Justice

This post is a short one, but I just want to outline Taylor's conception of justice. For him, what is good is not in any way independent of human beings, however it is not based on convention either. He sees the good as something that emerges from the facts of human life and experience meaning that it is not arbitrary and could not be changed by human beings. Man is not the measure of all things because, at the very least, he is not the measure of himself.

Taylor understands justice in a very similar way. He sees it as being not a convention as it is something which naturally emerges as a result of the facts about human life i.e. that we are social creatures. Justice is not something that is arbitrary, nor can it be changed as, in Taylor's mind, it is simply the realization of the evil possibilities of conflict and the good possibilities of cooperation. Thus, it is in essence the principle: "do not hinder, but help". It is from this principle that all other social conventions are formed and, though these conventions may vary as a result of differing conditions that people may face, the underlying principle of justice remains. On such a picture, the moral laws of societies may differ and thus what is morally right and wrong may be relative, but the basic principle of justice remains the same and is immutable. I am reminded of Williams here.

To clarify this idea, Taylor compares justice to nourishment. Different societies eat different things, but they eat for the purpose of nourishment. Different societies have different laws and institutions but they do so for the purpose of justice. That is Taylor's idea on justice in a nutshell.