Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/281

 CRITERION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE 267

too often the case, we have nothing to do with the question whether a community will be richer in all the elements of well- being under a given regime or whether the most valuable fruits of civilization may be thus best preserved ; justice, we are told, has nothing to do with effects, therefore let desert be rewarded "though the heavens fall." As thus stated most persons would doubtless condemn this formula without hesitation as abject absurdity ; and if we could drop the subject here, there would be no need of farther argument. But many would claim that such conclusions involve carrying a good principle too far. We may, they would insist, apportion reward to desert up to a certain point, but as soon as we thereby begin to interfere very seriously with the welfare of society we may adopt a different standard. In this respect they follow exactly the example set them by the apostles of absolute liberty. But who does not see that either the general welfare or the principle of reward according to desert must be supreme, and if so that one or the other must be appealed to consistently whenever collision arises ? So that the common trick of shifting allegiance from one to the other of these two principles is as if a sick man should call in the homeo- pathic physician on the days when he thought himself convalesc- ing and the allopathic whenever he felt that he was losing ground.

But it cannot be denied that such a line of reasoning usually produces little effect. Few persons know what it means to take an ethical ideal seriously and they accordingly feel as little com- punction in changing their allegiance when occasion makes it convenient as did an Italian captain of the sixteenth century in serving now under the banner of Venice in its wars against Genoa and then enlisting in the army of Genoa in its campaigns against Venice. A man who believes that society is under supreme obligation to reward everyone according to desert should be pre- pared to push this through even if it reduced us all to a com- mon level of bread and water and oiu- shirt, or \vrcrki-d Civiliza- tion itself. But his unwillingness to sec his principle carried to this length will seldom prevent him from holding that it is a