CRITERION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE 273
desert is seen to hold good for each. The position taken with regard to the former involves, therefore, nothing unique or excep- tional, but is simply a special application of a general principle. If this view be correct, and if it be absurd to suppose that the demands of morality, properly interpreted, can ever require that which in its very nature is impossible, then we are compelled to maintain that the criterion of social justice can be nothing other than social utility.
Can a formula so vague be of any value to the economist or legislator in solving the practical problems with which he is called upon to deal? The answer seems clear. The fact that you see the target is, of course, no ground for assuming that you will be able to hit it, but certainly it is a sine qua ?ion for that result. So of every problem involving a consideration of ends. There can, for instance, be no intelligent discussion with regard to the school curriculum until the question of educational values has first been faced. What holds for the educator is not less true for the social economist. Some of the most unnecessary and unfortunate conflicts of the century have been and still are being waged with regard to individual liberty, which might have been entirely avoided if the parties concerned had paused long enough to inquire seriously into the ends gained by the protec- tion of liberty. In the same way false conceptions of justice have, to say the least, led to the waste of the time and energy of many able thinkers. If we could but agree that the justifica- tion of any scheme for the distribution of property, as for any determination of privileges "rights" is to be found solely in the relation of the same to the welfare of the society affected, then all forces might be united in a harmonious effort to solve the problem of ways and means. If the moralist can do nothing more than contribute to this result his presence in the arena of economic debate is certainly justified.
1 RANK CHAPMAN SHARP. THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
