Ella: Shelby on the Duty to Help Correct Injustices, Analyzed Through a Contractarian Lens

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In his section on “The Duty of Justice,” Tommie Shelby contends that “The duty of justice is a moral requirement all are bound by. It demands, most fundamentally, that each of us respect and support just institutions, particularly those that lay claim to our allegiance and from which we benefit” (57). Shelby goes on to state that “the weakest demand that the duty of justice imposes… is that we not be indifferent to societal injustices” (58). This section implies a duty of justice in black communities, which goes hand-in-hand with his claims that, while blacks are not responsible for their unjust conditions, they are responsible for morally responding to their unjust conditions.


While I do not necessarily disagree with the fact that we all should have a duty to speak out against injustice, there are some contradictions found in Shelby’s claim on the duty to help correct injustices, especially when analyzing his claims through a Contractarian lens. Through a Contractarian lens, we conceive of societies as social contracts entered that either create or enforce morals and standards of justice. These contracts are entered in order to secure the freedoms and certain benefits that cannot be securely found in a State of Nature. These contracts also necessitate that everyone ‘do their part,’ because, as Shelby says in his section on work, “all citizens benefit from what the government or others in society have done and thereby owe something in return” (188). That being said, in his section on work, Shelby ultimately claims that those in ghettos are “so burdened by the structural injustices of the social system” (195), and therefore do not have an obligation to work within the social system. Essentially, ghetto citizens are in such unjust conditions that their refusal to work is not freeriding. 


Through a contractarian lens, we can conceive that Shelby is claiming that because the government and society have not abided by social contract when it comes to securing the rights and freedoms of ghetto citizens, they, therefore, do not have an obligation to fulfill all of their contractual duties. Shelby affirms this in his section on interracial solidarity, claiming that “if the basic structure of society is deeply unjust and the burdens of injustice have fallen heavily and disproportionately on a stigmatized racial group, then it is entirely appropriate for members of that group to withhold some allegiance to the nation” (78). 


With these Contractarian concepts in mind, Shelby’s claim on the duty to help correct injustices does not stand. His claim contends an obligation to correct injustices, and such an obligation cannot come from anything other than some form of a social contract. The obligation, at least when applied to democratic societies, does not come from divine, nor natural conditions. It is necessitated by the conditions artificially created in a social contract. Thus, can he soundly claim that ghetto citizens, who have been subject to the gross injustices of society, have an obligation or requirement to help correct injustices? While I do not disagree with the claim that we all maybe should help correct injustices, if a citizen can no longer in good faith be considered an equal participant of the social contract, I do not think we can claim that they are required to help correct injustices. 

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