Spheres of Justice #7

Chapter 5 is about office, for which he stipulatively defines as “any position in which the political community as a whole takes an interest, choosing the person who holds it or regulating the procedures by which he is chosen.”

Offices cannot or should not be appropriated by private persons, passed down in families, or sold on the market. The idea is old. In the West it developed most clearly within the Christian church in the struggle to disengage the church from feudalism. Church leaders argued that ecclesiastical positions could not be owned by feudal patrons, be given to friends and relatives, or be traded or sold.

The idea gradually descended into civil society. It was secularized in civil service jobs. Today governments control membership in many professions via licensing and enforcement of standards. In academia the means is accreditation. In principle, grades and degrees are not for sale. Offices are typically regarded as open to all and fair to all candidates as a matter of justice. It is a kind of “simple equality.” But whatever the qualifications and selection process, these should not become the basis of tyrannical claims to prestige and power.

The principle of meritocracy – for those who support it -- is that offices should be filled by those most qualified. Walzer comments on quotas, such as for blacks or women.

What makes the distribution of offices so important is that so much else is distributed along with it: honor and status, power and prerogative, wealth and comfort. When office is treated as dominant, it becomes insolence. It may be used to override distributions that are best left to the sphere of money and commodities, where personal discretion of entrepreneurs, owners and families are morally acceptable.

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