The Ultima Ratio: Early studies for a theory of justice as randomness
Creators: name: Naccache, Andréa
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Justice
subject: Randomness
subject: Philosophy
subject: FOS: Philosophy, ethics and religion
subject: Law
subject: FOS: Law
subject: Luck
subject: Statistics
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: Algorithmic Information Theory

description: This study defends the introduction of the concept of randomness to the theoretical discussion of justice. Justice has some strong senses: impartiality, equality, equity. It is thought of as a virtue, seen from an epistemic perspective, and may be associated with truth as a universal order. Those senses are sometimes difficult to reconcile. To show that randomness is a concept that deserves insertion in this field, we first propose an approximation between randomness and impartiality. In practice, randomness is already considered a mathematical expression of the latter (and therefore justice) in statistical approaches to social issues. In times of statistical governance, jurimetrics, and artificial intelligence, it is a criterion against which we identify significant social disparities. It contains some sense of equality: the impartiality promoted under this parameter is equal treatment, an expression of procedural justice, at least. What we measure against it is material justice, the substantive result of any procedure. Once this is verified, other expressions of randomness are also of interest. We then propose a “genealogy of randomness” as a method for relating forms of this concept since the 17th century and perspectives of justice. Probabilistic randomness, as an equiprobable distribution a priori, here shows its correspondence with formal justice. Statistical randomness, as an equiprobable distribution measured a posteriori, with material justice (always approximative). Finally, algorithmic randomness, as the randomness in the use and creation of language codes, deepens and gives rigor to the epistemic sense of justice, without disregarding other perspectives of the latter. Algorithmic randomness is, therefore, the best concept of randomness to be related to justice. It appears here in the works of its formulators, and most notably Gregory Chaitin. He associates it with creativity in digital systems. Subsequently, an “analytics of justice” is the method by which we better examine how algorithmic randomness may be referential to justice no longer just as impartiality, but also as equality, equity, virtue, epistemic justice, or universal order. In the light of algorithmic randomness, each of these senses enriches itself and even gains precision. We conclude by the importance of the distinction between statistical and algorithmic randomness. The first rends limited service to justice due to its subjectivity and the consequent multiplicity of criteria underlying statistical analysis. The second is universal and invariant. It allows taking the discussion of justice from the empirical to the epistemological level. After all, randomness in the use and creation of language codes is a constituent of any descriptive or prescriptive structures (in the algorithmic field, the distinction disappears) and leads us to a certainty: those structures can change. Our world can always be described and developed in different and better ways. Therefore, under the reference of algorithmic randomness, justice becomes an injunction to creativity, aimed at understanding and maximizing logical possibilities, occasionally measured in bits. It becomes capable of strengthening a sense of freedom as non-domination: we can live among structures such that each person is only bound to them by decision, considering that we can always create alternatives to the standards of life and society that submit any of us.