Strategic Justice

This work presents a new analysis and evaluation, based upon an original game-theoretic analysis of convention, of the thesis that justice consists of systems of distinguished conventions. This thesis has ancient roots but has never been central in philosophy because convention itself has historically been so poorly understood. Given a sufficiently precise and general analysis of convention, the view that justice at bottom consists of conventions provides cogent answers to two perennial questions: (1) What is justice? (2) Why be just? Conventions are analyzed as correlated equilibria of games where the agents involved have available alternative equilibria. This analysis is sufficiently general to summarize social interactions where the interests of the agents diverge, so that a satisfactory resolution incorporates principles of justice. Agents are in circumstances of justice when (i) their underlying game has multiple optimal conventions they can achieve when all contribute to a cooperative surplus and (ii) each contributor risks being let down if this agent contributes and the others fail to contribute. Necessary and sufficient conditions are proposed for a satisfactory analysis of justice as mutual advantage that characterize justice as a special set of Baseline-Consistent conventions of agents in circumstances of justice. The origins of norms of fairness as the product of salience and inductive learning are explored. The state social contract is analyzed as a self-enforcing governing convention. The Reconciliation Project of demonstrating the compatibility of justice and rational prudence is reevaluated in light of the analysis of convention developed here.