emotions in greater detail.

Unlike greed, which is a two-place relation (it embraces a subject – a greedy person – and a given good), envy is a three-place relation – it embraces a subject (an envier), a rival (a party who is envied) and a good (e.g., some possession, capacity, trait that the subject supposes the rival to have, or a particular person’s affections directed toward the rival).⁴ Envy is a manifestation of the human tendency to evaluate one’s own situation in a comparative way, i.e., by referring it to the situation of other people. Accordingly, it is an evidence of the fact that people are concerned not with their absolute level of goods but with the relative level (i.e., compared with the standing of others). I shall present now three basic forms of envy – benign (admiring) envy, invidious (malicious) envy, temperate envy⁵ – and reflect on which of them is part of the rudimentary sense of justice.

Benign envy is simply an unpleasant emotion (a distress, pain, nuisance, etc.) felt by the subject at the thought that she does not possess the good and the rival does, and unaccompanied by any kind of desire that the rival lose this good. As D’Arms points out, benign envy is difficult to distinguish from a positive desire for a good, i.e., from greed, or from admiration for the rival.⁶ Accordingly, benign envy cannot be the form of envy that I claim to be part of the rudimentary sense of justice in addition to constrained greed.

Invidious envy contains two elements: (1) an unpleasant emotion (a distress, pain, nuisance, etc.) felt by the subject at the thought that she does not possess the good and the rival does; (2) a desire that the rival lose the good – the desirewhich appears despite the fact that it was not possible to distribute the good in such a way that the subject would receive a reasonable part of it .⁷ It seems that invidious envy is part of the psychological equipment of the malicious person. It is very dubious to contend that invidious envy forms part of the rudimentary sense of justice. Invidious envy – one of the greatest pathologies of the human spirit – is not only ignoble and vicious to feel (which, of course, would not by itself imply that its existence is not probable in the light of evolutionary theory) but also does not seem to bring any evolutionary advantage, as it is a highly self-destructive emotion. It seems to me that the type of envy that is part of the rudimentary sense of justice is what I call «temperate envy».

Temperate envy contains two elements: (1) an unpleasant emotion (a distress, pain, nuisance etc.) felt by the subject at the thought that she does not possess the good and the rival does; (2) a desire that the rival lose good – the desirewhich appears because of the fact that it was possible to distribute the good in such a way that the subject would receive a reasonable part of it . It is worth noting that while benign envy is less reprehensible than temperate envy (as it does not include the desire that the rival not have the good), temperate envy is less reprehensible than invidious envy (as it includes the desire that the rival not have the good only if it were possible to make an equitable distribution of this good). Unlike invidious envy, temperate envy seems to bring evolutionary advantages. It is a manifestation of the subject’s unwillingness to accept unequal distributions and thereby a signal for the other members of a society that the agent will not accept distributions that fail to award her a reasonable part of a good being divided. Thus, temperate envy strengthens the subject’s motivation to pursue the good she desires and constitutes a protection against the others’ attempts to take advantage of her. One should examine a certain objection which can be raised against the above account of temperate envy. The objection says that this account implies that temperate envy presupposes some intuitions of justice, and that thereby it is a manifestation of some previously existing sense of justice, and not something that constitutes its rudimentary form. This objection can be refuted in the following way. Temperate envy is egocentric – aimed to protect the self-interest of the envious person. The sensitivity to unequal distributions built into temperate envy is not the sensitivity to unequal distributionsas such butas doing harm to the envious person – it is therefore a manifestation of her concern with her own self-interest. In this sense temperate envy can be subsumed under the already mentioned concept of «disadvantageous inequality aversion».

The thesis that envy underlies our sense of justice is by means novel – it was advocated by many thinkers. For instance, Sigmund Freud held that our concern for equal treatment is the product of our childhood’s envy; also Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that our moral intuitions arise from an emotion similar to envy which he called «ressentiment ». From among contemporary thinkers who hold this view let me mention the renowned primatologist Frans B.M. De Waal. De Waal states that our noble principles have less noble origins and develops this view asserting that the sense of justice arises in the agent from her envy occasioned by receiving less than others and her anticipation of others’ envy when she receives more than the others, and thereby from her willingness to avoid conflicts with them. De Waal’s argument is, therefore, that our sense of justice arises from our envy and from our ability to predict others’ envy.⁸ The claim that envy is an evolutionary adaptation is also by means novel. The only novel element in my account of the role of envy in the origins of our sense of justice seems to be the claim that envy is part of our rudimentary sense of justice (and not something out of which our rudimentary sense of justice arises), that this rudimentary sense of justice embraces other components, and that envy in question is temperate envy (and not, as most scholars seem to assume, invidious envy).

The rudimentary sense of justice not only determines our expectations about the share of a good we should receive but also propels us to punish those who violate those expectations, i.e., functions not only at the level of material justice, but also at the level of retributive justice. It is precisely the instinct for retaliation – a propensity to experience intensified anger issuing in vengeful or retaliatory actions – which underlies the rudimentary sense of retributive justice, i.e., motivates an agent who was treated in a way violating moral norms inflict the punishment on the perpetrators of this treatment.⁹ It seems that the instinct for retaliation is a product of natural selection: generally speaking, it is evolutionary advantageous for a victim of immoral treatment to punish a person who violated moral norms with regard to her, as it shows the wrongdoer and other potential violators of these norms that the person who displays this emotion cannot be easily exploited. Accordingly, a person who is not psychologically disposed to punish those who cheated on her or otherwise violated moral norms with regard to her cannot be successful in cooperative interactions.

Evolutionary theory suggests that the emotion of gratitude arose in the context of the systems of reciprocity in order to support them.¹⁰ It is therefore one of the motivational mechanisms upholding reciprocal altruism: an agent disposed to feel gratitude towards those who did her a favour is likely to reap higher gains from social exchanges than an agent who is not endowed with this disposition. This is so for three main reasons. First, gratitude motivates the agent to reciprocate, i.e., to refrain from defecting, and thereby serves upholding reciprocal exchanges (Michael E. McCullough, Shelley D. Kilpatrick, Robert A. Emmons and David B. Larson label this function of gratitude «a moral motive function»).¹¹ One of the ways gratitude strengthens our motivation to reciprocate is by making us less sharp in discerning potential egoistic motives standing behind other people’s kind actions towards us. It is clear that if we were aware of these motives, then our motivation to reciprocate would assuredly be weaker. Second, the reputation of a person disposed to experience this emotion makes her a desirable partner of reciprocal exchanges, and consequently is likely to widen the scope of reciprocal exchanges in which the person is involved. Third, gratitude, so to say, has a radiating character, i.e., it moves an agent not only to reciprocate to those who did her a favour but also to initiate cooperative relationships – by doing favours – with agents with whom she has not so far kept such relationships. This «radiating» character of gratitude seems also favourable form the evolutionary perspective, as it engages us in new reciprocal exchanges and thereby opens to us the prospects of additional benefits. The capacity to feel the emotion of gratitude therefore serves in the long run our own interests. McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, and Larson point also to another function of gratitude which they call «a moral reinforcer function»: gratitude of beneficiaries encourages benefactors to engage in further reciprocal exchanges in the future. Of course, this function also supports the system of reciprocity. One can briefly summarize the above remarks in game-theoretic parlance by saying that gratitude brings evolutionary advantages to those capable of feeling it, as it (like, in fact, all the other emotions discussed in this section) supports the Tit-for-Tat strategy, which proves to be especially efficient in promoting cooperation, and thereby supports the systems of reciprocity.

The analysis of gratitude would be incomplete without making some additional remarks. First, actions motivated by gratitude may be sometimes irrational (the beneficiary of a favour may be moved by gratitude to reciprocate even though the probability of further interactions with a partner who did her a favour is small as well as the probability of detecting her defection by the other members of a group). However, as mentioned, overall, gratitude is a fitness-maximizing emotion. Second, the intensity of gratitude is likely to depend on the value of received benefits (the higher the benefits are, the more intense gratitude is likely to be), on what intentions the beneficiary ascribes to the benefactor (if the benefactor is perceived as acting on egoistic motives or un-intentionally, gratitude – if at all present – will be less intense), and on whether these benefits were perceived as due or not (in the former case gratitude will be less intense). Third, gratitude should be distinguished from another affective reaction to receiving benefits – a feeling of indebtedness. While gratitude is a pleasant emotion, which motivates people to reciprocate as a means of expressing one’s good feelings toward the benefactor, a feeling of indebtedness is an unpleasant emotion, which motivates people to reciprocate as a means of reducing aversive arousal.¹² Fourth, I would like to stress that the above account of gratitude refers only to its simplest form. Undoubtedly there are more complex forms of gratitude, e.g., the form of gratitude we feel toward those who exhibited to us a truly disinterested kindness, benevolence, good-heartedness, or who made us gifts (e.g. the gift of life) which cannot be returned. These more complex forms of gratitude are not the elements of the rudimentary sense of justice but very sophisticated ethical emotions.

As Robert Trivers wrote,

It seems therefore that sense of guilt has arisen in the context of reciprocal altruism as an agent’s subjective response to her failure to act cooperatively. Accordingly, it seems that the original context in which we feel a sense of guilt is when we fail reciprocate to those who have acted cooperatively towards us. The sense of guilt feltex post motivates an agent to undertake reparative actions and thereby enables her to be re-involved in reciprocal relationships from which she would otherwise be excluded. The anticipated sense of guilt may, in turn, prevent an agent from defecting in the first place. Furthermore, if the agent is known to possess the sense of guilt, she is likely to be chosen for reciprocal exchanges. Thus, the sense of guilt seems to be a fitness-enhancing emotion.¹⁴ Clearly, the above account of the sense of guilt does not exhaust this phenomenon – it refers only to its simplest form.

Two additional arguments for the claim that the rudimentary sense of justice is a biological adaptation come from the animal studies (especially the studies of nonhuman primates) and from game theory. Let me present them successively.

The animal studies show, among other things, that some primates reject unequal distributions of goods and punish those individuals who cheat in reciprocal exchanges.¹⁵ It seems that these studies can be interpreted as attesting the fact that nonhuman primates display some primitive form of the sense of justice whose core is some kind of aversion to inequality. I call this form of the sense of justice «primitive» for three reasons. First, it is egocentric, not impartial: an ape manifests it only (or, at any rate, mainly – the data are not unambiguous here) whenshe is badly treated (i.e., receives less than other apes), not whenother apes are badly treated (i.e., receive less than this monkey). An ape’s sense of justice is therefore in the first place her expectation of howshe should be treated, and only marginally (if at all) her expectation of howalso others should be treated. Technically speaking, apes manifest «disadvantageous inequity aversion» (they react when another individual receives a superior reward), not «advantageous inequity aversion» (they do not react when they receive a superior reward).¹⁶ Second, as it seems, apes do not have a clear awareness of the content of the norms which they implicitly assume, i.e., which are encoded in their expectations – their sense of justice lacks therefore the cognitive element (perhaps they do not possess any awareness of the content of the norms). Third, the expectations of apes are not nuanced – they are a far cry from sophisticated norms of justice implied by the genuine sense of justice. It should be added, though, that this primitive sense of justice displayed by primates is in many respects similar to the rudimentary sense of justice of human beings, which, as was mentioned, is not fully impartial, does not necessarily presuppose the clear awareness of the content of the norms of justice (though it always presupposessome awareness of this content), and the norms of justice it implies may not be very sophisticated. The studies of primates show also that they exhibit emotions similar to those which are considered as an element of the rudimentary sense of justice: envy, the instinct for retaliation, gratitude and the sense of guilt.¹⁷

Game theory can be used in many ways to justify the claim that the sense if justice is a biological adaptation. The standard game-theoretic argument (presented above) is that moral emotions which (as I have argued) constitute the rudimentary form of the sense of justice have evolved in order to support the Tit-for-Tat strategy (which, as is well known, is especially successful in reaping benefits from social interactions and, under some conditions, can be regarded as an evolutionary stable strategy). Another game-theoretic argument has been proposed by B. Skyrms. The gist of his argument can be summarized in the following way.¹⁸ Imagine a population composed of three types of players: fair players (F) who always demand exactly 1/2 of the good; greedy players (G) who always demand 2/3 of the good; and modest players (M) who always demand 1/3 the good. Assume that the players regularly meet each other and have to bargain over the good: if the sum of their demands exceeds 1, the good is wasted. A Nash equilibrium of this game is any combination of the demands that sum to 1. Thus, the Nash equilibria arise if two Fs meet each other or if G meets M. What is important in the context of the analyses pursued in this paper is that F is an evolutionary stable strategy. Let me recall that for a strategyI to be evolutionary stable two conditions must hold:

In sum, the above considerations lead to the following theses about the rudimentary sense of justice:

1. The rudimentary sense of justice is constrained greed coupled with a bundle of emotions (envy, the instinct for retaliation, gratitude, the sense of guilt). The claim that the rudimentary sense of justice is constrained greed coupled with a bundle of emotions implies that the rudimentary sense of justice is not a phenomenonsui generis , as it can be decomposed into its simpler, constituent elements.
   
2. The rudimentary sense of justice is a biological adaptation: those who were endowed with it had higher chances of survival and reproductive success than those who were not. It has evolved above all in the context of the relations of social exchange (reciprocal altruism); one of its basic functions seems to be a defence against exploitation in this context. The basic function of the rudimentary sense of justice, then, is to support the Tit-for-Tat strategy.
   
3. All the differences between the above mentioned emotions notwithstanding, they fulfil two common general functions – they are motives to actions and signals to the others: they motivate those who are equipped with them to undertake actions that increase their chances of reaping high benefits from cooperative interactions, and they signal to others that those who are equipped with them are reliable and non-exploitable participants of cooperative interactions.
   
4. As it seems, the rudimentary sense of justice implies or generates the following simple principles of justice: the egalitarian and perhaps also simple meritorious principles in the context of distributive justice and exchange-regulating justice (the latter context can also be called «the context of reciprocal altruism»), the principles «to each such a punishment which corresponds to the level of her guilt and the level of harm caused by her action» or «establish the just state of affairs» in the context of retributive justice. Thus, since the rudimentary sense of justice implies or generates certain normative meanings of justice, it can be said that it is through this form of our sense of justice that humans gain first insights into the possible normative meanings of justice. It should be remembered, though, that, at this stage of the development of their sense of justice, agents accept these principles mainly for egoistic reasons and often only dimly realize their content. The moral limitation of the rudimentary sense of justice can be clearly seen when we ask if a person endowed with this form of the sense of justice will be inclined to reject a distribution of a good which awards her (without any good reasons) more of this good than it does other persons, and which exposes her to no long-run negative consequences. It is obvious that constrained greed and envy will not make her reject this distribution. Greed, i.e., willingness to get as much as possible for oneself, can be constrained by the capacity to anticipate reactions of other people, but in the analyzed case reason does not recommend accepting any constraints, as no negative consequences for the subject are likely to appear as a result of her accepting the offer. As for envy, it cannot, by definition, be experienced in situations in which inequalities in the distribution of a good favour the subject. This limitation of the rudimentary sense of justice is mitigated to some extent by the fact that this sense of justice embraces not only negative emotions but also a noble one – gratitude.

An interesting question is how the transition between the rudimentary and the genuine form of our sense of justice can come about. I shall present two competing accounts of this transition. The first one assumes that there is continuity between both forms of the sense of justice, the second one assumes that there is discontinuity between them. However, before I turn to discussing those accounts, I would like to articulate, at the risk of repeating some points made earlier, the differences between the rudimentary and genuine sense of justice.

Now, the question is how the genuine sense of justice can arise. It is implausible to maintain that the genuine sense of justice is a biological adaptation. Evolution has provided us with a truncated form of the genuine sense of justice, i.e., with the rudimentary sense of justice. For the rudimentary sense of justice to develop into the genuine sense of justice social learning is necessary. It is not clear, though, whether it is also sufficient. One may argue that what is also needed for this transition between the rudimentary and the genuine sense of justice to take place, is what may be called «a radical transformation of heart», or, put it less poetically, a radical transformation of one’s motivational structure which consist in decided and durable rising above one’s natural self-absorption. The results of such a transformation is that an agent not only starts seeing clearly the nuanced principles of justice but also becomes capable of being motivated by those principles alone and thereby capable of overcoming her greed, the instinct for retaliation, and envy. We have therefore two accounts of the transition between the rudimentary and genuine sense of justice. The first one assumes that there is continuity in this transition. It can be presented as follows:

The second one assumes that this transition involves a moment of discontinuity (the moment is the radical transformation of heart). It can be presented as follows:

It is difficult to say which of these accounts is correct. My conjecture is that social learning can transform the rudimentary form of the sense of justice only up to a point in which an agent starts to see clearly nuanced principles of justice but it cannot radically change her motivational structure, i.e., it cannot engender in her the capacity to be motivated by the principles of justice alone. Accordingly, it may give rise to a sense of justice that can be situated between its rudimentary and genuine form: this intermediate form of the sense of justice would have, on the one hand, a distinctly developed cognitive element (like in the genuine form) but, on the other hand, its motivational element would be still based on constrained greed and the evolved emotions (like in the rudimentary form). The step necessary to attain the level of the genuine sense of justice would be the above mentioned radical transformation of heart. One may hold, of course, the view that people never reach the level of the genuine sense of justice, that the radical transformation of heart is always nothing more than a sham and fiction. This pessimistic – but not very plausible – view of our moral capacities implies that constrained greed and the evolved emotions not only constitute the rudimentary form of our sense of justice but also always constitute true motives of our just actions.

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Wojciech Załuski, Prof. in the Chair for Legal Philosophy and Legal Ethics
Jagıellonıan University, Krakow, Poland
zaluskiwojciech@gmail.com

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