Philippe van Parijs (2003) has argued that an egalitarian ethos cannot be part of a post- Political Liberalism Rawlsian view of justice, because the demands of political justice are confined to principles for institutions of the basic structure alone. This paper argues, by contrast, that certain principles for individual conduct—including a principle requiring relatively advantaged individuals to sometimes make their economic choices with the aim of maximising the prospects of the least advantaged—are an integral part of a Rawlsian political conception (...) of justice. It concludes that incentive payments will have a clearly limited role in a Rawlsian theory of justice. (shrink)

This paper uses Durkheim’s distinction between cause and function to explore the aims and implications of Forrester’s critique of liberal egalitarianism in In the Shadow of Justice. I suggest that there is an interesting tension in Forrester’s argument between the portrayal of Rawlsian justice theory as a vestigial institution—a ‘survival’—left over from 1950s liberalism, and its continuing presence in political theory as a doctrine that has a strong function in policing the bounds of permissible philosophical discourse on politics. I then (...) suggest that liberals are, in their nature, functionalists about politics, and that this may mean that they cannot easily countenance the kind of realism for which Forrester advocates at the end of her book. (shrink)

Climate change and other global environmental problems constitute a significant challenge to contemporary political philosophy, especially with respect to complacency. This paper assesses Rawls? theory, and argues for three conclusions. First, Rawls does not already solve such problems, and simple extensions of his theory are unlikely to do so. This is so despite the rich structure of Rawls? philosophy, and the appeal of some of its parts. Second, the most promising areas for extension ? the circumstances of justice, the duty (...) to maintain and promote just institutions, and his vision of social development ? are those that have not yet been explored. Third, unfortunately, Rawls? views on these topics are both seriously underdeveloped, and largely stipulative. Hence, in trying to meet climate change, Rawlsians are more likely to add new theories to Rawls, and perhaps even to transform his original account, than to generate an approach ?from the inside out? (shrink)

This article will investigate Rawls's claim that his theory is Kantian in origin. In drawing on the Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, I will show that Rawls's claim to be Kantian cannot be conclusively explained and assessed without the Lectures. An investigation of the Lectures shows that Rawls forces onto Kant's theory a Rawlsian interpretation which crucially alters Kant's theory. So far the secondary literature has neglected to subject Rawls's Lectures to detailed philosophical scrutiny. This article aims to (...) fill this gap in the literature on Rawls's Kantianism. I will identify three points in Rawls's interpretation of Kant (need for CI-procedure, willing condition, true human needs) which are questionable. I argue that the similarities of Rawls's theory to Kant are due to these (mis)interpretations, which makes Rawls's claim to be Kantian ultimately not legitimate. (shrink)

This chapter discusses how order ethics relates to the theory of justice. We focus on John Rawls's influential conception "Justice as Fairness" (JF) and compare its components with relevant aspects of the order-ethical approach. The two theories, we argue, are surprisingly compatible in various respects. We also analyse how far order ethicists disagree with Rawls and why. The main source of disagreement that we identify lies in a thesis that is central to the order ethical system, viz. the requirement of (...) incentive-compatible implementability. It purports that an ethical norm can be normatively valid only if individuals have a self-interested motive to support it. This idea conflicts with the Rawlsian view because there are cases where it is not clear, from the standpoint of self-interest, why everybody should support its moral demands. If the thesis of incentive-compatible implementability is, in fact, correct, a proponent of JF would have to reform her views. We suggest how she could do that while salvaging the heart of her normative system as a “regulative idea”. The conception that would result from this reformation may be seen as a new variant of order ethics, which we propose to call “Rawlsian Order Ethics”. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a Rawlsian argument for perfectionist state policies. The argument draws on Rawls’s discussion of the “Aristotelian Principle,” highlighting the complex relationship between this principle and the social bases of self-respect. The paper explains how Rawls’s discussion and endorsement of this principle has significant and unappreciated implications for his account of the human good and the state’s role in promoting it in a well-ordered society. Although Rawls explicitly rejected state perfectionism, the paper shows how his conception (...) of justice has the resources to respond to the important criticism that it is insufficiently responsive to the claims of human excellence. Rawlsian perfectionism, in this way, strengthens Rawlsian justice by removing an important reason for rejecting it. (shrink)

This paper addresses ways of arguing fors ome form of economic democracy from within a broadly Rawlsian framework. Firstly, one can argue that a right to participate in economic decision-making should be added to the Rawlsian list of basic liberties, protected by the first principle of justice. Secondly,I argue that a society which institutes forms of economic democracy will be more likely to preserve a stable and just basic structure over time, by virtue of the effects of economic democratization on (...) the development of an active, democratic character among citizens. Thirdly, I argue that a proper understanding of the demands of the difference principle shows that justice demands more than ex post redistribution, but also requires the ex ante redistribution of power and authority in economic life. This connects to Rawls’s discussion of the badness of inequality, and to his endorsement of a “property-owning democracy”. -/- My conclusion is that, even if we may doubt the success of this first Rawlsian argument,the second and third arguments are both successful, and together establish a strong Rawlsian case forseeing economic democratization as a requirement of justice. (shrink)

This article adapts John Rawls’s writings, arguing that past injustice can change what we ought to publicly affirm as the standard of justice today. My approach differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backward-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’s own concern for the ‘social bases of self-respect’ and equal citizenship may require public endorsement of different principles or specifications of the standard of justice. Rawls’s difference principle focuses on the least advantaged socioeconomic group. I argue (...) that a historicized difference principle considers the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups; provides their members assurance by weakening incentives to manipulate justice to another group’s advantage; and may result in policies resembling reparations, though justified by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance. I then examine how disrespectful justifications were historically used to forcibly include indigenous peoples as citizens. While Rawls thinks providing citizens one package of basic liberties signals respect, indigenous self-government could better support self-respect. I invoke Rawlsian international justice, which calls for mutual respect between peoples. Indigenous peoples’ status should reflect their past and persisting peoplehood, providing assurance by weakening incentives to unjustly transform international into domestic contexts. (shrink)

: This article considers what contribution the work of John Rawls can make to questions about animal ethics. It argues that there are more normative resources in A Theory of Justice for a concern with animal welfare than some of Rawls's critics acknowledge. However, the move from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism sees a depletion of normative resources in Rawlsian thought for addressing animal ethics. The article concludes by endorsing the implication of A Theory of Justice that we (...) look for ways other than rights discourse to respect and protect the well-being of animals. (shrink)

. In the framework of a reinterpretation of Marxism and Rawlsianism which aims at a non‐eclectic integration of both these theories, the author presents a transformation of the Rawlsian principles of justice into principles of political struggle with a view to establishing a just society. He deduces this normative development from a general theory of the modern world, proposed in his recent book.

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not equality. (...) The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision. (shrink)

This article argues that Rawlsian liberal political institutions are incapable of ensuring that the basic welfare needs of the worst off are met. This argument consists of two steps. First, I show that institutions are incapable of ensuring that the basic needs of the worst off are met without pursuing certain non-taxation-based courses of action that are designed to alter the work choices of citizens. Second, I argue that such actions are not permissible for Rawlsian institutions. It follows that a (...) state governed by a Rawls-type political conception of justice is parasitic on the willingness of citizens to be sufficiently motivated by concern for the worst off, but it cannot require or even encourage them to be so motivated. (shrink)

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not equality. (...) The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum has powerfully argued in Frontiers ofJustice and elsewhere that John Rawls’s sort of social-contract theory cannot usefully be deployed to deal with issues pertaining to justice for the disabled. To counter this claim, this article deploys Rawls’s sort of social-contract theory in order to deal with issues pertaining to justice for the disabled—or, since, as Nussbaum stresses, we all have some degree of disability—for the severely disabled. In this way, rather than questioning one by one Nussbaum’s interpretive claims (...) about Rawls’s view, one can simply see how the Rawlsian framework can work in application to this issue. Following Rawls’s lead, the paper utilizes the idealized “initial choice situation” as an analytic and comparative device for examining alternative principles of justice, developing three different interpretations of the initial choice situation that each correspond to a different set of principles that apply to people of all levels of disability. One of these sets of principles is a simple extension of Rawls’s, one is very close to what Nussbaum herself recommends, and the third is a kind of hybrid. In this way, it is shown not only that Rawls’s social-contract device can usefully be applied to these issues, but also that it is helpful for exploring the deep commitments underlying each of these competing sets of principles. (shrink)

Insights from social science are increasingly used in the field of applied ethics. However, recent insights have shown that the empirical branch of business ethics lacks thorough theoretical grounding. This article discusses the use of the Rawlsian methods of wide reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus in the field of applied ethics. Instead of focussing on one single comprehensive ethical doctrine to provide adequate guidance for resolving moral dilemmas, these Rawlsian methods seek to find a balance between considered judgments and intuitions (...) concerning particular cases on the one hand and general principles and theories on the other. In business ethics this approach is promissing because it enables decision-making in a pluralist context with different stakeholders who often endorse different or even conflicting cultural and moral frameworks without giving priority to any of them. Moreover, the method is well founded in political theory. A taxonomy of different kinds of applications is developed, and classified according to the purpose, the content, and the type of justification. On the basis of this taxonomy an inventory of 12 recent applications is made. In terms of the purpose and content of the method the applications are rather diverse. Two conceptual obstacles for applying Rawlsian methods are identified, viz. inclusiveness and the communitarian objection that people have to become detached from their personal life. It is found that methodological questions, such as the question how to retrieve the relevant empirical data, are scarcely addressed in the literature. To advance the use of empirical approaches in general, and that of Rawlsian approaches in particular, it is important not only to use empirical data but to use methodological insights from social sciences in order to further advance the field of empirical ethics. It is recommended that stakeholders be given a more active role in the assessment and justification of these methods. (shrink)

Cox and Fritz state the central problem as the absence of a framework for healthcare policy decisions; but, they overlook the theoretical underpinnings of public law. In response, they propose a two-step procedure to guide fair decision-making. The first step relies on Thomas Scanlon’s ‘contractualism’ for stakeholders to consider whether, or not, they could reasonably reject policy proposals made by others; then in the second step, John Rawls’s principles of justice are applied to these proposals; a fair policy requires to (...) pass both steps. I argue that Cox and Fritz misinterpret Rawls. His theory has two stages: first, public reason is used to generate principles of justice; second, public reason is used to interpret and apply these principles. The second stage requires that proposals are based on the principles of justice from the first stage, and these proposals have to be acceptable to reasonable persons. Thus, Rawls’s theory does not need Scanlonian supplementation. Moreover, the application of Rawls’s theory in Cox and Fritz’s model is confusing. In any case, the problems with applying Rawlsian justice to healthcare can be located elsewhere. First, Rawls’s theory would treat healthcare simply as a ‘primary good’ or resource. Social justice ought to, instead, consider healthcare as an opportunity, in the manner conceived by Amartya Sen. Second, Rawlsian justice rests, ultimately, on the conception of a reasonable person; until and unless the characteristics of reasonable stakeholders are clarified, any model of health justice will remain hostage to the unreasonable. (shrink)

One of the most influential claims made by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice is that the principles of justice apply only to the institutions of the “basic structure of society,” and do not apply directly to the conduct of individuals. In this paper, I aim to cast doubt on this view, which I call “Institutionalism about Justice,” by considering whether several of the prominent motivations for it offered by Rawls and others succeed in providing the support for the (...) view that they claim. I argue that all of the motivations are problematic as grounds for accepting Institutionalism, at least in part because they, and the Institutionalist view that they are thought to support, seem to misconceive what our concern about justice is fundamentally a concern about. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Singer has recently argued that questions related to corporate governance are beyond the reach of Rawls’s political conception of justice. This is because justice applies to the basic structure of society, understood as society’s legally coercive structures, and because corporate governance cannot be considered part of this structure in political liberalism. This commentary challenges the second part of the argument. First, it suggests that the criterion used to exclude corporate governance from the basic structure—whether employees can exit economic organizations—is not (...) conclusive for corporate governance, notably as institutionalized in corporate law. Second, even if the focus were on corporate governance, it would still be possible to argue that it legally coerces citizens, if not employees, in a relevant way. Thus, the argument is not successful in demonstrating that political liberalism goes beyond its legitimate boundaries when considering that aspects of corporate governance may be matters of justice. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles must be programmed with procedures for dealing with trolley-style dilemmas where actions result in harm to either pedestrians or passengers. This paper outlines a Rawlsian algorithm as an alternative to the Utilitarian solution. The algorithm will gather the vehicle’s estimation of probability of survival for each person in each action, then calculate which action a self-interested person would agree to if he or she were in an original bargaining position of fairness. I will employ Rawls’ assumption that the (...) Maximin procedure is what self-interested agents would use from an original position, and then show how the Maximin procedure can be operationalized to produce unique outputs over probabilities of survival. (shrink)

Despite great advances in recent scholarship on the political philosophy of John Rawls, Rawls’s conception of stability is not fully appreciated. This essay aims to remedy this by articulating a more complete understanding of stability and its role in Rawls’s theory of justice. I argue that even in A Theory of Justice Rawls maintains that within liberal democratic constitutionalism judgments of relative stability typically adjudicate decisively among conceptions of justice and is committed to more deeply than to the substantive content (...) of justice as fairness. This essay thus emphasizes the continuity of Rawls’s thought over time and motivates the position that Rawlsian stability is as philosophically significant and distinctively Rawlsian as justice as fairness itself. (shrink)

In the last two decades, a robust consensus has emerged among philosophers of science, whereby political, ethical, or social values must play some role in scientific inquiry, and that the ‘value-free ideal’ is thus a misguided conception of science. However, the question of how to distinguish, in a principled way, which values may legitimately influence science remains. This question, which has been dubbed the ‘new demarcation problem,’ has until recently received comparatively less attention from philosophers of science. In this paper, (...) I appeal to Rawls’s theory of justice (1971) on the basis of which I defend a Rawlsian solution to the new demarcation problem. As I argue, the Rawlsian solution places plausible constraints on which values ought to influence scientific inquiry, and, moreover, can be fruitfully applied to concrete cases to determine how the conflicting interests of stakeholders should be balanced. After considering and responding to the objection that Rawls’s theory of justice applies only to the “basic structure” of society, I compare the Rawlsian solution to some other approaches to the new demarcation problem, especially those that emphasize democratic criteria. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Rawls’s contract apparatus in A Theory of Justice depends on a particular presumption that is in conflict with the goal of conserving environmental resources. He presumes that parties in the original position want as many resources as possible. I challenge Rawls’s approach by introducing a rational alternative to maximising. The strategy of satisficing merely goes for what is good enough. However, it seems that under conditions of scarcity Rawls’s maximising strategy is the only rational (...) alternative. I therefore scrutinise the common account of scarcity. I distinguish between absolute and relative scarcity in order to show that scarcity is influenced by our decisions. If we would not accept the claim to as much as possible without further legitimisation, like Rawls does, then scarcity might not be as severe a problem. Finally, I reject Rawls’s proposed solution for dealing with problems of sustainability, namely his idea of the just savings principle. I conclude that Rawlsian Justice as Fairness is bad for the environment. (shrink)

This paper proposes a Rawlsian conception of moral justification as a social activity. Through a close reading, Rawls’ view of ethical justification is shown to be significantly more dialogical and deliberative than is commonly appreciated. The result is a view that emphasizes the social nature of ethical justification and identifies information sharing between persons as the crux of justification in metaethics, in contrast to normative ethics. I call it Rawlsian reflective equilibrium to distinguish it from other varieties.

Mark Rowlands argues that, contrary to the dominant view, a Rawlsian theory of justice can legitimately be applied to animals. One of the implications of doing so, Rowlands argues, is an end to animal experimentation. I will argue, contrary to Rowlands, that under a Rawlsian theory there may be some circumstances where it is justifiable to use animals as experimental test subjects (where the individual animals are benefited by the experiments).

In this paper I respond to Robert Taylor's argument that a Rawlsian framework does not support strong affirmative action programs. The paper makes three main arguments. The first disputes Taylor's claim that strong AA would not be needed in ideal conditions. Private racial discrimination, I suggest, might still exist in such conditions, so strong AA might be needed there. The second challenges Taylor's claims that pure procedural justice constrains Rawlsian nonideal theory. I argue that this rests on a fetishizing of (...) pure procedural justice that is absent from Rawls's work. I also show that a revised formulation of Taylor's concern here also fails. My third argument makes a positive Rawlsian case for strong AA in nonideal conditions that builds on a Taylor concession. Taylor suggests that the goal of nonideal theory is to create a world in which ideal theory can be applied. My argument begins by showing that another permissible goal of Rawlsian nonideal theory is to ameliorate injustice. I then argue that Rawls's contractualist framework supports the strongest forms of AA when category 3 interventions are blocked. (shrink)

In _Rawlsian Political Analysis: Rethinking the Microfoundations of Social Science, _Paul Clements develops a new, morally grounded model of political and social analysis as a critique of and improvement on both neoclassical economics and rational choice theory. What if practical reason is based not only on interests and ideas of the good, as these theories have it, but also on principles and sentiments of right? The answer, Clements argues, requires a radical reorientation of social science from the idea of interests (...) to the idea of social justice. According to Clements, systematic weaknesses in neoclassical economics and rational choice theory are due to their limited model of choice. According to such theories in the utilitarian tradition, all our practical decisions aim to maximize the satisfaction of our interests. These neo-utilitarian approaches focus on how we promote our interests, but Clements argues, our ideas of right, cognitively represented in principles, contribute independently and no less fundamentally to our practical decisions. The most significant challenge to utilitarianism in the last half century is found in John Rawls’s _Theory of Justice _and _Political Liberalism_, in which Rawls builds on Kant's concept of practical reason. Clements extends Rawls's moral theory and his critique of utilitarianism by arguing for social analysis based on the Kantian and Rawlsian model of choice. To illustrate the explanatory power of his model, he presents three detailed case studies: a program analysis of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, a political economy analysis of the causes of poverty in the Indian state of Bihar, and a problem-based analysis of the ethics and politics of climate change. He concludes by exploring the broad implications of social analysis grounded in a concept of social justice. “Paul Clements’s _Rawlsian Political Analysis _mounts an important intervention into the philosophy of the social sciences, challenging the tired fact/value, empirical/normative binaries that continue to impoverish social analysis. His insistence that social analysis must engage both facts and norms, the empirical and the normative, the good and the right, interest and principle—and that empirical social scientists must engage constructively on questions of autonomy and social justice—is noble and ultimately essential if social science is to justify its place in the years to come.” —_Fonna Forman-Barzilai, University of California, San Diego_. (shrink)

Critics have argued that Rawls's account of self-respect is equivocal. I show, first, that Rawls in fact relies upon an unambiguous notion of self-respect, though he sometimes is unclear as to whether this notion has merely instrumental or also intrinsic value. I show second that Rawls’s main objective in arguing that justice as fairness supports citizens’ self-respect is not, as many have thought, to show that his principles support citizens’ self-respect generally, but to show that his principles counter the effects (...) of the market on lower class citizens’ sense of worth. This discussion establishes that Rawls, in the end, sees self-respect primarily as an intrinsic good. (shrink)

I aim to identify and describe some basic elements of a Rawlsian approach that may help us to think conscientiously about how, from the standpoint of justice, we should treat the disabled. Rawls has been criticized for largely ignoring issues of this sort. These criticisms lose their appeal, I suggest, when we distinguish between a Rawlsian standpoint and the limited project Rawls mainly undertakes in A Theory of Justice. There his explicit aim is to find principles of justice, which are (...) to govern the basic structures of a closed, well-ordered society that exists under reasonably favorable conditions, that would be chosen by parties in the original position from among a small set of traditional conceptions of justice. Once we develop a conception of justice for a society like that, Rawlsians hope we can make certain revisions to find principles of justice for a society like ours. Finally, I sketch what seems to me a plausible way for a Rawlsian to begin thinking about how a society like ours should provide justice for its disabled citizens. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to clarify some key issues in the ongoing debate about the relationship between Rawlsian political philosophy and business ethics. First, I discuss precisely what we ought to be asking when we consider whether corporations are part of the “basic structure of society.” I suggest that the relevant questions have been mischaracterized in much of the existing debate, and that some key distinctions have been overlooked. I then argue that although Rawlsian theory’s potential implications for business (...) ethics are more extensive than some have suggested, the nature of the concern that we ought to have about the effects of corporate behavior on individuals’ economic and social conditions should lead us to reject the view that corporations are bound by principles of justice only if, and insofar as, they are part of the basic structure. (shrink)

John Rawls defines “primary social goods” to be the benefits of social co-operation that are valuable no matter what one’s life-plan. The benefit for international trade of talking in terms of primary goods is that such goods represent a fixed or standard rate, and thus facilitate efficient negotiation. The difficulty, however, is that such discussions appear to ignore, and thereby do violence to, significant cross-cultural value differences. I argue that an appropriate view of Rawlsian primary goods helps to facilitate inter-subjective (...) agreement about what constitutes an advantage to the least advantaged. I illustrate this in a case study of the PT Freeport mining operations in Papua New Guinea. (shrink)

My paper addresses a topic--the implications of Rawls's justice as fairness for affirmative action--that has received remarkably little attention from Rawls's major interpreters. The only extended treatments of it that are in print are over a quarter-century old, and they bear scarcely any relationship to Rawls's own nonideal theorizing. Following Christine Korsgaard's lead, I work through the implications of Rawls's nonideal theory and show what it entails for affirmative action: viz. that under nonideal conditions, aggressive forms of formal equality of (...) opportunity (e.g., sensitivity training, outreach efforts, external monitoring and enforcement) and compensating support (e.g., special fellowship programs, childcare facilities, mentoring, co-op opportunities, etc.) can be justified, but that "hard" and even "soft" quotas are difficult to defend under any conditions. I conclude the paper by exploring the implications of these surprising results for contemporary liberalism more broadly and for constitutional law and public policy. (shrink)

Business ethics can be regarded as a field dealing with corporate _self-regulation_ as it relates to the treatment of stakeholders. However, a concern for corporate stakeholders need not take a corporate-centric perspective, as shown by recent efforts (especially Singer in Bus Ethics Q 25(1):65–92, 2015) to situate corporate conduct within Rawls’ political theory. Although Rawls was largely mute on the subject himself, his theory has implications for business ethics and corporate governance more specifically. Given an understanding of a “Rawlsian society” (...) as a whole—where corporations as associations are a part—this paper addresses how a Rawlsian perspective would safeguard against corporate harms in society. We argue that a Rawlsian society would primarily regulate corporate conduct through exogenous constraints in the form of legislation. To the extent that business ethics is concerned with endogenous constraints in the form of corporate-centric self-regulation regarding _stakeholders_, to adopt a Rawlsian perspective is to assume instead a society-centric perspective and to impose exogenous constraints on corporate conduct in the form of legislation for the benefit of _citizens_. In the context of Rawls’ political liberalism, normative concerns in business are accounted for through legislation and the system of background justice. In a clear departure from Singer (Bus Ethics Q 25(1):65–92, 2015, Bus Ethics J Rev 6(3):11–17, 2018a), we further develop our argument to propose that Rawls' theory can be interpreted as providing a rule for corporate governance. The rule—which is imposed exogenously for the good of society—states: After choosing the corporate constraint mechanism (exogenous vs. endogenous) that best promotes the Liberty Principle, choose the corporate control regime (shareholder vs. stakeholder) that maximizes economic efficiency. (shrink)

This paper supports the personal data platform cooperative as a means of bringing about John Rawls’s favoured institutional realisation of a just society, the property-owning democracy. It describes personal data platform cooperatives and applies Rawls’s political philosophy to analyse the institutional forms of a just society in relation to the economic power deriving from aggregating personal data. It argues that a society involving a significant number of personal data platform cooperatives will be more suitable to realising Rawls’s principle of fair (...) equality of opportunity. (shrink)

One Rawlsian response to G. A. Cohen’s criticisms of justice as fairness which Cohen canvasses, and then dismisses, is the 'Freedom Objection'. It comes in two versions. The 'First Version' asserts that there is an unresolved trilemma among the three principles of equality, Pareto-optimality, and freedom of occupational choice, while the 'Second Version' imputes to Rawls’s theory a concern to protect occupational freedom over equality of condition. This article is mainly concerned with advancing three claims. First, the 'ethical solution' Cohen (...) advances against the First Version of the Freedom Objection does not grant a fair hearing to the Freedom Objection. Second, the distinction Cohen presses between the legal and moral right of occupational choice in his response to the Second Version cannot save him from worries about Stalinist coercion. Third, Cohen’s response to the First Version of the Freedom Objection is actually in tension with his response to the Second Version of the Freedom Objection. (shrink)

The consideration of the problem of healthcare allocation as a special case of distributive justice is especially alluring when we only consider consequentialist theories. I articulate here an alternative Rawlsian non-consequentialist theory which prioritizes the fairness of healthcare allocation procedures rather than directly setting distributive parameters. The theory in question stems from Rawlsian commitments that, it is argued, have a better Rawlsian pedigree than those considered as such by Tännsjö. The alternative framework is worthy of consideration on its own merits, (...) but it also casts light on two related difficulties with Tännsjö’s approach: (i) the limits of his supposedly ecumenical methodology, which is revealed to be dialectically suspect and (ii) issues with the type of abstraction and idealization from actual judgements and preferences which the approach requires. (shrink)

While most of the literature has attempted to justify harsh and soft containment given some fundamental commitments of political liberalism, I focus on how justified forms of containment can in themselves be deemed effective. This article shows that a reading of Rawls allows for a comparison of different containment practices based on their capacity to protect the stability of liberal democracies under serious threat. And, in making it possible to compare harsh and soft containment, I evaluate immediate stability gains against (...) citizens’ judgements about their liberal democratic institutions. (shrink)

Are intellectual property rights for talented people justified by Rawls’ criteria of justice? In this paper, I argue that Rawls’ theory of justice is ill-equipped to answer this question. Tailored for rival goods and, as a result, centred on the distribution of benefits, it tends to restate questions of justice about unequal rights as questions about economic inequalities. Therefore, it lacks the tools necessary to distinguish among different forms of incentives for talented people. Once social and economic inequalities observe equality (...) of opportunity and improve the least advantaged, the theory is indifferent as to whether talented people are allowed to compete for monopoly rights or for direct financial reward. (shrink)

In a 1981 letter to H.L. A. Hart, John Rawls sketches a view of moral objectivity that substantially differs from that of contemporary constructivists. The view he describes does not rely on constitutive features of agency as Korsgaard's does, and it does not bottom out in a form of realism as Scanlon's moral theory does. Instead, Rawls's view grounds objectivity on the fundamental conceptions that could be shared in wide reflective equilibrium. Constructivism grounds objectivity in a kind of intersubjectivity, and (...) Rawls finds the relevant kind of intersubjectivity in the alignment between fundamental convictions. This article develops this Rawlsian view of objectivity and highlights its strengths. (shrink)

The ideas of philosopher John Rawls should be appropriated for the information age. A literature review identifies previous contributions in fields such as communication and library and information science. The article postulates the following neo-Rawlsian propositions as co-ordinates for the development of a normative theory of the information society: that political philosophy should be incorporated into information society studies; that social and technological circumstances define the limits of progressive politics; that the right is prior to the good in social morality; (...) that the nation state should remain in sharp focus, despite globalization; that liberty, the first principle of social justice, requires updating to deal with the growth of surveillance and other challenges; that social wellbeing is a function of equal opportunities plus limited inequalities of outcome, in information as well as material resources; and that political stability depends upon an overlapping consensus accommodating both religion and secularism. Although incomplete, such co-ordinates can help to guide policy-makers in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is,those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties,rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. (1) Rawls' method of adopting the"original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods.A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to determine how the victims of injustice ought to be compensated, since history (...) suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper is an attempt to determine the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test. (shrink)

Palliative care serves both as an integrated part of treatment and as a last effort to care for those we cannot cure. The extent to which palliative care should be provided and our reasons for doing so have been curiously overlooked in the debate about distributive justice in health and healthcare. We argue that one prominent approach, the Rawlsian approach developed by Norman Daniels, is unable to provide such reasons and such care. This is because of a central feature in (...) Daniels' account, namely that care should be provided to restore people's opportunities. Daniels' view is both unable to provide pain relief to those who need it as a supplement to treatment and, without justice-based reasons to provide palliative care to those whose opportunities cannot be restored. We conclude that this makes Daniels' framework much less attractive. (shrink)

In his book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls argues against the inclusion of non-human animals within the scope of the principles of justice developed therein. However, the reasons Rawls, and certain commentators, have advanced in support of this view do not adequately support it. Against Rawls' view that 'we are not required to give strict justice' to creatures lacking the capacity for a sense of justice, it is initially argued that (i) de facto inclusion should be accorded non-human animals (...) since their exclusion strains just institutions, and (ii) Rawls' account of the sense of justice has implicit and undefended human chauvinist elements. Two further counter-arguments are then developed in more detail. First, the suggestion that some non-human animals do have a capacity for a sense of justice is explored. Second, the suggestion that the capacity for a sense of justice is unrealised in so many human beings that Rawls' basis for marking out a special place for them is undermined is explored. Attention is next given to Rawls' characterisation of the participants in the original position. It is claimed that there are no good reasons for disallowing the possibility that these individuals turn out to be non-human animals in the real world. If sound, this claim brings non-human animals directly within the scope of Rawlsian principles of justice. The claim is defended against three objections. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is, those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties, rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. Rawls' method of adopting the "original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods. A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to ascertain how the victims of injustice ought to be (...) compensated, since history strongly suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper sets forth the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore and question the potential of John Rawls’s theory of social justice as a tool for building a critical theory of society. My claim will be that Rawls’s approach to social theory cannot provide such a tool; as it will turn out, it faces very deep problems when faced with the task becoming a critical theory of society. Such problems originate mainly in the cognitive and epistemic structure of the “original position”. This, I (...) believe, is bound to pose problems in the future for those of us who seek to make a politically radical use of the legacy of Rawlsian theory (see, e.g., Van Parijs, 1995 or Callinicos, 2000). By a critical theory of society, I mean a theory which aims not at describing the social world “as it is” in order to explain or understand it, but at describing the social world in such a way that the description itself triggers forces for social change within the social world being described. This is, indeed, the meaning of “critical”: to describe a state of affairs in such a way as to throw it into crisis by that very.. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that anyone who accepts a Rawlsian account of justice should favor granting family-based immigration benefit to same-sex couples. I first provide a brief over-view of the most relevant aspects of Rawls's position, Justice as Fairness. I then explain why family-based immigration benefits are an important topic and one that everyone interested in immigration and justice must consider. I then show how same-sex couples are currently systematically excluded from the benefits that flow from family-based immigration rights. (...) Next I argue that people in the constitutional and legislative stages of Rawls's original position would act to protect family-based immigration rights for themselves and show how these rights are rights of the current citizens of a state to bring in certain outsiders and not rights of outsiders seeking to enter. Importantly, this argument takes place entirely within the bounds of Rawls's domestic theory of justice and does not make reference to his more controversial views found in his account of international justice. I then show that there is no acceptable reason to restrict these rights to opposite-sex couples and good reason to extend them to same-sex couples. Finally I consider two objections to my account and show why they do not threaten my conclusion. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Sara Goering’s recent attempt to use the Rawlsian notion of the veil of ignorance as a tool for distinguishing permissible from impermissible forms of genetic engineering. I argue that her article fails due to a failure to include vital contextual information in the right way.

In this article, we suggest that the evidence regarding the social determinants of health calls for a deep re‐thinking of our understanding of distributive justice. Focusing on John Rawls's theory of distributive justice in particular, we argue that a full reckoning with the social determinants of health requires a re‐working of Rawls's principles of justice. We argue first that the social bases of health – a Rawlsian conception of the social determinants of health – should be considered a social primary (...) good. We argue second that including the social bases of health as a social primary good would lead the parties to the original position to choose an additional principle of justice and assign it lexical priority over Rawls's second principle. According to this principle, inequalities in people's share of the social bases of health are to be arranged so as to improve the health status of those least advantaged on the social health gradient. -/- . (shrink)