Justice – Week 4
Where I reflect on impunity, forgiveness, and the comic potential of the trolley problem.
As the Trump tariffs bring chaos to the stock market, I re-watch the Big Short. It’s a reminder that our financial world is not guided by principles of justice. Numerous bankers, brokers, and rating agency workers were complicit to systemic fraud, which afforded them a lush lifestyle and a sense of adventure. When the crisis hit, many people lost homes and hopes. Some of the bankers lost a job, often with a package. As for the lingering consequences, and who to blame for them, well, as Jesus said, ‘the poor you will always have with you’.
Democracy calls for accountability. At least, that’s what we learn from Athens. In 406 BC, the city’s generals entered a battle against the odds, and won. In preparation for this emergency, large amounts of public money were placed under their custody. Not all of it was accounted for. Some of it ended in private pockets. Facing an audit, the generals tried to muddle the waters by shifting blame. The public reacted with fury, and escalated the matter, blaming the generals not only for theft, but negligence in battle. The sentence was death. We feel no such outrage for white collar crime. Most of it goes unpunished. What we call the system dissolves responsibility.
My close family sees justice in that leniency. Someone we know is a social worker. I’ve heard them repeatedly criticised for taking too much leave and ‘costing too much’. Single mothers on benefits receive a similar treatment. By contrast, finance people work hard, bear risk, and deploy rare skills on high stake matters. I remember many conversations where someone would mention the vertiginous income of top executives, sportspeople and celebrities. My father reminded everyone that ‘it’s a made-up problem’ and ‘things are complex’. To my own embarrassment, I’ve integrated some of this bias. At least, I observe in myself a measure of spontaneous respect – and forgiveness – for the people who choose to work in the entrails of the system.
Over a plate of Chilli fried chicken, I find myself talking professional options with a friend. We come up with a model where all possible choices fall within a triangle between fun, meaning, and money. It’s ours to decide where we place our centre of gravity, and look for the best adjacent offer. In social enterprise and other ethical work circles, I’ve often come across a lament that socially useful jobs pay too little. For sure, the system does not operate according to the principle of justice. That is precisely why we must be cautious of such lament. Tears of rage and frustration cast a veil, behind which values begin to blur. When we confuse money with meaning or pleasure, that’s when the system wins. The triangle of choice shrinks to a nihilistic singularity. All options become equivalent. Better stretch the corners far apart, and hold firm that meaning is not fun is not money. By doing that, not only can we decide where we want to place ourselves, but if we do believe in a life of meaning – or fun – be pragmatic about money, and replace complaints with role-modelling. Or if others have chosen money, not confuse it with anything other than itself.
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What does the trolley problem have to teach us? We’ve all come across this ethical thought experiment. A train is running full speed along a track where five people are wandering about. It will kill them for sure, unless you pull a switch and redirect the train towards another track, where one person is sitting alone. What do you do?
The model has been used to determine moral preferences in relation to self-driving cars, and in endless workshops, papers, and TV series – The Good Place has a fun episode featuring it. When would we rather let a situation run its course or intervene? What if the people on the tracks are old, young, pregnant, Chinese, or your mum? What if it’s your cavoodle Poppy? What if it’s the two last breeding couples of an adorable marsupial species?
Like a Dan Brown novel, the trolley problem narrows our focus to the critical moment of action. According to the laws of drama, this is when character is revealed. Whether it’s AI, climate or Palestine, we’re casting many of our current challenges along similar lines. Will you be strong enough to sacrifice your mum’s air-conditioner and save the spotted potoroo? Will you give up your own comfort for the greater good and let the crying of the world move you to pull the switch, or will you let the runaway train of history run its course of endless destruction, hiding behind a smug veil of innocence and soy lattes?
Once we’ve cast a problem in a certain fashion, it’s hard to come back, and give it a different shape. The trolley problem offers a tragic dilemma, with urgency on top. As all good tragedy, it evokes a powerful sense of terror and pity for the poor soul who found themselves in that position. Waves of emotion wash over, purifying us. Then, we can return to the world of everyday life. When it comes to challenging our default perception, I put greater trust in comedy. Which often begins by expanding the frame, highlighting absurd contradictions in the situation. Why did people choose to walk along those tracks? Why am I standing next to the switch? And how did my cavoodle Poppy wander out there? This lighter approach stimulates creative solutions. What if I pull the switch, then break it off, throw it in the direction of the five people, and call ‘catch’ to Poppy? Then we can all have a laugh. Except, to do that, I must think on my feet. Which requires habit, i.e., not the twisted comparison of abstract goals and principles, but the daily cultivation of embodied virtue.
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‘Love your neighbour’ is core to Christian ethics. In practice, that requires effort. I sit on my building committee, and find myself mediating on an internal matter. We made a confused decision six months ago, to repaint the corridors and stairs in a new colour scheme. As it turns out, parts of the building are too dark now, raising issues of accessibility that we did not anticipate, and something must be done, quite urgently. The works are halfway through, there’s contractors involved, a great building manager, and a bunch of neighbours with all sorts of aesthetic preferences, conditions and concerns. Not to mention emotions running high for a problem so close to home. Everyone would prefer consensus. But in the face of conflicting desires, misaligned principles bubble up to the surface. What would be fair and just? Should we follow past commitments? Follow due process? honour minority needs? Consider legal responsibilities and liabilities?
As I play for time, in hope of loosening the knot of perceived urgency, I observe a risky tendency to double down on past positions. Since we agreed to this, now we have to do that. Pride and sloth have a role, of course, but I sense another more insidious drive, which I would call the fear of moral discomfort. Changing course means acknowledging our own past shortcomings. Reconsidering anything means publicly recognising that I was complicit in a decision that has proven wrong, I learned from it, and would now recommend a different course of action. Or as John Maynard Keynes allegedly put it, ‘when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’ I see those dynamics at play within our building committee – and I see them echoing around the world.
The capacity to reconsider our past decisions, recognise our mistakes, and take a different course, may be central to the goal of justice. Therefore, if we want to be just, we need to train the core muscles that enable such a change of mind. Meaning, we must be capable of grief. When we’re invested in plans and prospects that we later wish or need to reconsider, we must be willing to confront the fact that we might have been negligent, rash, or mistaken. We have to mourn the loss of our own self-image as prescient all-knowing beings, and accept our flaws and biases. We must accept that the glorious futures we imagined will not come to be, at least not as we painted them in our heads. All of which is painful.
Now if we truly want to be just, we can do more than develop our personal capacity to bear sadness. We must cultivate structural forgiveness – make it easy for people to name a past mistake, as early as possible, without excessive fear of repercussions. Or at least, reduce incentives to double down and press forward for self-protection. This may be particularly relevant for people in power, those responsible for climate change, technological mayhem, and war. If we want justice, in other words, we might have to decide if we want the rush of revenge, or a better situation for all, at the cost of impunity for those we would be tempted to frame as perpetrators.