Pluralism,Nationality And Global Justice

A series of questions,such as whose justice,what justice,and which justice,have always been the subjects of constant debates among philosophers.Standing on the contextualism,David Miller attempted to answer these basic questions above systematically on social justice,nationality,and global justice.In this process,miller aimed to harmonize the relationships between ethics and politics,freedom and equality,universalism and cultural pluralism,and reconcile the contradictions between liberalism and communitarianism.His attempt is of highly theoretical value in political philosophy and ethics.Miller clarified the relationship between political philosophy and social science,and emphasized that what people thought which is called the public belief is the source and criteria condition of concept of justice.Secondly,from the human relation models that is regarded as a theoretical standpoint,Miller put forward pluralistic principles for social justice.Due to the theoretical background set by national identification,national ethics and national self-determination,these principles can get people’s approval.Besides considering the justice bounded in nation-state,Miller intended to expand the social justice to the global justice,and defined specifically the international assistance as a duty of justice or humanitarian,according to the principle of responsibility and human rights.Hence,from social justice as the core content,to nationality as the theoretical foundation,and to global justice as the expansion of social justice,Miller constructed a relatively complete theory of justice with strong theoretical significance and practical value.Therefore,the purpose of this paper is to focus on these basic questions of political philosophy,follow the inner logic of Miller’s theory of Justice,and elaborate each part of justice theory and relationships among each other.After tracking the underlying problems,we will revise the theoretical defects and develop the theory of justice.Firstly,in the theory of social justice,Miller classified human relationship into three modes such as solidaristic community,instrumental association and citizenship,and thought different principles of distribution such as need,equality,and desert are applied in different modes accordingly.However,there’s something wrong with human relationship modes in the concept,and the demonstration of corresponding relationship between modes and principles is not substantial.In addition,specific to each principle,distribution according to need overlooks the difference between marginal effects,and can’t reflect accurately the moral urgency to satisfy the basic human needs.In the aspect of the principle of desert,Miller’s thought that the benefits deserted,the value of performance and market price are equivalent is problematic,and he failed to recognize the negative influence by luck.Regard to the principle of equality,the idea of status equality underestimates the moral value of economic equality and resource allocation.Secondly,in the theory of nationality,Miller clarified the features of national identity,special compatriot relationship and the importance of national self-determination,and made a deep research into inner logic relationship between nationality and the commonsense of social justice.Nonetheless,as to national identity,Miller overstated the significance of national boundaries,whereas the argument about the relationship among national identity,subcultural group identity and individual identity is not enough.As to national ethics,Miller regarded nation as a kind of imagined community,but conversely,the fabulousness included in the concept of community may weaken the special ethics,especially when true history opened.As to national self-determination,Miller did not distinguish cultural self-determination political self-determination explicitly,and did not notice that the former is possible when the latter is absent.Thirdly,in the theory of global justice,Miller criticized the ideal of global equality advocated by cosmopolitanism,discussed what we should owe to the poor from abroad on the basis of morality of national responsibility and the minimum human rights,and defined the duties of international assistance specifically.Because of the limitation by contextualism,his understanding about global justice will encounter some problems inevitably.Miller pointed out exactly the difficulties that the ideal of global justice has in moral practice,while these difficulties should not cause ignoration to the inner value of global equality.On the criteria of judgment,the questions how the basic need,the foundation of human rights,should be understood,and how the universal duty of assistance deriving from it are not fully argued.At the same time,irreducibility of historical facts,necessity of global authority and possibility of consensus of justice should be given a further explanation.Fourthly,besides the incoherence within each part,the one among them is obvious.Between social justice and nationality,the former can’t be deduced from the latter,which should not be considered as the foundation of justice and turns out to be the obstacle to social justice.Between nationality and global justice,Miller overestimated the restriction from national special culture to global equal distribution,and underestimated the status of the theoretical basis of universal human rights.Between social justice and global justice,there is the problem of the priority of justice,and Miller’s split-level model in a dilemma of theoretical partiality cannot solve the problem above.Therefore,on account of the problems brought to light,we conclude that Miller’s theory of justice is not comprehensive,and it should be revised and developed fundamentally in elementary criterion of judgement,significance of equality and the dialectical relationship between responsibility and luck,and so.For Miller,he should not only recognize the negative influence by luck,but also emphasize the importance of equal distribution of resources,and base social justice and nationality on human rights regarded as a universal principle,leading to the compatibility between each part of theory of justice.Only in this way will the theory of justice be more comprehensive.