Fortuity and Justice

       [I am presenting my contributions to theory, philosophical or otherwise, under 

        the  label ‘my contributions’. I would like to get these articles appreciated as 

        well as  critically reviewed by lay-persons & experts too. If convinced I am 

        ready to modify my positions acknowledging the critics.]

World, at least as it is immanent to us, consists of regularity as well randomness. Whether randomness is in the nature in-itself (as some claim about quantum phenomena) or is due to limitations of human cognitive faculties or is due to limitations of hitherto knowledge of humans, is irrelevant to political philosophy. Ethical issues pertaining to randomness are independent of the ontological status of randomness.

 Human effort is towards minimizing randomness (insofar as it adversely affects human interests) by bringing about orderliness in the world to the extent it is shaped in form of man-made world. This effort takes many forms. Safety is care against unintended causes of harm while security is care against intended ones. Sometimes human individuals can be held responsible even in case of safety on account of their omissions in taking reasonably sufficient care. Security directly involves human misdeeds. But there are natural harmful events too.  Prediction and control of such events is an area of productive activities like weather forecast, inoculations and other practices of preventive medicine etc to name a few. In a sense almost all material progress, apart from its other utilities, is directed towards reduction in randomness, right from the invention of storable food. There are three aspects to the endeavor against misfortune. One aims at avoiding randomness as such (dams etc vis-à-vis randomness of rain.), another aims at reducing the damage caused due to mishaps (eradication or curability of deceases.), while third aims at sharing the consequences (insurance).

There are exceptions where human agency artificially creates randomness because situation demands that decision must be made in pure fortuity, like gambling, sampling, choosing between confusingly equivalent alternatives or even for eliminating any human bias and therefore ascertaining impartiality itself. Tosses in the matches or setting more than one question papers and blindly picking any one on the day of exam as ‘the’ question paper for that exam, are examples of the ‘impartiality function’ of randomness.

While studying the relation between fortuity and justice, we must clearly differentiate randomness (of events) from arbitrariness (in actions). The first is necessarily beyond human control at any given level of human control. The second, on the contrary, is the rule-less-ness in human decisions. Arbitrariness certainly causes injustice for the subjects of rules who abide by the rules. They suddenly find that the rules no more apply or are replaced by new rules without prior notice to those who must comply. Coercion is already an injury to liberty unless it is used only to prevent coercion. Even then if coercion is as per known rules (supposing rules themselves are not unjust) the subject can care to plan accordingly. Arbitrary decisions in applying or changing rule leaves subject helplessly at the mercy of the decision makers.

An event of randomness per se is not ethically problematic as long as the most intriguing question, “Why this should happen to me only?” doesn’t pop up. (This is especially in case of harmful event. However some are also worried about good fortune for some ‘rays of jealousy’ may ‘hit’ them! Egalitarians also feel guilty about good fortune.)  In a sense the question itself is a wrong one. Random event would occur essentially to any person in that ‘position’ (time, place and physical state etc). So there is neither any ‘should’ (Normative import) nor any ‘only’ (target orientation) to it. It’s a mere happenstance. The world is regular in the generality of its constituents and random in their uniqueness. 

We can answer why any sodium atom unites with any chlorine atom. We do not even try to answer why particular Na # so and so was in the vicinity of particular Cl # so   so. Even the reasoning that they got stuck to each other because they were in the vicinity of each other, is fallacious. We have to have an independent way to identify them than ‘vicinity’. Otherwise it will amount to petetio Principe (begging the question). We have no other way because they are identical!  In case of atoms they are identical (except in position) and not marked as individuals, but we can conceive them in their individuality (category of ‘Vishesh’ in ‘Vaisheshik Darshan’)

“There are 5 red balls and 5 white balls in a bag, if any one is blindly taken out what is the probability of it happening to be, say, red?” It is 1/2. This is how probability mathematics goes. The probability would change if the balls are uniquely numbered i.e.1/10. The probability of something happening to someone might be very low, but in case it happens, it happens 100%.  Human individuals are unique in a full blown sense. What else is the ‘me’, in the question above, other than what all has happened to some human individual, due to the effects of the circumstances (partly of one’s own making, partly of others’ making and most importantly of nobody’s making right from the very first accident viz. conception) Thus the question “Why it happened to me only?” is reducible to “Why I am myself?” and hence tautological.  Therefore, when we consider a random event we ought to conceive that it could have happened to any one in that position.

Description is inversely proportional to generality and hence goes on increasing as the ‘described’ is more and more of a particular case. It tends to infinity as particularity tends to Uniqueness. If, “He/She who happened to be the person who was walking under a failed structure” is included in the description of the person, “why only her?” becomes meaningless question. Although the question is logically invalid, it keeps haunting us. This is because we have not yet come to terms with the basic fact that explanations are in generality while incumbency is in the uniqueness.  Explaining randomness is denying randomness. This is the nature of fortuity.

Let us make some cosmological issues clear before going into the moral implications of fortuity. As we are going on discovering and mathematizing more and more laws of nature more and more events become predictable. [Here ‘law’ is an observable regularity, which also deducible from theorems based on axioms. Nothing is ‘normative’ in these. There is no question of making, abiding, transgressing or revising these.] The unpredictability involved in randomness can be on account of limitations of hitherto science OR there might be some chaotic element in nature itself, as is allegedly postulated by some philosophical users of quantum phenomena. This issue is not pertinent to the randomness that we are considering now. Main reason is that even if nature were a perfect cosmos, pure of any chaos, no law can give ‘initial conditions’ required for any predictive calculation. In short science of nature is not history of nature. Initial conditions always remain empirically given and outside any law. 

Whatever material phenomenon that ‘passes through us’ has lot of unknown initial conditions in the world outside our bodies or inside our body, viz. genes, hormones, synapses, neurons etc. Whatever that happens to us leaves a residue of unknown which include unconscious processes in our brain on which we have much less control. Therefore there are surprises even about the generalities, let alone the uniqueness which renders even a fully explainable event as accidental to that unique individual. Determinism, indeterminism, compatibilism or incompatibilism, with phenomenon of choice, all do not matter to the existential truth of randomness. Therefore there is no point in further debating upon cosmological issues while considering the issue of fortuity.

Some people wrongly believe that genetic theory of evolution has rendered everything determinate. On the contrary genetic theory epitomizes randomness in its core. “Selection is caused, Mutations are random”. Evolution is a story of such colossally wasteful ‘experimentation’ that only ‘God can afford it!’ and he does not appear intelligent at all if he were a designer! Point to be noted is that there was lot of destruction, cruelty and suffering before the arrival of the ‘sinful’ creature, humans.

 The morally relevant force of the question “Why me only” actually implies “what was my fault?” It presupposes that there has to be some fault of one to whom a mishap occurs. The question, tacitly, presupposes some mysterious, automatically operating cosmic justice. Genuine believers of it have no ‘right’ to grudge about injustice (for only justice is being done). Non-believers have no ‘reason’ to grudge about injustice (for the mishap is not deemed as injustice and also there is no question of its ‘restitution or retribution’ through cosmic justice.). But most of the people often want to keep their ‘right to grudge’ intact without any liability to give reason for the grudge. So they believe in such theories in the events of misfortune and revert back to human efficacy in the events of good fortune.

In India an automatic cosmic justice theory has been reigning. It is called Karmavipak i.e. a (belated) Fruition of Deeds. According to it all souls are going through an unending series of ‘birth-lives’. Any good fortune in this birth-life is necessarily a reward for some good-deed in some previous birth-life and any misfortune in this birth-life is necessarily a punishment for some evil-deed in some of the previous birth-life.

This theory, granting its consolation-function, has undermined the importance of man-made-justice (or injustice) and harmed the sense of justice as well as sense of self-responsibility. It has equally rendered shame and pride superfluous. Apart from its obscurantism, it is reject-able on purely ethical grounds as well. Without expressly communicating the specific evil-deed to the ‘accused’, administering a punishment is grossly unjust. It also does not provide any sense of restitution or retribution to the aggrieved party of the original evil-deed. 

Similarly a reward can not be a ‘reward’ unless it is communicated as to what for it was due. Others also do not get a clue as to what for the rewarded is meritorious and hence ought to be respected, rather than being made a target of envy. Apart from restitution and retribution, how the educative function of reward/punishment is going to work unless the original deed is ‘remembered’? Another ground for rejecting this theory is that it serves a legitimization function to any unjust social order. Any proud Indian also has to concede that pre-modern social order in India was unjust and rigid. So this theory ought to be rejected.

 However the advocates of just social order have been egalitarians and collectivists in the main which is not necessary but traditionally has been so, at least in India. In their zeal of moral indignation, they have, as if it were, replaced Karmavipak by its inverse! “Every misfortune is an injustice inflicted upon the unfortunate by the fortunate and any good fortune is derived out of an injustice on the part of the fortunate towards the unfortunate.” (You will not get it as expressly quoted from egalitarian-collectivist literature but you can see it tacitly operating in the rhetoric and the polemic going all around.) This inverse is as absurd as (perhaps more so) the original Karmavipaak. It continues to treat fortuity as an entity transferable and distributable without acknowledging any other- worldly mechanism as was envisaged in the original Karmavipaak.

Furthermore the inverse Karmavipaak theory is based on Malevolent Universe Premise. If this premise is seriously held it renders the whole egalitarian project impossible. If Universe is malevolent why it should suddenly become benevolent once the Egalitarians are in power? If egalitarians try to redistribute the fortuity, they will have to harm the fortunate and favor the unfortunate. Even if they succeed, it will be a replacement of incumbents but not the inequality. Fortune will become misfortune and the other way round. Whatever the result, it is bound to be unjust because Universe is malevolent. Thus both Karmavipaak and its inverse have to be rejected.

There is also third extremist position. First was Justice-alone, second was Injustice alone and the third is Fortuity alone. As we have no control over our inner character as well as external accidents, we have no right to give ‘credit or debit’ to ‘merit or demerit’ of anyone. Virtues and Vices can neither be acquired nor be purged out. If this is accepted the issue of justice is nonsensical. Determinists and Chaoticists have same position although for different reasons. Absolute materialists and absolute spiritualist also share this all-fortuity-position. Acceptance becomes the only issue.

Therefore we recognize all the three components whereas the extremist positions recognize their favored components and put remaining two into oblivion.

Moreover the very discourse of justice has invariably shied away from squarely facing all important issue of fortuity. A lurking fear is that, if you accept the fact of fortuity, are you not implying that justice is, therefore impossible? My submission is that we can analyze both without undermining either. We can conceptually demarcate the zone of fortuity and the zone of justice. The main source of intermingling is that, we often countenance some states of affairs as just or unjust while the category ‘just/unjust’ is properly applicable to human actions which cause these ‘beneficial/harmful’ states of affairs. Mere fact that somebody is jobless today is neither just nor unjust. An action of wrongfully dismissing him is unjust. (There can be a rightful dismissal and also other justice related causes of joblessness.) A draught is neither just nor unjust but the action of not investing in dam (or any suitable way of water conservation) can be deemed as unjust. Act of allowing gambling can be deemed as unjust, winning or losing can not be deemed so. Even within gambling, act of rigging is unjust.

This enormous philosophical mistake lies in the consequentialist, utilitarian and entity-distributional conception of justice. The other, and proper in my opinion, conception of justice is called ‘deontic’.  This conception focuses on the nature of the act itself rather than its eventual consequences. For example, why attempt to murder should be lesser a crime than a successful murder? It was the potential victim’s good fortune that the attempt failed. How that should make a difference in the moral evaluation of the act on the part of the culprit? He had tried his best! On the other hand a doctor who had tried his best to save a patient is certainly not guilty even if his attempt fails. Let us take an example of act of negligence. Somebody keeps an earthen flowerbed pot on the edge of the parapet of his terrace. It accidentally falls down on a street below. Luckily nobody happens to pass across the trajectory. Is it not wrong to keep a heavy pot in such precarious place? The wrongness of this action must be judged irrespective of the occurrence of actual injury. In short it is action that is just or unjust and not any miserable or bountiful states of affairs either caused by actions or obtaining otherwise.

Actors: Deserving, Counter-Deserving and Non-Deserving 

Measuring justice in terms of ‘fruits’ alone and not referring to whether the fruits were deserved by the incumbent, is evading the very essence of justice. Justice is a meaningless concept if the verb ‘to deserve’ is not used in its definition. Let us classify fruits into eu-fruits and mal-fruits so that getting eu-fruits and being protected from mal-fruits together becomes a positive event and logically the inverse becomes negative event.

We should also classify the concept of ‘deserving’ in a better way than simplistic opposites ‘deserving’ and undeserving. If someone is earning eu-fruits by way of inflicting injustice upon others, such person is, not only undeserving but rather ‘counter-deserving’ such eu-fruits. Symmetrically person who is getting mal-fruit due an act of injustice by others must be described as, counter-deserving the mal-fruits. A self-harmer must be treated as ‘deserving’ the mal-fruits of his/her self-harming act and symmetrically the self-enhancer as deserving the eu-fruits. All the cases wherein nobody can be praised, blamed or given the credit/debit to anybody’s act, we must adopt the term non-deserving. Fortuity is by definition, non-deserved. Category of non-deserved saves us from the ambiguous and misleading statement, “fortuitous eu-fruits are undeserved” unnecessarily hinting at the sense of counter-deserved under “undeserved”

	Factor -1	Factor -2	Factor- 3
Causes of advantageous conditions	Self-Enhancing Virtues	Good Fortune	Gains made by  inflicting Injustice           to others
Causes of disadvantageous Conditions	Self-Harming Vices	MisFortune	Losses due to Injustice by others

It must be noted that all cases of injustice are not targeted at particular victim, as in case of pollution, inflation, congestion etc. However, even in cases of targeted victims, a factor of fortuity is involved. Suppose an infatuated and aggressive boy, kills a girl whom he fancies, for not responding. This heinous crime is certainly a targeted injustice. But not all girls are unfortunate enough to find such boys around. Thus even a targeted injustice, seen as occurrence happening to a particular unique individual, is a misfortune of that individual. So every injustice is also a misfortune but every misfortune is not an injustice. Of course misfortune is no fault of the unfortunate. But from ‘no fault of the unfortunate’ we can in no way infer ‘hence fault of the fortunate’.

The egalitarian ethos along with fatalistic ‘concepts like destiny’, has created an illusion that, fortuity is an entity having limited supply which has to be somehow distributed. Suppose there is an outbreak of some contagious decease in my town. Total 300 people are infected, treated and 200 are saved. I also have got infected and got saved. Have I ‘saved’ someone from getting infected, by filling up the quota of 300, who would have got infected so that the figure 300 comes true? Or Have I killed somebody by occupying one of the 200 cases that were saved? The underlying fallacy is that 300 and 200 are post facto figures and they never existed ‘already’ waiting to be occupied by some incumbent or the other. Had I not got infected, the figure of the infected would have been 299 instead of 300 and had I got killed the toll would have risen to 101 from 100.

There is another important aspect to this ‘no fault of’ argument. Indeed it is no fault of yours if you are not good looking. But is it then becomes a fault of the good looking that they are good looking? May be it is not your fault that you are less intelligent (it’s possible that you might have underutilized your endowment, but keep that aside). Is this a fault of those who are more intelligent? We have to search by trial and error about a niche, that is better suited to our aptitudes, inclinations etc. Some happen to find it in very few trials while for some others it so happens that they have to explore longer and  harder ways. As both cases are matter of chance it is nobody’s fault. The more lucky ones get ahead. Do they commit any injustice towards the unlucky ones?

Envying is a wasteful, self destructive mental activity, which may culminate in violent act, towards the particularly envied or even in untargeted fury. Envy or its more malicious version like spitefulness, must be clearly discerned from constructive sort of competitive spirit. Here we get a good ‘no fault of’ argument. Envy is always a fault of the envier and never a fault of the envied. Going blind to this simple wisdom, egalitarian-collectivist-distributionists have invented a disastrous concept called ‘relative deprivation’ as a type of injustice. Who is the perpetrator of this injustice? One who happens to be good at something (without much hard work, let us suppose) inflicts ‘relative deprivation’ on those who do not happen to be that good? Being earlier is also a matter of chance. Perhaps I (for the sake of argument) could have discovered the Newton’s laws of motion!! Did Lord Newton wickedly deprive me of the glory?

In an idea of good life which most of us will share, the fortunate should be more generous and compassionate toward the unfortunate. Even as a social arrangement, insurance, charity or even tax-subsidy mechanism is better for diminishing the sting of fortuity and increasing sense of security. But the point is that this could not be an idea of justice. (Confusing the sense of compassion with sense of justice is the root error of egalitarianism.) Otherwise it will amount to blaming and convicting (some of) the fortunate who could be righteous and honest (or some of the unfortunate could be burglars whom we will be honoring and rewarding) and in that case we are committing a gross injustice, in the name of justice. Moreover people can not be divided into two discrete classes, one of all-fortunate and other of all-unfortunate. Same individual can be extremely fortunate in some respect and at the same time devastatingly unfortunate in some other. By deeming good fortune as ‘injustice by’ and misfortune as ‘injustice upon’ we are spoiling all minds, making them suffer from ‘victim complex’ and ‘guilt complex’ alternatively. This nurtures vices of self-harming and destroys the virtues of self-enhancement, while the focus upon redeeming injustice-proper is lost.  

The idea of equal distribution of fortuity presupposes that fortuity is an entity, transferable, storable and could be distributed as we wish. Fortuity is precisely that which is not in human control. Whatever that is in human control and wherever it is possible to decide as to who deserves what, the realm of justice starts. In general we can at best follow the maxim implied in a prayer adopted by a voluntary organization, named ‘Alcoholic Anonymous’. “Oh Lord, give us the courage of changing what we can, give us the serenity to accept what we can not and the wisdom to make the difference.”