Outside of philosophy, the idea that workers deserve to be paid according to their productive contributions is very popular. But political philosophers have given it relatively little attention. In this paper, I argue against the attempt to use this idea about desert and contribution to vindicate significant income inequality. I claim that the inegalitarian invocation of reward according to contribution fails on its own terms when the following condition holds: the size of each worker's contribution depends on what others only (...) together do. When workers only together make another more productive, that is not reflected in the sum of their own contributions. Thus reward according to contribution recognizes individual accomplishments without recognizing their dependence on collectives, dependence that is, in complex economies, ubiquitous. (shrink)

Jason Brennan and John Tomasi have argued that if we focus on income alone, the Difference Principle supports welfare-state capitalism over property-owning democracy, because capitalism maximizes long run income growth for the worst off. If so, the defense of property-owning democracy rests on the priority of equal opportunity for political influence and social advancement over raising the income of the worst off, or on integrating workplace control into the Difference Principle’s index of advantage. The thesis of this paper is that (...) even based on income alone, the Difference Principle is not as hostile to property-owning democracy as it may seem, because the Difference Principle should not be interpreted to require maximizing long run income growth. The main idea is that it is unfair to make the present worst off accept inequality that doesn’t benefit them, for the sake of benefitting the future worst off, if the future worst off will be better off than they are anyway. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians claim that a situation is just only if everyone it involves relates to one another as equals. It implies that relational egalitarians believe the ideal of “living as equals” (for short) is desirable, and furthermore, necessary for justice. In this paper, I distinguish three accounts of the desirability of the ideal: the instrumental value account, the non‐instrumental value account, and the non‐consequentialist account. I argue that the former two accounts cannot provide satisfying reasons for being a relational egalitarian. (...) Instead, the ideal of “living as equals” ought to be understood as fundamentally a moral requirement in a non‐consequentialist sense. In addition, a pluralist (though fundamentally non‐consequentialist) approach is welcome. (shrink)

Libertarians often rely on arguments that subordinate the principle of liberty to the value of its economic consequences. This invites the question of what a pure libertarian theory of justice—one that takes liberty as its overriding concern—would look like. Grotius's political theory provides a template for such a libertarianism, but it also entails uncomfortable commitments that can be avoided only by compromising the principle of liberty. According to Grotius, each person should be free to decide how to act as long (...) as her actions do not violate the equal liberty of others. According to this principle, however, people are free to enter any contract and alienate any rights, permitting even contracts of slavery or the alienation of rights of bodily integrity. Libertarians can escape this commitment to absolute freedom of contract only by adopting ad-hoc amendments to the principle of liberty. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss a powerful challenge to high-liberalism: the challenge presented by neoclassical liberals that the high-liberal assumptions and values imply that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. If the claim is true, then the high-liberal road from ideals of democracy and democratic citizenship to left-liberal institutions is blocked. Indeed, in that case the high-liberal is committed to an institutional scheme more along the lines of laissez-faire capitalism than property-owning democracy. To present and discuss this (...) challenge, I let John Rawls represent the high-liberal argument that only a narrow range of economic liberties are basic rights and John Tomasi represent the neoclassical liberal argument that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. I show that Rawls’s argument is inadequate, but also that Tomasi’s argument fails. I thus conclude that high-liberalism is in a precarious situation, but is not yet undone by the neoclassical liberal challenge. (shrink)

Research Articles John Tomasi, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

We characterize, more precisely than before, what Rawls calls the “analytical” method of drawing up a list of basic liberties. This method employs one or more general conditions that, under any just social order whatever, putative entitlements must meet for them to be among the basic liberties encompassed, within some just social order, by Rawls’s first principle of justice (i.e., the liberty principle). We argue that the general conditions that feature in Rawls’s own account of the analytical method, which employ (...) the notion of necessity, are too stringent. They ultimately fail to deliver as basic certain particular liberties that should be encompassed within any fully adequate scheme of liberties. To address this under-generation problem, we provide an amended general condition. This replaces Rawls’s necessity condition with a probabilistic condition and it appeals to the standard liberal prohibition on arbitrary coercion by the state. We defend our new approach both as apt to feature in applications of the analytical method and as adequately grounded in justice as fairness as Rawls articulates the theory’s fundamental ideas. (shrink)

Must a society aim indefinitely for continued economic growth? Proponents of economic growth advance three central challenges to the idea that a society, having attained high levels of income and wealth, may justly cease to pursue further economic growth: if environmentally sustainable and the gains fairly distributed, first, continued economic growth could make everyone within a society and globally, and especially the worst off, progressively better off; second, the pursuit of economic growth spurs ongoing innovation, which enhances people’s opportunities and (...) protects a society against future risks; and third, continued economic growth fosters attitudes of openness, tolerance, and generosity, which are essential to the functioning of a liberal democratic society. This article grants these challenges’ normative foundations, to show that, even if one accepts their underlying premises as requirements of justice, a society may still justly cease to aim for economic growth, so long as it continues to aim for and realize gains on other dimensions. I argue that, while continued economic growth might instrumentally serve valuable ends, it is not necessary for their realization, as a society can achieve these ends through other means. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 359-374, September 2022.

In this essay I discuss a powerful challenge to high-liberalism: the challenge presented by neoclassical liberals that the high-liberal assumptions and values imply that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. If the claim is true, then the high-liberal road from ideals of democracy and democratic citizenship to left-liberal institutions is blocked. Indeed, in that case the high-liberal is committed to an institutional scheme more along the lines of laissez-faire capitalism than property-owning democracy. To present and discuss this (...) challenge, I let John Rawls represent the high-liberal argument that only a narrow range of economic liberties are basic rights and John Tomasi represent the neoclassical liberal argument that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. I show that Rawls’s argument is inadequate, but also that Tomasi’s argument fails. I thus conclude that high-liberalism is in a precarious situation, but is not yet undone by the neoclassical liberal challenge. (shrink)

Technological and societal changes have made downward social and economic mobility a pressing issue in real-world politics. This article argues that a Rawlsian society would not provide any special protection against downward mobility, and would act rightly in declining to provide such protection. Special treatment for the downwardly mobile can be grounded neither in Rawls’s core principles—the basic liberties, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle—nor in other aspects of Rawls’s theory. Instead, a Rawlsian society is willing to sacrifice (...) particular individuals’ ambitions and plans for the achievement of justice, and offers those who lose out from justified change no special solicitude over and above the general solicitude extended to all. Rather than guaranteeing the maintenance of any particular individual or group’s economic position, it provides all of its members—the upwardly mobile, the downwardly mobile, and the immobile—a form of security that is at once more generous and more limited: that they will receive the liberties, opportunities, and resources promised by the principles of justice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: What kinds of markets, market regulations, and business organizations are compatible with contemporary egalitarian theories of justice? This article argues that any thoughtful answer to this question will have to draw on recent developments in political philosophy that are concerned not only with the equality of the distribution of core goods but also with the requirements for equality of status, voice, and so on, in the relations between individuals and within organizations. The dominance of theories of distributive justice in (...) egalitarian political philosophy since Rawls may have contributed, on the one hand, to the oft-recognized gulf between these theories and their theorists and, on the other, to discussions of corporate governance and business ethics. The main purpose of this article is to introduce business ethicists to some of the less-familiar features of recent relational theories of justice and equality, and to suggest that some of these notions may help bridge the gap between business ethics and political philosophy more generally. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:If an employee is committed to his firm—if he is “attached” or “bound” to it—then his firm may be able to obtain a discount on his labor. This paper asks: Is it wrong for firms to do so? If we understand just or fair pay solely in terms of voluntary agreements between employers and employees, the answer seems to be ‘no.’ Against this, I argue that, in some cases, it is ‘yes.’ In particular, it is wrong for firms to try (...) to obtain discounts on their committed employees’ labor when their employees reasonably expect that they will not try to obtain them. In the process, I probe the limits of exploitation and question the relevance of contribution to fairness in compensation. (shrink)

The main question dividing classical and high liberals is about how economic rights rank compared to other rights and public goals. That is, the question is about what can or cannot outweigh such rights. High liberals argue that economic rights can be outweighed by any legitimate state interest, such that they are prima facie rights. Neoclassical liberals, conversely, have recently sought to elevate economic rights to basic rights, which could then only be outweighed by other basic rights. This paper shows (...) where the real debate should be for classical liberals, challenging Samuel Freeman’s widely held distinction between classical and high liberalism. Economic rights are prima facie for all liberals in that they can be outweighed by, say, considerations of utility or social justice. Although neoclassical liberals are correct to say that such rights are much more important than high liberals normally recognize, it does not follow that economic rights are basic. (shrink)

This paper argues that societal duties of health promotion are underwritten (at least in large part) by a principle of beneficence. Further, this principle generates duties of justice that correlate with rights, not merely “imperfect” duties of charity or generosity. To support this argument, I draw on a useful distinction from bioethics and on a somewhat neglected approach to social obligation from political philosophy. The distinction is that between general and specific beneficence; and the approach from political philosophy has at (...) times been called equality of concern. After clarifying the distinction and setting out the basis of the equality of concern view, I argue that the result is a justice-based principle of “specific” beneficence that should be reflected in a society’s health policy. I then draw on this account to criticize, refine, and extend some prominent health care policy proposals from the bioethics literature. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz untersucht, was mit der Metapher von der moralischen "Einbettung" von Märkten gemeint ist. Zunächst werden verschiedene Formen der deskriptiven Einbettung - soziologisch, rechtlich, und institutionell - unerschieden, was zu der These führt, dass kein Markt in einem deskriptiven Sinn „uneingebettet“ ist, und dass die Frage nach Einbettung nicht alleine durch die Betrachtung von Märkten beantwortet werden kann, sondern eine breitere institutionelle Analyse erfordert. Anschließend wird vorgeschlagen, Einbettung im moralischen Sinn als die Forderung nach der Vermeidung verschiedener Formen von (...) Schädigungen zu verstehen, und diese nach dem systematischen Ort der Schädigung und anhand der Kategorien materiell versus immateriell zu kategorisieren. Anschließend werden Hindernisse für die vorgeschlagene Konzeptualisierung und deren praktische Umsetzung diskutiert, nämlich die Frage nach den relevanten Vergleichsmaßstäben und das Problem der Dynamik unbeabsichtigter Folgen, das eine entsprechende Dynamik auch in den Reaktionen auf diese Folgen nötig macht. Der Aufsatz schließt mit Überlegungen zu den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der normativen Einbettung von Märkten auf nationaler und internationaler Ebene. (shrink)

This paper addresses a neglected question in republican political philosophy: what are the conditions for a set of arguments to be considered republican? While republicanism traditionally confers a fundamental role to the democratic ideal of participation in decision-making, recent contributions argue that freedom could be promoted by facilitating exit where possible. The strong version of the latter argument states that when exit is possible, it constitutes the most important contribution to republican freedom, and it preserves the goal of isolating individual (...) choices, i.e. it precludes collective decision-making from interfering with them, and so it intends to limit the scope of public concern considered legitimate. I examine this argument to discuss the boundaries and varieties of republicanism: (i) the boundaries establish that an argument should be couched and substantively articulated in distinctively republican terms; (ii) the strong version of the exit argument does not fall within the boundaries because it is in tension with core republican commitments to self-government and civic virtues; (iii) once we abide by the boundaries we may encounter a diversity of proposals differing on the more concrete level of institutional design and empirical assumptions – these are the varieties of republicanism. (shrink)

This paper discusses Adam Smith's views of social justice. It first describes Smith's optimistic view of markets, for example with regard to the absence of negative externalities, which implies that he considered certain normative problems to be the exception rather than the rule. Then, Smith's views on redistribution are discussed: although he is sympathetic to progressive taxation, his main focus remains on free markets, which can partly be explained by his distrust of politicians. If one takes a closer look as (...) Smith's views of markets, however, it turns out that one of the reasons why he endorses them is their distributive features. He saw them as an antidote to the inequalities of the feudal age, offering all individuals an opportunity to work their way up to a decent standard of living and leading to more equality in the long run. Thus, Smith's account, while out-dated in certain ways, can serve as an inspiration for thinking about distributive justice not only as a question of redistributive taxation but also as a question of the institutional design of markets. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill commented on the relationship between equality and liberty in general terms, and he also discussed the relationships between equality and four more concrete social goals: equality vs. diversity and individual spontaneity, equality vs. freedom of trade and entrepreneurial activity, equality vs. economic incentives for workpeople, and equality vs. welfare. In his more general statements he wrote off potential conflicts between equality and liberty, claiming that only those liberties that can be enjoyed by all are real liberties—or at (...) least they are the only ones worth defending. However, in several of his more concrete discussions he gave higher priority to various liberty-related goals than to equality. This seeming contradiction can be resolved if we assume that he distinguished between valuing a liberty per se and valuing it as a means to achieve something else. (shrink)

The revival of classical liberal thought has reignited a debate about economic freedom and social justice. Classical liberals claim to defend expansive economic freedom, while their critics wish to restrict this freedom for other values. However, there are two problems with the role ‘economic freedom’ plays in this debate: inconsistency in the use of the concept and indeterminacy with respect to its definition. Inconsistency in the use of the concept ‘freedom’ has mistakenly made a certain kind of ‘left-wing’ critique of (...) poverty, and of markets generally, appear to be a concern with inequality in means to enjoy freedom, not with freedom itself. Indeterminacy about which beings and doings the basic liberties protect misrepresents the left-wing position as about something other than economic freedom. Inconsistency and indeterminacy lead to artificial narrowness in current debates and to a failure to see that disagreement is based not just on moral differences but also on conceptual confusion. This confusion leads both classical liberals and their critics to claim more than they may legitimately do, and to ignore a position that accepts the standard of definition of freedom but arrives at different institutional conclusions about what secures that freedom. (shrink)

Political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) calls for firms to implement and engage in deliberative democracy processes and structures, addressing governance gaps where governments are unwilling or unable to do so. However, an underlying assumption that the implementation of PCSR will enrich democratic processes in society has been exposed and challenged. In this conceptual article, we explore this challenge by developing a framework to reveal the dynamics of firms’ deliberative democratic processes and structures (meso level), and those at nation state (macro (...) level). Using existing cases as illustrative examples, we demonstrate that despite the public good premise of PCSR theory toward thickening the overall democracy in a society, corporate democratization at meso level can have the opposite effect and may actually erode macro-level democratic control of society and the economy. These findings imply a need for multilevel analysis in PCSR research and greater consideration of state-level public institutions and the responsibilities of business firms toward those institutions. Furthermore, we contribute to the PCSR literature by identifying the disruptive mechanisms associated with these dynamics and outline two alternative perspectives to allow firms to continue to take on political responsibilities. (shrink)

The article reviews the recent debate about workplace democracy. It first presents and critically discusses arguments in favor of democratizing the firm that are based on the analogy with states, meaningful work, the avoidance of unjustified hierarchies, and beneficial effects on political democracy. The second part presents and critically discusses arguments against workplace democracy that are based on considerations of efficiency, the difficulties of a transition towards democratic firms, and liberal commitments such as the rights of employees and owners to (...) work for or invest in nondemocratic firms. The conclusion summarizes the debate and argues that experiments with democratic workplaces as what Erik Olin Wright calls “real utopias” could deliver new insights and thus move the discussion forward. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been recently conceptualized and studied as a political phenomenon. Most debates in this scholarship have thus far focused on normative issues. Less attention has been paid to the explanatory potential of CSR research grounded in political theory and philosophy. In this article, we conduct a pragmatist reading of political scholarship on CSR and seek to deploy existing knowledge for research pursuing political explanation. We argue that the political ontologies that underlie scholarship on CSR can be (...) used to transform normative and descriptive research also for explanatory uses. We show how ontologies vary in terms of potential research objects and scopes of political explanation, and argue that the main types of political-ontological stances adopted in scholarship on CSR, foundational and post-foundational stances, offer explanatory analysis of different schematic guidelines. Our pragmatist reading of previous research and an empirical case illustration of political explanation of change in corporate responsibility in the biofuel industry demonstrate the opportunities, limitations, and challenges different political-ontological commitments provide for political explanation. (shrink)

Many liberal egalitarians support laws that prevent people from making exploitative and unconscionable contracts. These contracts may include low-wage labor agreements or payday loans, for example. I argue that liberal egalitarians should rethink their support for laws that limit the freedom to make these illiberal contracts, as long as the contracts are voluntary and do not violate people’s other enforceable rights. Paternalistic considerations cannot justify limits on illiberal contracts because they are not only likely to misfire; they also express condescending (...) and inegalitarian judgments of citizens. I then consider Seana Shiffrin’s argument that officials may avoid paternalism while still deterring illiberal contracts if they instead refuse to use public institutions to accommodate contracts that are contrary to the fundamental values on which those institutions are based. This argument encounters a dilemma. Officials may refuse to enforce illiberal contracts and ban private enforcement of illiberal contracts, but this strategy encounters the charges of paternalism it aimed to avoid. Or, officials may refuse to enforce illiberal contracts but tolerate private enforcement, but this approach would make the worst off members of society even more vulnerable and marginalized. Therefore, liberal egalitarians should support public enforcement of illiberal contracts because the alternatives are worse. (shrink)

Recent arguments for the basic status of economic liberty can be deployed to show that all liberty is basic. The argument for the basic status of all liberty is as follows. First, John Tomasi’s defense of basic economic liberties is successful. Economic freedom can be further defended against powerful high liberal objections, which libertarians including Tomasi have so far overlooked. Yet arguments for basic economic freedom raise a puzzle about the distinction between basic and non-basic liberties. The same reasons that (...) economic liberties and the traditionally defined list of basic liberties are basic can also be given for all other liberties. Therefore, high liberals and Rawlsian libertarians ought to accept almost all other liberties as basic, even liberties that may strike us as trivial, silly, or unimportant. This claim has revisionary implications for high liberalism. Namely, liberals should endorse strong institutional protections for almost all liberties, even at the expense of other social values. (shrink)

This article argues that economic crises are incompatible with the realisation of non-domination in capitalist societies. The ineradicable risk that an economic crisis will occur undermines the robust security of the conditions of non-domination for all citizens, not only those who are harmed by a crisis. I begin by demonstrating that the unemployment caused by economic crises violates the egalitarian dimensions of freedom as non-domination. The lack of employment constitutes an exclusion from the social bases of self-respect, and from a (...) practice of mutual social contribution crucial to the intersubjective affirmation of one’s status. While this argument shows that republicans must be concerned about economic crises, I suggest a more powerful argument can be grounded in the republican requirement that freedom must be robust. The systemic risk of economic crisis constitutes a threat to the conditions of free citizenship that cannot be nullified using policy mechanisms. As a result, republicans appear to be faced with the choice of revising their commitments or rejecting the possibility that republican freedom can be robustly secured in capitalist societies. (shrink)

To be a liberal is, among other things, to grant basic liberties some degree of priority over other aspects of justice. But why do basic liberties warrant this special treatment? For Rawls, the answer has to do with the allegedly special connection between these freedoms and the ‘two moral powers’ of reasonableness and rationality. Basic freedoms are said to be preconditions for the development and exercise of these powers and are held to warrant priority over other justice-relevant values for that (...) reason. In the first half of the article I mount an internal critique of this Rawlsian line, arguing that it is flawed in two main ways. First, it overestimates the contribution of basic freedom to moral personality. Second, it underestimates the contribution of non-liberty resources to moral personality. In the second half of the article I repair these flaws. The result is a new, intriguingly radical version of justice as fairness, one with surprising—yet plausible—implications for economic and gender justice. (shrink)

Chapter. 1. Philosophical. Perspectives. on. Democracy. in. the. Twenty-First. Century: Introduction. Ann E. Cudd and Sally J. Scholz Abstract Recent global movements, including the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, as well as polarizing ...

This article presents the most important strands of the philosophical debate about markets. It offers some distinctions between the concept of markets and related concepts, as well as a brief outline of historical positions vis-à-vis markets. The main focus is on presenting the most common arguments for and against markets, and on analyzing the ways in which markets are related to other social institutions. In the concluding section questions about markets are connected to two related themes, methodological questions in economics (...) and the topics of business ethics and corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Within the small body of philosophical work on strikes, to participate in a strike is commonly seen as to refuse to do the job while retaining one’s claim upon it. What is the relationship, though, between liberalism and the right to strike? This is our main question.

One core question in contemporary political economy is whether economic liberties should be constitutionally protected as basic rights. In this article I do not provide a positive argument for the view that economic liberties are basic rights. Rather, I seek to provide a reason for not embracing the opposing view, i.e. that economic liberties should not be constitutionally protected as basic rights. Based on Hayek’s theory of price as signal, I argue that price control, a view usually associated with high (...) liberals, and sometimes endorsed by moderate welfarists, is environmentally sub-optimal. (shrink)