In Ethics for a Broken World : Imagining Philosophy after Catastrophe, Tim Mulgan applies a number of influential moral and political theories to a “broken world ”: a world of environmental catastrophe in which resources are insufficient to meet everyone’s basic needs. This paper shows that John Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness has very different implications for a broken world than Mulgan suggests it does. §1 briefly summarizes Rawls’ conception of justice, including how Rawls uses a (...) hypothetical model – the “original position” – to argue for principles of justice. §2 explains how Mulgan uses a variation of Rawls’ original position – a broken original position – to argue that justice as fairness requires a “fair survival lottery” in a broken world. §3 shows that the parties to a broken original position have reasons not to agree to such a survival lottery. §4 then shows that Mulgan’s argument hangs upon a false assumption: that there are no viable options to adopt in a broken world besides some kind of survival lottery. Finally, §5 shows that the parties to a broken original position would instead rationally agree to a scheme of equal rights and opportunities to earn or forfeit shares of scarce resources on the basis of each person’s comparative contribution to human survival. (shrink)

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

With the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls not only rejuvenated contemporary political philosophy but also defended a Kantian form of Enlightenment liberalism called “justice as fairness.” Enlightenment liberalism stresses the development and exercise of our capacity for autonomy, while Reformation liberalism emphasizes diversity and the toleration that encourages it. These two strands of liberalism are often mutually supporting, but they conflict in a surprising number of cases, whether over the accommodation of group (...) difference, the design of civic education, or the promotion of liberal values internationally. During the 1980’s, however, Rawls began to jettison key Kantian characteristics of his theory, a process culminating in the 1993 release of Political Liberalism and completing the transformation of justice as fairness into a Reformation liberalism. -/- Reconstructing Rawls argues that this transformation was a tragic mistake because it jeopardized the most important features of his theory, viz. the lexical priorities of right, liberty, and fair equality of opportunity as well as the difference principle. Controversially, this book contends that Rawls’s so-called “political turn,” motivated by a newfound interest in diversity and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has pushed liberalism more broadly towards cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. The book then demonstrates that the central elements of justice as fairness can only be defended within the context of a Kantian Enlightenment liberalism and that Rawls’s hope for a more pluralistic grounding for his theory, endorsed by a wide variety of belief systems present in modern democratic societies, is illusory. -/- Reconstructing Rawls is the first book to systematically compare Rawls’s and Kant’s theories and the first to offer an internal critique and reconstruction of justice as fairness, reconceiving it as a comprehensive, universalistic Kantian liberalism. By doing so, it gives us both the vision of a liberal world order—“a republicanism of all states, together and separately,” as Kant put it—and a mode of justification addressed to all men and women, not as members of particular nations, races, and faiths, but as human beings, as citizens of the world. In short, it reclaims Rawls for the Enlightenment. (shrink)

A fundamental tension exists between Rawls's ideal Kantian conception of justice as fairness (JAF), which requires respecting people as ends, and his realistic non-Kantian consequentialist conception of a supreme emergency in a just war. By justifying the targeting of objectively innocent noncombatants during a supreme emergency exception, Rawls allows for treating them as means only. Hence, his appeal to a supreme emergency is insufficient to avoid this tension. First, since for him JAF is ideal but also practical, one (...) might argue that his fictional people in the original position must reflect on the justification for using force on behalf of JAF. And second, since Rawls justifies targeting objectively innocent people during a supreme emergency exemption, he justifies what one might conceive of as emergency terrorism. Emergency terrorism, however, treats people as means only. Therefore, Rawls's Kantian conception of JAF is in tension with his consequentialist justification of a supreme emergency in a just war and hence with emergency terrorism. (shrink)

Many discussions of love and the family treat issues of justice as something alien. On this view, concerns about whether one's family is internally just are in tension with the modes of interaction that are characteristic of loving families. In this essay, we challenge this widespread view. We argue that once justice becomes a shared family concern, its pursuit is compatible with loving familial relations. We examine four arguments for the thesis that a concern with justice is (...) not at home within a loving family, and we explain why these arguments fail. We develop and defend an alternative conception of the justice-oriented loving family, arguing that justice can—and, for the sake of justice, should—be seen as a family value. (shrink)

This article argues that diverse theorists have reasons to theorize about fairness in nonideal conditions, including theorists who reject fairness in ideal theory. It then develops a new all-purpose model of ‘nonideal fairness.’ §1 argues that fairness is central to nonideal theory across diverse ideological and methodological frameworks. §2 then argues that ‘nonideal fairness’ is best modeled by a nonideal original position adaptable to different nonideal conditions and background normative frameworks (including anti-Rawlsian ones). §3 then (...) argues that the parties to the model have grounds to seek a variety of remedial social, legal, cultural, and economic ‘nonideal primary goods’ for combating injustice, as well as grounds to distribute these goods in an equitable and inclusive manner. Finally, I illustrate how the model indexes the nonideal primary goods it justifies to different nonideal contexts and background normative frameworks, illustrating why diverse theorists should find the model and its output principles attractive. (shrink)

In my 1990 work – Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice – I argued for four modifications of Rawls’s principles of social justice and rendered a modified version of his theory in four principles, the first of which is the Basic Rights Principle demanding the protection of people’s security and subsistence rights. In both his Political Liberalism and Justice as Fairness Rawls explicitly refers to my version of his theory, clearly accepting three of my four proposed modifications (...) but rejecting the fourth ‐‐ the demand for social and economic democracy – on grounds that it automatically justifies socialism as opposed to capitalism. I argue, contrary to Rawls, that it is not true that this demand automatically picks socialism as the preferablesocioeconomic/political system and that a Social and Economic Democracy Principle demanding workplace and neighborhood democracy is officially neutral between these two systems … although plausible empirical assumptions may, indeed, favor the former. I then significantly elaborate my second version of Rawls’s theory of social justice which is composed of the following principles arranged in a very strong order of priority : Basic Rights Principle, Equal Basic Liberties Principle, Fair Equality of Opportunity Principle, Modified Difference Principle, and Social and Economic DemocracyPrinciple. I argue that this elaborated version of the theory – which I call “Justice as Fair Rights” – is better than either Rawls’s original theory or my previous versions of it. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the reflective equilibrium between the acknowledgment of the right to end one’s life and the Rawlsian idea of freedom. This article evaluates the possibility of a self-destructive exercise of freedom. It is asserted that this kind of exercise is inconsistent with the highest order interest in freedom. Allowing the self-destructive practice of freedom jeopardizes the Rawlsian foundation of the priority of liberty, a crucial aspect of the justice as fairness. || (...) -/- El presente artículo tiene como objetivo evaluar el equilibrio reflexivo entre el reconocimiento al derecho a disponer de la propia vida y la idea rawlsiana de libertad. Se considera la posibilidad de llevar a cabo un ejercicio autodestructivo de la libertad. Se defiende que este tipo de ejercicios son contrarios al interés de orden supremo en ejercer la libertad. Permitir la práctica autodestructiva de la libertad pone en riesgo la fundamentación rawlsiana de la prioridad de la libertad, un elemento central de la justice as fairness. (shrink)

This book argues that moral philosophy should be based on seven scientific principles of theory selection. It then argues that a new moral theory—Rightness as Fairness—satisfies those principles more successfully than existing theories. Chapter 1 explicates the seven principles of theory-selection, arguing that moral philosophy must conform to them to be truth-apt. Chapter 2 argues those principles jointly support founding moral philosophy in known facts of empirical moral psychology: specifically, our capacities for mental time-travel and modal imagination. Chapter 2 (...) then shows that these capacities present human decisionmakers with a problem of diachronic rationality that includes but generalizes beyond, L.A. Paul’s problem of transformative experience: a problem that I call “the problem of possible future selves.” Chapter 3 then argues that a new principle of rationality—the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative—is the only rational solution to this problem, as it requires our present and future selves to forge and uphold a recursive, bi-directional contract with each another given mutual recognition of the problem. Chapter 4 then shows that the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative has three identical formulations analogous but superior to Immanuel Kant’s various formulations of his ‘categorical imperative.’ Chapter 5 shows that these unified formulas jointly entail a particular test of moral principles: a Moral Original Position similar to John Rawls’ famous ‘original position’, but which avoids a variety of problems with Rawls' model. Chapter 6 then shows that the Moral Original Position generates Four Principles of Fairness, which can then be combined into a single principle of moral rightness: Rightness as Fairness. This new conception of rightness is shown to reconcile four dominant moral frameworks (deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, and contractualism), as well as entail a new method of moral decisionmaking for applied ethics: a method of “principled fair negotiation” according to which applied ethical issues cannot be wholly resolved through principled debate, but must instead be resolved by actual negotiation and compromise. This method is then argued to generate novel, nuanced analyses of a variety of applied moral issues, including trolley cases, torture, and the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals. Chapter 7 then shows that Rightness as Fairness reconciles three leading political frameworks—libertarianism, egalitarianism, and communitarianism—showing how all three embody legitimate moral ideals that can, and should, be fairly negotiated against each other to settle the scope, and nature, of domestic, international, and global justice on an ongoing, iterated basis. Finally, Chapter 8 argues that Rightness as Fairness satisfies all seven of the principles of theory-selected defended in Chapter 1 more successfully than rival theories. (shrink)

The author considers that the Penal Sciences face a wide range of human pathogenic issues, ranging from terrorism and human trafficking to corruption and the use of substances and are, thus, the ideal discipline for investigating the various scientific issues and the implementation of the scientific findings arising from such investigations. He also believes that the Penal Sciences, being inextricably linked to human values and constitutional rights, are, by their nature, beneficial towards the promotion and consolidation of values, such as (...) freedom, solidarity and, especially, Social Justice. The latter concept is perceived by the author not only as a form of justice, which provides everyone with their due of proportion to their value, according to the famous saying of Ulpian “suum cuique tribuere”, but rather as a form of restitution from social injustices and as a treatment for social needs, particularly for our fellow human beings who are marginalized by society in conditions of poverty and degradation. It is interesting, at this point, to emphasize that the United Nations, in an important report from 2006 entitled “Social Justice in an Open World. The Role of the United Nations”, defines Social Justice as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth (“Social Justice in an Open World. The Role of the United Nations”, edited by the International Forum for Social Development, New York: United Nations, 2006, p. 7, available online). The vision, therefore, of a society focused on goals such as combating socio-economic disparities and providing effective assistance for the weaker members of society signifies, especially in this period of Crisis, is a primary objective worthy, according to the author, of captivating us. Perhaps, indeed, the new target for Criminal Policy, following that of Restorative Justice, should now be that of Social Justice and, in fact, with a double project and aim: first for a fairer distribution of social goods and, also, for greater solidarity towards the weaker members of society. Indeed, it is a known fact to those involved with the Penal Sciences, that a dominant contemporaneous trend is that of Restorative Justice, in the sense that Criminal Law and Criminology finally have to address the needs of the victim of a criminal act and to advocate for relevant methods for extrajudicial settlements and for the conciliation of the offender and the victim. Restorative Justice is, hence, based on the triptych of the perpetrator assuming responsibilities for their actions, of restoring, as far as possible, the effects of the injurious actions against the victim and, also, of actively expressing the desire for conciliation with the victim. Certainly it would be greatly desirable if these ideas were to be consolidated within Greek legislation, albeit within the, always progressive, Greek Law for Minors there is a provision for the reformatory conciliation measure, pursuant to article 122 case e of the Greek Penal Code. However, the author believes that in this period of time, a time of profound crisis at all levels, there is need for more than simple offender-victim conciliation. There is a need for this spirit of reconciliation and solidarity to be extended to benefit all those who are experiencing hard times and may, therefore, in their deprivation and frustration, are led to committing crime. The author, at this point, refers to all the socially weak and often marginalized groups of people, who are scientifically characterized as "weak" or "vulnerable" and who try, with great courage, to survive without breaching the threshold of breaking the law. It is apparent here, according to the author, that if Criminal Policy actually aims to provide solutions to the problems of crime, it should not solely be limited to repairing the damage and conciliating the victim and perpetrator, but it should strike against the causative factors of crime and the primarily socio-economic inequalities and other forms of injustice which cause, according to Aristotle in his "Politics" (V. 1301b27, 1301a32 et seq., 1266b40), social reactions, attitudes and – Ι would add - a sequence of serious criminal acts. In other words, another kind of Justice is required in addition to Restorative, so that it may become the mission of our Criminal Policy to eliminate the injustices and inequalities that lead to crime. In view of this direction certain introductory thoughts are developed in this article. (shrink)

Infamously, Rawls assumed a democratic society to be “a complete and closed social system,” in that “entry into it is only by birth and exit from it is only by death.” Since the beginning of the present millennium, however, debates about the ethical issues related to immigration have been prominent. In this context, these methodological departure points seem long outdated, if not simply biased. This paper will rework Rawls’s theory of migration for application to the case of provisional immigrants by (...) reworking its theoretical underpinnings. I will argue that once his assumptions are adjusted, Rawlsian notions of ‘stability’ in conjunction with his idea of a ‘society understood as a fair system of cooperation’ justify inclusive membership regimes. In other words, Rawlsian domestic justice requires inclusive membership regimes for provisional immigrants. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is,those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties,rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. (1) Rawls' method of adopting the"original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods.A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to determine how the victims of injustice ought to be compensated, since (...) history suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper is an attempt to determine the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is, those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties, rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. Rawls' method of adopting the "original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods. A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to ascertain how the victims of injustice ought to (...) be compensated, since history strongly suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper sets forth the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test. (shrink)

Inspired by recent breakthroughs in predictive modeling, practitioners in both industry and government have turned to machine learning with hopes of operationalizing predictions to drive automated decisions. Unfortunately, many social desiderata concerning consequential decisions, such as justice or fairness, have no natural formulation within a purely predictive framework. In efforts to mitigate these problems, researchers have proposed a variety of metrics for quantifying deviations from various statistical parities that we might expect to observe in a fair world and (...) offered a variety of algorithms in attempts to satisfy subsets of these parities or to trade o the degree to which they are satised against utility. In this paper, we connect this approach to fair machine learning to the literature on ideal and non-ideal methodological approaches in political philosophy. The ideal approach requires positing the principles according to which a just world would operate. In the most straightforward application of ideal theory, one supports a proposed policy by arguing that it closes a discrepancy between the real and the perfectly just world. However, by failing to account for the mechanisms by which our non-ideal world arose, the responsibilities of various decision-makers, and the impacts of proposed policies, naive applications of ideal thinking can lead to misguided interventions. In this paper, we demonstrate a connection between the fair machine learning literature and the ideal approach in political philosophy, and argue that the increasingly apparent shortcomings of proposed fair machine learning algorithms reflect broader troubles faced by the ideal approach. We conclude with a critical discussion of the harms of misguided solutions, a reinterpretation of impossibility results, and directions for future research. (shrink)

Rawlsian justice as fairness is neither fundamentally luck egalitarian nor relational egalitarian. Rather, the most fundamental idea is that of society as a fair system of cooperation. Collective pensions provide a case study which illustrates the fruitfulness of conceiving justice in these latter terms. Those who have recently reached the age of majority do not now know how long they will live in retirement or how well any investments they try to save up for their retirement would (...) fare. From the perspective of the beginning of their working lives, it is therefore rational for each to enter into an agreement with others, who also do not yet know their fates, that, if one turns out to be among the unfortunate whose private pension pots would not have yielded enough for one’s retirement, one will receive much more in retirement, whereas those whose pension pots would have overflowed their retirements will receive somewhat less. These terms are to each person’s expected advantage, which is made possible by a fair sharing of the fruits of social cooperation which arise through the efficiencies reaped by the pooling of the risk of outliving what one could save for one’s retirement on one’s own. It is rational for each to agree to share one another’s fates by pooling risks across both space and time, on fair terms of social cooperation for mutual advantage. Even when collective pensions arise from, and are proportional to, a baseline of unequal income, they can be defended on grounds of reciprocity involving regard for one another as equals. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss justice in the distribution of resources, both within states and across different states. On one influential view, it is always unjust for one person to have less than another through no fault of her own. State borders, on this account, have no importance in determining which distributions are just. I show that an alternative approach is needed. I argue that distributions of wealth are only unjust in so far as they issue from unfair treatment. (...) It follows that not all inequalities in the distribution of goods are unjust. I use these results to explain how state borders do play a role in determining which inequalities are unjust, since some of these inequalities issue from unfair treatment of citizens by the state. (shrink)

I suggest that the social justice issues raised by Internet regulation can be exposed and examined by using a methodology adapted from that described by John Rawls in 'A Theory of Justice'. Rawls' theory uses the hypothetical scenario of people deliberating about the justice of social institutions from the 'original position' as a method of removing bias in decision-making about justice. The original position imposes a 'veil of ignorance' that hides the particular circumstances of individuals from (...) them so that they will not be influenced by self-interest. I adapt Rawls' methodology by introducing an abstract description of information technology to those deliberating about justice from within the original position. This abstract description focuses on computing devices that users can use to access information and information networks that information devices use to communicate. The abstractness of this description prevents the particular characteristics of the Internet and the computing devices in use from influencing the decisions about the just use and regulation of information technology and networks. From this abstract position, the principles of justice that the participants accept for the rest of society will also apply to the computing devices people use to communicate, and to Internet regulation. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that Mill’s classification of names as nonconnotative terms is incompatible with Frege’s thesis that names have senses. However, Milldescribed the senses of nonconnotative terms—without being aware that he was doing so. These are the senses for names that were sought in vain by Frege. When Mill’s and Frege’s doctrines are understood as complementary, they constitute a fully satisfactory theory of names.

In this paper, I examine John Rawls’ claim in the first edition of A Theory of Justice that Justice as Fairness cannot include considerations about the environment and non-human animals. The paper aims to resolve the tension in this statement, as the idea of a Rawlsian well-ordered society without concern for the rest of nature presents as a contradiction. Through a more charitable reading of Rawlsian theory that borrows from anti-capitalist and environmental justice frameworks, we can (...) see how Rawlsian justice connects tightly to these issues. I conclude that the Rawlsian well-ordered society must be committed to anti-capitalist environmental justice. (shrink)

All that philosophical “theories” of truth do is to demonstrate what is entailed by assuming our common uses and common understandings of the concept of truth. But our common understanding of what truth is is only a part of how truth functions. If we only look at that, we are missing the rest of the picture, namely how truth functions as the foundation for all human communication. I propose that truth functions a lot like morality, in the sense that both (...) truth and morality are normative systems that regulate human behaviour. To best understand this we need to imagine why truth was needed in the first place, and what role it plays in human communication as a whole. Here the philosophical approach of defining the “State of Nature” comes into play, and we obtain an account starting with drawing the relevant distinction between humans and non-human animals, and then showing how a crisis could have arisen from the initial development of language and how collective acknowledgement of truth as a default notion could have solved it, in the same way that collective acknowledgement of a moral system solved the problem of cheats and free riders. To do this, I utilize the idea of common pool resource management, as outlined in the work of the Institutional Economist Elinor Ostrom. (shrink)

Data-driven predictive algorithms are widely used to automate and guide high-stake decision making such as bail and parole recommendation, medical resource distribution, and mortgage allocation. Nevertheless, harmful outcomes biased against vulnerable groups have been reported. The growing research field known as 'algorithmic fairness' aims to mitigate these harmful biases. Its primary methodology consists in proposing mathematical metrics to address the social harms resulting from an algorithm's biased outputs. The metrics are typically motivated by -- or substantively rooted in -- (...) ideals of distributive justice, as formulated by political and legal philosophers. The perspectives of feminist political philosophers on social justice, by contrast, have been largely neglected. Some feminist philosophers have criticized the local scope of the paradigm of distributive justice and have proposed corrective amendments to surmount its limitations. The present paper brings some key insights of feminist political philosophy to algorithmic fairness. The paper has three goals. First, I show that algorithmic fairness does not accommodate structural injustices in its current scope. Second, I defend the relevance of structural injustices -- as pioneered in the contemporary philosophical literature by Iris Marion Young -- to algorithmic fairness. Third, I take some steps in developing the paradigm of 'responsible algorithmic fairness' to correct for errors in the current scope and implementation of algorithmic fairness. I close by some reflections of directions for future research. (shrink)

Unlike his theory of justice as fairness, John Rawls’s political liberalism has generally been spared from critiques regarding what is due to the disabled. This paper demonstrates that, due to the account of the basic ideas of society and persons provided by Rawls, political liberalism requires that the interests of numerous individuals with disabilities should be put aside when the most fundamental issues of justice are settled. The aim is to accommodate within public reason the due concern (...) for the disabled while upholding political liberalism. To achieve this aim, a revision of the basic ideas of persons and society is proposed. The idea of persons should be regarded as more fundamental than that of social cooperation, and persons should be defined in terms of minimal moral powers. (shrink)

Theorists have long debated whether John Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness can be extended to nonideal (i.e. unjust) social and political conditions, and if so, what the proper way of extending it is. This paper argues that in order to properly extend justice as fairness to nonideal conditions, Rawls’ most famous innovation – the original position – must be reconceived in the form of a “nonideal original position.” I begin by providing a new analysis of (...) the ideal/nonideal theory distinction within Rawls’ theoretical framework. I then systematically construct a nonideal original position, showing that although its parties must have Rawls’ principles of ideal justice and priority relations as background aims, the parties should be entirely free to weigh those aims against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions. Next, I show that the parties ought to aim to secure for themselves a special class of nonideal primary goods: all-purpose goods similar to Rawls’ original primary goods, but which in this case are all-purpose goods individuals might use to (A) promote Rawlsian ideals under nonideal conditions, (B) weigh Rawls’ principles of ideal justice and priority relations against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions, and (C) effectively pursue their most favored weighting thereof. I then defend a provisional list of nonideal primary goods which include opportunities to participate effectively in equitable and inclusive grassroots reform movements guided by a series of substantive aims. Finally, I briefly speculate on how the parties to the nonideal original position might deliberate to principles of nonideal justice for distributing nonideal primary goods, suggesting that those goods should be distributed in proportion to unjust disadvantage. (shrink)

This case study analyzes the Fair Trade coffee label "Café Feminino" (as well as Fair Trade more generally) from the perspective of different theories of distributive justice. Its purpose is to serve as a learning tool for students in business ethics courses.

If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, it is vital that carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests are protected. But protecting them has costs. These include opportunity costs: the potential economic benefits which those who currently control rainforests have to give up when they are protected. But who should bear those costs? Should countries which happen to have rainforests within their territories sacrifice their own economic development, because of our broader global interests in protecting key carbon sinks? This essay (...) develops an argument from the “principle of fairness,” which seeks to establish that outsiders should pay states with rainforests so as to share the costs of protection. If they do not, they can be condemned for free-riding on forest states. The argument is, I suggest, compelling and also capable of enjoying support from adherents of a wide variety of positions on global justice. (shrink)

Severe poverty is a major global problem about risk and inequality. What, if any, is the relationship between equality, fairness and responsibility in an unequal world? I argue for four conclusions. The first is the moral urgency of severe poverty. We have too many global neighbours that exist in a state of emergency and whose suffering is intolerable. The second is that severe poverty is a problem concerning global injustice that is relevant, but not restricted, to questions about responsibility. (...) If none were responsible, this does not eliminate all compelling claims to provide assistance. The third is that severe poverty represents an inequality too far; it is a condition of extremity with denial of basic needs. The fourth is that there is a need for an approach that captures all relevant cases – and the capabilities approach and the connection theory of remedial responsibilities are highlighted as having special promise. (shrink)

From the school yard to the workplace, there’s no charge more damning than “you’re being unfair!” Born out of democracy and raised in open markets, fairness has become our de facto modern creed. The very symbol of American ethics—Lady Justice—wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as dirty (...) secrets of our humanity. In Against Fairness, polymath philosopher Stephen T. Asma drags them triumphantly back into the light. Through playful, witty, but always serious arguments and examples, he vindicates our unspoken and undeniable instinct to favor, making the case that we would all be better off if we showed our unfair tendencies a little more kindness—indeed, if we favored favoritism. Conscious of the egalitarian feathers his argument is sure to ruffle, Asma makes his point by synthesizing a startling array of scientific findings, historical philosophies, cultural practices, analytic arguments, and a variety of personal and literary narratives to give a remarkably nuanced and thorough understanding of how fairness and favoritism fit within our moral architecture. Examining everything from the survival-enhancing biochemistry that makes our mothers love us to the motivating properties of our “affective community,” he not only shows how we favor but the reasons we should. Drawing on thinkers from Confucius to Tocqueville to Nietzsche, he reveals how we have confused fairness with more noble traits, like compassion and open-mindedness. He dismantles a number of seemingly egalitarian pursuits, from classwide Valentine’s Day cards to civil rights, to reveal the envy that lies at their hearts, going on to prove that we can still be kind to strangers, have no prejudice, and fight for equal opportunity at the same time we reserve the best of what we can offer for those dearest to us. Fed up with the blue-ribbons-for-all absurdity of "fairness" today, and wary of the psychological paralysis it creates, Asma resets our moral compass with favoritism as its lodestar, providing a strikingly new and remarkably positive way to think through all our actions, big and small. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The lexical priority of fair equality of opportunity in John Rawls’s justice as fairness, which has been sharply criticized by Larry Alexander and Richard Arneson among others, is left almost entirely undefended in Rawls’s works. I argue here that this priority rule can be successfully defended against its critics despite Rawls’s own doubts about it. Using the few textual clues he provides, I speculatively reconstruct his defense of this rule, showing that it can be grounded on our interest (...) in self-realization through work. This reconstructed defense makes liberal use of concepts already present in A Theory of Justice , including the Aristotelian Principle (which motivates the achievement of increasing virtuosity) and the Humboldtian concept of social union (which provides the context for the development of such virtuosity). I also show that this commitment to self-realization, far from violating the priority of right in Rawls’s theory, stems directly from his underlying commitment to autonomy, which is the very foundation of the moral law in his doctrine of right. The reconstituted defense of this priority rule not only strengthens the case for justice as fairness but also has important and controversial implications for public policy. (shrink)

Universal health coverage (UHC) is at the center of current efforts to strengthen health systems and improve the level and distribution of health and health services. This document is the final report of the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage. The report addresses the key issues of fairness and equity that arise on the path to UHC. As such, the report is relevant for every actor that affects that path and governments in particular, as they are (...) in charge of overseeing and guiding the progress toward UHC. (shrink)

Although the principle of fair subject selection is a widely recognized requirement of ethical clinical research, it often yields conflicting imperatives, thus raising major ethical dilemmas regarding participant selection. In this paper, we diagnose the source of this problem, arguing that the principle of fair subject selection is best understood as a bundle of four distinct sub-principles, each with normative force and each yielding distinct imperatives: (1) fair inclusion; (2) fair burden sharing; (3) fair opportunity; and (4) fair distribution of (...) third-party risks. We first map out these distinct sub-principles, and then identify the ways in which they yield conflicting imperatives for the design of inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the recruitment of participants. We then offer guidance for how decision makers should navigate these conflicting imperatives to ensure that participants are selected fairly. (shrink)

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS. -/- The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is (...) overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into an unpalatable moral relativism on which there is no non-arbitrary basis between a justice that underwrites forms of domination such as slavery and a justice that condemns such forms of domination is equally powerful and compelling. I show that there is a way to harmonize both views that is subject to empirical test. -/- First I show that the most widely accepted and influential formulation of liberal justice, John Rawls' Justice as Fairness, in. e.g, A Theory of Justice, cannot avoid the relativistic challenge because it would not be accepted, as a matter of sociological fact, by real people in a divided society once the "veil of Ignorance" is removed and real people step out from the Original Position. To put it differently, different reflective equilibria are inevitable in a divided society. Given the weight that Rawls properly puts on the realizability of a conception of justice and its stability in practice, this is a fatal objection. There can be no divided society that is "well ordered" in Rawls' sense, governed by a shared conception of justice and known to be so governed. -/- I then turn to the most powerful statement of the CLS view, Milton's Fisk's relativistic account in The State and Justice. For Fisk, justice is a compromise between what the dominant groups can compel and what the the subordinate groups will acquiesce to., There is no one such compromise in any given situation, so the account is in that sense relativistic, but more deeply, it is relativistic in that it offers no non-arbitrary, non-question begging way to choose between the official justice of, e.g., a slaveholding society and and the radical justice of the slaves, which has no place for slaveholders as a group or slavery as an institution.All that Fisk can offer is an arbitrary existential choice: I'm with the slaves. (Or the slaveowners.) Most of us would find this disconcerting or even unacceptable. -/- I show that Fisk's general sort of account can be modified to allow for an non-arbitrary choice. Given general facts about human nature, societies based on domination will produce resistance that over the long run will diminish or eliminate various forms of domination. Through a sort of ratchet effect, rights won will be hard if not impossible to reverse. Societies embodying forms of domination can therefore be compared on dimensions of stability: the more domination, the more resistance, and the less stability. Such societies are inferior on the dimension of justice to more emancipatory society on the terms of both kinds of justice, official and radical. -/- This is not question begging because regimes of domination incorporate stability no less than more emancipatory social orders. The choice between official justice embodying domination and radical justice that does not is not arbitrary because it is based on a shared commitment to long term stability. This offers an empirical test of which social orders are more justice, and a prediction that over time, domination will tend to decrease. (shrink)

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

"Procedural Justice" offers a theory of procedural fairness for civil dispute resolution. The core idea behind the theory is the procedural legitimacy thesis: participation rights are essential for the legitimacy of adjudicatory procedures. The theory yields two principles of procedural justice: the accuracy principle and the participation principle. The two principles require a system of procedure to aim at accuracy and to afford reasonable rights of participation qualified by a practicability constraint. The Article begins in Part I, (...) Introduction, with two observations. First, the function of procedure is to particularize general substantive norms so that they can guide action. Second, the hard problem of procedural justice corresponds to the following question: How can we regard ourselves as obligated by legitimate authority to comply with a judgment that we believe (or even know) to be in error with respect to the substantive merits? The theory of procedural justice is developed in several stages, beginning with some preliminary questions and problems. The first question - what is procedure? - is the most difficult and requires an extensive answer: Part II, Substance and Procedure, defines the subject of the inquiry by offering a new theory of the distinction between substance and procedure that acknowledges the entanglement of the action-guiding roles of substantive and procedural rules while preserving the distinction between two ideal types of rules. The key to the development of this account of the nature of procedure is a thought experiment, in which we imagine a world with the maximum possible acoustic separation between substance and procedure. Part III, The Foundations of Procedural Justice, lays out the premises of general jurisprudence that ground the theory and answers a series of objections to the notion that the search for a theory of procedural justice is a worthwhile enterprise. Sections II and III set the stage for the more difficult work of constructing a theory of procedural legitimacy. Part IV, Views of Procedural Justice, investigates the theories of procedural fairness found explicitly or implicitly in case law and commentary. After a preliminary inquiry that distinguishes procedural justice from other forms of justice, Part IV focuses on three models or theories. The first, the accuracy model, assumes that the aim of civil dispute resolution is correct application of the law to the facts. The second, the balancing model, assumes that the aim of civil procedure is to strike a fair balance between the costs and benefits of adjudication. The third, the participation model, assumes that the very idea of a correct outcome must be understood as a function of process that guarantees fair and equal participation. Part IV demonstrates that none of these models provides the basis for a fully adequate theory of procedural justice. In Part V, The Value of Participation, the lessons learned from analysis and critique of the three models are then applied to the question whether a right of participation can be justified for reasons that are not reducible to either its effect on the accuracy or its effect on the cost of adjudication. The most important result of Part V is the Participatory Legitimacy Thesis: it is (usually) a condition for the fairness of a procedure that those who are to be finally bound shall have a reasonable opportunity to participate in the proceedings. The central normative thrust of Procedural Justice is developed in Part VI, Principles of Procedural Justice. The first principle, the Participation Principle, stipulates a minimum (and minimal) right of participation, in the form of notice and an opportunity to be heard, that must be satisfied (if feasible) in order for a procedure to be considered fair. The second principle, the Accuracy Principle, specifies the achievement of legally correct outcomes as the criterion for measuring procedural fairness, subject to four provisos, each of which sets out circumstances under which a departure from the goal of accuracy is justified by procedural fairness itself. In Part VII, The Problem of Aggregation, the Participation Principle and the Accuracy Principle are applied to the central problem of contemporary civil procedure - the aggregation of claims in mass litigation. Part VIII offers some concluding observations about the point and significance of Procedural Justice. (shrink)

Although fairness is a key moral trait, limited research focuses on participants' observed fairness behavior because moral traits are generally measured through self-report. This experiment focused on day-to-day interpersonal fairness rather than impersonal justice, and fairness was assessed as observed behavior. The experiment investigated whether a self-reported fairness trait would moderate a situational influence on observed fairness behavior, such that individuals with a stronger fairness trait would be less affected by a situational (...) influence than those with a weaker fairness trait. We used an iterated resource game in which participants could withdraw resources as they chose, and we manipulated the number of resources bogus players withdrew. The number of resources participants withdrew was the behavioral measure of fairness. Results confirmed the expected moderation of the unfairness manipulation by a fairness trait on observed behavior. Those reporting a stronger fairness trait were unaffected by the manipulation, whereas those reporting a weaker fairness trait were more strongly influenced. (shrink)

As algorithms have become ubiquitous in consequential domains, societal concerns about the potential for discriminatory outcomes have prompted urgent calls to address algorithmic bias. In response, a rich literature across computer science, law, and ethics is rapidly proliferating to advance approaches to designing fair algorithms. Yet computer scientists, legal scholars, and ethicists are often not speaking the same language when using the term ‘bias.’ Debates concerning whether society can or should tackle the problem of algorithmic bias are hampered by conflations (...) of various understandings of bias, ranging from neutral deviations from a standard to morally problematic instances of injustice due to prejudice, discrimination, and disparate treatment. This terminological confusion impedes efforts to address clear cases of discrimination. -/- In this paper, we examine the promises and challenges of different approaches to disambiguating bias and designing for justice. While both approaches aid in understanding and addressing clear algorithmic harms, we argue that they also risk being leveraged in ways that ultimately deflect accountability from those building and deploying these systems. Applying this analysis to recent examples of generative AI, our argument highlights unseen dangers in current methods of evaluating algorithmic bias and points to ways to redirect approaches to addressing bias in generative AI at its early stages in ways that can more robustly meet the demands of justice. (shrink)

Distributive Justice Theories of distributive justice seek to specify what is meant by a just distribution of goods among members of society. All liberal theories (in the sense specified below) may be seen as expressions of laissez-faire with compensations for factors that they consider to be morally arbitrary. More specifically, such theories may be interpreted […].

This chapter provides a critical overview and interpretation of fair subject selection in clinical and social scientific research. It first provides an analytical framework for thinking about the problem of fair subject selection. It then argues that fair subject selection is best understood as a set of four subprinciples, each with normative force and each with distinct and often conflicting implications for the selection of participants: fair inclusion, fair burden sharing, fair opportunity, and fair distribution of third-party risks. It then (...) defends an approach to navigating the conflicting imperatives of these subprinciples, one which privileges the need to include epistemically distinct groups in research, before concluding by considering the most pressing research questions regarding fair subject selection. (shrink)

Economic disparities often translate into disparities in political influence, rendering political liberties less worthy to poor citizens than to wealthier ones. Concerned with this, Rawls advocated that a guarantee of the fair value of political liberties be included in the first principle of justice as fairness, with significant regulatory and distributive implications. He nonetheless supplied little examination of the content and grounding of such guarantee, which we here offer. After examining three uncompelling arguments in its favor, we complete (...) a more promising yet less explored argument that builds on the value of self-respect. We first inspect the conditions and duties that securing self-respect entails. We then look into how uneven allocations of the value of political liberties bear, expressively and due to the power imbalances they yield, on such conditions and duties. (shrink)

The increasing application of artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare raises both hope and ethical concerns. Some advanced machine learning methods provide accurate clinical predictions at the expense of a significant lack of explainability. Alex John London has defended that accuracy is a more important value than explainability in AI medicine. In this article, we locate the trade-off between accurate performance and explainable algorithms in the context of distributive justice. We acknowledge that accuracy is cardinal from outcome-oriented justice because (...) it helps to maximize patients’ benefits and optimizes limited resources. However, we claim that the opaqueness of the algorithmic black box and its absence of explainability threatens core commitments of procedural fairness such as accountability, avoidance of bias, and transparency. To illustrate this, we discuss liver transplantation as a case of critical medical resources in which the lack of explainability in AI-based allocation algorithms is procedurally unfair. Finally, we provide a number of ethical recommendations for when considering the use of unexplainable algorithms in the distribution of health-related resources. (shrink)

If deployed, aerosol geoengineering (AG) could involve unfairness to both present and future parties. I discuss three broad risks of unfairness that an AG deployment policy might carry: (1) causing disproportionate harm to those least responsible for climate change, (2) burdening future parties with the costs and risks of AG, and (3) excluding some interested parties from contributing to AG decision-making. Yet despite these risks, it may be too hasty to reject AG deployment as a potential climate change policy. I (...) argue that since it is very unlikely that a completely fair climate change policy will be pursued, we have ethical reason to prefer some “incompletely fair” policy. Given various facts about our world, it might be the case that some AG policy is ethically preferable to many other feasible climate change policies, even if AG carries deeply problematic risks of unfairness. (shrink)

What would be a fair model for flood insurance? Catastrophic flooding has become increasingly frequent in the UK and, with climate change, is likely to become even more frequent in the future. With the UK's current flood insurance regime ending in 2013, we argues that: -/- - there is an overwhelming case for rejecting a free market in flood insurance after 2013; - this market-based approach threatens to leave many thousands of properties uninsurable, leading to extensive social blight; - there (...) are a number of possible flood insurance models that would be fairer and more sustainable. -/- We outline three approaches to 'fairness' in flood insurance, and argues that the second and third of these would be the most 'solidaristic' – i.e. those at lower risk of flooding would contribute to the support of people at higher risk: -/- 'pure actuarial fairness' – insurance costs directly reflect the level of risk faced by individuals; 'choice-sensitive fairness' – insurance costs should reflect only those risks that result from each individual's choices; 'fairness as social justice' – insurance should be provided independently of individuals' risks and choices when covering basic requirements of social justice. (shrink)

This article discusses the adequacy of Rawls’ theory of justice as a tool for racial justice. It is argued that critics like Charles W Mills fail to appreciate both the insights and limits of the Rawlsian framework. The article has two main parts spread out over several different sections. The first is concerned with whether the Rawlsian framework suffices to prevent racial injustice. It is argued that there are reasons to doubt whether it does. The second part is (...) concerned with whether a Rawlsian framework has the resources to rectify past racial injustice. It is argued that it has more resources to do this than Mills allows. This second part of the article centers on two Rawlsian ideas: ideal theory and the fair equality of opportunity principle. It is argued that ideal theory is essential for the kind of rectificatory work that Mills wants nonideal theory to do, and that where there is a socioeconomic legacy of past injustice, it is hard to see how FEO could be implemented if it did no rectificatory work, a result which means that there is less need to turn to nonideal theory at all. (shrink)

Justice and Libertarianism The term ‘justice’ is commonly used in several different ways. Sometimes it designates the moral permissibility of political structures (such as legal systems). Sometimes it designates moral fairness (as opposed to efficiency or other considerations that are relevant to moral permissibility). Sometimes it designates legitimacy in the sense of it being morally impermissible for others to interfere forcibly with the act or omission (e.g., my failing to go to dinner with my mother may be (...) wrong but nonetheless legitimate). Finally, sometimes it designates what we owe each other in the sense of respecting everyone’s rights. Of course, these notions are closely related. What we owe each other may, but need not, be partly based on issues of fairness. Legitimacy and permissibility of political structures are largely, but perhaps not entirely, determined by what rights of non-interference individuals have. Nonetheless, these are distinct notions and we shall focus only on what we owe each other. Justice as what we owe each other is not concerned with impersonal duties (duties owed to no one, i.e., that do not correspond to anyone’s rights). If there are impersonal duties, then something can be just but nonetheless morally impermissible. For brevity, we shall often write of actions being permissible or agents having a moral liberty, but this should always be understood in the interpersonal sense of violating no one’s rights. Libertarianism is sometimes advocated as a derivative set of rules (e.g., derived from rule utilitarian or contractarian doctrines). Here, however, we reserve the term for the natural rights doctrine that agents initially fully own themselves. Agents are full self-owners just in case they own themselves in precisely the same way that they can fully own inanimate objects. Stated slightly differently, full self-owners own themselves in the same way that a full chattel-slaveowner owns a slave. Throughout, we are concerned with moral ownership and not legal ownership.. (shrink)

Abstract: Purpose - This study aimed to analyze the relationship between the determinants of organizational justice and their relationship to conscientious behavior from the point of view of officers working in the Palestinian police in Gaza Strip. Methodology - The study relied on the descriptive and analytical approach, using the questionnaire, targeting a stratified random sample of (400) officers, who hold the rank of captain and above, from the study population of 1550 officers. The study tool was distributed among (...) the sample members in all departments and governorates. Police in Gaza Strip. (353) questionnaires were retrieved, with a recovery rate of (88.3%). Findings - The existence of a positive correlation between the determinants of organizational justice and the behavior of conscience, and the existence of organizational justice in general in a medium degree and the order of its determinants is as follows: fairness of dealings and to a large degree, followed by fairness of procedures and a medium degree, and finally distribution fairness was to a small degree, while the behavior of conscience awareness came to a large extent. Significance - The existence of statistically significant differences between the respondents' averages of responding to the searched relationship due to the variables (type of administration, age group, job title, military rank, years of service). Recommendations - Work to take into account the fairness of distribution by providing adequate and fair salaries, granting bonuses for the additional efforts exerted, and budgeting in the distribution of duties and job burdens, as well as recommending attention to the interests of employees when making decisions and involving them in formulating them, explaining their justifications, and creating an organizational climate dominated by a sense of justice. (shrink)

Gini coefficients, which measure gross inequalities rather than their unfair components, are often used as proxy measures of absolute or relative distributive injustice in Western societies. This presupposes that the fair inequalities in these societies are small and stable enough to be ignored. This article presents a model for a series of ideal, perfectly just societies, where comfortable lives are equally available to everyone, and calculates the Gini coefficients for each. According to this model, inequalities produced by age and other (...) demographic factors, together with reasonable choices under equal opportunity, can raise the Gini coefficients for perfectly just societies to levels at least as high as those of any current Western country, and can as easily account for differences in Gini coefficients between such societies or within one such society over time. If Gini coefficients at these levels are possible for ideal societies without distributive injustice, then they should not be used as proxy measures of distributive injustice in real societies. (shrink)

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in (...) life insurance during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

I raise three objections to Pettit’s republican account of justice: 1) that it fails to account adequately for the role of certain values such as substantive fairness; 2) that it represents an uncomfortable hybrid of egalitarianism and sufficientarianism; and 3) that it fails Pettit’s own “eyeball test”. I then conclude in a more constructive vein, speculating about the kind of account of justice it is supposed to be and suggesting that, construed a certain way, it may have (...) resources for answering the three objections. (shrink)

Obstacles to achieving a global climate treaty include disagreements about questions of justice raised by the UNFCCC's principle that countries should respond to climate change by taking cooperative action "in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions". Aiming to circumvent such disagreements, Climate Change Justice authors Eric Posner and David Weisbach argue against shaping treaty proposals according to requirements of either distributive or corrective justice. The USA's climate envoy, (...) Todd Stern, takes a similar position. In this article I explain the practical and theoretical drawbacks of Posner & Weisbach's welfarist perspective and propose an alternative. I show that their arguments fail to rule out John Rawls' non-utilitarian, political conception of international justice and human rights, the Law of Peoples. On this basis I develop a conception of climate justice that highlights implications of some of Rawls' principles and adds a principle for determining fair shares of climate -treaty-related benefits and burdens. I propose this conception as a moral framework for negotiating a treaty that would promote human welfare consistently with requirements of justice, and I argue that a treaty proposal satisfying these requirements could best satisfy Posner & Weisbach's own feasibility criteria. (shrink)