Dependency and Justice

Abstract

I was reading Martha Nussbaum's book, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, while riding a New York City subway train that was speeding toward downtown. A destitute and disheveled man who seemed to be cognitively impaired entered the car and said, Help me! I have Parkinson's disease. He did not immediately arouse much sympathy or a will to help on the part of his observers. He spoke in a high-pitched, slurring manner that was difficult to understand. I began to go up and down the roller coaster of thoughts and feelings to which we have become accustomed. He has figured out a scam. How would I actually know if he had a chronic disease? He has fallen through the cracks of the social network-or has he? Is he collecting a check from a social agency? What if he has a chronic illness-does that mean that I have to support him? Should I give him money? What would cause me to reach into my pocket? In effect, I was mentally rehashing some of the moral and ethical issues concerning dependency that Nussbaum ponders in her book. What theory, if any, of justice might inform my relationship to the man on the subway? Is he dependent on me? Could I be in another situation dependent on him? Is any theory of justice or dependency itself one that posits a social contract fashioned between equals, or is it based on some inherent capacities and capabilities each human must be said to have? To clarify this point, we have to follow two trends in the history of philosophy, both of which concern the idea of justice. Social contractarians such as Hobbes, Hume, Kant, and Rousseau assume that in some semi-mythical past, humans met on a cognitive battle field and, after slugging it out for a long time, decided to give up their rights to steal each other's property and kill each other because they recognized that it would be to their mutual advantage to establish a quid pro quo. Thus the state was born. While each philosopher had different ideas about how this happened, the basis of the argument is that a social contract for mutual advantage emerged, and this guaranteed some rough-hewn idea of justice. On the other side of the debate are those who believe that humans have a set of inherent rights-rights that exist simply because one is born. No negotiations on any field are necessary to arrive at these; instead, reason and notions of fairness, dignity, and so on will make such rights apparent. The Declaration of Independence, for example, stated the belief that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. No meeting on the field took place to make this arrangement; rather, a Creator gave people the right to remain alive, to be free, and to scamper after happiness (and, like the pursuit of a suitable mate, not necessarily to succeed in the attainment). The problem with the man on the subway and me is that if my thoughts tend toward a social contractarian model, that way of thinking is founded on an idea that the original negotiators are equal, so their trade-security instead of lawlessness-is logical. Thus, each individual has the same things to lose and gain. But it is only logical if viewed as a trade between equals. What happens in situations where there is great inequality or where one person is dependent on another for the necessities of life? Nussbaum sees the case of the man on the subway- and of people with disabilities in general-as the example that tests the whole notion behind contractarianism. A contractarian would be stymied here because there is no mutual benefit derived; instead, the severely disabled person receives care and resources, is dependent, and may not give back equal resources or contributions to the other folks who signed the contract for mutual advantage. I work, contribute to the general welfare, and pay taxes that provide social services that may or may not take care of the man on the subway. …