Distributive Justice Distributive Justice II:II:

John RawlsJohn RawlsEthicsDr. Jason M. Chang

Are Your Accomplishments YOUR doing?• Factors contributing to your achievement

• Family income level

• Family upbringing

• Natural talents

• Personality

• Racial and gender discrimination (???)

• Factors arbitrary from a moral point of view

Rawls’s worries about a free market system…

“[D]istributive shares are decided by the outcome of the natural lottery; and this outcome is arbitrary from a moral perspective. There is no more reason to permit the

distribution of income and wealth to be settled by distribution of natural assets than by historical and social fortune.”

John Rawls

Veil of ignorance

• Persons behind veil of ignorance are ignorant of…

• Social position or status

• Income level

• Race or gender

• Personal talents or characteristics• Athletic or sedentary, artistic or tone deaf, intelligent or not very

bright, physically sound or handicapped, talented or untalented, attractive or unattractive, etc.

What System of Distribution?

• Equal share for everyone?

• Distribution based on effort?

• Distribution based on achievement?

• Distribution based on just transfer and just acquisition?

• Distribution based greatest good for greatest number?

Rawls’s Difference Principle

Economic and social inequalities arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least well-

off

Table from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/

EconomyLeast-Advantaged Group

Middle GroupMost-Advantaged Group

A 10,000 10,000 10,000

B 12,000 30,000 80,000

C 30,000 90,000 150,000

D 20,000 100,000 500,000

Rawls’s Difference Principle

The difference principle selects Economy C, because it contains the distribution where the least-

advantaged group does best.

Rawlsian societyWhat would a Rawlsian society look like?

• Sufficient welfare provisions for all

• Taxes and income redistribution?

• More egalitarian than pure free market capitalism

• Inequalities allowed to a certain extent

“Those who have been favored by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune only on terms

that improve the situation of those who have lost out.”

Natural Talents and Abilities as a Public Asset