AnalPhilosopher

Let's think philosophically about the upcoming Iraqi elections. I assume that there are certain outcomes of the electoral process that would be unacceptable to the United States. We don't want a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy, for example. One Iran is enough. But does this mean that the election was a sham? No. There are three possibilities, not just two.

The first is to hold an election and let the chips fall where they may. This is what John Rawls called "pure" procedural justice. (See A Theory of Justice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971], 86.) In this type of procedural justice, there is no independent standard by which to evaluate the outcome. Whatever outcome emerges from the process (assuming the process conforms to the announced rules) is just.

The second possibility is to hold an election but insist that only a certain result emerge. Any other result would nullify the process. This would make the electoral process a sham, for the result, we might say, was foreordained. What's the point of having a process if we already know the result and are going to implement it no matter what?

The third possibility is to hold an election but limit the range of acceptable results. This differs from the first possibility in that it imposes an independent test on the outcome. It differs from the second possibility in that it's not a sham election. Provided the outcome is within the designated range, it will be accepted as just. In Rawlsian terms, the second and third possibilities constitute "impure" procedural justice. (He doesn't use this term, but it contrasts nicely with his word "pure.") Since there is no procedure that can guarantee the result we want, both are also forms of "imperfect" procedural justice. (An example of perfect [but impure] procedural justice would be giving the final piece of a cake to the person who cut the cake. It's assumed that the just outcome is equal slices and that this procedure will guarantee it.)

Think of three possible poker games we might play. The first allows any distribution of money at the end of the evening. One person may, for all we know at the outset, go home with everyone else's money. This will make the game both exciting and dangerous. It will be a risk-taker's delight. The second requires that everyone go home with the money he or she brought to the table, however it got distributed by the poker games. This would make the games superfluous, although we may very well have enjoyed playing. This sort of game will be preferred by the extremely risk-averse. The third says that nobody goes home broke, or with less than a certain amount of money. It creates a safety net, so to speak. This sort of game will be preferred by the moderately risk-averse. Notice how the third rule combines aspects of the other two.

Given the expenditure of resources (including precious human lives) that the United States had made in Iraq, it is entitled to implement the third possibility. We must not cheat ourselves (and Iraqis) of a democratic regime in Iraq out of false fealty to some procedural ideal. Constraining the results doesn't make the election a sham. It's an acknowledgment that there are other values (substantive ones, such as democracy) besides process. Certain outcomes, we stipulate in advance, are unacceptable. But this allows for a range—perhaps a wide range—of acceptable outcomes.