El Derecho y la Ética mantienen una relación estrecha, aunque no muchas veces se le brinda la atención que dicha vinculación merece. El análisis y la evaluación moral de las instituciones jurídicas y políticas conforman lo que se denomina "Jurisprudencia Normativa" o también "Ética Política". Una disciplina capaz de hacer avanzar el estudio de políticas públicas y herramientas jurídicas y sociales y, a la vez, juzgar su adecuación a criterios de corrección moral política. Este ha sido nuestro objetivo en la (...) compilación de los trabajos que componen este libro: ofrecer una investigación tanto de las instituciones como de las acciones de quienes participan en las prácticas que tienen lugar a partir de dichas instituciones. Los trabajos que se compilan aquí parten de un hecho difícilmente controvertible, esto es, que tanto los ciudadanos como los operadores jurídicos, en tanto participantes activos de una sociedad, pueden adoptar una actitud reflexiva frente a las instituciones jurídicas. De hecho, la concepción que se pretende impulsar a través de nuestras investigaciones afirma que existe un deber de desarrollar esta actitud. Al menos es un deber que corresponde a aquellos que están de una u otra manera vinculados con las profesiones jurídicas. Esta actitud de reflexión crítica se presenta en dos tipos de juicios de moralidad política: uno relacionado con las instituciones y otro con las acciones que se llevan a cabo dentro de aquéllas. (shrink)

This article provides a survey of key topics on just inheritance taxation. It does so by first presenting the main arguments in the debate. Here, I distinguish between arguments in the academic literature and the various arguments which have proven important in the public debate. Secondly, I outline four influential proposals when it comes to how inheritance should be taxed. Finally, I examine a recent controversy and point towards a number of themes that have not been sufficiently discussed.

This paper answers the title question, “Yes,” on both counts. The first part of the paper argues that modern liberals are socialists, and the second part argues that they are also social democrats. The main idea behind the first argument is that the state has effectively taken control of the incidents of ownership through its taxation, spending, and regulatory policies. The main idea behind the second argument is that the institutions of social democracy are replicated by the institutions favored by (...) modern American liberalism. Specifically, the takeover of the American healthcare system, Social Security, employers' mandatory contributions to unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation insurance replicate the institutions of social democracy. (shrink)

Neoclassical and Austrian economic theory lend support to a conception of laissez‐faire capitalism as an ideal scheme of cooperation in which individual decisions are harmonized, and income is distributed according to one's productive contribution. Keynes's critique of this conception has an often‐overlooked moral dimension, according to which the coordination problems that trouble real‐world market economies produce an arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and income.

In this paper we take issue with two central claims that John Tomasi makes in Free Market Fairness. The first claim is that Rawls’s difference principle can better be realized by free market institutions than it can be by state interventionist regimes such as property-owning democracy or liberal socialism. We argue that Tomasi’s narrow interpretation of the difference principle, which focuses largely on wealth and income, leaves other goods worryingly unsatisfied. The second claim is that a wide set of economic (...) liberties ought to be protected because they realize responsible ‘self-authorship.’ We argue that this claim also fails because, crucially, whether economic liberties serve individuals in pursuing their ambitions will depend on the nature of those ambitions and how the use of those liberties by others would affect their pursuit of them. If an expansion of liberty is good for us in some ways, but bad in others, we need to assess whether, all things considered, we would be better off with or without such expanded economic rights. We argue that the expansion Tomasi proposes is likely to fail this test. (shrink)

Este trabajo investiga las implicancias prácticas tributarias de la teoría rawlsiana de la justicia. Para ello se examinan las consideraciones morales que la teoría juzga aplicables al modelo de sociedad denominado "democracia de propietarios". Luego se explicita la manera en que se aplican sus principios en contextos de inequidad social. Finalmente, se consideran dos propuestas de aplicación práctica para basar el sistema tributario sobre los tributos al consumo. Se evalúa si estas propuestas son compatibles con la teoría liberal igualitaria rawlsiana (...) y si colaboran en la promoción de las bases del autorrespeto y la reciprocidad cívica. (shrink)