Jeune Street

Amartya Sen offers a fascinating take on a little-known aspect of David Hume's thought on the subject of justice. He picks out the following passage from a 1751 essay by Hume:

Again suppose, that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mutual convenience and advantage, the boundaries of justice still grow larger, in proportion to the largeness of men’s views, and the force of their mutual connexions. History, experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.

And Sen carries on comment:

The underlying approach to justice here contrasts with the influential view of Hobbes, according to which there has to be a sovereign state for us to entertain any coherent idea of justice. Hobbes was moved by the idea that institutional demands of justice can be met only within the limits of a functioning sovereign state, which is needed to establish and support the required institutions. While Hume was deeply concerned about the importance of institutions, on which he made many penetrating observations, he was reluctant to allow the idea of justice to be narrowed by the boundaries of sovereignty, as if there were no issues of global justice that could take us beyond our national borders.

One has the sense that the world is retreating from the impulse to global justice, so strong after World War II and again after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The perceived failure of high minded initiatives and the renewed assertion of sovereignty associated with the rise of the emerging powers (China, India, Brazil, and co) highlights how far we have to travel from the well instituationalized nation-state to effective global governance. And yet, we remain irreversibly conscious of the oneness of humanity, by virtue of our personal experience and the reach of media and commerce, and we still cannot ignore its implications for global justice. Hume saw this dawning consciousness some 250 years ago.