Rawls and social justice
Intro
• Concept of justice—what’s the question we are trying to answer (a normative one)?
What is the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation? So
the concept is the proper distribution of the benefit and burdens of social coopera-
tion
• Conceptions of justice—the answer to what is a proper distribution
• Subject? the basic structure of society; and it is the first virtue of social institutions
- Society: ‘a more or less self-sufficient association of persons who in their relations
to one another recognize certain rules of conduct as binding and who for the most
part act in accordance with them’.
- The ‘basic structure’ is a network of institutions
- So marked by conflict and cooperation
• When is justice required? In conditions of moderate scarcity and limited beneficence
• Function?
1. To allow for reasonable plurality of view and beliefs in society
2. To provide principles for fair distributions of social product
• Main idea? Justice is fairness—required to mediate between competing claims
Rawls’ principles
• Wants us to participate in a thought experiment; the ‘original position’. Attempts to
model some of our intuitive convictions about how we should go about constructing
the principles of justice. Accord to Rawls, we all think they should be chosen under
certain restrictions. Most noteworthy is the ‘veil of ignorance’. Knowledge restricted
in two ways. Not allowed to know (1) their own and others social circumstances and
natural talent (2) their own or others’ conception of ‘the good’.
• As to (1), this is meant to exclude the morally arbitrary and so model equality
• As to (2), this refers to our individual assignment of value; in other words, how we
conceive of the function or teleology of our lives. This is a way of modelling the
freedom of persons by not privileging any one conception of what matters.
• Principles:
• (1) Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of
equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties
for all ((1) political liberty, (2) freedom of speech and assembly, (3) liberty of con-
science and thought, (4) freedom of the person and right to hold property, (5) free-
dom from arbitrary arrest and seizure)
• (2) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:
A. They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity;
B. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society
(the difference principle)
• Lexical priority: Required to satisfy the first before moving on to the second and A
before B. No trading.
• Why accept? Rawls thinks the OP is really intuitive and the principles fall infallibly
from it. Participants have rationality which dictates their choice: First, they will not
expect more or less than an equal share in the division of social goods; second, they
will permit inequalities that benefit all; third, they will not exchange a greater for
lesser liberties. Also would be guided by maximin principle: This principle tells us to
rank alternatives by their worst possible outcomes: we are to adopt the alternative
the worst outcome of which is superior to the worst outcomes of the others. Why is
maximin good? No accounting for likelihood, risk averse, rejected alternatives have
outcomes no one can accept.
Formal argument:
,2. The The PSJs that we would choose in the OP are the PEO and subject to that the
DP
3. We should accept whichever PSJ we would choose in the OP
Therefore,
4. The Principles of Social Justice that we should accept are the Principle of equal lib-
erty and subject to that the difference principle
Pareto efficiency
• P efficiency: This occurs when resources are so allocated that it is not possible to
make anyone better off without making someone else worse off
• P improvement: this is when you make someone better off without making anyone
worse off
• The difference principle allows for a pareto improvement
Objection 1—to premise (1)
• Some have argued it would lead to a form of Utilitarianism (Hare). Why? U allows for
greater inequalities bc it just focuses on average utility. Under this the best off are
likely to be richer than the best off under Rawls’ system bc inequalities no need to be
to adv of worst-off. So a great many people may well be fairly well off and only a
small portion in unacceptable circumstances. However, in a society with the differ-
ence principle, there is nothing to stop the majority of people being only marginally
better than the worst off. These economic considerations would lead to the election
of a utilitarian society rather than ‘Justice as Fairness’.
• Problems?
1. Don’t know how risk averse you are (okay maybe Rawls rigs it and he does admit
this but he also thinks it is intuitively correct)
2. per Freeman, economically, poverty is not endemic. The worst off in society can be
raised without sacrificing general prosperity
3. per Rawls, why would they opt for the potential for greater wealth whilst foregoing
preventing their basic liberties being traded with other things. It seems more likely
that people will choose to protect their rights and insure themselves against the
worst eventualities rather than gambling on being more prosperous in an imper-
sonal system which conflates all desires.
Other would argue wouldn’t you gamble eg half get all benefits half get all burdens
but you don’t know how risk averse you are
Objection 2—to premise (2)
• Why do we need the OP? Kymlicka—it’s quite redundant. No need for special de-
vices. Weird to use this contract to express idea of moral equality. Idea is to render
the idea that people all matter equally vivid but it does this by imposing a perspec-
tive from which the good of others is just a component of our own good. This ob-
scures the idea that people are ends in and of themselves. The lives of others be-
come just a possible outcome of a self-interested choice.
• Responses?
- Helps cater to the practical problem of plurality of interests. The fact of reasonable
pluralism and the urgency of needing to cater to this. We need something everyone
can agree on
- It models fairness—the principle of justice need to be something that everyone can
agree on
- Also maybe Kymlicka is right but think of it like this: instead of everyone’s good be-
ing part of our own conception, everyone’s concept of the good is given equal privi-
lege. And also even if it is part of our own conception, this doesn’t mean people are
not being treated as ends in themselves.
• Some might say that it is anti-philosophical. But maybe we need this because the
principles of Justice need to be framed in ways that everyone can reasonably agree?
,Objection 3—to first POJ
Hart—problematic bc it suggests maximising total extent of liberty but this makes no
sense and might have absurd consequences eg requiring an absence of private prop-
erty.
Response—right to hold property is one of the requirements. Yes there is no balancing
act but clear he does wants to balance them
How extensive are they? Does freedom of conscience include a right of a person to as-
sisted suicide etc?
Response—R says that the basic liberties can be decided in the later stages.
Objection 4—to difference principle
• Kymlicka—does not allow for enough inequality (tennis players and gardeners).
Imagine two people with equal natural talent and circumstances. One wants to play
tennis all day and only works hard enough to do this; the other wants to become a
gardener and establishes a business selling vegetables. Under DP, we have to redis-
tribute income tennis player within constraints of basic structure. But why should the
gardener have to subsidise the lifestyle of someone who chose that because they
preferred it? DP seems to enforce unfairness where inequalities are the result of
choice not circumstances
• Responses?
• Justice applies to the basic structure not to individual people within it. So K’s objec-
tion misses the mark
• per Rawls, make leisure a primary social good. Now, there is no need to redistribute
income because the tennis player is not really ‘worse-off’ than the gardener. How-
ever, we might argue that this does not succeed in dealing with cases that involve
wasteful choices (such as gambling, for example). In this case, the better off are re-
quired to subsidise this harmful choice. Response to this?
• In Rawls, such cases are not discussed because society is presented as an ideal in
which everyone cooperates for the greater good whilst maintaining their own con-
ceptions of personal good. The objection does not undermine the principle itself—in
Rawls’ ontology, whatever inequalities exist must still be for the benefit of the worst
off no matter their personal choices. It rather shows what might happen when per-
sonal choices come into conflict with Rawls’ conception of an ideal society.
• Another similar objection (Freeman) is that it leads to stopping huge gains for mar-
ginal improvements for poor. But not intended for such weird situations
• Another move here is to recognise that choice is not morally arbitrary when it comes
to redistribution and we should actually recognise this—move to Luck Egalitarianism
which puts a moral distinction on choice/circumstances.
Objection 5—to difference principle
• Kymlicka—allows too much injustice. Draws attention not to choices but to talents.
What does R mean by fair equality of opportunity? Not just not discriminating on ba-
sic things but it requires equally talented and motivated people to have equal
chances. It is a corrective measure designed to account for differences in circum-
stances. So although R recognises that natural inequalities influence opportunities
just like social inequalities but the difference principle does nothing to correct it.
Whilst no one deserves their social circumstances, it is equally the case that no one
deserves to be born with a high IQ or to be handicapped. And these factors certainly
influence people’s fate yet are not compensated for on by Rawls’ difference princi-
ple. This is because he defines the worst-off entirely in terms of possession of social
primary goods—ie money, rights, opportunities etc. The possession of natural pri-
mary goods does not influence determining who is worst-off. He recognises that so-
cial inequalities should be compensated and natural inequalities should not influence
distribution but he needs to compensate for natural inequalities.
• Responses?
, • per Freeman, R’s fundamental project is to find the most appropriate principles with
which to underwrite basic economic and legal institutions that are necessary for soci-
ety and social cooperation. He conceives of society in terms of social cooperation;
this is by nature productive and involves reciprocity. For a person to engage in social
cooperation suggests that they have the requisite capacities for this (including moral
powers and capacities for productive labour). This is not to say that handicapped
people do not engage in this but it is perhaps in a more limited sense. This clarifica-
tion of Rawls’ project may explain why he focuses on social and economic goods. But
there is something unsettling about what Rawls’ is saying.
• Another response would be to say that actually natural talent inequalities are com-
pensated for (presumably these would lead to differences in in social primary goods
which then are compensated). Although Kymlicka could say it shouldn’t be this indi-
rect—you should compensate straight away
Objection 6—to incentives
• per Cohen, the incentives that Rawls offers to the talented do not satisfy the differ-
ence principle. He wants to give them these to encourage them to be more produc-
tive. What is wrong with this? Well in a just society, members accept the different
principle and thus affirm justice. Their allegiance to justice is thus incongruous with
demanding incentive payments. They cannot claim they are necessary because it is
their choices that makes them necessary. The ethos of justice is then belied by the
behaviour of the talented.
• Responses?
• Not apparent the payments would be necessary. The notion of self-serving capitalis-
tic individuals does not sit well with the concept of a reciprocal society that Rawls
has in mind. R recognises that a complete theory of justice submits individuals to re-
quirements which include helping others, not harming people and not causing unnec-
essary suffering.
• R is trying to give us a theory of institutional justice. People’s behaviour occurs
within this but it does not determine it or put at risk the principles behind the institu-
tions. Cohen recognises this objection and finds refuge in an ambiguity in Rawls’
work. At points, he seems to make only coercive institutions part of the basic struc-
ture. However, at others, he seems to include other non-coercive structures (like, for
example, the family) as part of institutions. So, citizens’ choices do determine soci-
ety’s basic structure and therefore the incentive payments are incongruous with the
sense of justice assigned to the citizens by the difference principle. What this seems
to show is that at heart, Rawls recognises that justice must apply to both people and
institutions. In Cohen’s words, ‘the personal is political’. We can overcome the objec-
tion by insisting that Rawls only cares about institutional justice. However, at base,
Cohen’s argument draws attention to the need for a theory of justice to tell us more
about the relationship between individuals and the frameworks within which they ex-
ist, both ‘hard’ frameworks like the law and ‘softer’ ones like the family
Dworkin—ambition-sensitive endowment-insensitive distribution scheme
• What is D’s scheme? Basically the idea is to give people what they want. People are
behind a veil of ignorance with same amount of buyer agency. They can then buy
what they want eg insurance against being handicapped. All of society’s resources
are up for auction. It is mostly about ex post corrections
• What is good about it?
- It does not ignore unequal natural assets
- It gives room to choice sensitivity
• What are its problems?
- For the insurance model to work, in reality we will have to use a form of tax. So we
need a way of measuring people’s natural advantages and disadvantages but this is
really hard in practice. eg people with equal talents might develop them differently.
Intro
• Concept of justice—what’s the question we are trying to answer (a normative one)?
What is the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation? So
the concept is the proper distribution of the benefit and burdens of social coopera-
tion
• Conceptions of justice—the answer to what is a proper distribution
• Subject? the basic structure of society; and it is the first virtue of social institutions
- Society: ‘a more or less self-sufficient association of persons who in their relations
to one another recognize certain rules of conduct as binding and who for the most
part act in accordance with them’.
- The ‘basic structure’ is a network of institutions
- So marked by conflict and cooperation
• When is justice required? In conditions of moderate scarcity and limited beneficence
• Function?
1. To allow for reasonable plurality of view and beliefs in society
2. To provide principles for fair distributions of social product
• Main idea? Justice is fairness—required to mediate between competing claims
Rawls’ principles
• Wants us to participate in a thought experiment; the ‘original position’. Attempts to
model some of our intuitive convictions about how we should go about constructing
the principles of justice. Accord to Rawls, we all think they should be chosen under
certain restrictions. Most noteworthy is the ‘veil of ignorance’. Knowledge restricted
in two ways. Not allowed to know (1) their own and others social circumstances and
natural talent (2) their own or others’ conception of ‘the good’.
• As to (1), this is meant to exclude the morally arbitrary and so model equality
• As to (2), this refers to our individual assignment of value; in other words, how we
conceive of the function or teleology of our lives. This is a way of modelling the
freedom of persons by not privileging any one conception of what matters.
• Principles:
• (1) Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of
equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties
for all ((1) political liberty, (2) freedom of speech and assembly, (3) liberty of con-
science and thought, (4) freedom of the person and right to hold property, (5) free-
dom from arbitrary arrest and seizure)
• (2) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:
A. They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity;
B. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society
(the difference principle)
• Lexical priority: Required to satisfy the first before moving on to the second and A
before B. No trading.
• Why accept? Rawls thinks the OP is really intuitive and the principles fall infallibly
from it. Participants have rationality which dictates their choice: First, they will not
expect more or less than an equal share in the division of social goods; second, they
will permit inequalities that benefit all; third, they will not exchange a greater for
lesser liberties. Also would be guided by maximin principle: This principle tells us to
rank alternatives by their worst possible outcomes: we are to adopt the alternative
the worst outcome of which is superior to the worst outcomes of the others. Why is
maximin good? No accounting for likelihood, risk averse, rejected alternatives have
outcomes no one can accept.
Formal argument:
,2. The The PSJs that we would choose in the OP are the PEO and subject to that the
DP
3. We should accept whichever PSJ we would choose in the OP
Therefore,
4. The Principles of Social Justice that we should accept are the Principle of equal lib-
erty and subject to that the difference principle
Pareto efficiency
• P efficiency: This occurs when resources are so allocated that it is not possible to
make anyone better off without making someone else worse off
• P improvement: this is when you make someone better off without making anyone
worse off
• The difference principle allows for a pareto improvement
Objection 1—to premise (1)
• Some have argued it would lead to a form of Utilitarianism (Hare). Why? U allows for
greater inequalities bc it just focuses on average utility. Under this the best off are
likely to be richer than the best off under Rawls’ system bc inequalities no need to be
to adv of worst-off. So a great many people may well be fairly well off and only a
small portion in unacceptable circumstances. However, in a society with the differ-
ence principle, there is nothing to stop the majority of people being only marginally
better than the worst off. These economic considerations would lead to the election
of a utilitarian society rather than ‘Justice as Fairness’.
• Problems?
1. Don’t know how risk averse you are (okay maybe Rawls rigs it and he does admit
this but he also thinks it is intuitively correct)
2. per Freeman, economically, poverty is not endemic. The worst off in society can be
raised without sacrificing general prosperity
3. per Rawls, why would they opt for the potential for greater wealth whilst foregoing
preventing their basic liberties being traded with other things. It seems more likely
that people will choose to protect their rights and insure themselves against the
worst eventualities rather than gambling on being more prosperous in an imper-
sonal system which conflates all desires.
Other would argue wouldn’t you gamble eg half get all benefits half get all burdens
but you don’t know how risk averse you are
Objection 2—to premise (2)
• Why do we need the OP? Kymlicka—it’s quite redundant. No need for special de-
vices. Weird to use this contract to express idea of moral equality. Idea is to render
the idea that people all matter equally vivid but it does this by imposing a perspec-
tive from which the good of others is just a component of our own good. This ob-
scures the idea that people are ends in and of themselves. The lives of others be-
come just a possible outcome of a self-interested choice.
• Responses?
- Helps cater to the practical problem of plurality of interests. The fact of reasonable
pluralism and the urgency of needing to cater to this. We need something everyone
can agree on
- It models fairness—the principle of justice need to be something that everyone can
agree on
- Also maybe Kymlicka is right but think of it like this: instead of everyone’s good be-
ing part of our own conception, everyone’s concept of the good is given equal privi-
lege. And also even if it is part of our own conception, this doesn’t mean people are
not being treated as ends in themselves.
• Some might say that it is anti-philosophical. But maybe we need this because the
principles of Justice need to be framed in ways that everyone can reasonably agree?
,Objection 3—to first POJ
Hart—problematic bc it suggests maximising total extent of liberty but this makes no
sense and might have absurd consequences eg requiring an absence of private prop-
erty.
Response—right to hold property is one of the requirements. Yes there is no balancing
act but clear he does wants to balance them
How extensive are they? Does freedom of conscience include a right of a person to as-
sisted suicide etc?
Response—R says that the basic liberties can be decided in the later stages.
Objection 4—to difference principle
• Kymlicka—does not allow for enough inequality (tennis players and gardeners).
Imagine two people with equal natural talent and circumstances. One wants to play
tennis all day and only works hard enough to do this; the other wants to become a
gardener and establishes a business selling vegetables. Under DP, we have to redis-
tribute income tennis player within constraints of basic structure. But why should the
gardener have to subsidise the lifestyle of someone who chose that because they
preferred it? DP seems to enforce unfairness where inequalities are the result of
choice not circumstances
• Responses?
• Justice applies to the basic structure not to individual people within it. So K’s objec-
tion misses the mark
• per Rawls, make leisure a primary social good. Now, there is no need to redistribute
income because the tennis player is not really ‘worse-off’ than the gardener. How-
ever, we might argue that this does not succeed in dealing with cases that involve
wasteful choices (such as gambling, for example). In this case, the better off are re-
quired to subsidise this harmful choice. Response to this?
• In Rawls, such cases are not discussed because society is presented as an ideal in
which everyone cooperates for the greater good whilst maintaining their own con-
ceptions of personal good. The objection does not undermine the principle itself—in
Rawls’ ontology, whatever inequalities exist must still be for the benefit of the worst
off no matter their personal choices. It rather shows what might happen when per-
sonal choices come into conflict with Rawls’ conception of an ideal society.
• Another similar objection (Freeman) is that it leads to stopping huge gains for mar-
ginal improvements for poor. But not intended for such weird situations
• Another move here is to recognise that choice is not morally arbitrary when it comes
to redistribution and we should actually recognise this—move to Luck Egalitarianism
which puts a moral distinction on choice/circumstances.
Objection 5—to difference principle
• Kymlicka—allows too much injustice. Draws attention not to choices but to talents.
What does R mean by fair equality of opportunity? Not just not discriminating on ba-
sic things but it requires equally talented and motivated people to have equal
chances. It is a corrective measure designed to account for differences in circum-
stances. So although R recognises that natural inequalities influence opportunities
just like social inequalities but the difference principle does nothing to correct it.
Whilst no one deserves their social circumstances, it is equally the case that no one
deserves to be born with a high IQ or to be handicapped. And these factors certainly
influence people’s fate yet are not compensated for on by Rawls’ difference princi-
ple. This is because he defines the worst-off entirely in terms of possession of social
primary goods—ie money, rights, opportunities etc. The possession of natural pri-
mary goods does not influence determining who is worst-off. He recognises that so-
cial inequalities should be compensated and natural inequalities should not influence
distribution but he needs to compensate for natural inequalities.
• Responses?
, • per Freeman, R’s fundamental project is to find the most appropriate principles with
which to underwrite basic economic and legal institutions that are necessary for soci-
ety and social cooperation. He conceives of society in terms of social cooperation;
this is by nature productive and involves reciprocity. For a person to engage in social
cooperation suggests that they have the requisite capacities for this (including moral
powers and capacities for productive labour). This is not to say that handicapped
people do not engage in this but it is perhaps in a more limited sense. This clarifica-
tion of Rawls’ project may explain why he focuses on social and economic goods. But
there is something unsettling about what Rawls’ is saying.
• Another response would be to say that actually natural talent inequalities are com-
pensated for (presumably these would lead to differences in in social primary goods
which then are compensated). Although Kymlicka could say it shouldn’t be this indi-
rect—you should compensate straight away
Objection 6—to incentives
• per Cohen, the incentives that Rawls offers to the talented do not satisfy the differ-
ence principle. He wants to give them these to encourage them to be more produc-
tive. What is wrong with this? Well in a just society, members accept the different
principle and thus affirm justice. Their allegiance to justice is thus incongruous with
demanding incentive payments. They cannot claim they are necessary because it is
their choices that makes them necessary. The ethos of justice is then belied by the
behaviour of the talented.
• Responses?
• Not apparent the payments would be necessary. The notion of self-serving capitalis-
tic individuals does not sit well with the concept of a reciprocal society that Rawls
has in mind. R recognises that a complete theory of justice submits individuals to re-
quirements which include helping others, not harming people and not causing unnec-
essary suffering.
• R is trying to give us a theory of institutional justice. People’s behaviour occurs
within this but it does not determine it or put at risk the principles behind the institu-
tions. Cohen recognises this objection and finds refuge in an ambiguity in Rawls’
work. At points, he seems to make only coercive institutions part of the basic struc-
ture. However, at others, he seems to include other non-coercive structures (like, for
example, the family) as part of institutions. So, citizens’ choices do determine soci-
ety’s basic structure and therefore the incentive payments are incongruous with the
sense of justice assigned to the citizens by the difference principle. What this seems
to show is that at heart, Rawls recognises that justice must apply to both people and
institutions. In Cohen’s words, ‘the personal is political’. We can overcome the objec-
tion by insisting that Rawls only cares about institutional justice. However, at base,
Cohen’s argument draws attention to the need for a theory of justice to tell us more
about the relationship between individuals and the frameworks within which they ex-
ist, both ‘hard’ frameworks like the law and ‘softer’ ones like the family
Dworkin—ambition-sensitive endowment-insensitive distribution scheme
• What is D’s scheme? Basically the idea is to give people what they want. People are
behind a veil of ignorance with same amount of buyer agency. They can then buy
what they want eg insurance against being handicapped. All of society’s resources
are up for auction. It is mostly about ex post corrections
• What is good about it?
- It does not ignore unequal natural assets
- It gives room to choice sensitivity
• What are its problems?
- For the insurance model to work, in reality we will have to use a form of tax. So we
need a way of measuring people’s natural advantages and disadvantages but this is
really hard in practice. eg people with equal talents might develop them differently.
