This book develops a novel approach to distributive justice by building a theory based on a concept of desert. As a work of applied political theory, it presents a simple but powerful theoretical argument and a detailed proposal to eliminate unmerited inequality, poverty, and economic immobility, speaking to the underlying moral principles of both progressives who already support egalitarian measures and also conservatives who have previously rejected egalitarianism on the grounds of individual freedom, personal responsibility, hard work, or economic efficiency. (...) By using an agnostic, flexible, data-driven approach to isolate luck and ultimately measure desert, this proposal makes equal opportunity initiatives both more accurate and effective as it adapts to a changing economy. It grants to each individual the freedom to genuinely choose their place in the distribution. It provides two policy variations that are perfectly economically efficient, and two others that are conditionally so. It straightforwardly aligns outcomes with widely shared, fundamental moral intuitions. Lastly, it demonstrates much of the above by modeling four policy variations using 40 years of survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. (shrink)

The view that exertion of effort determines praiseworthiness for an achievement is implicit in ‘no pain, no praise’-style objections to biomedical enhancement. On such views, if enhancements were t...

Rather than answering the broad question, ‘What is a just income?’, in this essay I consider one component of income—economic rent—under one understanding of justice—as giving people what they deserve. As it turns out, the answer to this more focused question is ‘no’. People do not deserve their economic rents, and there is no bar of justice to their confiscation. After briefly covering the concept of desert and explaining what economic rents are, I analyze six types of rent and show (...) that each is unjustified from the point of view of desert. I conclude by drawing some political and economic lessons from the preceding analysis, and by describing how these considerations can create a more just and efficient economy. (shrink)

Although widely used across psychology, economics, and philosophy, the concept ofeffort is rarely ever defined. This article argues that the time is ripe to look for anexplicit general definition of effort, makes some proposals about how to arrive at thisdefinition, and suggests that a force-based approach is the most promising. Section 1presents an interdisciplinary overview of some chief research axes on effort, and arguesthat few, if any, general definitions have been proposed so far. Section 2 argues thatsuch a definition is (...) now needed and proposes a basic methodology to arrive at it, whosefirst step is to make explicit the various tacit assumptions about effort made acrosssciences and ordinary thinking. Section 3 unearths 4 different conceptions of effortfrom research on effort so far:primitive-feelings accounts,comparator-based accounts,resource-based accountsandforce-based accounts. It is then argued that the first 2kinds of accounts, although interesting in their own right, are not strictly speaking abouteffort. Section 4 considers the 2 most promising general approaches to efforts: re-source-based and force-based accounts. It argues that these accounts are not only compatible but actually extensionally equivalent. This notwithstanding, it explains why force-based accounts should be regarded as more fundamental than resource-basedaccounts -/- . (shrink)

Principles of distributive justice are normative principles designed to guide the allocation of the benefits and burdens of economic activity.

The National Science Foundation's Second Merit Criterion, or Broader Impacts Criterion , was introduced in 1997 as the result of an earlier Congressional movement to enhance the accountability and responsibility as well as the effectiveness of federally funded projects. We demonstrate that a robust understanding and appreciation of NSF BIC argues for a broader conception of research ethics in the sciences than is currently offered in Responsible Conduct of Research training. This essay advocates augmenting RCR education with training regarding broader (...) impacts. We demonstrate that enhancing research ethics training in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of the ethics relevant to scientific research and prepares scientists to think not only in terms of responsibly conducted science, but also of the role of science in responding to identified social needs and in adhering to principles of social justice. As universities respond to the mandate from America COMPETES to “provide training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research”, we urge institutions to embrace a more adequate conception of research ethics, what we call the Ethical Dimensions of Scientific Research, that addresses the full range of ethical issues relevant to scientific inquiry, including ethical issues related to the broader impacts of scientific research and practice. (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...

This paper investigates one of Anderson’s (2007) objections to individually-allocating principles of distributive justice: that they are incompatible with the free market. I argue that Anderson’s objection applies only to the specific principle she discusses, associated with luck egalitarianism, and not to individually-allocating principles generally. I then discuss different individually-allocating principles, the precepts of justice, broached by Rawls (1971,1999) but never developed by him. The precepts determine people’s distributive entitlements based on their contributions, efforts, and needs. I offer an interpretation (...) of each precept, explain why its distributive standard is compelling, show how the precepts avoid Anderson’s objection, and address Rawls’s rationale for not using the precepts in his account of distributive justice. I conclude by comparing the precepts to the kind of principle that Anderson prefers, range-constraining rules, arguing that the precepts meet the key standard associated with those rules. (shrink)

In their justification of individual entitlements, libertarians appeal to the concept of self-ownership. This paper argues that taking into account the division of labour in society calls for a fundamental reassessment of the normative implications of self-ownership. How should the benefits from division of labour—in other words, how should the co-operative surplus—be distributed? On the assumption that the parties to the division of labour are interdependent, and that this interdependence is mutual and of the same degree, I argue for an (...) equal distribution of the co-operative surplus. In form, my argument bears similarities to the left-libertarian position that calls for an equal distribution of natural resources. Despite its radically egalitarian implications, an equal distribution of the co-operative surplus remains a libertarian principle. (shrink)