This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Like American politics, the academic debate over justice is polarized, with almost all theories of justice falling within one of two traditions: egalitarianism and libertarianism. This book provides an alternative to the partisan standoff by focusing not on equality or liberty, but on the idea that we should give people the things that they deserve. Mulligan argues that a just society is a meritocracy, in which equal opportunity prevails and social goods are distributed strictly on the basis of merit. That (...) gives citizens their just deserts. In addition to its novel conceptual approach, meritocracy is distinctive from existing work in two ways. First, it is grounded in research on how people actually think about justice. Empirical research reveals that people don't think that social goods should be distributed equally. Nor do they dismiss the idea of social justice. Across ideological and cultural lines, people want rewards to reflect merit. Second, the book discusses hot-button political issues and makes concrete policy recommendations. These issues include anti-meritocratic bias against women and racial minorities and the United States’ widening economic inequality. Justice and the Meritocratic State offers a new theory of justice and provides solutions to our most vexing social and economic problems. It will be of keen interest to philosophers, economists, and political theorists. (shrink)

In this article I defend the claim that subsidies for university education should be substantially reduced. The normative justification for this conclusion derives from a theory of distributive justice called the Compensation Theory of Income Justice, which is most easily understood as a normative version of the positive economic theory of compensating differentials. Relying on the distinction between incentives and economic rents, and after considering two ‘received opinions’ about why large income differentials exist in modern societies, I note that substantial (...) portions of above-average incomes are likely to be artificial monopoly rents, rather than incentives or natural monopoly rents. Under the Compensation Theory of Income Justice the earning of artificial monopoly rents is not justified. Since subsidisation of university education fees increases lifetime artificial rents, the theory would recommend such subsidies be substantially reduced. I defend this conclusion against objections, the most notable of which is the view that university subsidies help to improve equality of opportunity to university education. I explain how it is possible to maintain the laudable aim of providing equality of opportunity while reducing the subsidisation and, as a consequence, the lifetime artificial rents. (shrink)

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

We propose a principle of sustainability to complement established principles used for justifying healthcare resource allocation. We argue that the application of established principles of equal treatment, need, prognosis and cost-effectiveness gives rise to what we call negative dynamics: a gradual depletion of the value possible to generate through healthcare. These principles should therefore be complemented by a sustainability principle, making the prospect of negative dynamics a further factor to consider, and possibly outweigh considerations highlighted by the other principles. We (...) demonstrate how this principle may take different forms, and show that a commitment to sustainability is supported by considerations internal to the ethical principles already guiding healthcare resource allocation. We also consider two objections. The first of these, we argue, is either based on implausible assumptions or begs the question, whereas the second can be adequately accommodated by the principle we propose. (shrink)

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)

This article endeavors to establish the moral force behind the worker’s claim to a compensatory wage in return for the labor burdens she endures. The apparent incompatibility between compensation and voluntary losses suggests that the only reason for providing a compensatory wage is the need to entice a valued service. In response, the article considers and rejects attempts to ground the compensatory wage on duress, mutual trade, and desert. Instead, it argues that the worker is not responsible for her loss (...) of well-being because she would not have incurred it in the absence of the employer’s promise to compensate. Key Words: compensatory wage • contributory wage • detrimental reliance • desert • labor burdens • promises • responsibility. (shrink)

This paper argues that the standard characterisation of the equity-efficiency trade-off as set out in this symposium by Joe Heath overstates the tension between these two values. The reason lies in the fact that economists tend to take individual labour supply preferences as given, which leads to a superficial analysis of the concepts of reservation wage and of economic rent. The paper suggests that we should instead think of reservation wages as variable and as influenced by social norms. Social norms (...) play a double role in this context. First, they represent a constitutive element of market competition; second, they can be a determinant of income inequalities. From this perspective, a certain share of high reservation wages sustained by contingent inegalitarian social norms should count as economic rent. The last section of the paper strengthens this conclusion further by drawing a parallel between expensive tastes in consumption and a certain class of high reservation wages. To the extent that the latter are underpinned by social norms rather than efficiency considerations, not paying them is both just and efficient. (shrink)

This thesis assesses philosophical arguments in favour of patent systems. These come in both consequentialist and deontological forms, the latter of which are the focus of this analysis. One kind of deontological argument is based on the concept of desert. I argue that on any plausible conception of desert, the patent system fails to distribute rewards as well as viable alternative systems could. The other kind of deontological argument claims that inventors are entitled to patent rights over their inventions as (...) an extension of their natural rights, drawing on a Lockean account of the conditions of legitimate appropriation of unowned goods. After a discussion of the metaphysics of invention, and of the nature of the commons, I argue that Locke's conditions are not in fact always trivially satisfied in the case of patents. Furthermore, entitlement-based arguments conclude that because new inventions are unowned, claiming property rights in them involves only the same moral considerations that would apply in the state of nature. I argue that because we are not in the state of nature, pre-existing property rights also need to be taken into account, which conflict with patents. The broad conclusion of this thesis is that none of the plausible deontological arguments for patent systems are sound. The implication is that any justification of must therefore be made in consequentialist terms; this ultimately rests on strong empirical evidence rather than normative arguments alone. (shrink)