美国道德准则的核心标志是正义女神(Lady Justice)—戴着眼罩、用公正的天平来衡量法律公正的正义女神。我们所有人都拥护这样的公正模式，因为它是向前发展的最佳方式，是美国社会的灵魂。但我们的许多社会问题与公正无太多关系，是不可以用公正的滋补来治疗的。
在本届总统选举中，奥巴马和罗姆尼都在倾注于坚称各自的公正信用。辩论中两党代表人可谓是各执一词：在论及公正性时保守党代表罗姆尼坚称 “论功行赏(merit-based rewards)”的原则，而自由党代表奥巴马则坚称“平等（equality）”的原则。
在现代政治中，公正已经完全失去了其思想意义。以反歧视的名义让有色人种享受特权更公正呢？还是以无肤色歧视的方式来对待所有人更公正？尽管公正思想解决不了这样的问题，但如果两党代表都愿意抛开“公正这一歧语”而让“追求社会健康”取而代之的话，那么他们可能会取得实质性的进步。
相比数学或物理学，政治更像医学。跟健康一样，正义的发展进步靠的是实践，而不是理论。而且我们的国家需要的是一定的医疗关爱。
如果大的社会体制是健康有益的，那么适度给予部分人特殊照顾也是可以的。这跟只为大多数人制定政策而政策是绝然不一样的(译注：意即政策需要实施，而不是只作口号)。例如，一个医生治病救人的宗旨是病人的整体健康，而不是对身体各个部位都采用同样的治疗方法。其目的是逐一解决一个个的医疗问题，如这里需要免疫治疗，那里需要放射治疗，以及荷尔蒙调节、骨折治疗、透析以及输血等等，不同的器官必须采用不同的疗法，而且治疗的重心也不尽相同。这样对症下药的治理方法同样适用于一个国家的整体健康。
10月16日的总统大选辩论中，奥巴马的辩论结语中却流露出这样一种让人诧异的矛盾思想，呼吁全体美国人一致对待公正：“所有人都应当按同样的准则行事”，他说。这是许多政治人物极力想要在全美推崇的一种抽象准则。但如果我的医疗类比站得住脚，就相当于这样的准则行之无效，因为一个社会整体的不同成分需要的是不同的关注。
不过，奥巴马在其最后的评论中却稍稍扭转了话题，将辩论主题转向了其祖辈的士兵法案(GI Bill)，这更趋近于我的医学比喻。他声称，“那不是救助，而是谋求整个国家的进步”。到此为止，我想他才真正的步入了二辩的正轨，即对某些团体需要给予不一样的甚至是优惠的待遇（如退伍军人，某些少数民族，残疾人，穷人等），这样才能促进整个社会体制的健康。这里我们无需对公正与平等加以特殊修饰，因为在我们倾心于整个社会的复杂性、不一致性时就能更好地实现正义。这主要体现在：不良优待（如，1%的税收漏洞）与良性优待(如，士兵法案等)并存，但“优待”本身不是原罪，而且“公正”未必都是解决问题的办法。
The very symbol of American ethics—Lady Justice—wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale. We’ve all embraced the model of unbiased fairness to describe the best way forward –it has penetrated the social psyche of America. But so many of our social ills have nothing to do with fairness and cannot be fixed by applying the fairness tonic.
In this election season, Obama and Romney have been falling over themselves to assert their “fairness cred.” And each side of the partisan debate uses the word differently –conservatives, like Romney, mean “merit-based rewards” when they speak of fairness (the spoils should go to the winners), but liberals, like Obama, use fairness lingo to mean “equality” of outcomes (like equal benefits, goods, and wealth).
The whole idea of fairness is unhelpful in contemporary politics. Is it more “fair” to privilege people of color in affirmative action scenarios, or is it more fair to treat everyone in a color-blind unbiased fashion? The concept of fairness won’t help resolve this, but politicians on either side of the aisle could make real progress if they jettisoned the fairness lingo and replaced it with the pursuit of social health.
Politics is more like medicine, not like math or physics. Justice, like health, is advanced through practical reason, not theoretical reason. And our body-politic needs some medical attention.
It is possible to reasonably treat people preferentially, if the larger social organism is benefitted. This is not the same as simply enacting policies for the majority. A doctor’s goal is whole body health, but he doesn’t treat the whole body equally –he ministers to medical problems individually –doing immunotherapy here, radiation therapy there, hormonal adjustments, setting broken bones, dialysis, transfusions, and so on. It is essential to treat different organs with uneven and unfair attention and care. That careful discrimination is what brings health to the overall organism and, by analogy, the nation.
Obama’s closing speech in the October 16th Presidential debate expresses the strange doublethink that we all do regarding fairness: “Everybody should play by the same rules,” he said. This is an abstract principle that many politicians want to lay across all Americans. But if my medical analogy holds, that won’t work because different parts of the body need different kinds of attention. A good doctor does not diagnose simply by applying universal rules to particular cases, nor does she treat all bodies alike. Clinical knowledge is acquired by taking a fine-grained case history.
However, then Obama subtly shifted his closing remarks toward this more medical metaphor --to the story about his Grandfather’s G.I. Bill, claiming “That wasn’t a handout. That advanced the whole country.” Now, I think he’s quite right in the second comment. And he’s right in the sense that differential and even preferential treatment to some communities (e.g., former soldiers, certain minorities, people with disabilities, poor, etc) will improve the health of the whole social organism. We don’t need to add rhetorical verbiage about fairness and equality here, because justice can be achieved better when we attend to the uneven complexities of our social world. The point is this: there is bad preferential treatment (e.g., tax loopholes for the 1%) and there is good preferential treatment (e.g., G.I. Bills, etc), but “preferential” itself is not a sin, and “fairness” is not always a solution.
