Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 6, No.

1, 1989

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On Living in an Unjust Society

DAVID BROOKS
ABSTRACT Can it be wrong to simply live in an unjust society? Four moral principles: group responsibility, unjust enrichment, a general duty to prevent injustice and the need to preserve ones moral integrity indicate that it might be. I explore the implications of each of these principles and conclude that while the possibility of doing good might counterbalance the threat to moral integrity, a person who continues to live in an unjust society should repudiate the injustice to avoid being held responsiblefor it and has a duty to compensate those deprived if he is unjustly enriched. Moreover, the general duty to prevent injustice bears more heavily on those who are closest to it.

Can it be morally wrong for a person to continue living in the country of his or her birth? The belief that this could be the case may seem extreme but it is held by many South Africans and many more debate the issue. In discussing the question, though, I do not want to get involved solely in the peculiarities of the South African situation, but simply to consider whether the unjustness of a particular state could make it morally wrong for anyone, even a native, to be or to continue to be a member of it. I will, then, not use South African examples exclusively in examining the question, as this might cloud the issue or make it appear too much a matter of purely local concern. A moral problem by its very nature cannot be limited to one particular portion of space and time. This, indeed, is an aspect of the problem: how can ones geographical location have any moral relevance? Surely ones latitude and longitude are ethically neutral? If I lose my way and walk down X street rather than Y street, I cannot be held responsible for what notoriously happens in X street. The problem is not that one happens to be on territory within the jurisdiction of a particular state, but concerns what goes on in that state, what ones relationship to this is, and what one does in response to it. What is at issue is the whole question of a persons relationship with his society and the unjust actions of that society. As a backdrop to an examination of the various social roles and relationships which are relevant to deciding the question I will also consider a slave-owning society. There is presumably, at present, fairly unanimous agreement that slavery is an unjust institution and that a slave-owning society is, because of this, an unjust society. The question of whether it would be right to live in a slave-owning society will serve alongside the South African situation to bring out the issues in the general topic which is the title of this paper. I will first distinguish the active support of injustice from simply being a member of an unjust society. If in a slave state I voluntarily take up the occupation of catching fugitive slaves for reward I am an instrument of injustice in that I actively assist in the imposition of an unjust institution. If I strenuously and cynically campaign for a proslavery party because I am materially benefited by the institution of slavery, I am a

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supporter of injustice. If as a journalist I think up and propagate principles or policies which worsen the lot of slaves, I am guilty of devising and helping to implement injustice. In South Africa one could be held to be actively supporting the injustices of apartheid if one voted for the Nationalist Party or worked for a living in a position which only exists for the maintenance of apartheid. Such positions are offered by what used to be called the Bantu Affairs Department (acronym BAD) which regulates segregated living by inspecting passes, mass removals and the demolition of squatter camps. Working for organs of the state which exist in all countries, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs, the army and the police, presents less easily decidable moral problems. These problems are compounded by issues such as compulsory military service and taxation. I cannot deal with all these questions here. Now the implementation, support and devising of injustice as in the above examples, are culpable whatever society one belongs to. Even though the implementation of an unjust institution logically requires the existence of such an institution, a person can devise, campaign for and be willing to institute and implement an unjust programme in any society. The moral issues here are universal and not directly relevant to the problem in hand. If it is morally wrong to live in a slave-owning society this is different from actively supporting and implementing slavery; a person may be guilty of the first and not the second; normally those guilty of supporting and implementing slavery would be living in a slave-owning society but they need not be. To get the matter in focus let us consider a person in a slave society who leads a life like many in free societies. He is, let us suppose, an independent artisan, who neither owns nor deals in any way with slaves and treats everyone he encounters equally, but is apolitical. He obeys the laws, pays his taxes and, though cognisant of the issues of the day, does not vote or take part in political discussion. Such a person might, if criticised for where he lives, reply with some justice that his life is blameless, that though he does not oppose slavery, he in no way supports it and that had he been born in another society his life would be the same. He would argue that if he acted in the same way and led the same life in another society no blame would attach to him, and therefore he is doing no wrong in doing the same in his own society. His argument depends on the premises that one is responsible only for ones direct actions and omissions, and that where one is is ethically neutral. This argument, though plausible and compelling, is not faultless. There is an ambiguity in the principle that it is ethically neutral where one is. On the one hand there is the perfectly acceptable principle that geographical location is ethically irrelevant. On the other, there is the principle that what is done in one place should be evaluated in exactly the same way when it is done in another place. This is less acceptable because two different places generally differ in more than just spatial location. Consider the difference between driving on the left-hand side of the road in France and in the United Kingdom. What is legal in one place, is not legal in another. Firing a gun in a rifle range is not the same as firing a gun in a crowded street. The apolitical artisan relies on the ambiguity. For his argument to go through he must show that all the respects in which his situation differs from the counterfactual situation where he lives in a free society are ethically neutral. T o assume that they are on the basis of the principle of the ethical neutrality of location is to beg the question. Accordingly, in assessing the argument of the apolitical artisan we must consider how far his life and actions must be judged differently from the very similar life and actions of his counterpart in another society. We must see whether there are any principles which as a result of the injustice found in the one society apply there and do

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not apply in the other. In discussions, I have often found that such principles are not clearly formulated and reliance is placed on unilluminating slogans like not being part of the system. So far as I can see the following principles, which are not entirely distinct, can be brought to bear; a principle of group responsibility, that members of a group which acts unjustly are individually responsible for the actions of that group; a principle of unjust enrichment, that one should not benefit as a result of the unjust treatment of others; the principle that one has a general duty to prevent injustice and a principle of moral integrity, that one should not let ones principles be corroded or act in a way that is dissonant with them. I will consider these principles in turn, discussing them in themselves and in terms of their applicability to the problem in hand. I devote most attention to the notions of group responsibility and unjust enrichment. The principle of moral integrity requires too much attention to particular circumstances to give clear guidance in addressing the broad question while the general duty to prevent injustice is quite straightforward. The principle of group responsibility is quite tricky. We have to consider the nature of a group, the nature of group action and the question of individual responsibility for corporate actions. The principle is clearly not that each member of any set of people is responsible for what is done by any of its members. I am not responsible for the crime of a bespectacled murderer simply because I am bespectacled. Indeed, on this principle everyone would be responsible for every misdeed. Misdeeds are only committed by rational beings and everyone is a member of the set of rational beings. If a member of a group is to be held responsible for what another member of that group has done, the members of the group must be linked more closely than by sharing a common property. A clear case of corporate responsibility would occur if we had a band of brigands, membership of which was voluntary and unconstrained, which jointly planned its robberies and pillaging, and which assigned duties such as look-out and strangler of the guard by rota. If such a band were apprehended after an escapade in which a murder had been committed it seems reasonable to hold all members responsible, as well as the member who actually did the killing, since each member inentionally took part in a joint action which was known to involve murder. The responsibility of a member of a slave-owning society falls between these extremes. The group considered responsible for the injustice of that society would presumably be a social class. To hold the whole society responsible would involve, inter alia, holding slaves responsible for their own slavery, which seems a little unreasonable prima facie. One can clearly be unfair to oneself in the distribution of benefits and it does not seem impossible to construct a case where someone is positively unjust to himself. It seems, though, fairly obvious that slaves are not in any real sense responsible for their oppression. It appears to be a strong hyperbole to describe those who acquiesce in or accommodate themselves to an unjust situation as responsible for their position. Failing to struggle when forced to do something does not make one intend to do it. It might seem that a slave is morally unaffected by the problem of living in a slaveowning society. After all, he is the one suffering the injustice. He undoubtedly has the right to take steps to rectify the matter; does he not also have the option to turn the other cheek or at least forgive? Is the problem of living in an unjust society merely one to exercise the consciences of those who escape oppression? My students have been quick to point out that this is not so. It is not merely that the oppressed have the temptation of collaborating (which might provide an instance of someone being himself partially responsible for an injustice committed against him), there is also the point that, though the slave may be

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forgiving of what has been done to him, he is not the only slave. Being a member of an oppressed group carries its own problems. On the one hand, collaboration (though strictly excluded from the topic of this essay as a species of the imposition of injustice) carries a peculiar obloquy as evidenced by terms like traitor, scab and quisling and more tragically by events in South African townships today. On the other hand there are graduated terms of abuse such as sell out and Uncle Tom whereby those who fall short of open opposition to the system, often at considerable personal cost, may be lumped together with collaborationists. Powerful group emotions are operative here, still there does at least seem to be a duty to do something about the injustice inflicted on others which is felt more strongly when those unjustly treated are in the same grouping as oneself. However the argument against living in an unjust society from a general duty to prevent injustice is one I am to consider later. We cannot then say that every member of an unjust society is responsible for the injustices committed by that society. However, to hold a small group responsible, say those who support and implement slavery, may be to exclude the apolitical artisan with whom we are concerned. If it is wrong on this ground simply to live in an unjust society this must be because one is a member of a grouping which is small enough to exclude those non-collaborators who suffer the injustice of that society, and is not confined to those who actively support and implement that injustice. The citizens or free members of the society might form such a group, moreover there would probably be good sociological reasons, relating to shared language, customs, institutions and background for treating such a group as a single unit within the society. Talk of a social class or religious or ethnic group being responsible for its actions seems more reasonable than talk of the responsibility of the bespectacled for the crimes of the bespectacled. Still, the responsibility of a member of a social class is not as clear-cut as that of a member of a band of brigands. No one would ascribe responsibility to a newborn child, who is presumably a member of his or her parents class. The sins of the parents are not the sins of the child until the child makes them his own. A child born into a particular system cannot be held responsible for that system until, at the least, it has in some way recognised it and identified itself with it. We assign responsibility for murder to the brigand keeping a look-out because he actively and intentionally took part in a close-knit, co-operative enterprise. We do not ascribe responsibility to the child, because nothing has been done by the child to make it a responsible member of the guilty class. Deciding what exactly it is, which confers corporate responsibility on members of a group is a difficult task. The result established so far is that a certain sort of membership of a group in some way responsible for the unjustness of a society might confer on a person shared responsibility and guilt. That a person was responsible in this way and continued to be thus responsible as long as he or she continued to live in a particular society might render continued living in that society morally wrong. This does seem a rather attenuated and perhaps metaphysical sense of responsibility, approximately responsibility for the actions of ones social class. Some flesh can be put on these bones. Members of a social class in a specific country will often share a common heritage, they will have been brought up to believe in certain principles, ideals and attitudes, there may be a popular historical and political mythology from which a particular ethos and ideas of proper and virtuous conduct may be derived. These things go towards making one the kind of person one is (a South African, a Hindu or a bourgeois) and may lead one to overlook or condone certain injustices. On a Marxist analysis what a person imbibes thus will serve the interests of his class. Joel Feinberg discusses this

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type of group responsibility in his paper Collective responsibility [l] (in the same article he goes some way to considering the difficult question of what would constitute active support of an unjust system by setting out the different kinds of activity which constitute complicity in a crime). Feinberg considers the case of the postbellum social system in the American South. Apparently blacks were kept down by widespread acts of violence, in the extreme case lynchings, and the whole white community participated in the violence, either actively, or passively by sympathising. The problem Feinberg considers is whether the responsibility extends to all whites. He assumes that the 99%, who thoroughly approve of the system are responsible, and wonders about the remainder who do not approve. He says: If they are to be held responsible, they must be so vicariously, on the ground of their strong (and hardly avoidable) solidarity with the majority. But suppose a few hated their Southern tradition, despised their neighbours, and did not think of themselves as Southerners at all? Then perhaps MacDonalds point. . (that all whites are responsible) . . . can be saved by excluding those totally alienated souls altogether from the white Southern community . . .. But total alienation is not likely to be found in a community that leaves its exit doors open; and in a community with as powerful social enforcement of mores as the traditional Southern one, the alienated resident would be in no happier position than the Negro. Collective responsibility therefore, might be ascribed to all those whites who were not outcasts, taking respectability and material comfort as evidence that a given person did not qualify for the exemption.

This, however, does not give us an adequate general criterion for ascribing collective responsibility, relying as it does on one particular case. It is instructive to compare the case of South African whites. There is a considerable percentage of, at least liberal, predominantly English-speaking whites. They do not by and large accept the mores and political mythologies of the Afrikaans-speaking majority. They are free to emigrate and many of them do, however their numbers are such that the extreme isolation and alienation that Feinberg describes does not necessarily affect them so as to make emigration overwhelmingly appealing. These facts go against making the criterion for ascribing group responsibility respectability and material comfort. Moreover the criterion would ascribe responsibility to some of the most fearless and respected fighters against apartheid. The question would seem to come down to the degree of adherence to the mores responsible for the injustice. There seem to be several gradations of adherence between those who do not whole-heartedly approve the violence of the system but may be vicariously responsible because of their strong (and hardly avoidable) solidarity with the majority and those whom Feinberg describes as totally alienated. Some case might be made out for holding all white South Africans responsible for apartheid on the grounds of some degree of a common South Africanism, a residual patriotism which should not be equated with support for the government and facts such as its being difficult to avoid thinking in racial categories when one has been brought up in a racially structured society. However, surely this attenuated responsibility could be negated by an express rejection of the injustices of the system and a refusal to identify with those aspects of the common culture which serve to perpetuate them. If this is so, then the apolitical artisan may continue to live in the unjust society without being responsible for the injustice, provided he repudiates it.

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The second principle I mentioned which might make it wrong to live in an unjust society is the principle of unjust enrichment. The apolitical artisan may be blamed for continuing to live in an unjust society because, even though he is not guilty himself of the injustice, still he is unjustly enriched as a result of the injustice of others. What then constitues unjust enrichment? It is not simply a matter of benefitting as a causal consequence of injustice. Suppose that a wealthy and childless uncle of mine dies as a result of some injustice. He commits suicide, say, after being expelled from his club on a trumped up charge of cheating at cards. I inherit a large fortune. Leaving aside the question of whether it is right to inherit anything from anyone, it seems that I have not been unjustly enriched. For one thing, I have not benefited at anyone elses expense. (Those who claim that all inheritance is unjust would hold that I have benefited at the expense of the rest of society or some subsection of it, but I am excluding this point of view in addressing this issue.) Have I benefited at the expense of those whom my uncle might otherwise have made his heirs? This is to change the question to one of whether my uncles will was fair. He might have unjustly disinherited his wife, perhaps at my instigation, but now the injustice in virtue of which I am unjustly enriched is not the unjust expulsion from the club which was mentioned originally. Simple enrichment as a result of some injustice is not enough, the enrichment must at least be at someone elses expense. If there are no more deserving recipients of my uncles fortune, whether individuals with some special claim to it or society at large, then I am quite justified in taking possession of it. Is benefiting at someone elses expense as a result of some injustice sufficient for unjust enrichment? Suppose I go to the casino and win a considerable amount of money. Unknown to me the reason for my winning is that a crooked croupier was rigging the game against an enemy of his. This sharp practice has led to my benefiting at the expense of the man the croupier dislikes. I cannot be blamed for walking off with my winnings. However it seems that if I am apprised of the reason for my good fortune, I have, at least, a duty to recompense the man whose money I have won unfairly. To be held to be in some way culpable for unjust enrichment it seems that one must know that one has been unfairly advantaged or at least be in a position where on can reasonably be held responsible for not having taken steps to find out. It does not seem to be necessary to have contributed to, taken steps to take advantage of, or even connived at the injustice to be guilty of unjust enrichment. It would, of course, compound ones guilt if one had done any of these things. Nor does it seem to be necessary that the injustice should have been committed for my or anyone elses benefit. The crooked croupier was concerned solely with his enemys downfall, not with anyone elses advantage. A person can then be blamed for unjust enrichment if he knows or is culpably ignorant of the fact that he has been advantaged at anothers expense as a result of injustice. We might say, that his unjust enrichment is not culpable, if he was ignorant of his unfair advantage and could not be held responsible for this ignorance. Granting this characterisation of unjust enrichment, is the apolitical artisan guilty of being unjustly enriched? One defence open to him is to claim that his advantages cannot be gained at the expense of those who are unjustly treated in his society since they are better off as a result of being members of that society. Does not Rawls, after all, claim that it is quite in accordance with justice for some members of a society to be better off than others provided that their being better off means that those who are worse off are in a better position than they would otherwise be? Variants of this argument are commonly encountered in South Africa where people are very prone to

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point out both that blacks enjoy a higher standard of living in South Africa than they do in the rest of Africa and that, as it were, blacks elsewhere in Africa vote with their feet for apartheid by emigrating to South Africa in great numbers, sometimes illegally. How can a system be unjust if those supposedly unjustly treated by it are better off as a result? This argument, even though it seems compelling to some, has serious flaws. Let us suppose that all the slaves in a slave-owning society have been captured from a country where life is similar to that in a Hobbesian state of nature. Foul diseases are endemic, famines break out at regular intervals and peoples lives are devoted for the most part to bitter blood feuds. In contrast to this slaves lead orderly, peaceful lives, are well nourished and have much greater life expectancies. Does this mean that slave owners are not unjustly enriched at the expense of the slaves? The first point to note is that it is not slavery which is making the slaves better off. How much better off they would be if they had emigrated as free men! The slaves are better off because they are in a society where disease is under control, whether as a result of a more temperate climate or more advanced systems of public health, which is wealthy enough with a suitably regulated economy to ensure that everyone has enough to eat and which is sufficiently well and firmly governed to keep people from each others throats. These are advantages one can gain without having to own slaves or be enslaved. What is more, within that society slaves are unjustly treated and slave-owners are unjustly enriched at their expense. Argument has to be mounted to show that slavery is necessary for the slaves to get the benefits that they do. The extent to which slaveowners are enriched at the expense of slaves is not diminished by the fact that the slaves are better off than those who remain in the country they come from. The slaveowners enrichment is rather to be measured by the extent to which the slaves would be better off if they were freed. Similarly in South Africa it is hard to argue that it is apartheid which raises the living standards of black South Africans in comparison to those in other countries in Africa. How can mass removals, legal restrictions on selling ones labour where there is a market for it and vast disparities in the quality of education offered to blacks and whites better the conditions of blacks? One would have to argue that these are unfortunate concomitants of the only system which can keep black living standards high. If black living standards could at least be maintained by any other system there is no argument on these grounds for apartheid. In so far as blacks would be substantially better off under some alternative system it would seem that whites are unjustly enriched to that extent. The important comparison is between the conditions of those unjustly treated before and after the injustice is removed rather than between different societies where different overall conditions hold. Have we established then that in our unjust society those who are not unjustly treated are unjustly enriched to the extent that those who are treated unjustly would be better off were their unjust treatment to cease? This is to move too quickly into the tricky area of counterfactuals. There are too many possible post-injustice societies. There might be a post-injustice society where everyone, whether unjustly treated heretofore or not, is better off. Are then those not unjustly treated impoverished by the unjust system because they would be better off without it? What if the unjustly treated are worse off in the post-injustice society? Were they themselves unjustly enriched before in that they were better off under the unjust system? The fact of the matter is that unjust enrichment cannot be established in such a global manner. What is necessary for unjust enrichment is a direct causal link betwen

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one persons enrichment and anothers unjust treatment. We cannot establish such a causal link by saying In society S there is an unjust system under which b suffers, while a flourishes. In society S after the removal of the injustice b is better off therefore a was unjustly enriched. What if a flourished as a consequence of his opposition to the injustice? What if a flourishes as a hermit or member of a primitive tribe or self-contained and isolated rural community? He lives completely off the land and in no way, even say in his possession of the land, owes anything to the society within which he is geographically based? The notion of unjust enrichment sits uneasily with utilitarian ideas about situations in which people are generally better off. The apolitical artisan cannot get off the hook of unjust enrichment by claiming that those unjustly treated are better off. He is better advised to consider the nature of the causal links between his flourishing and the injustice around him. Now in a clear and straightforward case of unjust enrichment such as that of the crooked croupier we can generally determine who has been benefited at the expense of whom and by how much. There is also a fairly simple remedy. If I have won a hundred dollars as a direct result of the crooked croupiers intervention and the croupiers enemy has lost at least that amount then I can recompense the croupiers enemy. I won this amount at his expense as a result of injustice and I know that I have. Surely at the least I should recompense the person at whose expense I have benefited? I may also have a special duty to prevent the injustice beyond the general duty incumbent on everyone to act against any injustice. In the case of the apolitical artisan, however, there may be no clear cases of such unjust enrichment. He may argue as follows. First he admits that in certain respects he has benefited at the expense of slaves. Taxes on their labour benefit him more than them. The total wealth of the society augmented by the work of the slaves is divided among fewer people as a result of the exclusion of slaves. Life is easier and more convenient for him as a member of a privileged class. However, he points out that his benefits cannot be directly attributed to the impoverishment of any particular slave or slaves. Taxes are raised from all sections of society. The roads and hospitals he uses are not paid for by any particular group of taxpayers. The payment he gets for his work even though some of his customers are slave-owners is not attributable to any particular instance of slave exploitation. His house is slightly larger, his suburbs more salubrious and his queues in government departments slightly shorter than they would be were there no slaves. However, no definite square footage of verandah is there only because some other person is a slave. The apolitical artisan then, having conceded that he is better off as a result of living in a slave society, goes on to point out that he is not alone in this. The slave-owning society is not completely self-contained and isolated, it has extensive trading links with neighbouring free states. International commerce is intricate to such an extent that it is seldom that two countries at war do not, through chains of intermediaries, still have considerable trade links. A person living within a free society may have an extensive business with the slave-owning society such that he benefits far more from the exploitation of slaves than do some privileged members of the slave society. Certainly he benefits more than the hermit living off the land within the slave state. He may even benefit more than the apolitical artisan. Benefiting as a result of injustice is not confined to all and only those within the jurisdiction of the slave state. The question of who has benefited by injustice and to what extent is not determined by mere geographical location; rather it depends on what actual transactions have taken place. The apolitical artisan now raises the question of how this is to be ascertained. In

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earlier simpler times, one might have investigated the matter by tracing the history of the coins in ones pocket. This talent is one of Judass thirty pieces of silver; this one has passed hands through a completely blameless series of transactions ever since it left the mint. But what are we to do in an era of electronic banking? John banks his honestly-earned salary. His account stands at 1000. He then adds 500 he has obtained by fraud. He then, encouraged by the extent he is in the black, splurges 150 on a luxury. Does this constitute completely tainted money since he would not have splurged without the fraud takings and what he spent amounts to less than he obtained dishonestly? Or is it rather a mixture of good and tainted money in the ratio of 100:50? What factors determine our decision? What proportion of the profits of the purveyor of luxuries are tainted by his unknowing acceptance of money obtained by fraud? The apolitical artisan then, having established that living as a free man in a slaveowning society is merely an indication of having been enriched by injustice and not constitutive of it, and having shown that determining what benefits one has received as a result of injustice is not an easy task, goes on to argue that even to attempt the task is an act of supererogation. A reasonable ethic, he says, must not make a shopping expedition into a series of major moral dilemmas. If benefiting by injustice is not simply a matter of flourishing in an unjust society then everyone, including members of free societies, is at risk. An ethic which calls for major changes in the unconsidered actions of ordinary people is surely an ethic of supererogation and as such to be rejected. Demanding conduct far beyond normal capacities not only engenders unwarranted guilt, it is also likely to render all moral precepts less compelling; just as an unpopular and unenforceable law tends to bring the whole legal system into disrepute. That a particular brand of foodstuff is cheaper than another may reflect unjust labour practices; that an investment policy offers a good pension scheme may be due to a portfolio of shares in companies reaping exceptionally good profits in underdeveloped countries; the best medical care may only be available because doctors and paramedicals have left the places for which their training intended them. If, claims the apolitical artisan, we are not to impose an intolerable and perhaps, impossible duty to investigate the history of all our advantages, we must insist that the link between the beneficiary and the victim of unjust enrichment be direct and easily ascertainable. If, he concludes, flourishing in an unjust society constitutes such a direct and easily ascertainable link, then escape from moral opprobrium is comparatively easy. All he need do is emigrate to a free society. He may well be no worse off. His counterpart in a free society which is more highly industrialised may get a lesser proportion of the countrys GNP but get exactly the same in real terms. It may be that as a result of the free states favourable balance of trade with the slave state and its history of investments, the citizens of the free state are enriched at the expense of slaves almost as much as citizens of the slave state. But does this matter? No. The criterion for unjust enrichment is citizenship of the slave state. All the more incentive for the apolitical artisan to move. All the benefits and none of the stigma. Unfortunately, moral victories are not won this easily. That only citizens of the slave state attract obloquy does not imply that only they deserve it. Should we then extend the blame to citizens of the free state? But then how far will the net of culpability extend? If we do not want everyone to be blameworthy do we then have to exonerate the beneficiaries of slavery within the slave state? But are these the only alternatives? Either everyone or no one is unjustly enriched unless there is either a clear presence of directly and simply benefiting from injustice or a clear absence of any dealings which might possibly be linked to that tainted

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source? This seems extreme. We must distinguish the metaphysical question of whether there is in fact any benefiting from injustice from the epistemological question of how we are to determine what benefit, if any, has been thus derived. The apolitical artisan has demonstrated the difficulty of determining with certainty exactly how much one has benefited from injustice. This does not mean that whether or not one has benefited is an all or nothing affair. We often have to make decisions under uncertainty and cannot abdicate on the grounds that we cannot know every detail with certainty. That a person flourishes in an unjust society is, at the least, an indication that he benefits from injustice. It makes such benefit more probable. We can concede to the apolitical artisan that a probabilistic indication of benefiting from injustice should not be considered constitutive of such benefit; however, probabilistic symptoms are often good guides to the underlying disorder. Moreover there may be a better probabilistic guide to the extent one has benefited from injustice than the simplistic one of whether or not one inhabits the society within which the injustice is committed. In determining the extent to which people benefit from some injustice, a probabilistic distribution curve might be developed so that the closer one is to the injustice, the likelier it is that one has benefited even though there is nothing to prevent someone a good deal further off from benefiting more or someone very close from not benefiting at all. Geographical closeness has been argued against as a measure since it may not reflect the actual transactions that take place. Perhaps some measure of economic closeness could be devised. Perhaps in terms of the number of transactions separating one from the injustice. Simon Legree dramatically improves production and gets the cotton crop in in time by beating two slaves to death. Shareholders in his company and the tradesmen who extend him credit are more likely to benefit from this than someone in another country buying a shirt made from his cotton; but there is no guarantee of this. We should do what we can to decrease the probability of benefiting from injustice but can never be certain that our hands are spotless. I do not claim to have produced a perfect measure of closeness to injustice nor if I had would it be likely that the average person would be able to apply such a measure. However, we can make rough and ready estimates, as we have to in so many areas of our lives, about how close we are to an injustice. Geographic location, certainly to the extent of being in the society in which the injustice is being committed, is not a bad guide to economic closeness even though we have seen that it is flawed. Living within a particular society means that the vast majority of ones transactions (unless one is in an unusual position such as being an international trader) are with other members of ones society. As such if there are benefits from injustice to be had, and one is both flourishing and economically active within an unjust society, it is highly likely that one is benefiting from injustice. People in other societies will have to use other factors such as, perhaps, trade balances to determine the extent to which they benefit. What then should one do in a situation where it seems that just leading a normal, economically active life results in ones benefiting from injustice? One suggested solution is emigration. As I have noted already this is not a moral advance if one continues to benefit by injustice in another state. Moreover, what is the appropriate response to having benefited as a result of injustice? In the case of the crooked croupier, compensation seemed appropriate and perhaps sufficient. There was the possibility that having benefited as a result of injustice a duty was imposed to rectify that injustice over and above the duty incumbent upon everyone to rectify any injustice. If we take this as our model then those who benefit from injustice have a duty to recompense those who have been unjustly treated. Now, as we have seen, there

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is no exact accounting in this case so that we can see that a has benefited at the expense of b to amount x. However, there does seem to be some duty to compensate perhaps by in some way alleviating the distress of those who suffer as a result of injustice. This might be discharged by attempting to remove the injustice (though this might well not be seen as enough in the croupier case). If benefiting at the expense of others as a result of injustice imposes a duty to Compensate, then emigration is not the solution to the moral problem posed by living in an unjust society. Moving out lowers the probability of being unjustly enriched in future but it does not recompense for past benefits. Nor is it obvious that lowering the probability of unjust enrichment is the best response to such a situation. It might be better to stay and compensate rather than move and lessen the duty to compensate. Certainly, a greater awareness of the need to compensate would seem to raise the probability of actual compensation. Moreover, simple unjust enrichment does not seem to provide the special interest in doing away with the injustice provided by living in an unjust society. We do have a special link with the society in which we are brought up even if this does not amount to a responsibility for its unjust actions. At the least we have a tendency, however irrational, to feel pride in the achievements of fellow countrymen and shame or embarrassment for our societys sins or follies. The proverbial idea that charity begins at home might seem in a way self-serving or at best, a club to point out the hypocrisy of those who neglect their nearest and dearest in favour of a sentimental concern for the misfortunes of the far off and remote. However, leaving aside questions about special duties to family and friends, a certain justification can be given for the principle. Given that there is widespread misfortune, injustice and suffering, and given also that we have a prima facie moral obligation to alleviate and prevent this, we are left with a problem of the distribution of labour. No one can do everything for everyone. Which suffering or injustice hence should take priority? An obvious distribution principle is that which is closest (closeness, here again, might be measured by other than geographical means). Not only does this provide a rational way of distributing effort; we are also more likely to be more emotionally involved in what is near at hand and to have the special knowledge derived from close contact which provides a background against which solutions are more likely to be found. This bears on the penultimate principle I mentioned, the general duty to prevent injustice. Charity begins at home (seen as a principle for distributing effort) means that the apolitical artisan has more of a duty to prevent the injustice in his society than his counterpart in a free society. There is, however, a further argument against living in an unjust society which renders emigration a more viable option. This is that living in an unjust society can be a threat to ones own moral integrity and the integrity of those for whom one is responsible such as ones children. People generally prefer to think well of themselves. Accordingly arguments purporting to justify the injustices of a particular society will tend to be rife within that society. We also tend to find natural the circumstances within which we normally find ourselves. What we find natural we find difficult to believe wrong. Visits to foreign countries, though they should disabuse us as to the natural rightness of our own conventions, often, sadly, fail to do so and serve only to convince us of the vileness of foreign perversities. These factors taken together, make it more probable that continual living in an unjust society will blunt ones perceptions and deprave ones sensibilities to the extent that injustice is no longer perceived as such. This is the flaw in one far-fetched solution to South Africas problems. This is that white non-South African critics of the South African Government should emigrate

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to rural areas in South Africa where, having become naturalised, their votes for more liberal parties would have more effect. However, even though the number of voters needed for such a electoral overthrow is not so very large, the seven-year naturalisation period might render participants in the scheme less likely to vote as they first intended. The deleterious effect that an unjust society might have upon one must, however, be counterbalanced by the effect one might have on that society. That persons opposed to the injustices of a society tend to leave is likely to entrench the injustices of that society. One needs to consider carefully whether it is better to risk corruption of ones moral principles on the off-chance of leavening the corrupt climate of moral discourse or to give up hope of reforming society while keeping ones principles intact. This cannot be made a general principle applicable to everyone in an unjust society. Different particular circumstances may give rise to different injunctions. It may be that some should leave an unjust society to preserve their integrity while others should not. Having examined the factors which might make it wrong to live in an unjust society I would conclude that there is no duty to emigrate nor would there seem to be a duty to stay. Decisions on these matters are quite reasonably dependent on individual circumstances, complicated as they can be by factors like military conscription. This does not leave the apolitical artisan unscathed. That there is no general duty to stay or leave does not mean that one can stay and do nothing about the injustice around one. We saw that a person must at least distance himself from the perpetrators of injustice to avoid the charge of shared responsibility, that the probability of unjust enrichment imposes a duty to compensate or at least alleviate the suffering of victims of injustice and that the general duty to act against injustice bears most heavily on those who are closest to it. Living in an unjust society imposes a duty to do something about the injustice. What exactly should be done requires further thought. Peoples response to this duty may range from taking up an armed struggle to alleviating conditions for those who suffer injustice in the areas over which they have control. Nor are decisions here to be taken solely on moral grounds; there are many very difficult factual questions about the likely outcome and effectiveness of various policies.

David Brooks, Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7700, Republic of South Afica.

NOTE
[ l ] JOEL FEINBERG (1968) Collective responsibility, Journal o f Philosophy, 65, pp. 674-687.