Justice as Fairness John Rawls - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Justice as Fairness

John Rawls

Slide2

Utilitarianism is not Ethical Relativism!

Ethical

R

elativism:

There is no moral principle that is true for everyone, everywhere and

everywhen

.

Ethical

Univeralism

(‘Absolutism’):

This

is

a moral principle that is true for everyone, everywhere and

everywhen

Utillitarianism

is an Ethical

Univeralist

theory:

There is such a principle:

The Principle of Utility:

An act is right if and only if it maximizes utility

If you think you’re an

ethical relativist…

…you’re

probably a Utilitarian

.

Slide3

Ethical Relativism vs. Ethical Universalism

Ethical relativists hold that there is

no

kind of action that is always, everywhere and for everyone right or wrong.

Ethical

universalists (‘absolutists’)

hold that there is

some (at least one)

kind of action that is always, everywhere and for everyone right or wrong.

This

“

kind

”

can be highly abstract!

Ethical universalists do not claim that

every

kind of action is either always right or always wrong!

Slide4

Kinds of actions

An action can belong to many different kinds!

You break your promise to give a madman a gun on Tuesday.

Promise-breaking

Breaking a promise when keeping it would have very bad consequences

Doing something on a Tuesday

Doing an action that brings about the greatest good for the greatest number

Doing an action with the intention of preventing someone else from being harmed…

Slide5

Kinds of actions

An action can belong to many different kinds!

Promise-breaking

Slide6

Kinds of actions

An action can belong to many different kinds!

Promise-breaking

Promise-breaking

when keeping the

promise would have

very bad consequences

Slide7

Kinds of actions

An action can belong to many different kinds!

Promise-breaking

Promise-breaking

when keeping the

promise would have

very bad consequences

Tuesday actions

Slide8

Kinds of actions

An action can belong to many different kinds!

Promise-breaking

Promise-breaking

when keeping the

promise would have

very bad consequences

Tuesday actions

Actions that bring about the

greatest good for the

greatest number

Slide9

Kinds of actions

An action can belong to many different kinds!

Promise-breaking

Promise-breaking

when keeping the

promise would have

very bad consequences

Tuesday actions

Actions that bring about the

greatest good for the

greatest number

Actions intended to prevent

others from being harmed

Slide10

What is Cultural Relativism?

T

1. People

’

s beliefs, attitudes, tastes, etc. are significantly affected by their culture--and people in different cultures have very different beliefs, attitudes, tastes, etc.

T

2. Methodological cultural relativism: cultures should be studied on their own terms.

F

3.

Actions are right or wrong to the extent and only to the extent that they conform or don

’

t conform to cultural norms.

Slide11

Cultural Relativism says:

when in Rome do as the Romans do.

Slide12

Some cultures just suck.

Slide13

Charles Napier on Sati

"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

Slide14

Different questions

Can you blame them?

Should you stop them?

Is it wrong?

Slide15

Refective

Equilibrium

The method

of reflective equilibrium

begins

with one's considered moral judgments: those made consistently and without hesitation when one is under good conditions for thinking (e.g., “slavery is wrong,” “all citizens are political equals”).

One treats these considered judgments as provisional fixed points, and then starts the process of bringing one's beliefs into relations of mutual support and explanation as described above. Doing this inevitably brings out conflicts where, for example, a specific judgment clashes with a more general conviction, or where an abstract principle cannot accommodate a particular kind of case. One proceeds by revising these beliefs as necessary, striving always to increase the coherence of the whole.

Slide16

Problems with Utilitarianism

Rawls rejects utilitarianism

Slide17

Primary Goods rather than Utility

What is utility?

Pleasure?

Happiness? Can it be understood in a non-circular way?

Preference-satisfaction? Poses problem of adaptive preference.

Rawls considers the distribution of

primary goods

, e.g. rights, liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth.

Slide18

Summing vs. Averaging Utility

Both lead to crazy results:

Summing:

Parfit’s

Repugnant Conclusion – make more babies.

Averaging: kill hedonic underachievers

Rawls prefers

maximin reasoning: maximize the minimum level of primary goods so that the least well-off is better than they’d be given any alternative arrangement

Slide19

MaxiMin

: Slicing the Utility Pie

MIN

MIN

MIN

We want an arrangement in which MIN, the person who has the smallest share, has a bigger slice than he would have in any alternative arrangement—even if the shares aren’t equal.

Slide20

Respect for Persons

Dostoyevsky’s story of the Grand Inquisitor, a putative counterexample to Utilitarianism, our aversion to ‘using people as mere means’, etc.

Rawls

[

I]t hardly seems likely that persons who view themselves as equals, entitled to press their claims upon one another, would agree to a principle which may require lesser life prospects for some simply for the sake of a greater sum of advantages enjoyed by others

…a

rational man would not accept a basic structure merely because it maximized the

algebriac sum of advantages irrespective of its permanent effects on his own basic rights and interests. Thus it seems that the principle of utility is incompatible with the

conception of social cooperation among equals for mutual advantage.

Slide21

Social Contract

Principles

of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement.

They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of

equality

as defining the fundamental terms of their association…

Thus we are to imagine that those who engage in social cooperation choose together, in one joint act, the principles which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits

Slide22

Principles of Justice

Rationally chosen and impartial:

[

W]e decide to look for a conception of justice that nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social circumstance as counters in quest for political and economic advantage

.

How can it be both rationally chosen and impartial?

The Veil of Ignorance thought experiment articulates the conditions for impartial rational choice.

Principles adopted behind the Veil of Ignorance are constitutive of justice—for everybody, everywhere and everywhen.

Slide23

Two Principles of Justice

All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self­-respect—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone's advantage. Injustice, then, is simply inequalities that are not to the benefit of all

.

First Principle: fair equality of

opportunity:

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.

Second Principle: the difference principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of

fair equality of opportunity;They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). (trickle-down)

Slide24

The Original position

Behind the Veil of Ignorance

Slide25

The Veil of Ignorance

Parties do not know:

Their

race, ethnicity, gender, age, income, wealth, natural endowments, comprehensive doctrine, etc

. or

to which generation

they belong

.The political system of the society, its class structure, economic system, or level of economic development.Parties do know: That citizens in the society have different comprehensive doctrines and plans of life; that all citizens have interests in more primary goods.That the society is under conditions of moderate scarcity: there is enough to go around, but not enough for everyone to get what they want;

General facts about human social life; facts of common sense; general conclusions of science (including economics and psychology) that are uncontroversial.

Slide26

Equality and opportunity

Is there a trade-off?

Slide27

Nature is neither just nor unjust

The

natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that men are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the

ascriptive

basis for belong­ing to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these

societies

incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable

order beyond human control but a pattern of human action.Unchosen characteristics are undeserved – sex, race, class origin, etc. shouldn’t determine one’s life prospects.Natural endowments are undeserved – neither should intelligence, etc.

Slide28

Equality and Opportunity

Slide29

Economic Inequality in the US

Slide30

Inequality Across the Globe

Slide31

CEO-to-

W

orker Compensation

Slide32

How did it happen?

Slide33

How does the US compare?

Slide34

‘Job creators’?

Slide35

Earnings Mobility & Income Inequality

Among

OECD nations, social mobility is highest in Nordic countries, which through income transfers and the provision of social services, have reduced poverty and achieved the highest levels of economic equality

.

Social

mobility is lowest in Turkey, Mexico and the US, which have the highest levels of poverty and social inequality

Note: the inequality measure is in the

Gini coefficient, expressed as a percentage. The measure of earnings mobility is calculated from the intergenerational elasticity of earnings.See Growing Unequal? OECD, 2008 at http://www.oecd.org/document/53/0,3343,en_2649_33933_41460917_1_1_1_1,00.html.

Slide36

How do we get There from Here?

The social system is to be designed so that the resulting distribution is just

however

things turn out. To achieve this end it is necessary to get the social and economic process within the surroundings of suitable political and legal

institutions

Distinguish Allocation from Transfer functions, i.e. don’t expect, or manipulate, the market to allocate goods fairly

E.g. Rawls opposes minimum wage:

[T]his way of dealing with the claims of need would ap­pear to be more effective than trying to regu­late income by minimum wage standards, and the like...Since the market is not suited to answer the claims of need, these should be met by a separate arrangement.

Slide37

The Tendency t

o Equality

Redress:

This is the principle that undeserved inequalities of birth and natural endowment are undeserved…[and] are to be somehow compensated for.

(against meritocracy)

But not if it degrades the average standard of life.

Questions: How much is enough? Which programs are justified on an account like Rawls?

Universal healthcare at the taxpayer’s expense?Housing to get bums off the streets?William Morris News from Nowhere compensatory compensation program?