Distributive Justice

We report the results of a vignette study with an online sample of the German adult population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distribution decisions. We asked participants to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The study systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We find that (...) participants distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is partially compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is given a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of participants being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need. (shrink)

I investigate which inequalities are permissible on the supposition that an ideal society would be modelled on an ideal family. One idea salient in the African and East Asian philosophical traditions is that the right sort of socio-political interaction would be similar to the intuitive ways that family members ought to relate to each other. I answer the question of what principles implicit in familial relationships entail for economic and ecological inequalities, and contend that the implications are plausible.

"Providing a thorough examination of distributive justice, Distributive Justice and Taxation presents and discusses different theories of what constitutes a just society, and how goods should be distributed in such a society. The distribution of goods in society has direct and serious consequences on the lives of the people. There are therefore important questions to be asked regarding the justice of that distribution: Is it just that some people inherit large fortunes while others inherit nothing? Do rich people have additional (...) access to political power because of their wealth? If so, is that just? And should the ambition for economic policies be to combat poverty, or to reduce inequality? This book explores these questions and a number of others through the analysis of related theories, spanning from strong egalitarian theories on the left to right-wing libertarianism. The chapters also explicitly examine the case of taxation - one of the most important and controversial measures of distribution of goods in society. Placing emphasis on the case of Norway and using data from both the UK and USA as a point of comparison, the work details and explores the key features of the tax system. It concludes by presenting and evaluating arguments for and against taxes such as income tax, wealth tax, and inheritance tax. This book is essential reading for those interested in distributive justice, as well as students and scholars of philosophy, law, political science and economics. J2rgen Pedersen is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Department of Business Administration, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway"--. (shrink)

This volume of seminal and recent articles by philosophers in the distributive justice debate covers a range of representative positions, including libertarian, egalitarian, desert and welfare theories. The introduction and articles are designed to allow students and professionals to see some of the most influential pieces that have shaped the field, as well as some key critics of these positions. The articles intersect in such a way as to develop an appreciation of the types of theories and the central issues (...) addressed by theories of distributive justice. (shrink)

Social inequality may obstruct the generation of knowledge, as the rich and powerful may ‎bring about social acceptance of skewed views that suit their interests. Epistemic equality in ‎the context of ‎justification is a means of preventing such obstruction. Drawing on social ‎epistemology and theories of equality and distributive justice, we provide an account of ‎epistemic equality. We regard participation in, and influence over a ‎knowledge-generating ‎discourse in an epistemic community as a limited good that needs to be justly distributed (...) ‎among putative members of the community. We argue that rather than trying to operationally ‎formulate an exact criterion for distributing this ‎good, epistemic equality may be realized by ‎insisting on active participation of members of three groups in addition to credited experts: ‎relevant ‎disempowered groups, relevant uncredited experts, and relevant stakeholders. ‎Meeting these ‎conditions fulfills the political, moral, and epistemic aims of epistemic ‎equality.‎. (shrink)

When is life-sustaining treatment not in the best interests of a minimally conscious child? This is an extremely difficult question that incites seemingly intractable debate. And yet, it is the question courts in England and Wales have set out to answer in disputes about appropriate medical treatment for children.

Historical entitlement theories of property rights, which claim that individuals can acquire moral property rights over natural resources by appropriating them, traditionally face a strong objection: it is widely implausible that a single individual can unilaterally impose duties on everyone around him and yet, apparently, this is exactly what such theories allow. In this essay, I argue that the same problem appears in all other theories of distributive justice and if this problem was a reason to reject historical entitlement theories, (...) it would also be a reason to reject all rival theories. Which means that as long, as one is committed to any theory of distributive justice at all, she, at the risk of inconsistency, cannot rely on the aforementioned objection to criticize historical entitlement theories. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the relationship between the supersession thesis and the rights of future people. In particular, I show that changes in circumstances might supersede future people’s rights. I argue that appropriating resources that belong to future people does not necessarily result in a duty to return the resources in full. I explore how these findings are relevant for climate change justice. Assuming future generations of developing countries originally had a right to use a certain amount of the (...) carbon budget, changing circumstances could result in rights-supersession. Consequently, members of future generations of industrialized countries may be allowed to use part of the share of the carbon budget belonging to developing countries. (shrink)

Policing in many parts of the world—the United States in particular—has embraced an archetypal model: a conception of the police based on the tenets of individuated archetypes, such as the heroic police “warrior” or “guardian.” Such policing has in part motivated moves to (1) a reallocative model: reallocating societal resources such that the police are no longer needed in society (defunding and abolishing) because reform strategies cannot fix the way societal problems become manifest in (archetypal) policing; and (2) an algorithmic (...) model: subsuming policing into technocratic judgements encoded in algorithms through strategies such as predictive policing (mitigating archetypal bias). This paper begins by considering the normative basis of the relationship between political community and policing. It then examines the justification of reallocative and algorithmic models in light of the relationship between political community and police. Given commitments to the depth and distribution of security—and proscriptions against dehumanizing strategies—the paper concludes that a nonideal-theory priority rule promoting respect for personhood (manifest in community and dignity-promoting policing strategies) is a necessary condition for the justification of the above models. (shrink)

I explore the idea that the state should love its citizens. It should not be indifferent towards them. Nor should it merely respect them. It should love them. We begin by looking at the bases of this idea. First, it can be grounded by a concern with state subordination. The state has enormous power over its citizens. This threatens them with subordination. Love ameliorates this threat. Second, it can be grounded by the state's lack of moral status. We all have (...) reason to love everyone. But we beings with moral status have an excuse for not loving everyone: we have our own lives to lead. The state has no such excuse. So, the state should love everyone. We then explore the nature of the loving state. I argue that the loving state is a liberal state. It won't interfere in its citizens' personal spheres. It is a democratic state. It will adopt its citizens' ends as its own. It is a welfare state. It will be devoted to its citizens' well-being. And it is an egalitarian state. It will treat all its citizens equally. This constitutes a powerful third argument, an abductive argument, for the ideal of the loving state. (shrink)

In Confucius, Rawls and the Sense of Justice, in addition to making an interesting comparison between Rawls’ and Confucius’ sense of justice, Erin M. Cline also tried to seek elements of distributive justice, or at least concern for distributive matters, in the Analects. I shall, in this essay, try to pursue the subject even further, by examining Confucianism’s attitude towards the contemporary distributive ideals in the analytical philosophy literature—egalitarianism, prioritarianism and sufficientarianism. This will be done by first closely examining Cline’s (...) interpretation of certain passages of the Analects, showing that there might be other possible interpretations of these passages. From these parts of the Analects, I will attempt to demonstrate that Confucius has not given us sufficient normative discussion of the economic matters of society for our purpose. I will therefore turn to Mencius and Xunzi for better understanding of distributive justice in Confucianism, and then argue against Joseph Chan’s thesis that Confucian distributive justice can be characterized as simply sufficientarianism, providing evidence that Confucianism may also care about equality and priority in general. (shrink)

In recent years, much public attention has been devoted to the existence of pay discrepancies between men and women at the upper end of the income scale. For example, there has been considerable discussion of the ‘Hollywood gender pay gap’. We can refer to such discrepancies as cases of millionaire inequality. These cases generate conflicting intuitions. On the one hand, the unequal remuneration involved looks like a troubling case of gender injustice. On the other, it’s natural to feel uneasy when (...) confronted with the suggestion that multi-millionaires are somehow being paid inadequately. In this paper, we consider two arguments for rectifying millionaire inequality, clarifying their appeal but also identifying the obstacles that each will have to surmount in order to succeed. (shrink)

This article begins by distinguishing between two approaches to egalitarian trade justice – the explicative approach and the applicative approach – and notes that the former has been used to defend conclusions that are less strongly egalitarian than those defended by advocates of the latter. The article then engages with the primary explicative account of trade egalitarianism – that offered by Aaron James – and argues that its egalitarian conclusions are unduly minimalistic. The aim of the article is not to (...) criticize the explicative approach, but rather to show that the arguments and commitments of its best-known defender – James – either fail to rule out, or in fact positively support, more robustly egalitarian conclusions. (shrink)

In any complex human society, distinct persons may have strikingly different standards of living. Those who lead the most undesirable, poorest lives in society can be called the worst off. Given that we almost always do not want to be, but some have to be, the worst off, we may want to find a right way to treat the worst off. In the West, John Rawls has proposed a conception of justice as fairness, and in the East, Confucius and Mencius (...) have developed conceptions of ren and yi partly in order to deal with social injustice in the distribution of benefits and the problem of the worst off. Their conceptions and proposed solutions provide valuable ideas, which through comparison may be better assessed and then employed, or even combined, to address the problem. In this essay, I try to examine and compare their conceptions of distributive justice and the worst off, and then expound their suggested solutions to the problem and propose a provisional answer on the basis of those ideas. (shrink)

Growing economic inequality, workforce precarity, the perceived meaninglessness of many jobs, and the prospect of widespread technological unemployment have led to an unprecedented level of critical scrutiny of the institution of work. Some scholars go so far as to propose that we should take seriously, or even embrace, a “post-work” future. This volume aims to provide the first critical overview of the scholarly arguments about the design and desirability of such a “post-work” world. Topics addressed in its chapters include the (...) historical origins of the work ethic; work’s relation to freedom, leisure, and self-realization; alternative visions of a post-work world; the intersection of post-work thinking with economic justice; and post-work’s relevance to environmental sustainability, care work, and democratic change. (shrink)

Legitimate expectations should be considered in the transition to a low-carbon society. After explaining under what conditions and circumstances expectations are legitimate, this paper shows that those expectations whose frustration undermines the ability to plan, infringes basic moral rights, or is extremely costly for its bearer might justify a deviation in the baseline of justice in favour of the expectation holder. People should be notified about the likely frustration of their expectations so that they can avoid the frustration of their (...) expectations, adapt their life plans and minimise costs. Since the frustration of legitimate expectations seems unavoidable in the transformation to a low-carbon society, priority should be given to the protection of the expectations of those who cannot be materially compensated. Still, if two groups are eligible for material compensation, we should give priority to protecting the expectation of those who cannot continue with the same life plan as before if their expectations are frustrated. (shrink)

America’s COVID-19 pandemic has both devastated and disparately harmed minority communities. How can the allocation of scarce treatments for COVID-19 and similar public health threats fairly and legally respond to these racial disparities? Some have proposed that members of racial groups who have been especially hard-hit by the pandemic should receive priority for scarce treatments. Others have worried that this prioritization misidentifies racial disparities as reflecting biological differences rather than structural racism, or that it will generate mistrust among groups who (...) have previously been harmed by medical research. Still others complain that such prioritization would be fundamentally unjust. I argue that, to pass muster under current law, policymaking in this area must recognize a crucial distinction: prioritizing minority communities, such as hard-hit neighborhoods, without regard to individual race is typically legal, but prioritizing individuals on the basis of their racial identity faces is likely not. I also explain how prioritization on the basis of Native American status is allowable and legally distinct from prioritization on the basis of individual race. -/- In Part II, I provide a brief overview of current and proposed COVID-19 treatments and identify documented or likely scarcities and disparities in access. In Part III, I argue that randomly allocating scarce medical interventions, as some propose, will not effectively address disparities: it both permits unnecessary deaths and concentrates those deaths among people who are more exposed to infection. In Part IV, I explain why using individual-level racial classifications in allocation is precluded by current Supreme Court precedent. Addressing disparities will require focusing on factors other than race, or potentially considering race at an aggregate rather than individual level. I also argue that policies prioritizing members of Native American tribes can succeed legally even where policies based on race would not. In Part V, I examine two complementary strategies to narrow racial disparities. One would prioritize individuals who live in disadvantaged geographic areas or work in hard-hit occupations, potentially alongside race-sensitive aggregate metrics like neighborhood segregation. These approaches, like the policies school districts adopted after the Supreme Court rejected individualized racial classifications in education, would narrow disparities without classifying individuals by race. The other strategy would address the starkly disparate racial impact of deaths early in life by limiting the use of age-based exclusions from vaccine or treatment access that explicitly deprioritize the prevention of early deaths and so disparately exclude minorities, and by considering policies that prioritize the prevention of early deaths. (shrink)

In this landmark volume, Samuel Hollander presents a fresh and compelling history of moral philosophy from Locke to John Stuart Mill, showing that a ‘moral sense’ can actually be considered compatible with utilitarianism. The book also explores the link between utilitarianism and distributive justice. Hollander engages in close textual exegesis of the works relating to individual authors, while never losing sight of the intellectual relationships between them. Tying together the greatest of the British moral philosophers, this volume reveals an unexpected (...) unity of eighteenth and nineteenth century ethical doctrine at both the individual and social level. Essential reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, political economy, history of ethics, history of political thought and intellectual history. -/- Samuel Hollander is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada, and an Officer in the Order of Canada. (shrink)

Efficiency requires legislative political institutions. There are many ways efficiency can be promoted, and so an ongoing legislative institution is necessary to resolve this choice in a politically sustainable and economically flexible way. This poses serious problems for classical liberal proposals to constitutionally protect markets from government intervention, as seen in the work of Ilya Somin, Guido Pincione & Fernando Tesón and others. The argument for the political nature of efficiency is set out in terms of both Pareto optimality and (...) aggregate welfare maximisation, and similar arguments can be generalised to other social values. (shrink)

The idea that society is a cooperative venture has been used by contractualists, contractarians, and deliberative democrats to justify the burdens of society to each member. In such a coop- erative venture, those who benefit from society owe a contribution and those that contribute are owed benefits. Even though this idea is quite intuitive, there are deep disagreements about what makes society cooperative. Some focus on acts of production, others on fair interaction, and still others on the intention to contribute (...) to shared projects. In this article, I show where this kind of disagreement causes problem in current debates, and I defend one conception of social cooperation as uniquely best. Specifically, I argue that the relevant acts that make soci- ety a cooperative venture are acts of institutional rule-following. Society is a cooperative ven- ture because people cooperate with one another by following the rules of our basic institu- tions. (shrink)

To investigate the impact of framing on rule-breaking behavior in social dilemmas, we incorporated a rule in a one-shot resource game with two framing-treatments: One frame was a give-some dilemma (i.e., a variant of a public goods game) and the other frame a take-some dilemma (i.e., a variant of a commons dilemma game). In each frame, all participants were part of one single collective sharing a common good. Each participant was initially equipped with one of five different endowments of points (...) from which they must give/could take amounts to/from the common good. The exact amounts of contributions/withdrawals were regulated by the rule. Participants decided whether to cooperate and comply with the rule or to break the rule to their own advantage and at the expense of the collective (i.e., giving lower/taking higher amounts). Results of an online-experiment with 202 participants showed a significantly higher proportion of individuals breaking the rule in the take-some frame than in the give-some frame. In addition, endowment size influenced the proportion of rule-breaking behavior in the take-some frame. However, the average amounts of points not given/taken too much were not different between the frames. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Quong’s account of the scope of the means principle (the range of actions over which the special constraint on using a person applies). One the key ideas underpinning Quong’s approach is that the means principle is downstream from an independent and morally prior account of our rights over the world and against one another. I raise three challenges to this ‘rights first’ approach. First, I consider Quong’s treatment of harmful omissions and argue that Quong’s view generates (...) counter-intuitive results. Second, I argue that cases of harmful omissions raise problems for Quong’s claim that intentions are irrelevant to permissibility. Third, I consider Quong’s extension of the means principle to include uses of persons’ rightfully-owned property. I suggest that, contra Quong, the morality of defensive harm is not based on a prior account of distributive justice. Instead the two normative domains mutually inform one another. (shrink)

This article explores, comparatively and critically, Sidgwick’s and Rawls’s reasons for rejecting desert as a principle of distributive justice. Their ethical methods, though not identical, each re...

Aiming at the allocation of scarce medical resources, Immanuel and other scholars have put forward a set of influential ethical values and guiding principles. It assigns the priority of resource allocation to those whose lives can be saved and maximized, those who can bring the greatest instrumental value, and those who are the worse off. For other members of society, random selection under the same conditions is adopted. Following the Rawlsian "lexical order, lexicographical" rule, this priority arrangement requires that the (...) "utilitarian principle" should be placed before the "equality principle", and the "instrumental difference principle", the "integrity difference principle" and the "fair opportunity principle" in turn acts on specific distribution agents. Although the framework and its priority rules have obvious drawbacks when faced with Medical Resources Squeeze and other dilemmas, with the help of an understanding of its internal structure, it can effectively respond to the four core issues in the allocation of scarce medical resources. (shrink)

It is widely accepted among egalitarian political philosophers that distributive justice should be promoted by the state. This paper challenges this presumption by making two key claims. First, the state is not the only possible mechanism for attaining distributive justice. We could rely alternatively on the voluntary efforts and interactions of individuals and associations in civil society. The question of which mechanism we should rely upon is a comparative and empirical one. What matters is which better promotes distributive justice. We (...) cannot settle the question a priori in favor of the state. Second, several considerations suggest a presumption in favor of civil society. (shrink)

Typically, fair machine learning research focuses on a single decision maker and assumes that the underlying population is stationary. However, many of the critical domains motivating this work are characterized by competitive marketplaces with many decision makers. Realistically, we might expect only a subset of them to adopt any non-compulsory fairness-conscious policy, a situation that political philosophers call partial compliance. This possibility raises important questions: how does partial compliance and the consequent strategic behavior of decision subjects affect the allocation outcomes? (...) If k% of employers were to voluntarily adopt a fairness-promoting intervention, should we expect k% progress (in aggregate) towards the benefits of universal adoption, or will the dynamics of partial compliance wash out the hoped-for benefits? How might adopting a global (versus local) perspective impact the conclusions of an auditor? In this paper, we propose a simple model of an employment market, leveraging simulation as a tool to explore the impact of both interaction effects and incentive effects on outcomes and auditing metrics. Our key findings are that at equilibrium: (1) partial compliance by k% of employers can result in far less than proportional (k%) progress towards the full compliance outcomes; (2) the gap is more severe when fair employers match global (vs local) statistics; (3) choices of local vs global statistics can paint dramatically different pictures of the performance vis-a-vis fairness desiderata of compliant versus non-compliant employers; (4) partial compliance based on local parity measures can induce extreme segregation. Finally, we discuss implications for auditors and insights concerning the design of regulatory frameworks. (shrink)

This chapter defends an overarching ideal of liberal democracy—government for and by the people, where each is considered free and equal—and shows how different conceptions of this ideal lead to different visions of the nonprofit sector. The argument reflects a more fundamental point: that claims about the proper shape and scope of civil society, and certainly the dimensions of nonprofit organizations, are structured by larger political ideals. We cannot understand competing visions of the nonprofit sector without seeing it in relation (...) to the political and social order in which it is supposed to rest. (shrink)

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a clear basis for the analysis of alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, LETS, Local currencies, the WIR or Carbon currencies. It attempts to determine whether alternative currencies might constitute just and workable alternatives, either in the form of small-scale experiments or in the form of more radical reforms. The first chapter proposes a new way to classify currencies. The second examines the case in favour of monetary plurality. The third analyses the (...) claims in favour of restricting the use of money locally, within a community, or to certain goods. The fourth studies the link between money and the market. Finally, a post-scriptum focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This thesis highlights that these currencies are drivers of several potential conflicts. Their widespread use might conflict with the adequate management of monetary policy, with social justice, and with liberal values. These conflicts are potential, for they would come into existence only if alternative currencies increased in scope. However, there is no reason to disregard potential conflicts when the case in their favour relies mostly on their potential benefits. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce que le marché ? A quelles conditions peut-il être juste ? Quelle place doit-il prendre dans notre société ? Cet article passe en revue les réponses principales qui ont été apportées à ces questions. En premier lieu, il insiste sur les éléments qui le définissent et le distinguent d’autres systèmes économiques. Ensuite, il étudie les principaux arguments éthiques émis en sa faveur et en sa défaveur. -/- Les arguments en faveur du marché font appel à l’efficacité, à l’égalité, au (...) mérite, à l’absence de coercition, à la défense des libertés politiques et de la liberté de choix. Les arguments en sa défaveur insistent sur les déficiences du marché, les problèmes d’agence et d’irrationalité, les inégalités de ressource et de pouvoir, les inégalités des chances, la corruption des valeurs ou du lien social, ou encore les dommages qu’il porte à l’idéal de fraternité. -/- La littérature spécialisée sur le sujet se divise en deux grandes tendances. Une première, la plus ancienne, étudie le marché comme système de coordination global. La seconde, plus récente, se penche sur des marchés spécifiques, comme celui des organes, des relations sexuelles, ou du sang. Cet article se concentre en priorité sur les enjeux éthiques du marché « en général », mais étudie également, de manière plus succincte, le cas de marchés particuliers dont le traitement a pris une importance non-négligeable dans la littérature. (shrink)

Many profess a belief in the importance of school integration. In this essay I argue that the evidence tells against the sincerity of this belief.

I argue that members of a democratic society owe one another, as a matter of justice, access to what they need to function as full and equal citizens. My view pairs the measure of citizens’ needs with a sufficientarian principle of distribution: that is, a principle aimed at moving individuals from a position of objective lack to a position of objective satisfaction. I argue that this pairing is fitting because citizens’ needs can be satisfied at an objective, finite level of (...) capabilities and an objective, finite level of effective opportunities to exceed this minimum. I am not unique in taking individuals’ needs qua full and equal citizens as central to democratic distributive justice. However, the needs-based accounts proposed by Rawls and Anderson test the expectation that reasons will be available to citizens that they can offer one another in justification of their society’s principles of justice. These views rely on moral intuitions that citizens need not accept as part of their implicit commitment to basic democratic values. I demonstrate how far-reaching and attractive a floor for distributive justice can be, even when based on an insistently political account of full and equal citizenship that eschews controversially egalitarian intuitions. Chapter one introduces an account of the citizen role from which citizens’ needs are derived. It is distinguished by a strictly political account of citizens’ equality that is closely tied to central citizenship functions. I also describe a social minimum that enables individuals to occupy this role. Chapter two proposes regulating opportunities above the guaranteed minimum to prevent the emergence of castes and to express an understanding of reciprocity that respects citizens’ standing as equals. Chapter three addresses the challenge posed by individuals with extraordinarily costly citizenship-related needs. I argue that claims of distributive justice may be overridden by other claims of justice and at the margins by efficiency considerations. Lastly, I survey the sufficientarian landscape, defining the conceptual space that my view occupies in relationship to the views of Frankfurt, Rosenberg, Crisp, Hayek, Satz, and Anderson. (shrink)

This paper will focus on the problem of environmental refugees related to environmental decay and resource loss. Robert Nozick’s distributive justice theory will be used as a theoretical framework to analyze the problem of environmental refugees. The restrictive nature of Nozick’s theory of distribution is rather practical since it meets with many of the current mores regarding wealth accumulation, desert, and aspirations for inheritance. Given our current reluctance to redistribute to prevent the effects of environmental decay, and to pay to (...) prepare for disasters generally, the prospect of a redistributive solution to environmental refugees that permanently alters patterns of ownership is rather unlikely. Nevertheless, given the rather unfortunate possibility of increasing numbers of environmental refugees in the future, a practical means to provide for their well-being needs to be considered. (shrink)

The Moral Responsibility Account of Liability to Defensive Harm states that an agent becomes liable to defensive harm if, and only if, she engages in a foreseeably risk-imposing activity that subsequently threatens objectively unjustified harm. Advocates of the account contend that liability to defensive harm is best understood as an aspect of distributive justice. Individuals who are liable to some harm are not wronged if the harm is imposed on them, and liability to defensive harm thus helps ensure that harm (...) is borne by whoever has least of an objection of justice against being burdened with it—or so advocates of the MRA insist. In this paper, I argue that liability to defensive harm is not grounded in considerations of distributive justice. While it depends on the wider societal context what allocation of a burden is distributively most just, liability to defensive harm is a distinctly localised affair. I propose that liability to defensive harm is best understood as part of the enforcement dimension of our rights to non-interference. Framing liability in this way does not invalidate the MRA. It does, however, render subjective impermissibility accounts of liability particularly promising. (shrink)

Despite the prominence of thresholds and limits in theories of distributive justice, there is no general account of their role within such theories. This has allowed an ongoing lack of clarity and misunderstanding around threshold views in distributive justice. In this thesis, I develop an account of the conceptual structure of such views. Such an account helps understand and characterize threshold views, can subsume what may seem to be different debates about such views under one conceptual header, and can be (...) used to further examine and develop patterns of justice that draw on thresholds. In light of this account, I propose a novel characterization of sufficientarianism which sheds new light on the distinctiveness of sufficientarianism as a distributive principle and on the common objections to sufficientarianism. Moreover, I examine and defend limitarianism, which is the view that people should not have more than a certain amount of wealth. In particular, I argue in favour of limitarianism as a midlevel principle for guiding institutional design and individual actions and, furthermore, as a specification of what a just allocation of wealth requires under epistemic constraints. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is a family of egalitarian theories of distributive justice that give a special place to luck, choice, and responsibility. These theories can be understood as responding to perceived weaknesses in influential earlier theories of both the left – in particular Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism (1971) – and the right – Nozick’s libertarianism (1974) stands out here. Rawls put great emphasis on the continuity of his theory with the great social contract theories of modern political thought, particularly emphasising its Kantian (...) character, while Nozick overtly develops his theory as an elaboration of John Locke’s account of property. By contrast, how luck egalitarianism is related to the history of political thought or philosophy more generally has been left unexplored by its proponents. Perhaps this is because they see luck egalitarianism, with its focus on individual choice and association with such contemporary concerns as equality of opportunity, as without significant predecessors in the canon. My purpose in this chapter is to make the tentative first steps towards identifying some historical antecedents of luck egalitarianism among the main works of Western political thought, in particular Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. (shrink)

Equality as a bare concept refers to two or more distinct things or people being the same in some dimension. Different forms of equality are distinguished by the dimension that is held to be the same. Within political theory, three main forms of equality can be distinguished: moral equality, political equality, and substantive equality. “Moral equality” refers to each individual having the same inherent dignity as a human being, and therefore being worthy of respect. “Political equality,” by contrast, refers to (...) each individual having the same basic rights of involvement in political processes, e.g., by voting or running for office. Modern political theories generally accept that each individual has moral and political equality. The distinguishing feature of egalitarianism is its interpretation of this equal status as requiring substantive equality, i.e., that each individual be placed in the same social or economic conditions. Egalitarianism is an inherently normative view, and more specifically, a view about distributive justice—that is, about the appropriate distribution of benefits and burdens. The account of these benefits and burdens varies from one egalitarian theory to another. For instance, some egalitarians believe that levels of benefit should be measured in terms of resources, others in terms of well-being, and still others in terms of basic capabilities. Egalitarians also disagree on whether benefits should be distributed equally or whether equality of substantive condition in some other sense (i.e., equal opportunity or equal social standing) might be sufficient. Accordingly, each egalitarian theory has its own account of equality. These theories as a whole contrast with non-egalitarian theories, such as right libertarianism or conservativism, which deny that people’s condition should be made equal in any substantive sense. In practical terms, egalitarianism is strongly associated with the political left, but different brands of egalitarianism are associated with different brands of left-wing politics, from traditional socialism or social democracy to a less distribution-focused politics of identity. This article provides an overview of egalitarianism, primarily focusing on its development in contemporary political theory. (shrink)

Globalisation has come under severe pressure at the exact moment when some of those we used to regard as the winners of the global market have started to lose from it. Or, in other words, globalisation is going through the most serious drawback since the post-war era just when divergent growth between countries has inverted its trend, thus becoming convergent. In this article I argue that convergent globalisation poses a serious theoretical challenge to the idea of global justice. More precisely, (...) the recent equalisation in the international distribution of wealth, together with the technological developments in automation and communication, render classic models of global justice obsolete. For the struggle for a more just globalisation is now realigned on the national level and sees deployed on the one side those who control enough capital to cut down on labour costs, and on the other one those others who are redundant in production. (shrink)

The standard version of sufficientarianism maintains that providing people with enough, or as close to enough as is possible, is lexically prior to other distributive goals. This article argues that this is excessive - more than distributive justice allows - in four distinct ways. These concern the magnitude of advantage, the number of beneficiaries, responsibility and desert, and above-threshold distribution. Sufficientarians can respond by accepting that providing enough unconditionally is more than distributive justice allows, instead balancing sufficiency against other considerations.

California has focused on health equity in the state’s COVID-19 reopening plan. The Blueprint for a Safer Economy assigns each of California’s 58 counties into 1 of 4 tiers based on 2 metrics: test positivity rate and adjusted case rate. To advance to the next less-restrictive tier, counties must meet that tier’s test positivity and adjusted case rate thresholds. In addition, counties must have a plan for targeted investments within disadvantaged communities, and counties with more than 106 000 residents must (...) meet an equity metric. California's explicit incorporation of health equity into its reopening plan underscores the interrelated fate of its residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and creates incentives for action. This article evaluates the benefits and challenges of this novel health equity focus, and outlines recommendations for other US states to address disparities in their reopening plans. (shrink)

[Blog Post] This blog post (1) introduces a fundamental debate in climate ethics (polluter pays v beneficiary pays v ability to pay principles) while (2) arguing for a new principle (polluter pays, then receives, or PPTR/"Peter", principle).

The core idea of A Relational Theory of Justice (RTJ) is that normative political and legal philosophy should be grounded on people’s relational features, roughly their ability to commune with others and be communed with by them. Usually, philosophers of justice in the West have based their views on people’s intrinsic features, ones that make no essential reference to others, such as their autonomy, self-ownership, or well-being. In addition, often critics of basing politics and law on justice, whether in the (...) African, feminist/care, Marxian, or Confucian traditions, have appealed to non-intrinsic values as leverage, roughly contending that relationships are more important than justice. In contrast to both major camps, RTJ articulates and defends accounts of justice based on relationality. A proper valuation of people’s capacity to be party to communal relationships does not transcend categories of justice, but instead calls for certain sorts that differ from those grounded on intrinsic properties and in plausible ways. Applications are discussed in the contexts of political, economic, compensatory, criminal, transitional, and global justice. (shrink)

In this article I critically survey non-edited books on political and legal philosophy that have been composed by those working in the sub-Saharan African tradition and have appeared in print since 2016. These monographs principally address political, distributive, and criminal justice at the domestic level, with this article recounting the essentials of these texts as well as noting prima facie weaknesses in their positions and gaps in current research agendas. My aims are to enable readers to obtain a bird’s-eye picture (...) of key works in recent African political and legal philosophy and to suggest some plausible ways to advance debates. (shrink)

For more than twenty years, Peter Vanderschraaf’s work has combined rigorous game-theoretic analysis, innovative use of (social) scientific method, and normative analysis in the context of the social contract. Vanderschraaf’s work has influenced a significant interdisciplinary field of study and culminated in the publication of his book, Strategic Justice: Convention and Problems of Balancing Divergent Interests (OUP, 2019). Building upon his previous work, Vanderschraaf developed a new theory of justice (justice-as-convention) that, despite a mutual advantage approach, considers the most vulnerable (...) members of society and defends the egalitarian bargaining solution. To advance his theory, Vanderschraaf proposes an account of conventions that updates and systematizes David Lewis’s account of conventions, drawing on contemporary developments in game theory and economics. This topical collection brings together game theorists, philosophers, economists, and political scientists to discuss themes from Vanderschraaf’s work. The collection bridges a gap among disjoint but closely related literatures in game theory, bargaining theory, formal philosophy, rationality, equality, justice, and the social contract in order to advance dialogue among scholars in this rich and growing field of study. (shrink)

Conventionalism as a distinct approach to the social contract received significant attention in the game-theoretic literature on social contract theory. Peter Vanderschraaf’s sophisticated and innovative theory of conventional justice represents the most recent contribution to this tradition and, in many ways, can be viewed as a culmination of this tradition. In this article, I focus primarily on Vanderschraaf’s defense of the egalitarian bargaining solution as a principle of justice. I argue that one particular formal feature of this bargaining solution, the (...) baseline consistency requirement, may stand in tension with other features of conventionalism as an approach to the social contract and limit the scope of Vanderschraaf’s theory to societies in which de facto an egalitarian sense of justice evolves. It limits the scope of Vanderschraaf’s theory in the face of moral diversity. A similar limitation applies to Vanderschraaf’s theory of democratic political authority. Despite these minor limitations, Vanderschraaf’s theory can only be seen as a major success and significant contribution to social contract theory. (shrink)

This article develops an account of distributive epistemic justice in the production of scientific knowledge. We identify four requirements: (a) science should produce the knowledge citizens need in order to reason about the common good, their individual good and pursuit thereof; (b) science should produce the knowledge those serving the public need to pursue justice effectively; (c) science should be organized in such a way that it does not aid the wilful manufacturing of ignorance; and (d) when making decisions about (...) epistemic risks, scientists should make sure that there aren’t social groups or weighty interests that are neglected. After discussing these requirements, we examine the relationship between discriminatory and distributive epistemic injustice in science and argue that they often compound each other. (shrink)