Tying ourselves to the mast, or acting for the sake of justice? Ethos, individual duties, and social sanctions

Political philosophy often focuses on what the state may legitimately do to, or in the name of, its citizens. Yet, how well a society lives up to political-philosophical ideals arguably also depends on the decisions that individuals make in their daily lives regarding, for instance, how to treat others, what to work with, and how to spend their free time. Many contemporary social movements for increased justice hence seem to focus less on reforming institutions and laws, and instead attempt to change the values and principles that individuals accept and act on. In political-philosophical terms, these movements are less interested in the “basic structure” of a society, and more intent on changing its “ethos.”¹ Part of this change could happen by influencing what people think are reasonable principles of justice, but the efforts to reform what is seen as acceptable behavior often also involves individuals monitoring each other and issuing positive and negative sanctions in response to each other's actions. Recent years have seen social media and other technological developments boosting the power of such sanctions, allowing millions of strangers to join in the criticism of particular wrongdoers. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic brought these kinds of social mechanisms to the center of attention, as decentralized and informal monitoring and sanctioning of people's response to pandemic-related regulations appeared to be at least as important as more classical forms of state enforcement. This article assumes that there are, indeed, moral demands on individuals to act in certain ways not only in times of crisis but also in order to further a just society, and sets out and defends an account of the concept of ethos that helps to conceptualize how individual compliance with these demands can be encouraged, or enforced.

The assumption that the degree of justice in a society does not only depend on how its institutions are set up is closely associated with philosopher G. A. Cohen's influential critique of John Rawls. The core of their disagreement is that, while Rawls suggests that principles of justice apply primarily to the major political and economic institutions of a society—its basic structure—Cohen argues that principles of justice would also shape a social ethos that inspires citizens to act in particular ways in their daily lives. Specifically, Cohen is skeptical of Rawls's willingness to accept as just equality-upsetting economic incentives that motivate individuals to work productively. Rejecting authoritarian attempts to coerce people to contribute, Cohen suggests that justice rather requires an egalitarian ethos that inspires and motivates individuals to make certain decisions about how much to work and with what.² Such an ethos, Cohen suggests, is a “moral climate,”³ or “… a structure of response lodged in the motivations that inform everyday life …,”⁴ that somehow influences individuals to voluntarily act more justly than they otherwise would.⁵ Stepping back from this debate, it seems like not only Cohen's but indeed most conceptions of justice presuppose an ethos-like mechanism that helps encourage people to do what is asked of them, if the conceptions are to be successfully implemented. For instance, even though Rawls does not agree with Cohen that individuals ought to act on the difference principle in their daily affairs, he recognizes that the stability of a just society requires citizens to internalize and act from his principles, including the natural duty of justice to support, comply with, and further just institutions.⁶ Similarly, although Robert Nozick's rivaling historical account of justice is often thought to demand very little of individuals, it is apparent that societies where the state plays a minor role need an ethos fostering trust and the belief in and respect for strong property rights, or the cooperation between individuals would collapse.⁷ Given the importance of individuals voluntarily doing what justice requires of them, it is hence surprising that neither Cohen nor the participants in the large debate following his critique have provided a comprehensive treatment of the concept of an ethos, elaborating upon how, more specifically, it is thought to help motivate individual compliance with principles of justice.⁸

This article provides such an account. It presents a brief conceptual discussion of what an ethos is, but it primarily aims to develop an account of what the proper role of an ethos is in theories of distributive justice. The next Section 2 suggests that one's adherence to particular moral principles can be explained either because one believes the principles have normative force, or because one adapts to social sanctions approving of adherence and disapproving of non-compliance with the principles. Correspondingly, one way of understanding the workings of what I will call a moral ethos is that a particular moral ethos exists in a group when its members internalize and act from a particular principle. Drawing on moral and political philosophy, the subsequent Section 3 claims that this is similar to the idealizing assumption of full compliance often made in political philosophy, and in effect renders the concept of ethos functionally equivalent to the Rawlsian idea that citizens in a just society will display a sense of justice. Drawing on philosophical theories of social norms and psychological research, Section 4 then sets out the mechanisms of what I call a social ethos, which states that a particular social ethos exists within a group when its members uphold a decentralized system of informal social sanctions that increases their compliance with a particular principle. This captures important aspects of the social sanctioning strategies for norm change that appear to have become more common in recent years.

It seems attractive to combine the two accounts and assume that whenever a moral ethos fails to be sufficiently motivating, the social ethos works as an external mechanism that we impose on ourselves to help us achieve our goal, as when Ulysses asks his crew to tie him to the mast. Section 5 considers a possible dilemma that might prevent this, however. There might be both theoretical and practical reasons to care about people doing the just thing for the just reason, and attempts to boost individuals' moral motivation by relying on the social ethos might crowd out the moral motivation needed for individuals to be just. I ultimately conclude that this is a false dilemma, since what matters is that we are partly, but not necessarily only, moved by justice when acting. One can comply with moral demands because of the sanctions otherwise imposed, as long as one is committed—for moral reasons—to supporting the system of social sanctions as such. Section 6 addresses the often-mentioned worry that the kind of social sanctions the ethos involves would threaten individual freedom, and a short final section then concludes.

The concept of ethos often refers to the characteristic spirit of an individual or a group, or the set of values that inform and guide their behavior. Ethos is sometimes used to denote the core values and central guiding principles of a profession such as teaching or medicine, or the character and attitudes of small groups or whole societies.⁹ We might, for instance, say that the Scandinavian countries have an egalitarian ethos, or that the ethos of capitalism is individualistic. This is a descriptive statement. But just as we often refer to the moral character of an individual to explain his or her actions—such as the “bad apple” disregarding moral standards or “the saint” going over and above what such standards demand—the ethos of a group is often invoked when explaining the actions of its individual members. We could say, for instance, that Sweden's more egalitarian ethos leads to a toleration of higher taxation than in countries with a different ethos.¹⁰ The concept of ethos is thus not merely a description of the principles and values that people espouse, but can possibly also help us to understand why they act as they do, as part of an explanatory statement.¹¹

Now, any society is obviously characterized by a number of ideals, principles and values, but for ease of discussion I will make three simplifying assumptions. First, I will mostly talk of monist ethe¹² based on a particular moral principle, rather than pluralist ones based on several. Second, while this section addresses the concept of ethos as such, the rest of the article is explicitly concerned with analyzing how an ethos of justice could work. Third, there is surprisingly little consensus on the relations between concepts like principles and duties, and I will not be able to interrogate this question here. This article will often use the concepts synonymously, and I can simply note that I will treat principle as a wider concept, which can be interpreted either as an account of right-making characteristics, or as a decision-procedure. A particular duty of justice that applies to individuals is hence a requirement that individuals act in ways that a particular principle of justice dictates. The role of the ethos, this article argues, is to encourage individuals to do so.

These definitions are rather technical, and somewhat removed from colloquial use of the term. For instance, I have noted that the term ethos is often used to refer to a set of closely related norms, or the collection of principles and values characteristic of a group. On my account, particular principles and values do not constitute the ethos, although an ethos is always based on particular principles and values. This fits the current aim of explaining two different ways in which people are motivated to act in accordance with those principles and values: if a particular principle of justice requires individuals to act in particular ways, a corresponding particular ethos helps to explain compliance with those demands. A central, and somewhat non-standard, assumption in this article is thus that ethos is distinct from particular moral principles.¹⁴

These two ways of spelling out what it means for an ethos to explain or influence individual behavior are, I suggest, the most relevant ones in relation to the existing debate. The concept of ethos could perhaps nevertheless be said to be insufficiently delineated, in two senses. First, it might seem that the preliminary descriptive account above lacks precision because it would categorize as ethe anything that encourages compliance with a principle, including coercive measures like legal sanctions or institutional policies designed to create economic incentives or psychological nudges. The subsequent sections will discuss some features that I believe make the two accounts I discuss different from these related phenomena, but the main points could be summarized here. The internal motivation account is a distinct description of individual behavior, since it describes a state where individuals have internalized and act from a principle, which the next section argues is a relevantly distinct form of inspiration. Although there might be overlapping reasons for why individuals come to believe a particular principle has normative weight, it is only when the principle itself in fact motivates individuals that it should be seen as this kind of moral ethos. It is perhaps less obvious what makes the social sanctions account distinct from similar systems for social control. The key, however, is the emphasis on the mechanisms being decentralized and informal. As I will go on to explain, institutional arrangements like the legal code or a tax regime are highly formalized and rely on centralized monitoring and sanctioning, while the concept of ethos captures the kinds of peer-to-peer interactions that can help encourage people to act in line with norms or moral principles.¹⁵

Second, on the account set out above, not only candidate principles of distributive justice but a much wider set of principles have corresponding ethe. This includes objectionable principles: The institution of slavery in the United States was to some extent made possible, for instance, by a racist ethos based on the widespread (in a sufficiently large part of the free population) internalization of something like a principle declaring that people were not moral and legal equals, and a corresponding system of social (as well as institutional) sanctions against those who disapproved. Although slavery was dismantled in part because many people came to abandon this principle, perhaps partly due to an emerging rival system of social sanctions making it costlier to retain one's conviction, the point is that the proposed definitions would declare both as instances of an ethos. It also follows that the definitions generate a possibly endless set of more or less trivial or irrelevant ethe corresponding to different principles. Just as with the first problem, it seems difficult to avoid these problems by a maneuver at the stage of conceptual analysis. It is more congenial to start with as general a description of ethos as possible, and then narrow down and specify which kinds of ethos and principles that are of interest to the discussion at hand. An additional benefit of this strategy is that, as I will return to below, the assumption that an ethos is distinct from the principles it is based on allows us to recognize that many of the most common objections to the idea of justice requiring an individual ethos are, in fact, misguided.

The definitions offered above roughly correspond to the ideas of internal and external motivation. The former is based on the idea that moral principles somehow give us reasons for action, and that internal motivation can sometimes influence how individuals eventually decide to act. My belief that promises should be kept could lead me, for instance, to honor a promise I made to you, although I stand to gain by breaking it. There is also another category of motivating forces, however, which are in a sense external to morality but nevertheless promote its goals. This is the case if I honor my promise only because of my beliefs that I might otherwise get caught, and that people who are caught breaking promises are socially sanctioned and met with less respect and trust than before. While this section develops the former account, the next develops the latter.¹⁶

To internalize and act from a principle entails that one performs certain actions because they are required by the principle. Shifting the discussion from generalities to specifically focus on justice, we can see that, if principles of justice had enough of this peculiar normative power over us, there would be no need for any kind of external motivation, either in stick or carrot form. Importantly, this means that the claim that a just society would be characterized by an internally motivating ethos is closely related to the assumption that there would be “strict compliance” with principles of justice in that society. This is what Rawls assumes when he brackets problems that arise due to partial compliance in order to better focus on what the nature of a just society would be like. Importantly, this means that Cohen and Rawls in fact share a lot more than is usually recognized in the debate on Cohen's critique of Rawls. After discussing the case of inequality-generating incentives that is at the core of his critique, Cohen argues that “… a just society is normally impossible without [an ethos],” making “… people internalize, and—in the normal case—unreflectively live by, principles that restrain the pursuit of self-interest and whose point is that the less fortunate gain when conduct is directed by them.”¹⁷ With this kind of internally motivating ethos of justice informing individual choices—in effect producing full compliance with principles of justice—such inequalities would not be necessary in order to make the worst off better off. Internal moral motivation would replace, as it were, the external motivation of economic incentives. One of the main insights that the conceptualization of a moral ethos enables is hence that despite their disagreement on what justice requires of individuals, Cohen's ethos is similar to the way in which Rawls supports his idealizing assumption of full compliance. Just as Cohen is concerned with the character of individuals, Rawls presupposes that citizens in a well-ordered society would display a “… sense of justice, that is, the capacity to understand, to apply and to act from (and not merely in accordance with) the principles of justice.”¹⁸ This moral power means that people will “… have a strong and normally effective desire to act as the principles of justice require.” It provides them with “… a regulative desire to comply with the corresponding principles.” and illustrates that “[t]o some degree, then, moral sentiments are necessary to insure that the basic structure is stable with respect to justice.”¹⁹

The similarities between Rawls's notion of a sense of justice and Cohen's ethos suggests that we should view the two as functionally equivalent, in the sense that the role of each is to help us understand what a just society with full compliance would be like.²⁰ What Cohen criticizes, then, is not a complete failure on Rawls's part to see the importance of principles of justice imbuing society and influencing people's daily actions. He meticulously accounts for all the places in Rawls's work where this is recognized.²¹ What he calls out is rather an inconsistency on the part of Rawls and Rawlsians because they simultaneously recognize the importance of individuals acting on principles of justice, while also allowing for externally motivating economic incentives. This suggests that Rawls and Cohen agree that an ideally just society requires people to be motivated to do what justice requires, and that their disagreement rather has to do with what justice requires of individuals: are individuals supposed to act on Rawls's natural duty by supporting and furthering arrangements that satisfy his principles of justice or do they rather have a duty to act on the principles directly?²²

There are two reasons for why the account of a moral ethos cannot be said to exhaust the role that an ethos plays in theories of justice, however. First, to the extent that we care about what Cohen has written about the concept, there are descriptions of how he conceives of the evolution of an ethos that fall much closer to the social sanctions account I described in Section 2. For instance, Cohen suggests that the men in a sexist society who change their ways in light of feminist critique could be described as “moral pioneers” that create “… a path that becomes easier and easier to follow as more and more people follow it, until social pressures are so altered that it becomes harder to stick to sexist ways than to abandon them.”²³ The non-pioneering men in this example are arguably changing their behavior not because it is required, but because they follow the path of least resistance. It paints a picture of the ethos not so much as high-minded moral inspiration but more as “… the attitudes people sustain toward each other in the thick of daily life.”²⁴

Second, if we step back from the Cohen-Rawls debate it indeed seems highly implausible that any conception of justice could be realized simply because people recognized what principles of justice demanded of them and were moved to act on these demands. Such demands almost always go against people's self-interest, so even if they are inherently motivating they might seldom override all other motivations. The solution, I suggest, is to conceptualize an ethos not only as a label for a kind of moral inspiration, but also as a social mechanism generating the kind of external motivation that Cohen describes.

If we are sufficiently committed to principles of justice to want to realize them, but insufficiently saint-like to succeed while relying only on internal motivation, one solution would be to “tie ourselves to the mast” by setting up a system of external motivation as well. Although this idea is most often associated with the creation of formal institutions, the rest of this article discusses how we can conceive of a social ethos as a broader social phenomenon with the effect of motivating people to adhere to particular principles or norms. On this view, what I will call a social ethos is a mechanism for non-ideal circumstances, part of a system of social norms in which discharging one's duty would be the basis for praise, status, or esteem, whereas failing to do so would be criticized and denounced.

This is not an unfamiliar idea. Our behavior in everyday life is already governed by expectations about what other people think of us, such as when we obey the rules of etiquette, conform to expectations about our gender, or take up a particular profession because of the status it enjoys. Frequently, as John Stuart Mill notes, “… the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure from our fellow creatures …”²⁵ are powerful influences on our choices. Appreciating just how much of our social interaction depends on norms is nevertheless difficult. We can straightforwardly think of norms that we would rather do without, because they prevent cooperation, protect existing power asymmetries, or restrict individuals' freedom or welfare. Beneficial norms attracting widespread agreement are much less apparent. Precisely because norms play important roles in our lives, they become invisible when they do this well, and this suggests it would be wrongheaded to strive for a norm-free society, as distinct from a society free of bad norms. The social sanctions account suggests, essentially, that this kind of informal social sanction can be employed as a means in the pursuit of justice.²⁶

I have suggested that the role of the social ethos is to buttress and complement the internal motivation of the moral ethos, and that this increases our chance of enforcing individual obligations when moral motivation is insufficient. Yet, there are both theoretical and empirical reasons to suspect that this strategy might face a dilemma: If we believe that it matters not only that we perform the just action but also that we do it for the right reason, then it seems justice must be brought about by a moral ethos. Indeed, the social ethos seemingly undermines justice, since it makes people act justly not for the sake of justice, but in response to praise, esteem, or ostracism. Furthermore, empirical research suggests that introducing external sanctions and rewards may crowd out rather than bolster existing internal motivation. So, if the moral ethos is insufficient, we need a social ethos, but if justice requires both a just distribution and just citizens, the risk is that we thereby not only replace but also corrupt people's motivations, ultimately leading to a more just distribution but less just citizens.

The assumption that it matters not only how but also why we act resonates with our daily moral reasoning and various moral theories. Consider, for instance Iris Murdoch's parable of a person who has contempt for her daughter-in-law but successfully conceals this. She then sets herself the task of actively reforming her view, replacing her opinion of the daughter-in-law as being “coarse” with viewing her as “spontaneous,” and so forth. Eventually, the mother-in-law no longer needs to actively muster respect for the daughter-in-law, but finds that it rather flows naturally. Although no one notices a difference in her behavior, and she never treats the daughter-in-law badly, there seems to be a morally relevant difference in the mother-in-law's behavior before and after this transformation, which we would fail to appreciate if we only looked at how the mother-in-law acts.³⁷

Despite accidentally achieving a just distribution in light of the difference principle, the Protestant society nevertheless does not count as constitutively just, argues Cohen, because its citizens are not informed by the difference principle when they act. People moved by the Protestant ethos would act so as to bring about distributive justice, but have the wrong disposition of mind when doing so. Cohen thus concludes that “Justice in citizens” is a necessary condition for a just society.⁴²

Should we follow Rawls and Cohen in attributing such importance to people's intentions, and is there a way to avoid the dilemma if we do? I suggest that we are helped by distinguishing between a strong and a weak version of the idea. These versions differ in how they deal with the less clear-cut plurality of motivations that characterize our daily lives. After all, we rarely act solely out of one set of considerations, or merely from one principle. I might decide to act justly both because I believe I am obliged to do so, and because I fear the shaming to which non-conformers are subjected. Consequently, the strong view states that, even if one's actions might contribute to bringing about a just distribution, one would not act justly if any other consideration than what justice requires influences one's decision. Contrast this with a possible weak view which states that, even if one's actions might bring about a just distribution, one would not act justly if no consideration of what justice requires influences one's decision. Both views hold that being influenced by what justice requires is a necessary condition for acting justly, but the weak view also assumes that it is sufficient. It tolerates any mix of justice-related and non-justice-related motivations.

Insisting on the strong view seems to lead to suboptimal distributive outcomes in many cases. If we assume there is full compliance, enforcement mechanisms seem superfluous and people could be expected to act justly by, for instance, working hard even in the face of a high income tax.⁴³ As soon as we relax these idealizing assumptions, however, we will have to consider how people can be enticed to do their share. Yet, the strong version of the view that intentions matter excludes relying upon formal or informal sanctions as a supplementary mechanism, even if they could significantly boost contributions. If we insist that people ought to contribute for reasons of justice, the realization of the ideals of distributive justice might thus be frustrated. This seems odd.

On the other hand, the strong view can be understood as merely stating that there is a value in realizing moral demands for the right reasons that should at least count when we evaluate different states of affairs. We could hold that, ceteris paribus a society with a just distribution brought about by a moral ethos or sense of justice is preferable to a society with an equally just distribution that has come about through non-justice-related motivations, even if this consideration weighs very lightly when we make all-things-considered policy decisions. On this view, the strong version is reserved for ideal theory, in the sense of theorizing that aims to describe an ideal state of affairs or end-state, rather than second-best feasible alternatives or methods for transition.⁴⁴ The weak version, which states that justice can be achieved even when people only partly act for reasons of justice, on the other hand, is compatible with externally motivating mechanisms, in effect suggesting how to deal with non-ideal circumstances with less than full compliance.⁴⁵

Can we avoid the dilemma by reserving the strong view for ideal theory and adopting the weak view in practice? Some results from the relevant empirical literature suggest that this would be too quick. Experiments show that internal and external motivations do not always work additively or synergistically but sometimes counteract each other. Researchers agree, for instance, that incentives must be designed carefully so as not to create moral disengagement. When external incentives are introduced, what individuals used to do out of a sense of duty might suddenly be subject to a market calculation of costs and benefits, leading them to conclude that it is not worth the price they are being offered.⁴⁶ Designing externally motivating sanctions must hence be done with caution, since even on the weak view, relying too much on external motivation might crowd out whatever moral motivation is left, and the dilemma would reappear.⁴⁷

The most fruitful way of dissolving the dilemma is, I argue, to shift the unit of analysis, as it were, from each particular act to the hypothetical original act of setting up or sustaining the social ethos. The weak view, at least, is compatible with the idea that one does not have to perform every act that justice requires for the right reasons, as long as one supports—for the right reasons—the mechanism that ensures that one generally conforms to what justice requires. Appealing to a hypothetical agreement is to emulate the strategy of social contract theories of political morality. On this view, the question is not whether one has just intentions every time one acts, but whether one's support for the necessary enforcement mechanism is explained by just intentions. The social ethos does not undermine the moral ethos if it is set up for moral reasons to begin with.

An analogy helps illustrate this point. Consider a similar case of weakness of will, where a person is trying to overcome procrastination. Given that this person fails to do the tasks she thinks she ought to do, she might manipulate herself and her environment to make it more likely that she will succeed. If putting out her running shoes before going to bed helps her not to skip her pre-breakfast run, it is arguably not her nudging mechanism but her original intention that matters.⁴⁸ If she knows that promising a friend to go running together makes her less likely to skip it, her success is due not only to the friend but also to her own decision to make the commitment. Analogously, we avoid the dilemma even if we comply with a particular requirement of justice because of the sanctions otherwise imposed, as long as we are also committed to supporting the system of social sanctions as such. I might know, for instance, that I will be tempted to shirk my duty and free-ride on others' efforts, and for this reason help sustain a social ethos where shirking is discouraged.⁴⁹ The way to dissolve the dilemma raised when we combine the moral and social ethe is hence to endorse the weak view, and hold that we should be internally motivated when we tie ourselves to the mast by endorsing the system of social sanctions that ensure our own compliance with what justice requires.⁵⁰

Cohen's writings on the role of ethos in theories of distributive justice have faced considerable criticism, raising different concerns about what it would entail. Some have claimed that although it seems like these kinds of motivating factors could work in small-scale social interactions where people share an overarching goal, we cannot assess whether they could function in society-wide cooperation where this is not the case.⁵¹ Others have worried that a side effect of an ethos encouraging people to make an effort is that inegalitarian status hierarchies based on the size of people's contributions may emerge.⁵² Much of the debate can, however, be said to center around the concern that an ethos of justice could potentially curtail individual freedom. It is sometimes claimed, for instance, that a strong egalitarian ethos of the kind Cohen defends would be objectionably demanding because it leaves too little freedom from the demands of justice.⁵³ Although the aim of this article has been to present a novel account of what the role of an ethos is in theories of distributive justice, I wish to end by addressing the concern revolving individual freedom and what implications the account offered generate for this debate.

On closer inspection, worries about the ethos threatening individual freedom can be spelled out in three different ways: First, some objections to a demanding ethos are better understood as objections to the very idea that principles of justice can make substantial demands on individuals. Some might agree with Rawls, for instance, that although individuals are required to uphold and further just institutions, principles of justice do not extend to people's decisions about how to live their daily lives. But in that case, the objection is not to the idea of an ethos as such, but against certain answers to the more fundamental question of what the proper site of justice is, in favor of the view that justice primarily applies to institutions and only secondarily and indirectly to individuals.⁵⁴ Second, some objections to a demanding or objectionable ethos can be translated into a concern about the particular principles upon which the ethos is based. Recall the example of a racist ethos in Section 2, above. Strictly speaking, it was not the slavery-tolerating ethos as such that was problematic, but rather the racist principle to which it promoted adherence. The broad claim that Cohen's ethos demands too much should thus be rephrased as an objection to the particular principle upon which Cohen's ethos is based, and it does not strictly speaking count against the notion of a social ethos. This insight can in turn help us to assess the merits of the concern about freedom, properly understood. Both Cohen and Joseph Carens have defended their accounts, for instance, by noting that one is in fact not unfree if one is constrained by moral prohibitions that are in some sense correct or genuine.⁵⁵ Other defenders of the idea of an ethos have stressed the importance of keeping in mind that we are considering a society where there is widespread moral commitment to the principle on which the ethos is based. Compared with current societies, people in a society with a strong egalitarian ethos would be more likely to understand why they are being sanctioned for shirking their duty, and this arguably also lessens the threat to individual freedom.⁵⁶ With these brief replies, I will set these two interpretations to the side in favor of the third one.

There is also, I concede, a category of justified concerns that a social ethos risks becoming too powerful, or that its sanctions will become sufficiently similar to state coercion to warrant a demand for legitimacy. Some will tend to worry that the system of social sanctions I have defended is inherently dangerous even if the initial act of tying ourselves to the mast creates a legitimate starting point.⁵⁷ This is because it puts us on a slippery slope toward a deeply unattractive society where the fear of social sanctions restricts people's liberty. Indeed, judging from the problems that have been actualized by the rise of online public shaming it seems plausible that sanctions administered through a social ethos could significantly impact an individual's freedom, regardless of the particular principles it upholds.

Although a full response to this final version of the freedom objection is beyond the scope of this paper, it is worth saying something about what it means to endorse or set up a social ethos and how it would work in practice. First, I believe the social ethos, as well as similar systems of social control, involve a monitoring and a sanctioning function. That is, such systems both monitor who does and who does not conform to a particular norm or principle, and then issue or coordinate positive and negative sanctions.⁵⁸ In the social ethos I have described above, these functions become part of the everyday lives of individuals. One central difference between the social ethos and other systems of control is hence that a social ethos is informal and decentralized in its monitoring and sanctioning functions.⁵⁹ In contrast with formal and codified laws and the highly centralized surveillance and sanctioning of crimes performed by the police, the system of courts, and penal facilities, an ethos would be based on informal peer-to-peer interactions without centralized score-keeping or coordination. This would help sustain the plausible principle that the severity of sanctions should be proportional to the degree of certainty about what constitutes the right behavior in a particular situation. Since the demands of justice seem next to impossible to state precisely and cannot be satisfyingly codified, it is thus crucial that sanctions remain correspondingly informal.⁶⁰ While the violation of clearly stated laws can entail clear and substantive retribution, the adherence to or violation of the demands of justice should not be met with harsh sanctions, but more appropriately by the kind of esteem or praise, approval or disapproval with which conformity or non-conformity with moral standards are usually met. Assuming that it is almost always impossible to judge with great certainty how well an individual lives up to individual demands of justice, people administering social sanctions must be careful not to jump to conclusions or award blame or praise where none is due. The promise of the social ethos, on this view, is that compared with a system of formal and centralized sanctions administered by the state, it is a potentially less freedom-curtailing alternative which can achieve the goal of inducing individuals to adhere to moral demands even when their moral motivation is insufficient.

On the other hand, it is possible to seize this point and rephrase the freedom objection as saying that it is precisely the decentralized and informal nature of the social ethos makes it systematically prone to error, since it makes individuals—with all of their known flaws and biases—the judge, jury, and executioner in the enforcement of justice. Online social sanctioning mechanisms, for instance, have a tendency to lack transparency regarding which standard a norm transgressor is being held to, as well as the coordination mechanisms needed to ensure that sanctions are proportional to the severity of the transgression. In response, the social ethos I have set out would not be based on a centralized archive with records of people's behavior, or proxies of their moral character. Since it is often difficult to tell exactly what it means for individuals to comply with principles of justice and to decide whether they do so, there needs to be some leeway in the enforcement of the requirements, and individuals awarding sanctions consequently need to display certain virtuous qualities, such as charitably interpreting what others are doing, and explaining the basis for their judgments about them. The goal is not to frame others as moral degenerates, but to increase commitment to and compliance with certain moral principles, and this requires people to understand what they are doing right and wrong. Upholding the social ethos would hence not entail that one should participate in online mobs sanctioning distant others. Arguably, it is not necessary for sanctions to be widely publicized in order to be efficient. They could also be more similar to the sanctions administered among people who know each other, like when one encourages a relative to quit wasting their talents and instead aim higher, or when one calls out the improper behavior of colleagues.⁶¹

This article has brought the concept of ethos under much-needed critical scrutiny, and argued that it could be spelled out either as individuals being committed to and acting from principles of justice, or as individuals sustaining and being influenced by a system of social sanctions. This in turn revealed an often-overlooked tension inherent in the idea, rooted in the possible conflict between people doing the just thing for the just reasons—the importance of intentions—and the supplementary role played by social sanctions. Since it is highly implausible that any conception of justice could be realized only through moral motivation or decentralized and informal sanctions, the proposed solution to this problem allows a reasonable compromise, by allowing us to tie ourselves to the mast, if that helps us maintain our charted course.

What would a society characterized by the moral and social ethe set out in this article be like? It depends on the particular way we spell out a theory of justice, and what we assume that it asks of individuals. The examples provided in the last section are meant to suggest, however, that it would not in fact be radically different from how societies already function. What we decide to do in our everyday lives is already governed by some mixture of moral commitments and social sanctions. This article has defended the claim that a similar kind of motivational mix is an indispensable and attractive way of encouraging people to act on the demands that justice makes on individuals.