Here’s a thought experiment I came up with recently, and I’d like to invite EconLog readers to try it out. I think your intuitive response to this thought experiment will go a long way in clarifying how you think about justice.
Let’s suppose we live in a world with conscription. Let’s further stipulate that conscription is unjust. (If you are in favor of conscription and find the thought experiment uncomfortable for that reason, substitute any other policy that you think is unjust.) However, not everyone is subject to conscription; only half the population is. Let’s suppose that the criteria for who is subject is completely arbitrary: people born on even-numbered days are subject to conscription, and people born on odd-numbered days are exempt from conscription.
Let’s say that abolishing the draft falls outside the Overton window. There is no realistic chance that this policy will ever be repealed. However, you are in the unique position of being able to change the draft with some kind of executive order. You can’t abolish it, but you can make it so that people born on odd-numbered days are eligible for the draft. Assume that doing so doesn’t change anything else. That is, if you expand the draft, for example, you double the number of citizens who are actually drafted, without reducing the likelihood that people born on even-numbered days will be drafted.
So the question is: what is the right thing to do?
Should we expand conscription because people born on even-numbered days are subject to unfair policies and treatment that other citizens do not face? In other words, should we pull a policy lever that increases the number of people who face injustice in order to equalize the distribution of injustice?
Or should we reject the expansion of conscription on the grounds that the policy is unjust and that if we cannot reverse the injustice, it should be applied to as few people as possible? In other words, should we allow an unjust policy to be applied unequally to the population in order to minimize the number of people unfairly affected?
What do you think?
(6 comments)
