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)

According to the trilemma claim, we cannot have all three of equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice. In response to the trilemma, John Rawls famously sacrificed equality by introducing incentives. In contrast, GA Cohen and others argued that we can, in fact, have all three provided that individuals are properly motivated by an egalitarian ethos. The incentives debate, then, concerns the plausibility of the ethos solution versus the plausibility of the incentives solution. Considerable ink has been spilled on both (...) sides of the debate. Yet, in this essay, I argue that we cannot have this debate until we clarify the terms. Once we clarify the terms, however, we might discover that there is no debate to be had. This is because, depending on how equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice are interpreted, there might not be a trilemma in the first place. Specifically, I use a small but crucial distinction in how equality, the egalitarian ethos, and Pareto are assessed – what I call the internal/external distinction – to disentangle the various paths each solution – the ethos or incentives – could take. I conclude that both solutions have gained illicit plausibility by virtue of not keeping the distinction straight. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 19 Collectivities can have obligations beyond the aggregate of pre-existing obligations of their members. Certain such collective obligations _distribute_, i.e., become members’ obligations to do their fair share. In _incremental good_ cases, i.e., those in which a member’s fair share would go part way toward fulfilling the collectivity’s obligation, each member has an unconditional obligation to contribute.States are involuntary collectivities that bear moral obligations. Certain states, _democratic legal states_, are collectivities whose obligations can distribute. Many existing (...) states are democratic legal states, but none satisfies more rigorous requirements of distributive justice. There, citizens who hold assets, in excess of what is just, bear a distributed duty to dedicate that excess toward correcting the injustice. It is an incremental good case not conditioned on the conformity of others who are also wealthier than justice allows, nor on the diligence of the state in meeting its obligations. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen is famous for his critique of John Rawls’s view that principles of justice are restricted in scope to institutional structures. In recent work, however, Cohen has suggested that Rawlsians get more than just the scope of justice wrong: they get the concept wrong too. He claims that justice is a fundamental value, i.e. a moral input in our deliberations about the content of action-guiding regulatory principles, rather than the output. I argue here that Cohen’s arguments for extending the (...) scope of justice equivocate across his distinction between fundamental principles of justice, i.e. principles that tell us what justice is; and regulatory principles of justice, i.e. principles that tell us what is required of us, all things – including justice – considered. Though Cohen initially had the regulatory sense of the word ‘justice’ in mind when critiquing the basic structure restriction, his replies to the problem of demandingness presuppose his own, fundamental sense of the word ‘justice’. The upshot is that he escapes demandingness at the cost of sacrificing regulatory justice’s capacity to provide clear guidance. I conclude by considering Peter Singer’s efforts to deal with demandingness in his own work on global poverty. Since Singer manages to deal with demandingness without giving up clarity, his work is a good a place to start in the search for regulatory principles that are suitable for the context of personal choice. (shrink)

This paper develops a full account of Rawls's notion of a well-ordered society and uses it to address two luck egalitarian objections to his principles of justice. The first is an internal criticism which claims that Rawls's account of justice is better captured by a responsibility-sensitive egalitarian account. The second is an external objection according to which, regardless of the alleged inconsistency between Rawls's principles and his account of justice, we should reject those principles in favour of a responsibility-sensitive criterion (...) because it better captures our moral intuitions about distributive justice. The argument presented answers both objections by defending the value of well-orderedness and showing the difficulties of responsibility-sensitive egalitarian conceptions in realizing this ideal. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify what it means for a normative theory to be fact-sensitive, and what might be wrong with such sensitivity, by examining the ways in which ‘justice as fairness’ depends upon facts. While much of the fact-sensitivity of Rawls’s principles consists of innocent limitations of generality, Rawls’s appeal to stability raises a legitimate worry about defining justice down in order to make ‘justice’ stable. If it should turn out that the correct principles of justice are inconsistent with (...) human nature, it might be important for us to recognize that as a feature of human psychology we regret, rather than revising our principles for the sake of stability in a way that obscures the fact that there is anything to regret. Whether or not Rawlsian principles are in fact watered down depends on how one interprets the role of reciprocity in the theory. Reciprocity can be seen as a fact about human psychology that limits the extent to which justice can be realized where assurance of compliance on the part of others is lacking. Or it can be seen as a fact about justice, to wit, that its point is to create a relationship of mutual recognition and respect, making strictly unilateral compliance pointless. (shrink)

In this article I argue for two closely related conclusions: one concerned more narrowly with the internal consistency of G. A. Cohen's theorizing about justice and the unique rhetoric in which it is couched, the other connected to a more sweeping set of recommendations about how theorizing on justice is most promisingly undertaken. First, drawing on a famous insight of G. E. Moore, I argue that although the (Platonic) purity of Cohenian justice provides Cohen a platform from which to put (...) some extremely challenging criticisms to Rawls and Rawlsian liberals, at the same time it generates a sort of self-referential paradox for many of the theses about the concept of justice to which Cohen himself is committed. I go on to conclude, using Rawls's theory of justice as a model, that it would serve political philosophy well to conceive of justice with less purity than Cohen conceives of it. (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)

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)

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)

In contemporary debates about justice, political philosophers take themselves to be engaged with a subject that’s narrower than the whole of morality. Many contemporary liberals, notably John Rawls, understand this narrowness in terms of context specificity. On their view, justice is the part of morality that applies to the context of a society’s institutions, but only has indirect application to the context of citizens’ personal lives. In contrast, many value pluralists, notably G.A. Cohen, understand justice’s narrowness in terms of singularity (...) against a plural background. On their view, justice is one fundamental value amongst a plurality of fundamental values. The purpose of my thesis is to establish that the pluralist conception of justice’s narrowness is theoretically significant and true. To establish its theoretical significance, I argue that proper attention to the ways in which different understandings of narrowness inform the work of contemporary egalitarians explains a considerable amount of disagreement between them concerning the content and scope of distributive justice. On the one hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in the manner Cohen and other pluralists do, i.e., understand a conception of justice to be a conception of a particular fundamental value, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context are compelling. On the other hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in a contextual manner, i.e., understand justice to comprise one or more all-things-considered principles adopted for the institutional context, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context prove implausible. To establish the truth of the pluralist conception of narrowness, I argue first, that the contextual understanding is only plausible if fairness should be understood procedurally instead of substantively; and second, that substantive fairness cannot be eliminated, as specifying the content of procedural fairness requires a substantive criterion. The upshot is that justice’s narrowness is best understood in terms of singularity against a plural background, rather than in terms of context specificity. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Alan Thomas presents a novel defence of what I call ‘Rawlsian Institutionalism about Justice’ against G. A. Cohen’s well-known critique. In this response I aim to defend Cohen’s rejection of Institutionalism against Thomas’s arguments. In part this defence requires clarifying precisely what is at issue between Institutionalists and their opponents. My primary focus, however, is on Thomas’s critical discussion of Cohen’s endorsement of an ethical prerogative, as well as his appeal to the institutional (...) framework of a ‘property-owning democracy’ in his elaboration of the precise institutional requirements of Rawlsian Institutionalist justice, and his related claim that Cohen’s rejection of Institutionalism involves an objectionable ‘double counting’ of the demands of justice. I argue that once we are clear about both the kind of justification that can be given for a prerogative within a plausible ethical theory, and about the key points of departure between Institutionalist views and their rivals, Cohen’s rejection of Institutionalism appears well-motivated, and Thomas’s claim that his view is guilty of double counting the demands of justice can be seen to be mistaken. (shrink)

Conflicting answers to the question of what principles of justice are for may generate very different ways of theorizing about justice. Indeed divergent answers to it are at the heart of G. A. Cohen's disagreement with John Rawls. Cohen thinks that the roots of this disagreement lie in the constructivist method that Rawls employs, which mistakenly treats the principles that emerge from a procedure that involves factual assumptions as ultimate principles of justice. But I argue that even if Rawls were (...) to abandon his constructivism, and to accept Cohen's argument that ultimate principles of justice are not grounded directly in any facts, their divergent views concerning the proper role of principles of justice would lead them to different conclusions. I contend that even if ultimate principles of justice are not directly grounded in any facts, the role that principles of justice are needed to play may mean that their justification depends upon facts about what is feasible and facts about what is burdensome to people. Contrary to what Cohen maintains, being dependent on the facts in this manner does not preclude a principle from being ultimate; nor do principles which have this sort of dependence on the facts necessarily combine justice with other values in a way that must lead to conflation. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that G. A. Cohen’s defense of the feminist slogan, “The personal is political”, his argument against Rawls’s restriction of principles of justice to the basic structure of society, depends for its intelligibility on the ability to distinguish—with reasonable but perhaps not perfect precision—between those situations in which what Nancy Rosenblum has called “the logic of congruence” is validly invoked and those in which it is not. More importantly, I suggest that the philosophical shape of Cohen’s (...) critique makes it difficult for him to supply the required criterion, and that the methodological “intuitionism” he claims to be committed to is at odds with his larger argument against Rawls concerning the subject of justice. (shrink)

In Cohen’s vision of the just society, there would be no need for unequalizing incentives so as to benefit the least well-off; instead, people would be motivated by an egalitarian ethos to work hard and in the most socially productive jobs. As such, Cohen appears to offer a way to mitigate the trade-off of equality for efficiency that often characterizes theorizing about distributive justice. This article presents an egalitarian challenge to Cohen’s vision of the just society. I argue that a (...) society where all internalized the egalitarian ethos would be one lacking equal respect among its members, in which certain groups lacked the grounds of self-respect. Section 1 defends equal respect and a form of equality of self-respect as values with broad-based appeal to egalitarians, and argues that a particular form of hierarchy would undermine both equal respect and the grounds of self-respect. Sections 2 and 3 reveal that just such a hierarchy would emerge in a society in which all had internalized the egalitarian ethos, in the case of both carers and the untalented. Thus, Cohen’s proposed society is shown to fail to unite equality and efficiency. Instead, Cohen’s society would be characterized by a lack of equality. (shrink)

In this thesis I defend the principle of global egalitarianism. According to this idea most of the existing detrimental inequalities in this world are morally objectionable. As detrimental inequalities I understand those that are not to the benefit of the worst off people and that can be non-wastefully removed. To begin with, I consider various justifications of the idea that only those detrimental inequalities that occur within one and the same state are morally objectionable. I identify Thomas Nagel’s approach as (...) the most promising defence of this traditional position. However, I also show that Nagel’s argument does not even justify the elimination of detrimental inequalities within states. A discussion of the concept of political legitimacy rather shows that egalitarian justice is not a necessary condition of the justifiability of the exercise of coercive political power. I, then, consider other, more Rawlsian approaches to the question of detrimental inequalities. These views appear more plausible than Nagel’s position and argue that egalitarian duties also arise in certain international contexts. But also these more global theories of distributive justice suffer from shortcomings. Since they make the application of duties of justice dependent on the existence of social practices they cannot adequately account for the justified interests of non-participants that are affected by these practices. The counter-intuitive implications of practice-dependent theories lead me to investigate the plausibility of a theory that does not limit justice to existing practices and that argues for the inherent value of equality. This theory is global egalitarianism. I defend global egalitarianism by debilitating three objections that opponents of this idea frequently present in the relevant literature. Finally I also address two particular objections to the idea that global egalitarian duties are institutionalizable with the help of coercive global authorities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Price discrimination is the practice of charging different customers different prices for the same product. Many people consider price discrimination unfair, but economists argue that in many cases price discrimination is more likely to lead to greater welfare than is the uniform pricing alternative—sometimes for every party in the transaction. This article shows i) that there are many situations in which it is necessary to engage in differential pricing in order to make the provision of a product possible; and ii) (...) that in many such situations, the seller does not obtain an above-average rate of return. It concludes that price discrimination is not inherently unfair. The article also contends that even when conditions i) and/or ii) do not obtain, price discrimination is not necessarily unethical. In itself, the fact that some people get an even better deal than do others does not entail that the latter are wronged. (shrink)

Principles of sufficiency are widely discussed in debates about distributive ethics. However, critics have argued that sufficiency principles are vulnerable to important objections. This paper seeks to clarify the main claims of sufficiency principles and to examine whether they have something distinctive and plausible to offer. The paper argues that sufficiency principles must claim that we have weighty reasons to secure enough and that once enough is secured the nature of our reasons to secure further benefits shifts. Having characterized sufficientarianism (...) in this way, the paper shows that the main objections to the view can be avoided; that we can examine the plausibility of sufficiency principles by appealing to certain reasons that support a shift; and that we should be optimistic about the prospects for sufficientarianism because many of our strongest reasons seem to be of this sort. This shift, I claim, is the overlooked grain of truth in sufficientarianism. (shrink)

In this paper I try to illuminate the Rawlsian architectonic through an interpretation of what Rawls’ Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy say about Rousseau. I argue that Rawls’ emphasis there when discussing Rousseau on interpreting amour-propre so as to make it compatible with a life in at least some societies draws attention to, and helps explicate, an analogous feature of his own work, the strains of commitment broadly conceived. Both are centrally connected with protecting a sense of self (...) which is vital for one’s own agency. This allows us to appreciate better than much of the literature presently does the requirement for Rawls that justice and the good are congruent, that a society of justice does not disfigure citizens’ ability to live out lives relatively unmarked by relations of domination. Some comments on G. A. Cohen’s critiques of Rawls are made. (shrink)

Recently, the issue of publicity has surfaced in discussions of the correct interpretation of the Rawlsian principles of justice. In an intriguing critique of G.A. Cohen's preferred interpretation of the difference principle as a principle that is incompatible with incentive-based inequalities, Andrew Williams points to a gap in Cohen's argument, alleging that Cohen's interpretation of the difference principle is unlikely to be compatible with the Rawlsian endorsement of publicity. Having explored a possible extrapolation of Cohen's critique to aggregate consumer choices (...) and a resulting extension of Williams's charge that the difference principle, on Cohen's reading, fails to meet the publicity constraint because of its informational demandingness, I defend three claims: it is doubtful that Rawls endorses a publicity constraint of the sort that would rule out Cohen's interpretation of the difference principle; it is hard to see how such a constraint could emerge from the considerations Rawls offers in favour of publicity; and under certain interpretations, the difference principle disallows incentive-based inequalities and yet satisfies suitably modest versions of the publicity constraint. (shrink)

A survey of recent work on egalitarianism.

Can contractualism yield a suitably egalitarian conception of social justice? G.A. Cohen has forcefully argued that it cannot - that one cannot be both a contractualist and an egalitarian. Cohen presents a number of arguments to this effect, the particular target of which is John Rawls’s version of contractualism. In this article, I show that, contra Cohen, the Rawlsian model of contractualism, and the ideal of reciprocity on which it relies, can coherently yield egalitarian principles of distributive justice such as (...) the difference principle. I also defend Rawls from the further claim, pressed by Cohen and others, that relying on the idea of mutual or reciprocal advantage will leave the infirm or severely handicapped outside the scope of egalitarian justice. I argue that Rawlsians can account for the claims that the infirm or severely handicapped have on others in terms of a natural duty to aid. Key Words: G.A. Cohen • John Rawls • duty to aid • incentives • inequality • difference principle • social contract. (shrink)

In Rescuing Justice and Equality , G. A. Cohen reiterates his critique of John Rawls's difference principle as a justification for inequality-generating incentives, and also argues that Rawls's ambition to provide a constructivist defence of the first principles of justice is doomed. Cohen's arguments also suggest a natural response to my earlier attempt to defend the basic structure objection to Cohen's critique, which I term the alien factors reply. This paper criticises the reply, and Cohen's more general argument against Rawls's (...) constructivism. 1. (shrink)

This thesis argues that a particular version of equal opportunity for welfare is the best way of meeting the joint demands of three liberal egalitarian ideals: distributional equality, responsibility, and respect for individuals’ differing reasonable judgements of their own good. It also examines which social choice rules best represent these demands. Finally, it defends the view that achieving equal opportunity for welfare should not only be a goal of formal public institutions, but that just citizens should also sometimes be guided (...) by it in their everyday life. The version of equal opportunity for welfare it defends differs from some well-known contemporary versions in the following ways. First, it rejects a definition of welfare as the degree of satisfaction of a person’s preferences, because, it argues, this conception of welfare cannot adequately deal with preference change. Instead, it suggests that we should adopt a conception of welfare based on a list of goods and conditions that are recognised as valuable from the perspective of a variety of different conceptions of the good. Second, it argues that individuals’ prima facie claim to an equally valuable share of the world’s resources—a claim which is based on their equal moral worth—is limited to situations in which giving one person a more valuable share means that someone else ends up with a less valuable share. It also argues that in situations where we can improve at least one person’s situation without worsening anyone else’s, we generally do not fail to respect each person’s equal moral worth by doing so, even if this leads to inequalities. Third, it defends a distinct view of responsibility, which justifies social arrangements that give people certain options with reference to the value that individuals can achieve (but don’t necessarily achieve) through their choices from these options. (shrink)

In his multi-faceted attack on Rawls’s account of justice, G.A. Cohen has argued that the notion of basic structure is necessarily insensitive to the importance of informal social norms to social justice. The paper argues that the most plausible account of the basic structure is not blind to informal social norms in any meaningful sense. Whereas informal, non-legally coercive institutions are not part of the basic structure as such, their careful consideration is necessary for the assessment of whether the basic (...) structure itself is indeed just. This claim is based on an account of what it means for normative principle to apply to institutions, which I expound in detail throughout the paper. Principles apply to institutions, I argue, not in that they restrain their conduct, but in that they indicate which social conditions they should bring about. (shrink)

This article examines G. A. Cohen’s endorsement of a hybrid ethical theory and its relationship to his critique of John Rawls’s egalitarian liberalism. Cohen claimed that Rawls’s appeal to special incentives was a distortion of his own difference principle. I argue that Cohen’s acceptance of a personal prerogative (the central element of Samuel Scheffler’s version of a hybrid ethical theory) has several untoward consequences. First, it illuminates how any reasonable challenge to Rawls’s liberalism must recognise Thomas Nagel’s arguments concerning the (...) problems that arise when one attempts to implement a political theory analogous to a hybrid theory of ethics. Second, it undermines Cohen’s critique of Rawls. Third, it undermines the plausibility of Cohen’s ethos-driven social egalitarianism. The article concludes that, despite Nagel’s concerns, the most plausible form of egalitarianism—one that can accommodate the requirements of a hybrid ethical theory—will be Rawlsian, rather than Cohen’s ethos-based system. (shrink)

This dissertation identifies and responds to a problem for liberal relational egalitarians. There is a prima facie worry about the compatibility of liberalism and relational egalitarianism, concerning the requirements of equality in informal social life. Liberalism at least involves a commitment to leaving individuals substantial discretion to pursue their own conceptions of the good. Relational equality is best understood as a kind of deliberative practice about social institutions and practices. Patterns of otherwise innocuous social choices (e.g., where to live, whom (...) to befriend or marry) can create emergent, severe differentials in power, status, and influence, and when they do they can threaten relational equality. If relational equality required individuals to subordinate personal choices to egalitarian considerations, it would run into conflict with liberal commitments. In response, I defend the value of accepting an imperfect realization of relational equality. What I call fair relational equality demands that members of society treat some informal social norms and practices as part of the basic structure of society, in need of justification. Three practices are required to meet that demand. First, the relational-egalitarian society must develop institutional strategies to preempt or mitigate tendencies toward emergent inequality as they are identified. Second, members of society must engage in broad social deliberation about the norms and expectations of informal social interaction. Third, they must be willing to reform social practices where doing so does not impinge on important personal projects and values. (shrink)

This paper considers the potentially wrongful discriminatory nature of certain of our dating preferences. It argues that the wrongfulness of such preferences lies primarily in the simple lookism they involve. While it is ultimately permissible for us to date people partly because of how they look, I argue that we have a duty to ‘look behind’ people’s appearance, which I take to mean that we ought not, on the basis of their appearance, to regard them as absolutely out of the (...) question for us to engage with in a romantic setting. Further, constraints similar to those suggested by a duty to look behind people’s appearance gain support from another duty we have, namely, a duty to counteract, also in our daily lives, the fact that people are undeservedly disadvantaged in various ways. (shrink)

Credentialism refers to the practice of hiring or promoting applicants on the basis of their educational qualifications. In this paper, we argue that this can amount to wrongful discrimination against the less qualified. A standard way to defend credentialism appeals to the fact that it minimizes the costs of production. We argue that this argument has unacceptable implications in some cases involving disability- and gender-based discrimination. We claim that, once we appropriately revise this argument, credentialism is revealed to be similarly (...) wrongfully discriminatory. We then consider two objections and draw some preliminary lessons for policymaking. (shrink)

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a clear basis for the analysis of alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, LETS, Local currencies, the WIR or Carbon currencies. It attempts to determine whether alternative currencies might constitute just and workable alternatives, either in the form of small-scale experiments or in the form of more radical reforms. The first chapter proposes a new way to classify currencies. The second examines the case in favour of monetary plurality. The third analyses the (...) claims in favour of restricting the use of money locally, within a community, or to certain goods. The fourth studies the link between money and the market. Finally, a post-scriptum focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This thesis highlights that these currencies are drivers of several potential conflicts. Their widespread use might conflict with the adequate management of monetary policy, with social justice, and with liberal values. These conflicts are potential, for they would come into existence only if alternative currencies increased in scope. However, there is no reason to disregard potential conflicts when the case in their favour relies mostly on their potential benefits. (shrink)

I present an interpretation of ideal theory that is grounded in the idea of society as a fair scheme of cooperation, which Rawls describes as the most fundamental idea of justice as fairness. A key element of the Rawlsian idea of cooperation, I claim, is that the individual participants of a genuinely cooperative scheme—whatever its scale—are morally accountable to each other for complying with the scheme’s rules. This means that each participant has the moral standing to demand of the others (...) that they comply with the rules. I argue that the logic of these moral demands requires that the scheme’s rules be worked out on the basis of a strict compliance assumption. In justice as fairness, society as a whole is a grand scheme of cooperation. The principles of justice constitute the moral terms of association for this cooperative scheme, and hence define the moral demands that citizens, as such, may make of one another. Thus, these principles of justice must likewise be worked out on the basis of a strict compliance assumption. I contrast this interpretation with the standard telic alternative, which grounds the strict compliance assumption in its role as part of the theory of a realistic utopia, and argue for the possibility of non-utopian ideal theories. (shrink)

Extremism about Demands is the view that morality is significantly more demanding than prevailing common-sense morality acknowledges. This view is not widely held, despite the powerful advocacy on its behalf by philosophers such as Peter Singer, Shelly Kagan, Peter Unger, and G.A. Cohen. Most philosophers have remained attracted to some version of Moderation about Demands, which holds that the behavior of typical well-off people is permissible, including the ways that such people tend to employ their economic and other resources. It (...) is difficult to resist the conclusion that proponents of Extremism have not taken sufficiently seriously the central convictions that motivate the Moderate view. -/- This dissertation offers an improved defense of Extremism about Demands. At its center is an argument that appeals dialectically to requirements of justice that Moderates themselves already implicitly accept. Specifically, I claim that any plausible set of Moderate moral principles will, when applied to a world like ours, yield demands on typical well-off people that far exceed the demands of common-sense morality. -/- My argument has two cruxes. The first is the idea that our concern for justice is at least partially grounded in a concern for individuals’ interests, broadly construed. The other is a principle that I call Injustice entails Obligations, which says that we are collectively subject to requirements of justice that, if fully complied with, would ensure the transition from current injustice to a just state of affairs. Any view that is compatible with both the interest-based view of (part of) our concern for justice and Injustice entails Obligations will, I argue, require sacrifices from typical well-off people that substantially exceed what prevailing common-sense morality requires of them. -/- Moderates typically emphasize the idea that each person has an important interest in pursuing the projects, plans, relationships, and commitments that are most important to her. But they also believe that acceptable Moderate principles will properly balance this idea with the idea that from a properly impartial perspective everyone, and everyone's interests, are equally morally important. Because Moderates accept the latter idea, they are already committed to thinking that in a just world, everyone would have a sufficient minimum share of society’s resources. I argue that even if we limit our focus to distributive justice in a single society such as the United States, and even if we assume that distributive justice requires only a sufficient minimum, the extent to which the status quo must be transformed in order for justice to be achieved is still too great to be compatible with Moderate demands on typical well-off people. -/- There are a number of ways to try to argue that Moderate principles and Injustice entails Obligations are compatible with Moderation about Demands. For instance, it might be argued that all or nearly all of the demands to sacrifice in order to promote justice can be assigned to the super-rich, rather than to typical well-off people. Or it might be argued that the sacrifices of a single well-off person cannot be required because they amount to a mere “drop in the bucket” relative to what needs to be done in order to fully achieve justice. I show that such arguments fail. -/- The argument that I consider in greatest detail derives from John Rawls’s view that the principles of justice apply to the institutions of the “basic structure of society,” and do not apply directly to the conduct of individuals. If this “Institutionalism” is right, then it cannot be the case that individuals are obligated to promote justice directly in the way that I suggest they are. Furthermore, it might seem that a view that assigns all of the burdens of promoting justice to the basic structure satisfies the imperative to transition from injustice to justice, since if the relevant institutions were to begin doing everything that the Rawlsian view says they ought to be doing, the requirements of justice would be met. I argue, however, that there is no understanding of Institutionalism on which it is itself consistent with the following desiderata: Moderate principles, and the associated interest-based view of (part of) the ground of our concern for justice; Injustice entails Obligations; and Moderate demands. So, Institutionalism cannot make Moderate principles and Injustice entails Obligations compatible with Moderate demands. -/- Moderate principles and Injustice entails Obligations, then, remain incompatible with Moderation about Demands. Since there are compelling reasons to accept both Moderate principles and In justice entails Obligations, I conclude that we must reject Moderation about Demands. The obligations that justice places on typical well-off people are substantially more extensive than is acknowledged by prevailing common-sense morality. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen famously claims that egalitarians shouldn’t be so rich. If you possess excess income and there is little chance that the state will redistribute it to the poor, you are obligated to donate it yourself. We argue that this conclusion is correct, but that the case against the rich egalitarian is significantly stronger than the one Cohen offers. In particular, the standard arguments against donating one’s excess income face two critical, unrecognized problems. First, we show that these arguments imply (...) that citizens have no duty to further egalitarian political institutions—a conclusion that Cohen’s Rawlsian opponents cannot abide. Second, these arguments yield unacceptable implications for other questions of justice. We conclude that even moderately rich egalitarians are obligated to donate their excess income. (shrink)

The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have different things in mind when using the term. Whereas ‘reasonable pluralism’ refers to the fact of moral diversity among citizens of a liberal democracy, ‘value pluralism’ is a metaethical view about the structure of moral practical reasoning. In this paper, I argue that value pluralism is part of the best explanation for reasonable pluralism. However, I also argue that embracing this explanation is compatible with political liberalism’s (...) commitment to avoiding controversial premises. According value pluralism an explanatory role does not entail according it a justificatory one. What’s more, explaining reasonable disagreement in terms of reasonable disagreement about value weights opens up space for direct appeal to substantive values within political liberalism. In particular, promoting a substantive political value when doing so does not conflict with other values is unproblematic. (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)

This paper mounts a partial defense of the basic structure objection to the egalitarian criticism of productive incentives. The defense is based on the claim that some duties of justice are subject to a reciprocity condition. The paper develops this position via an examination of the debate between Andrew Williams and G. A. Cohen on publicity and incentives. Reciprocity is an intrinsic feature of a relational conception of social justice, not simply a requirement of stability. Not all duties are conditional (...) on reciprocity because some duties are owed to third parties, as well as to their primary targets. Some forms of exploitation may be unconditionally wrong, but not the specific kind of exploitation at stake when talented individuals accept market wages. (shrink)

This thesis defends John Rawls’s constructivist theory of justice against three distinct challenges. -/- Part one addresses G. A. Cohen’s claim that Rawls’s constructivism is committed to a mistaken thesis about the relationship between facts and principles. It argues that Rawls’s constructivist procedure embodies substantial moral commitments, and offers an intra-normative reduction rather than a metaethical account. Rawls’s claims about the role of facts in moral theorizing in A Theory of Justice should be interpreted as suggesting that some of our (...) moral beliefs, which we are inclined to hold without reference to facts, are, in fact, true, because certain facts obtain. This thesis and the acknowledgement of the moral assumptions of Rawls’s constructivism help to show that Rawls does not, and does not need to, deny Cohen’s thesis. -/- Part two defends the characterization of the decision problem in Rawls’s original position as a decision problem under uncertainty. Rawls stipulates that the denizens of the original position lack information that they could use to arrive at estimates of the likelihood of ending up in any given social position. It has been argued that Rawls does not have good grounds for this stipulation. I argue that given the nature of the value function we should attribute to the denizens of the original position and our cognitive limitations, which also apply to the denizens of the original position, their decision problem can be characterized as one under uncertainty even if we stipulate that they know that they have an equal chance of being in any individual’s place. -/- Part three assesses the claim that a true commitment to Rawls’s difference principle requires a further commitment to an egalitarian ethos. This egalitarian ethos is offered as a means to bring about equality and Pareto-optimality. Accordingly, I try to undermine the case for an egalitarian ethos by challenging the desirability of the ends it is supposed to further or by showing that it is redundant. I argue that if primary goods are the metric of justice, then Pareto optimality in the space of the metric of justice is undesirable. I then argue that if the metric of justice is welfare, depending on the theory of welfare we adopt, an egalitarian ethos will either be redundant or will have objectionably paternalistic consequences. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen argues that Rawls’s difference principle is incompatible with his endorsement of incentives inequality—higher pay for certain professions is just when that pay benefits everyone. Cohen concludes that Rawls must reject both incentives inequality and ‘institutionalism’—the view that egalitarian principles, including the difference principle, apply exclusively to social institutions. I argue that the premises of Cohen’s ‘internal criticism’ of Rawls require rejecting two important parts of his theory: a ‘subjective circumstance of justice’ and a ‘shared conception of justice’. (...) These are important parts of Rawls’s ‘constructivism’. Constructivism is the view that a conception of justice is the solution to a practical interaction problem and is solved in part by examining the facts of the problem. Thus, an upshot of my arguments is that this Cohen/Rawls dispute reduces to another dispute over ‘constructivism’. (shrink)

Since G.A. Cohen’s influential criticism, John Rawls’s focus on the basic structure of society has fallen out of favor in moral and political philosophy. The most prominent defenses of this focus has argued from particular conceptions of justice or from a moral division of labor. In this dissertation, I instead argue for the Rawlsian focus from the ways in which social institutions establish new obligations, rights and powers. I argue that full evaluation of individual conduct requires that we evaluate the (...) practices within which an individual’s actions occur. Likewise, full evaluation of practices often requires evaluating the systems within which actions occur. I argue that we should treat the basic structure of society as a moral subject because the full evaluation of the various institutions that constitute the basic structure requires that we evaluate the basic structure as a whole. This argument shows the advantages of the Rawlsian approach even when we do not accept contractualism, constructivism or the two principles of justice. We need only accept the view that the major social institutions establish obligations, rights, and powers for individuals as members of society. (shrink)

Those who wish to abolish or restrict the use of non-human animals in so-called factory farming and/or experimentation often argue that these animal use practices are incommensurate with animals’ moral status. If sound, these arguments would establish that, as a matter of ethics or justice, we should voluntarily abstain from the immoral animal use practices in question. But these arguments can’t and shouldn’t be taken to establish a related conclusion: that the moral status of animals justifies political intervention to disallow (...) or significantly diminish factory farming and animal experimentation. In this paper, we set out to do two things: First, we argue that while the arguments mentioned above may establish the moral impermissibility or injustice of the practices they condemn, they are not sufficient to justify political interventions or social policies to abolish or restrict such practices. It is one thing to argue that some moral imperative or imperative of justice exists, and quite another thing to call for the use of political power to induce compliance with that imperative. Our second task is to assess the prospects for developing an argument that is sufficient to justify political interventions to restrict or abolish the use of non-human animals in factory farming or experimentation. Beyond establishing the immorality or injustice of animal consumption or experimentation, one must show that the interventions in question constitute legitimate use of political power. Would prohibiting or discouraging animal use be legitimate? We attempt to answer this question within the context of fundamental liberal constraints on the legitimate use of coercive political power. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen's critique of Rawls's defence of economic incentives echoes some of J. S. Mill's insights on the subject. Some of Cohen's arguments, however, clash not only with those of Rawls but also with each other as well as with Mill's. A similar charge, however, may be made against Rawls. This article has conciliatory ambitions. It suggests reconciling each author with himself, as well as with each other, by focusing onthe worthof liberty. It stresses the importance of non-pecuniary occupational (...) inequalities and proposes various measures to enhance the worth of the occupational freedom of those with fewer options. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that the demands of justice are institutional rather than individual? Justice is often thought to be directly concerned only with governmental institutions rather than individuals’ everyday, legally permissible actions. This approach has been criticized for ignoring the relevance to justice of informal social norms. This paper defends the idea that justice is distinctively institutional but rejects the primacy of governmental institutions. I argue that the ‘pervasive structure of society’ is the site of justice and (...) injustice. It includes all widely enforced social rules and norms, governmental and otherwise, such as informal norms of gender, language and class, and provides a revisionary foundation for the theoretical elucidation and practical pursuit of justice. It provides a framework for evaluating the ways in which people can and should promote justice in their everyday lives. (shrink)