## 1. Scope and Role of Distributive Principles



Distributive principles vary in numerous dimensions. They vary in what
is considered relevant to distributive justice (income, wealth,
opportunities, jobs, welfare, utility, etc.); in the nature of the
recipients of the distribution (individual persons, groups of persons,
reference classes, etc.); and on what basis the distribution should be
made (equality, maximization, according to individual characteristics,
according to free transactions, etc.). In this entry, the focus is
primarily on principles designed to cover the distribution of benefits
and burdens of economic activity among individuals in a society.
Although principles of this kind have been the dominant source of
Anglo-American debate about distributive justice over the last six
decades, there are other important distributive justice questions,
some of which are covered by other entries in the encyclopedia. These
include questions of distributive justice at the global level rather
than just at the national level (see
 justice: international),
 distributive justice across generations (see
 justice: intergenerational)
 and how the topic of distributive justice can be approached, not as a
set of principles but as a virtue (see
 justice: as a virtue).



Although the numerous distributive principles vary along different
dimensions, for simplicity, they are presented here in broad
categories. Even though these are common classifications in the
literature, it is important to keep in mind they necessarily involve
over-simplification, particularly with respect to the criticisms of
each of the groups of principles. Some criticisms may not apply
equally to every principle in the group. The issue of how we are to
understand and respond to criticisms of distributive principles is
discussed briefly in the final section on methodology (see
 Methodology).



Throughout most of history, people were born into, and largely stayed
in, a fairly rigid economic position. The distribution of economic
benefits and burdens was normally seen as fixed, either by nature or
by a deity. Only when there was a widespread realization that the
distribution of economic benefits and burdens could be affected by
government did distributive justice become a live topic. Now the topic
is unavoidable. Governments continuously make and change laws and
policies affecting the distribution of economic benefits and burdens
in their societies. Almost all changes, whether they regard tax,
industry, education, health, etc. have distributive effects. As a
result, every society has a different distribution at any point in
time and we are becoming increasingly more adept at measuring that
distribution. More importantly, at every point in time now, each
society is faced with a choice about whether to stay with current
laws, policies, etc. or to modify them. The practical contribution of
distributive justice theory is to provide moral guidance for these
constant choices.



Many writers on distributive justice have tended to advocate and
defend their particular principles by describing or considering ideal
societies operating under them. They have been motivated to do this as
an aid to understanding what their principles mean. Unfortunately
though, as a result of this practice, some readers and the general
public have been misled into believing that discussions of
distributive justice are merely exercises in ideal theory--to
be dismissed as a past-time of the academic elite rather than as
something that is crucially relevant to current political discussion.
This misunderstanding is unfortunate because, in the end, the main
purpose of distributive justice theory is not to inform decisions
about ideal societies but about our societies. To help correct this
misunderstanding it is important to acknowledge that there has never
been, and never will be, a purely libertarian society or Rawlsian
society, or any society whose distribution conforms to one of the
proposed principles. Rather than guiding choices between ideal
societies, distributive principles are most usefully thought of as
providing moral guidance for the choices that each society faces right
now. So, for instance, advocates of Rawls' Difference Principle
are most constructively understood as arguing for changes to our basic
institutional structures which would improve the lifetime prospects of
the least advantaged in society. Other theorists are arguing for
changes to bring economic benefits and burdens more in accordance with
what people really deserve. Libertarians are arguing that reductions
in government intervention in the economy will better respect liberty
and/or self-ownership of its citizens. Sometimes a number of the
theories may recommend the same changes to our current practices;
other times they will diverge. It is best to understand the different
theorists, despite the theoretical devices they sometimes employ, to
be speaking to what should be done in our society--not about
what should be done in some hypothetical society. Of course, ensuring
that philosophical principles be effective for the purpose of guiding
policy and change in real societies involves important and complex
methodological questions. For a review of work specifically addressing
this issue, in ideal and nonideal theory, see Zofia Stemplowska and
Adam Swift (2012), and Valentini (2012).



Distributive justice theorists (perhaps like all theorists) tend to
emphasize the differences between their theories. This emphasis also
provides an avenue for those who have an interest in ignoring
distributive justice to dismiss the relevance of the distributive
justice literature--'we cannot get any guidance from
these theorists--they completely disagree with each
other'. Such dismissals misunderstand that it is impossible not
to take a stand on distributive justice at every moment of a
society's existence. This misunderstanding is, perhaps, best
illustrated by the most common type of dismissal. Often governments
try to justify inaction, in the face of calls to change some
government policy in light of some distributive justice concern, on
the grounds that there are 'disagreements/lack of
consensus' about the issue. Of course, there always are
disagreements, on any topic, whether moral or empirical, which will
have a differential effect on people's material interests. But
to think that this points to the desired conclusion--that in
light of this we should retain the status quo for the time 
being--reveals a confusion about the nature of the choices always
facing each society. So, in this instance, to claim that we should not
pursue any changes to our economic structures in light of a
distributive justice argument calling for change is, by its very
nature, to take a stand on the distributive justice of (or, if one
prefers, the morality of) the current distribution and structures in
the society compared to any of the possible alternative distributions
and structures practically available. At any particular moment the
existing economic and institutional framework is influencing the
current distribution of economic and life prospects for all members of
the society. To assert that we should not change the current system is
therefore, despite implications to the contrary, to take a substantive
position on distributive justice debates. It is to argue that keeping
the existing distribution is morally preferable to changing to any
practical alternative proposed--to take a substantive position
in just the area that it was claimed was too controversial to
consider. Societies cannot avoid taking positions about distributive
justice all the time and any suggestion that they can should be
resisted as incoherent.



A related point can be made when people assert that economic
structures and policy should be left to economists, or when people
assert that economic policy can be pursued without reference to
distributive justice. These assertions reveal misconceptions about
what distributive justice and economics are, and how they are related.
Positive economics, at its best, can tell us about economic causes and
effects. Positive economics is very important for distributive justice
because it can give us guidance about which changes to pursue in order
to better instantiate our moral principles. What it cannot do, in the
absence of the principles, is tell us what we should do. This point is
easily lost in everyday political discussion. When an economist says
'The Central Bank should raise interest rates', the
general population often, mistakenly, believes the recommendation is
purely coming from the science of economics. Moreover the
'should' is almost always a moral 'should'.
When economists make such a recommendation they, sometimes
unconsciously, have taken off their social scientific hat. They are
employing alongside their positive economic theory, a moral principle.
Suppressing, either consciously or unconsciously, that there are
always moral arguments being employed in arguments about what economic
policies a government should pursue has had the effect of creating
misconceptions about the respective roles of positive economics and
distributive justice in government decision-making.



For instance, the raising of interest rates is typically thought by
economists to have the dual effects of suppressing inflation and
suppressing employment. To get to a recommendation that the Central
Bank should reduce interest rates involves not only empirical views
about the relative sizes of the inflation and unemployment effects and
their long-term impact on growth, etc. but also normative views about
the relative moral importance of inflation, employment and growth. For
economists, these normative views on economic policies come under the
rubric of 'normative' economics, while philosophers would
typically categorize them under 'distributive justice'.
But the rubrics are not important as basically the same area is
covered under different names--the normative evaluation of
economic policies, structures, or institutions. (To avoid confusion it
should be noted that the distributive justice tradition includes
principles which do not use 'justice' per se, such as
utilitarianism, but which are moral principles relating to
distribution just the same.) The evaluations often look different
because economists most commonly use utility as their fundamental
moral concept while philosophers use a wider variety of moral
concepts, but the task in which they are both engaged is very similar.
What is most important to understand here is that positive economics
alone cannot, without the guidance of normative principles, recommend
which policies, structures, or institutions to pursue. Distributive
justice theories, such as those discussed in this entry, aim to supply
this kind of normative guidance. 


## 2. Strict Egalitarianism



One of the simplest principles of distributive justice is that of
strict, or radical, equality. The principle says that every person
should have the same level of material goods (including burdens) and
services. The principle is most commonly justified on the grounds that
people are morally equal and that equality in material goods and
services is the best way to give effect to this moral ideal. 



Even with this ostensibly simple principle, some of the difficult
specification problems of distributive principles can be seen. The two
main problems are the construction of appropriate indices for
measurement (the index problem), and the specification of time frames.
Because there are numerous proposed solutions to these problems, the
'principle of strict equality' is not a single principle
but a name for a group of closely related principles. This range of
possible specifications occurs with all the common principles of
distributive justice.



The index problem arises primarily because the goods and services to
be distributed need to be measured if they are going to be distributed
according to some pattern (such as equality). The strict equality
principle stated above says that there should be 'the same
*level* of material goods and services'. The problem is
how to specify and measure levels. The simplest way of solving the
index problem in the strict equality case is to specify that everyone
should have the same *bundle* of material goods and services
rather than the same *level* (so everyone would have 4 oranges,
6 apples, 1 bike, etc.). The problem with adopting this simple
solution is that there will be many other allocations of material
goods and services which will make some people better off without
making anybody else worse off. Such allocations are what are called
'Pareto superior' allocations (see
 equality
 for a more detailed discussion of Pareto efficiency). For instance,
someone who prefers apples to oranges will be better off if she swaps
some of her oranges for some of the apples belonging to a person who
prefers oranges. That way, they are both better off and no one is
worse off. Indeed, since most everyone will wish to trade something,
requiring identical equal bundles will make virtually everybody worse
off than they would be under an alternative allocation. So specifying
that everybody must have the same *bundle* of goods does not
seem to be a satisfactory way of solving the index problem. Some index
for measuring the value of goods and services is required.



Money is an index for the value of material goods and services. It is
an imperfect index whose pitfalls are documented in most economics
textbooks. Moreover, once the goods to be allocated are extended
beyond material ones to include goods such as opportunities, money
must be combined with other indices. (For instance, John Rawls'
index of primary goods--see Rawls 1971.) Nevertheless, using
money, either in the form of income or wealth or both, as an index for
the value of material goods and services is the most common response
to the index problem. In terms of public, rather than academic
discourse, GDP (gross domestic product) or per capita GDP is most
commonly touted as the way to measure the effect of governments'
policies on the population's well-being. The deficiencies in
such indices has now been well-documented and has lead to the
proposing of better alternative indices such as the Human Development
Index (HDI) and Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI).
Unfortunately, the general population is generally unaware of these
more accurate indices and so are disadvantaged in their ability to
judge the distributive justice effects of their governments'
policies. 



The second main specification problem involves time frames. Many
distributive principles identify and require that a particular pattern
of distribution be achieved or at least be pursued as the objective of
distributive justice. But they also need to specify *when* the
pattern is required. One version of the principle of strict equality
requires that all people should have the same wealth at some initial
point, after which people are free to use their wealth in whatever way
they choose, with the consequence that future outcomes are bound to be
unequal. Principles specifying initial distributions after which the
pattern need not be preserved are commonly called
'starting-gate' principles. (See Ackerman 1980,
53-59,168-170,180-186; Alstott and Ackerman
1999.)



Because 'starting-gate' principles may eventually lead to
large inequalities, strict egalitarians do not usually favor them. The
most common form of strict equality principle specifies that
*income* (measured in terms of money) should be equal in
*each* time-frame, though even this may lead to significant
disparities in wealth if variations in savings are permitted. Hence,
strict equality principles are commonly conjoined with some
society-wide specification of just saving behavior (see
 justice: intergenerational).
 In practice, however, this principle and the starting-gate version
might require more similar distributions than it first appears. This
is because the structure of the family means the requirement to give
people equal starts will often necessitate redistribution to parents,
who due to bad luck, bad management, or simply their own choices, have
been unsuccessful in accruing or holding on to material goods.



There are a number of direct moral criticisms made of strict equality
principles: that they unduly restrict freedom, that they do not give
best effect to the moral equality of persons, that they conflict with
what people deserve, etc. (see the sections on
 Libertarian Principles,
 and
 Desert-Based Principles,
 and the entry on
 equality).
 But the most common criticism is a welfare-based one related to the
Pareto efficiency requirement: that everyone can be materially better
off if incomes are not strictly equal (Carens 1981). It is this
criticism which partly inspired the Difference Principle.


## 3. The Difference Principle



The wealth of an economy is not a fixed amount from one period to the
next, but can be influenced by many factors relevant to economic
growth. These include, for example, technological advancement or
changes in policy that affect how much people are able to produce with
their labour and resources. More wealth can be produced and indeed
this has been the overwhelming feature of industrialized countries
over the last couple of centuries. The dominant economic view is that
wealth is most readily increased in systems where those who are more
productive earn greater incomes. This economic view partly inspired
the formulation of the Difference Principle. 



The most widely discussed theory of distributive justice in the past
four decades has been that proposed by John Rawls in *A Theory of
Justice*, (Rawls 1971), and *Political Liberalism*, (Rawls
1993). Rawls proposes the following two principles of justice:



> 
> 
> 1. Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal
> basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same
> scheme for all; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and
> only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value. 
> 
> 
> 
> 2. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: (a)
> They are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under
> conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and (b), they are to be to
> the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.
> (Rawls 1993, pp. 5-6. The principles are numbered as they were
> in Rawls' original *A Theory of Justice*.)
> 
> 
> 



Where the rules may conflict in practice, Rawls says that Principle
(1) has lexical priority over Principle (2), and Principle (2a) has
lexical priority over (2b). As a consequence of the priority rules,
Rawls' principles do not permit sacrifices to basic liberties in
order to generate greater equality of opportunity or a higher level of
material goods, even for the worst off. While it is possible to think
of Principle (1) as governing the distribution of liberties, it is not
commonly considered a principle of distributive justice given that it
is not governing the distribution of economic goods *per se*.
Equality of opportunity is discussed in the next section. In this
section, the primary focus will be on (2b), known as the Difference
Principle. 



The main moral motivation for the Difference Principle is similar to
that for strict equality: equal respect for persons. Indeed, since the
only material inequalities the Difference Principle permits are those
that raise the level of the least advantaged in the society, it
materially collapses to a form of strict equality under empirical
conditions where differences in income have no effect on the work
incentive of people (and hence, no tendency to increase growth). The
overwhelming economic opinion though is that in the foreseeable future
the possibility of earning greater income will bring forth greater
productive effort. This will increase the total wealth of the economy
and, under the Difference Principle, the wealth of the least
advantaged. Opinion divides on the size of the inequalities which
would, as a matter of empirical fact, be allowed by the Difference
Principle, and on how much better off the least advantaged would be
under the Difference Principle than under a strict equality principle.
Rawls' principle, however, gives fairly clear guidance on what
type of arguments will count as justifications for inequality. Rawls
is not opposed in principle to a system of strict equality *per
se*; his concern is about the *absolute* position of the
least advantaged group rather than their *relative* position.
If a system of strict equality maximizes the absolute position of the
least advantaged in society, then the Difference Principle advocates
strict equality. If it is possible to raise the absolute position of
the least advantaged further by having some inequalities of income and
wealth, then the Difference Principle prescribes inequality up to that
point where the absolute position of the least advantaged can no
longer be raised.



Because there has been such extensive discussion of the Difference
Principle in the last 40 years, there have been numerous criticisms of
it from the perspectives of all the other theories of distributive
justice outlined here. Briefly, the main criticisms are as
follows.



Advocates of strict equality argue that inequalities permitted by the
Difference Principle are unacceptable even if they do benefit the
absolute position of the least advantaged. The problem for these
advocates has been to explain convincingly why society should be
prevented from materially benefiting the least advantaged when this
benefit requires a deviation from strict equality.



For the strict egalitarian the *relative* position of people is
all important and the *absolute* position is either not
important at all or lexically inferior. For Rawls, at least with
respect to the social and economic inequalities, the opposite is true.
But there have been various plausible explanations given in reply to
Rawls' proposed Difference Principle why relative position is a
value that should be *weighed* against the value of the
absolute position of the least advantaged rather than subordinated
lexically to it. In an early reply to Rawls, Crocker explains the
value of paying attention to the relative position as a way of
understanding the value of solidarity. His approach fits into a set of
views in which being materially equal, or striving towards it, is an
important expression of the equality of persons.

 G.A. Cohen (1992)
also provides a critique of Rawls' Difference Principle that is
inspired by what he calls an "egalitarian ethos". Cohen
accepts greater income for some where this raises the level of the
least well off, and acts as compensation for work that involves
special burdens, such as being particularly unpleasant or dangerous.
In such cases, the income differences actually have an
"equalizing" effect. However, Cohen rejects applications
of the Difference Principle in the context of greater incomes to
induce those who are particularly talented to undertake work which
will benefit the least advantaged, particularly when that work, as is
often the case, is already more fulfilling than other employment
options. His justification is that such incentives are not strictly
necessary to improve the level of the least well off, in a Rawlsian
well-ordered society, where citizens would willingly accept and comply
with the demands of the Difference Principle. In other words, if
larger incomes are necessary only because the talented are taking
advantage of the demand for their talent to seek maximal economic
gain, then the Difference Principle should not be interpreted as
sanctioning them. Cohen's critique effectively urges a stricter
reading of the requirements of the Difference Principle than Cohen
believes Rawls and many of his supporters have held.


Another set of views, in opposition to Rawls' Difference
Principle, emphasizes the importance of relative position not as a
value in itself but because of its effect on other relations. In
particular, if some people are significantly better off materially
than others then that can result in them having significant power over
others. Rawls' response to this criticism appeals to the lexical
priority of his first principle: The inequalities consistent with the
Difference Principle are only permitted so long as they do not
compromise the fair value of the political liberties. So, for
instance, very large wealth differentials may make it practically
impossible for poor people to be elected to political office or to
have their political views represented. These inequalities of wealth,
even if they increase the material position of the least advantaged
group, may need to be reduced in order for the first principle to be
implemented. However, while this provides a partial reply to
Rawls' critics, it does not seem to recognize that it is not
just differential political power that can come from significant
differences in economic position but also economic power and hence
economic freedom. Virtual monopoly employers in regions of developing
economies give a stark illustration of this phenomenon. Of course,
Rawls can appeal in such cases to the empirical claim that such
differentials do not maximize the long-term position of the least
advantaged. The empirical question will be whether all such large
differentials which result in large differences in economic power also
demonstrably have the result of worsening the absolute position of the
least advantaged.



The utilitarian objection to the Difference Principle is that it does
not maximize utility. In *A Theory of Justice*, Rawls uses
utilitarianism as the main theory for comparison with his own, and
hence he offers a number of arguments in response to this utilitarian
objection, some of which are outlined in the section on
 Welfare-Based Principles.



Libertarians object that the Difference Principle involves
unacceptable infringements on liberty, property rights, or
self-ownership. For instance, the Difference Principle may require
redistributive taxation for the benefit of the poor, and libertarians
commonly object that such taxation involves the immoral taking of just
holdings (see
 Libertarian Principles).



The Difference Principle is also criticized as a primary distributive
principle on the grounds that it mostly ignores claims that people
*deserve* certain economic benefits in light of their actions.
Advocates of desert-based principles argue that some may deserve a
higher level of material goods because of their hard work or
contributions even if their unequal rewards do not also function to
improve the position of the least advantaged. Desert theorists as well
as libertarians also argue that the explanation of *how* people
come to be in more or less advantaged positions is morally relevant to
their fairness, yet the Difference Principle ignores these
explanations.



Like desert theorists, advocates of Luck Egalitarian principles argue
that the Difference Principle does not fully capture the moral roles
they believe luck and responsibility should play in principles of
distributive justice. Indeed, 'luck egalitarianism' as a
distinct approach in the distributive justice literature really
developed in critical response to Rawls' theory of distributive
justice. The reasons for that response are outlined in the next
section.


## 4. Equality of Opportunity and Luck Egalitarianism



The distribution of material goods and services is not the only
economic distribution which is important to people. The distribution
of opportunities is also important. As noted in the previous section,
John Rawls conjoined his Difference Principle with a principle of
equality of opportunity. Endorsement of some form of equality of
opportunity is very prevalent among distributive justice theorists
and, indeed, among the general population, especially when combined
with some form of market distributive mechanism. Equality of
opportunity is often contrasted favorably with 'equality of
outcome' or strict egalitarianism, by those who believe that we
can show equal concern, respect, or treatment of people without them
having the same material goods and services, so long as they have
equal economic opportunities. An equality of opportunity principle
then, is combined with other principles to ensure that the
inequalities permitted by the overall theory (whether utilitarian,
desert, or a Rawlsian difference principle) are only justified if
people have the relevant kind of equal opportunity to achieve greater
or lesser amounts of goods. So an equality of opportunity principle
allows those theorists who depart from strict equality to capture some
of what nonetheless has motivated egalitarians. What is the morally
best interpretation of this equality of opportunity principle has been
a significant focus of research (see
 Equality of Opportunity),
 particularly among luck egalitarians. In fact, the luck egalitarian
ideal (also sometimes known as the 'level playing field'
ideal) elevates the role of equal opportunity to the central
distributive ideal, so that distributive inequalities are only just
when they flow from one's choices or from factors for which one
can reasonably be held responsible.



In 1988, Brian Barry gave an interesting reconstruction of the
reasoning which led John Rawls to his Equal Opportunity and Difference
Principles. Barry's reconstruction and Ronald Dworkin's
earlier discussion (which we will come to later), have been seminal in
the rise of the luck egalitarian literature; hence, a version of this
argument is probably the best introduction to some of the relevant
moral issues.



'Formal' equality of opportunity rules out formal
discrimination on grounds such as a person's race, ethnicity,
age or gender. What is the underlying concern, shared by most
theorists and the general population, with a society lacking formal
equality of opportunity? The concern seems to be rooted in the belief
that traits such as a persons' gender or race are elements over
which people have no control and, hence, a society in which
people's race or gender have fundamental effects on their
lifetime economic prospects treats people unfairly. In such societies,
whether people were born as the favored gender or race, and hence were
favored economically, would simply be a matter of luck. Rawls'
claim is that structuring a society so that this 'natural
lottery' has such fundamental effects on people's lives is
immoral, when we have the option to structure it another way, with a
system of formal equality of opportunity. 



The foregoing is relatively uncontroversial, but what made
Rawls' (and Barry's) arguments so interesting was their
claim that this line of reasoning actually leads to much stronger (and
more contentious) requirements for social justice. They note that even
with formal equality of opportunity, there will remain many factors
over which people have no control but which will affect their lifetime
economic prospects, such as whether a person's family can afford
to purchase good quality educational opportunities or health care. A
society therefore will have reasons to adopt a more substantial
equality of opportunity principle, with equal opportunities for
education, health care, etc.--the same reasons it had for
adopting a merely formal equality of opportunity principle. 



Following this line of reasoning further (and it certainly has
appeared to many that we have no principled reason to stop here) seems
to lead to more radical conclusions than those who agreed with formal
equality of opportunity would have imagined. A society with a more
substantial equality of opportunity principle in place will still not
be providing equality of opportunity for all. People are born into
more or less nurturing families and social circumstances. People are
born into families and neighborhoods which are more or less
encouraging of education and the development of economically
advantageous talents. There are a whole range of social influences
which have fundamental and unequal effects on children's
economic prospects and for which they are in no way 
responsible--the influences children are exposed to are a matter of their
luck in the 'social lottery'. Moreover, the luck of the
natural lottery is not just restricted to such characteristics as
gender and race. Children are more or less fortunate in the
distribution of natural talents as well. 



A race where the starting line is arbitrarily staggered, where
people's prospects for winning are not largely determined by
factors for which they are responsible but rather largely by luck, is
not considered a fair race. Similarly, if society is structured so
that people's prospects for gaining more economic goods are not
largely determined by factors for which they are responsible but
rather largely by luck, then the society is open to the charge of
being unfair. This is the challenging conclusion with which Barry,
following Rawls, presents us. 



In response to this challenge, Barry himself explores a number of
avenues, including questioning whether economic distribution is really
analogous to a race. Rawls, of course, responded to his own challenge
by arguing that there is not a lot that can be done (morally) to make
the social and natural opportunities more equal, so the fair response
is to adopt the Difference Principle. Others, however, have taken this
challenge in different directions.



Ronald Dworkin, (Dworkin 1981a, 1981b, 2000) provided one of the most
detailed early responses to Rawls' challenge. In retrospect,
Dworkin's theory is often identified as one of the earliest in
the luck egalitarian literature, though Dworkin himself called his
theory Resource Egalitarianism. Dworkin presented his key insight
(i.e., what distinguishes him from Rawls) in terms of a distinction
between 'ambitions' and 'endowments'. Dworkin
uses the term 'ambitions' to cover the realm of our
choices and what results from our choices, such as the choice to work
hard, or to spend money on expensive luxuries. His term
'endowments' refers to the results of brute luck, or those
things over which we have no control, such as one's genetic
inheritance, or unforeseeable bad luck. Dworkin agrees with Rawls that
natural inequalities are not distributed according to people's
choices, nor are they justified by reference to some other morally
relevant fact about people, so people should not end up worse off as a
result of bad luck in the natural lottery. However, Dworkin argues the
Difference Principle fails to deliver on this ideal, since its
formulation in terms of primary goods fails to recognize that those
who are very unlucky, such as the severely ill or disabled, may need
considerably greater shares of primary goods than others in order to
achieve a reasonable life. Dworkin also argued that just economic
distributions should be more responsive than the Difference Principle
to the consequences of people's choices. 



Dworkin proposed that people begin with equal resources but be allowed
to end up with unequal economic benefits as a result of their own
choices. What constitutes a just material distribution is to be
determined by the result of a thought experiment designed to model
fair distribution. Suppose that everyone is given the same purchasing
power and each uses that purchasing power to bid, in a fair auction,
for resources best suited to their life plans. They are then permitted
to use those resources as they see fit. Although people may end up
with different economic benefits, none of them is given less
consideration than another in the sense that if they wanted somebody
else's resource bundle they could have bid for it instead.



In Dworkin's proposal we see his attitudes to
'ambitions' and 'endowments' which have become
a central feature of luck egalitarianism (though under a wide variety
of alternative names and further subset-distinctions). In terms of
sensitivity to 'ambitions', Dworkin and many other luck
egalitarians argue that provided people have an 'equal'
starting point (in Dworkin's case, resources) they should live
with the consequences of their choices. They argue, for instance, that
people who choose to work hard to earn more income should not be
required to subsidize those choosing more leisure and hence less
income. 



With respect to 'endowments', Dworkin proposes a
hypothetical compensation scheme in which he supposes that, before the
hypothetical auction described above, people do not know their own
natural endowments. However, they are able to buy insurance against
being disadvantaged in the natural distribution of talents and they
know that their payments will provide an insurance pool to compensate
those people who are unlucky in the 'natural lottery'.



Dworkin's early proposals were very hypothetical and it was
somewhat difficult to see what they meant in practice. Later luck
egalitarians have tried to tease out the practical implications of
their theories in more detail, though much of the debate still remains
at the theoretical level. They agree with Dworkin's
recommendation, against Rawls' Difference Principle approach,
that those with unequal natural endowments should receive
compensation. For instance, people born with disabilities, or
ill-health, who have not brought these circumstances upon themselves,
can be explicitly compensated so that they are not disadvantaged in
their economic prospects. Under Rawls' Difference Principle,
though, no such explicit compensation is forthcoming--as Rawls
says, the Difference Principle is not the principle of redress (Rawls
1971, 101). Of course, for the subset of people with long-term
disabilities or ill-health who are also in the least advantaged group
(variously defined by Rawls, but most commonly defined as the lowest
socio-economic grouping) the Difference Principle will help. But the
help will not be proportionate to their needs arising from their
disabilities or ill-health.



Luck egalitarians continue to refine such aspects of their theories as
(a) what they believe is the relevant conception of equality of
opportunity, (b) how much of a role luck should play in the
distribution of economic benefits and (c) what is the best conception
of 'luck' (Arneson 1990 and 2001, Fleurbaey 2001, Hurley
2001 and 2003, Swift 2008, Sher 2010). Relatedly, they continue to
explore what role responsibility should play in the distribution of
economic goods (Sen 1985, Cohen 1997, Valentyne 1997, Knight
2011).



Because the luck egalitarian proposals have a similar motivation to
the Difference Principle the moral criticisms of them tend to be
variations on those leveled against the Difference Principle. However,
as noted above, what is practically required of a society operating
under the Difference Principle is relatively straightforward. How the
theoretical concerns of luck egalitarians are to be practically
implemented is often not so clear. For instance, it has seemed
impossible to measure differences in people's natural 
talents--unfortunately, people's talents do not neatly divide
into the natural and those for which people can be held responsible. A
system of special assistance to the physically and mentally disabled
and to the ill would be a partial implementation of the compensation
system, but most natural inequalities would be left untouched by such
assistance while the theories commonly require compensation for such
inequalities. Exploring how in practical ways the economic systems can
be refined to track responsibility while mitigating certain types of
pure luck will be an ongoing challenge for luck egalitarians.

 A
different type of challenge has come from theorists who believe
egalitarian justice is not wholly, or even primarily, about
neutralising or compensating for bad brute luck. (See for example,
Jonathan Wolff, 1998 and 2010, or Elizabeth Anderson, 1999 and 2010.)
Such theorists believe the emphasis of justice should be the
expression of equal respect for people, and the conditions which will
allow for equal social standing or equal political participation.
While some distributive measures for counteracting bad luck may be
necessary, and taking people's choices seriously may be part of
respecting them, these theorists worry that emphasis on how unlucky
people are in the natural lottery, or what poor choices people have
made, can run counter to the goal of equal status.

## 5. Welfare-Based Principles



Welfare-based principles are motivated by the idea that what is of
primary moral importance is the level of welfare of people. Advocates
of welfare-based principles view the concerns of other 
theories--material equality, the level of primary goods of the least
advantaged, resources, desert-claims, or liberty--as derivative
concerns. They are valuable only in so far as they affect welfare and
so all distributive questions should be settled entirely by how the
distribution affects welfare.



Choosing welfare as the relevant value is only the first step towards
answering the distributive questions. Welfare-theorists must also
specify the welfare function. The welfare functions proposed vary
according to what will count as welfare and the weighting system for
that welfare. Economists defending some form of welfarism normally
state the explicit functional form, while philosophers often omit this
formality, concentrating on developing their theories in answer to two
questions: 1) the question of what has intrinsic value ('what
counts as welfare'), and 2) the question of what actions or
policies would maximize the intrinsic value. Moreover, philosophers
have tended to focus on an extremely small subset of the available
welfare functions. Although there are a number of advocates of
alternative welfare functions (such as 'equality of
well-being'), most philosophical activity has concentrated on a
variant known as utilitarianism. This theory can be used to illustrate
most of the main characteristics of welfare-based principles.



Historically, utilitarians have used the term 'utility'
rather than 'welfare' and utility has been defined
variously as pleasure, happiness, or preference-satisfaction, etc.
Jeremy Bentham, the historical father of utilitarianism, argued that
the experience of pleasure was the only thing with intrinsic value,
and all other things had instrumental value insofar as they contribute
to the experience of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. His
intellectual successor, John Stuart Mill, broadened this theory of
intrinsic value to include happiness, or fulfillment. Modern
philosophers since Kenneth Arrow, though, tend to argue that intrinsic
value consists in preference-satisfaction, i.e. in individuals'
having what they want. So, for instance, the principle for
distributing economic benefits for preference utilitarians is to
distribute them so as to maximize preference-satisfaction. The welfare
function for such a principle has a relatively simple theoretical form
requiring the distribution maximizing the arithmetic sum of all
satisfied preferences (unsatisfied preferences being negative),
weighted for the intensity of those preferences. To accommodate
uncertainty with respect to outcomes the function is modified so that
expected utility, rather than utility, is maximized (see
 consequentialism).
 



The basic theory of utilitarianism is one of the simplest to state and
understand. Much of the work on the theory therefore has been directed
towards defending it against moral criticisms, particularly from the
point of view of 'commonsense' morality. The criticisms
and responses have been widely discussed in the literature on
utilitarianism as a general moral theory (see
 consequentialism).
 Two of the most widely discussed criticisms will be mentioned
here.



The first, which was famously articulated by John Rawls (1971), is
that utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinctness of
persons. Maximization of preference-satisfaction is often taken as
prudent in the case of individuals--people may take on greater
burdens, suffering or sacrifice at certain periods of their lives so
that their lives are overall better. The complaint against
utilitarianism is that it takes this principle, commonly described as
prudent for individuals, and uses it on an entity, society, unlike
individuals in important ways. While it may be acceptable for a person
to choose to suffer at some period in her life (be it a day, or a
number of years) so that her overall life is better, it is often
argued against utilitarianism that it is immoral to make some people
suffer so that there is a net gain for other people. In the individual
case, there is a single entity experiencing both the sacrifice and the
gain. Also, the individuals, who suffer or make the sacrifices, choose
to do so in order to gain some benefit they deem worth their
sacrifice. In the case of society as a whole, there is no single
experiential entity--some people suffer or are sacrificed so
that others may gain. Furthermore, under utilitarianism, unlike the
individual prudence case, there is no requirement for people to
consent to the suffering or sacrifice, nor is there necessarily a
unified belief in the society that the outcome is worth the cost.



A related criticism of utilitarianism involves the way it treats
individual preferences about other peoples' welfare or holdings.
For instance, some people may have a preference that the members of
some minority racial group have less material benefits. Under
utilitarian theories, in their classical form, this preference or
interest counts like any other in determining the best distribution.
Hence, if racial preferences are widespread and are not outweighed by
the minority's contrary preferences (perhaps because the
minority is relatively few in number compared to the majority),
utilitarianism will recommend an inegalitarian distribution based on
race if there is not some other utility-maximizing alternative on
offer.



Utilitarians have responded to these criticisms in a number of ways.
Often they just deny the empirical claim upon which the criticism
rests. So they assert that the empirical conditions are such that
utility maximizing will rarely require racial minorities to sacrifice
or suffer for the benefit of others, or to satisfy the prejudices of
others. Relatedly, utilitarians often emphasize the long run
perspective required by their theory. They may concede that short-term
maximization may point to distribution on a racial basis but that this
would not be welfare-maximizing in the long run and that even greater
welfare can be achieved by re-educating the majority so that racist
preferences weaken or disappear over time, leading to a more
harmonious and happier world. In reply, it is pointed out that the
utilitarian must supply an account of why racist or sexist preferences
should be discouraged if the same level of total long term utility
could be achieved by encouraging the less powerful to be content with
a lower position. 



Critics of utilitarianism have responded that this reliance on the
empirical conditions turning out a particular way undermines the
plausibility of utilitarianism as a moral theory. They argue that we
do not have to wait until we find out how strong the racist feelings
are, how many are in the adversely affected racial minority, how many
racists there are, etc. to know that racist policies are wrong. It is
argued that given utilitarianism says that we do need to know these
numbers in order to know when, if ever, racist policies are wrong,
utilitarianism fails to adequately capture our moral judgments.
Utilitarians respond that if their theory on rare occasions does
require people to sacrifice or suffer in these or other ways, the
unintuitiveness of this consequence is a result of our contrary moral
judgments about right and wrong, which are fallible. For many
utilitarians, commonsense moral judgments are best understood as
providing us with 'rules of thumb' which are useful at the
level of commonsense morality but can ultimately be mistaken at the
level of 'critical theory'.



Most recently, some utilitarians have drawn on institutional theory or
game theory in defence, or in modification, of utilitarianism (see
Hardin 1988, Goodin 1995, Bailey 1997). Noting that the consequences
of individual actions are rarely determined in isolation, but rather
in conjunction with the actions of many others, these
'institutional' or 'indirect' utilitarians
argue that morally intuitive institutions such as constitutional
rights, human rights and various property rights would be endorsed by
this modified utilitarianism, and would forbid the morally horrible
outcomes critics have feared utilitarianism could sanction.



Utilitarian distribution principles, like the other principles
described here, have problems with specification and implementation.
Most formulations of utilitarianism require interpersonal comparisons
of utility. This means, for instance, that we must be able to compare
the utility one person gains from eating an apple with that another
gains from eating an apple. Furthermore, utilitarianism requires that
differences in utility be measured and summed for widely disparate
goods (so, for instance, the amount of utility a particular person
gains from playing football is measured and compared with the amount
of utility another gains from eating a gourmet meal). Some critics
have argued that such interpersonal utility comparisons are
impossible, even in theory, because even if all the diverse goods can
be combined into a single index of 'utility' for an
individual, there is no conceptually adequate way of calibrating such
a measure among individuals (see Elster 1991).



Utilitarians face a greater problem than this theoretical one in
determining what material distribution, or institutional structure, is
prescribed by their theory. Those who share similar utilitarian
theoretical principles frequently recommend very different
distributions or structures to implement the principles. This problem
occurs for other theories, with recommendations for distributions or
economic structures to implement commonly varying among advocates with
similar theoretical principles. But the advocates for other
distributive principles tend to cluster significantly with respect to
what they recommend. This is much less the case with respect to
advocates for utilitarian and welfare-based distribution principles
with advocates dispersed in their recommendations across the full
range of possible distributions and economic structures. For instance,
many preference utilitarians believe their principle prescribes
strongly egalitarian structures with lots of state intervention while
other preference utilitarians believe it prescribes a *laissez
faire* style of capitalism.



There is an explanation for why utilitarianism seems so much less
determinate in its policy (including structural) recommendations and
it points to what is the greatest challenge to utilitarianism as a
guiding distributive principle. Other distributive principles can rule
out, relatively quickly, various policies on the grounds that they
clearly violate the guiding principle, but utilitarians must examine,
in great detail, all the policies on offer. For each policy, they must
determine the distribution of goods and services yielded by the policy
and at least three other factors: the identity of each person in the
distribution (if individuals' utility functions differ); the
utility of each person from the goods and services distributed to
them; the utility of each person from the policy itself. They must
then aggregate these utilities across all individuals. The size of the
information requirements make this task impossible. Hence, broad
assumptions must be made and each different set of assumptions will
yield a different answer, and so the answers range across the full set
of policies on offer. Moreover, there is no obvious way to arbitrate
between the different sets of assumptions. For instance, suppose three
utilitarians agree on the same utilitarian distributive principle.
Utilitarian 1, for example, may assert that the population's
utility function conforms to function A (e.g. people's marginal
utility is diminishing at rate R) and is maximized by Policy 1;
Utilitarian 2, however, asserts that half the population's
utility function conforms to function A and half to function B (e.g.
people's marginal utility is diminishing at rate 2R) and is
maximized by Policy 2; Utilitarian 3 asserts Utilitarian 2 is correct
about the utility functions of the population but claims that Policy 3
is the one that will maximize utility. The challenge for contemporary
utilitarians is to explain, given the massive informational
requirements of utilitarianism and our apparent human inability to
meet those requirements, how the population, and its experts, can
plausibly arbitrate between conflicting policy and institutional
recommendations coming from utilitarian theorists who share the same
underlying normative principle.


## 6. Desert-Based Principles



Another complaint against welfarism is that it ignores, and in fact
cannot even make sense of, claims that people *deserve* certain
economic benefits in light of their actions (Feinberg, Lamont 1997).
The complaint is often motivated by the concern that various forms of
welfarism treat people as mere containers for well-being, rather than
purposeful beings, responsible for their actions and creative in their
environments. 



The various proposed
 desert-based
 principles of distribution differ primarily according to what they
identify as the basis for deserving. While Aristotle proposed virtue,
or moral character, to be the best desert-basis for economic
distribution, contemporary desert theorists have proposed desert-bases
that are more practically implemented in complex modern societies.
Most contemporary desert theorists have pursued John Locke's
lead in this respect. Locke argued people deserve to have those items
produced by their toil and industry, the products (or the value
thereof) being a fitting reward for their effort (see Miller 1989).
Locke's underlying idea was to guarantee to individuals the
fruits of their own labor and abstinence. Most contemporary proposals
for desert-bases fit into one of three broad categories:


1. Contribution: People should be rewarded for their work activity
according to the value of their contribution to the social product.
(Miller 1976, Miller 1989, Riley 1989)
2. Effort: People should be rewarded according to the effort they
expend in their work activity (Sadurski 1985a,b, Milne 1986).
3. Compensation: People should be rewarded according to the costs
they incur in their work activity (Dick 1975, Lamont 1997).



According to the contemporary desert theorist, people freely apply
their abilities and talents, in varying degrees, to socially
productive work. People come to deserve varying levels of income by
providing goods and services desired by others (Feinberg 1970).
Distributive systems are just insofar as they distribute incomes
according to the different levels earned or deserved by the
individuals in the society for their productive labors, efforts, or
contributions.



Contemporary desert-principles all share the value of raising the
standard of living--collectively, 'the social
product'. Under each principle, only activity directed at
raising the social product will serve as a basis for deserving income.
The concept of desert itself does not yield this value of raising the
social product; it is a value societies hold independently. Hence,
desert principles identifying desert-bases tied to socially productive
activity (productivity, compensation, and effort all being examples of
such bases) do not do so because the concept of desert requires this.
They do so because societies value higher standards of living, and
therefore choose the raising of living standards as the primary value
relevant to desert-based distribution. This means that the full
development of desert-based principles requires specification (and
defense) of those activities which will or will not count as socially
productive, and hence as deserving of remuneration (Lamont 1994).



It is important to distinguish desert-payments from entitlements. For
desert theorists a well-designed institutional structure will make it
so that many of the entitlements people have are deserved. But
entitlements and just deserts are not conceptually the same and
regularly come apart. For instance, as Feinberg notes, a person can be
entitled to assume the presidential office without deserving it
(Feinberg 1970, 86) and a person who accidentally apprehends a
criminal may be entitled to a reward but not deserve it. Conversely, a
team may deserve to win the championship prize but not be entitled to
it or a person may deserve an economic benefit but not be entitled to
it. Indeed, these and many other instances of desert and entitlements
coming apart provide the bases for desert theorists to argue for
institutional reform. For desert theorists, the institutional
structure should facilitate people's economic entitlements
(including one's property holdings) tracking their just
deserts.



Payments designed to give people incentives are a form of entitlement
particularly worth distinguishing from desert-payments as they are
commonly confused (Barry 1965, 111-112). Incentive-payments are
'forward-looking' in that they are set up to create a
situation in the future, while desert-payments are
'backwards-looking'in that they are justified with
reference to work in the present or past. Even though it is possible
for the same payment to be both deserved and an incentive, incentives
and desert provide distinct rationales for income and should not be
conflated (Lamont 1997).



While some have sought to justify current capitalist distributions via
desert-based distributive principles, John Stuart Mill and many since
have forcefully argued the contrary claim--that the
implementation of a productivity principle would involve dramatic
changes in modern market economies and would greatly reduce the
inequalities characteristic of them. It is important to note, though,
that contemporary desert-based principles are rarely complete
distributive principles. They usually are only designed to cover
distribution among working adults, leaving basic welfare needs to be
met by other principles.



The specification and implementation problems for desert-based
distribution principles revolve mainly around the desert-bases: it is
difficult to identify what is to count as a contribution, an effort or
a cost, and it is even more difficult to measure these in a complex
modern economy.



The main moral objection to desert-based principles is that they make
economic benefits depend on factors over which people have little
control. John Rawls has made one of the most widely discussed
arguments to this effect (Rawls 1971), and while a strong form of this
argument has been clearly refuted (Zaitchik, Sher), it remains a
problem for desert-based principles. The problem is most pronounced in
the case of productivity-based principles--people's
productivity seems clearly to be influenced by many factors over which
they have little control.



It is interesting to note that under most welfare-based principles, it
is also the case that people's level of economic benefits
depends on factors beyond their control. But welfarists view this as a
virtue of their theory, since they think the only morally relevant
characteristic of any distribution is the welfare resulting from it.
Whether the distribution ties economic benefits to matters beyond our
control is morally irrelevant from the welfarist point of view. (As it
happens, welfarists often hold the empirical claim that people have
little control over their contributions to society anyway.) However,
for people's benefits to depend on factors beyond their control
is a more awkward result for desert theorists who, with luck
egalitarians, emphasize the responsibility of people in choosing to
engage in more or less productive activities.


## 7. Libertarian Principles



Most contemporary versions of the principles discussed so far allow
some role for the market as a means of achieving the desired
distributive pattern--the Difference Principle uses it as a
means of helping the least advantaged; utilitarian principles commonly
use it as a means of achieving the distributive pattern maximizing
utility; desert-based principles rely on it to distribute goods
according to desert, etc. In contrast, advocates of libertarian
distributive principles rarely see the market as a means to some
desired pattern, since the principle(s) they advocate do not
ostensibly propose a 'pattern' at all, but instead
describe the sorts of acquisitions or exchanges which are just in
their own right. The market will be just, not as a means to some
pattern, but insofar as the exchanges permitted in the market satisfy
the conditions of just acquisition and exchange described by the
principles. For libertarians, just outcomes are those arrived at by
the separate just actions of individuals; a particular distributive
pattern is not required for justice. Robert Nozick advanced this
version of libertarianism (Nozick 1974), and is its best known
contemporary advocate. 



Nozick proposes a 3-part "Entitlement Theory".



> 
> If the world were wholly just, the following definition would
> exhaustively cover the subject of justice in holdings:
> 
> 1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle
> of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.
> 2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle
> of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is
> entitled to the holding.
> 3. No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications
> of (a) and (b).
> 
> 
> 
> The complete principle of distributive justice would say simply that a
> distribution is just if everyone is entitled to the holdings they
> possess under the distribution (Nozick, p.151).
> 
> 
> 



The statement of the Entitlement Theory includes reference to the
principles of justice in acquisition and transfer. (For details of
these principles see Nozick, pp.149-182.) The principle of
justice in transfer is the least controversial and is designed to
specify fair contracts while ruling out stealing, fraud, etc. The
principle of justice in acquisition is more complicated and more
controversial. The principle is meant to govern the gaining of
exclusive property rights over the material world. For the
justification of these rights, Nozick takes his inspiration from John
Locke's idea that everyone 'owns' themselves and, by
mixing one's labors with the world, self-ownership can generate
ownership of some part of the material world. However, of
Locke's mixing metaphor, Nozick legitimately asks:
'...why isn't mixing what I own with what I
don't own a way of losing what I own rather than a way of
gaining what I don't? If I own a can of tomato juice and spill
it in the sea so its molecules... mingle evenly throughout the sea, do
I thereby come to own the sea, or have I foolishly dissipated my
tomato juice?' (Nozick 1974, p.174) Nozick concludes that what
is significant about mixing our labor with the material world is that
in doing so, we tend to increase the value of it, so that
self-ownership can lead to ownership of the external world in such
cases (Nozick 1974, pp. 149-182).



The obvious objection to this claim is that it is not clear why the
first people to acquire some part of the material world should be able
to exclude others from it (and, for instance, be the land owners while
the later ones become the wage laborers). In response to this
objection, Nozick follows Locke in recognizing the need for a
qualification on just acquisition. According to the *Lockean
Proviso*, an exclusive acquisition of the external world is just,
if, after the acquisition, there is 'enough and as good left in
common for others'. One of the main challenges for libertarians
has been to formulate a morally plausible interpretation of this
proviso. According to Nozick's weaker version of Locke's
Proviso, "a process normally giving rise to a permanent
bequeathable property right in a previously unowned thing will not do
so if the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is
thereby worsened" (Nozick, 1974, p. 178). For Nozick's
critics, his proviso is unacceptably weak. This is partly because it
fails to consider the position others may have achieved under
alternative distributions and thereby instantiates the morally dubious
criterion of whoever is first gets the exclusive spoils. For example,
one can satisfy Nozick's proviso by 'acquiring' a
beach and charging $1 admission to those who previously were able to
use the beach for free, so long as one compensates them with a benefit
they deem equally valuable, such as a clean-up or life-guarding
service on the beach. However, the beach-goers would have been even
better off had the more efficient organizer among them acquired the
beach, charging only 50 cents for the same service, but this
alternative is never considered under Nozick's proviso (Cohen,
1995).



Will Kymlicka has given a summary of the steps in Nozick's
self-ownership argument:


1. People own themselves.
2. The world is initially unowned.
3. You can acquire absolute rights over a disproportionate share of
the world, if you do not worsen the condition of others.
4. It is relatively easy, without worsening the condition of others,
to acquire absolute rights over a disproportionate share of the world.
Therefore:
5. Once private property has been appropriated, a free market in
capital and labor is morally required (Kymlicka 1990, p. 112).



The assessment of this argument is quite complex, but the difficulties
mentioned above with the proviso call into question claims (3) and
(4). The challenge for libertarians then is to find a plausible
reading of (3) which will yield (4). Moreover, Nozick extends the
operation of the proviso to apply both to acquisitions and transfers,
compounding the problem (Nozick, 1974, p. 174).



Egalitarian leaning theorists generally have opposed Nozick's
form of libertarianism on the grounds that its implementation would
lead to potentially vast material inequalities. However, a subset of
egalitarians have nevertheless been attracted to the normative
strength and implications of self-ownership, concerned that an
unconstrained pursuit of equality could pose a danger to
people's rights over themselves and their labor. G.A. Cohen
eloquently expresses this concern:



> 
> In my experience, leftists who disparage Nozick's essentially
> unargued affirmation of each person's rights over himself lose
> confidence in their unqualified denial of the thesis of self-ownership
> when they are asked to consider who has the right to decide what
> should happen, for example, to their own eyes. They do not immediately
> agree that, were eye transplants easy to achieve, it would then be
> acceptable for the state to conscript potential eye donors into a
> lottery whose losers must yield an eye to beneficiaries who would
> otherwise not be one-eyed but blind. (Cohen, 1995, p.70)
> 

 A strong enough commitment to self-ownership would seem
to protect against such a scenario, as well as providing a
justification for the view we cannot be forced to give our efforts or
labor to others. So a number of egalitarian-leaning theorists who are
nevertheless deeply committed to self-ownership locate the problematic
aspect of Nozick's libertarianism in the way it permits and
protects particularly strong ownership rights over unequal amounts of
the external world. Known as *left libertarians*, they combine
a fundamental commitment to self-ownership with various egalitarian
views of how people can come to have rights to use or own elements of
the external world. A key principle in these views is that the mere
possession of land or natural resources should not be permitted to
generate greater wealth for some. An early version of this combination
of views can be found in Henry George's *Progress and
Poverty* (1879), in which he argued for the value of land to be
taxed while the value added by people's work be retained by
them. Contemporary left libertarians include Hillel Steiner (1994),
Philippe Van Parijs (1995), Michael Otsuka (2003) and Peter Vallentyne
(Vallentyne and Steiner, eds., 2000a and 2000b). In addition to their
commitment to self-ownership, they believe self-ownership and equality
can be rendered compatible, so long as the Lockean Proviso is given a
proper and sufficient egalitarian reading. They therefore accept some
form of egalitarian ownership over (unimproved, or unproduced) natural
resources, but differ on the form this takes. In the work of Hillel
Steiner (1994), for example, everyone is a full self-owner and also
has a right to an equal share of natural resource value. Both Michael
Otsuka and Peter Vallentyne defend an equal opportunity
left-libertarianism, in which "those whose initial internal
endowments provide less favourable effective opportunities for
well-being are entitled to larger shares of natural resources"
(Vallentyne, 2009, p. 149). Similarly, Otsuka argues that across a
wide range of individuals who differ in their capacity to derive
welfare from resources, it will be possible to "distribute
initially unowned worldly resources so as to achieve equality of
opportunity for welfare in a manner which is compatible with each
person's possession of an uninfringed libertarian right of
self-ownership that is robust rather than merely formal"
(Otsuka, 2003, see Chapter 1). Philippe Van Parijs (1995) defends an
unconditional basic income for all, by combining self-ownership with
the view that natural resources should be used to promote equality.


Of course, many existing holdings are the result of acquisitions or
transfers which at some point did not satisfy the principles of
justice for acquisitions or transfers, however these are understood.
Hence, libertarians who rely on historical principles to underpin
property rights must supplement these with a principle of
rectification for past injustice, or at least some strategy for
dealing with unjust holdings. Although Nozick does not specify this
principle he does describe its purpose:



> 
> This principle uses historical information about previous situations
> and injustices done in them... and information about the actual course
> of events that flowed from these injustices, until the present, and it
> yields a description (or descriptions) of holdings in the society. The
> principle of rectification presumably will make use of its best
> estimate of subjunctive information about what would have occurred...
> if the injustice had not taken place. If the actual description of
> holdings turns out not to be one of the descriptions yielded by the
> principle, then one of the descriptions yielded must be realized.
> (Nozick 1974, pp. 152-153)
> 



Nozick does not make an attempt to provide a principle of
rectification. The absence of such a principle is much worse for a
historical theory than for a patterned theory. Past injustices
systematically undermine the justice of every subsequent distribution
in historical theories. Nozick is clear that his historical theory
cannot be used to evaluate the justice of actual societies until such
a theory of rectification is given or no considerations of
rectification of injustice could apply to justify the distribution in
the actual society: 



> 
> In the absence of [a full treatment of the principle of rectification]
> applied to a particular society, one *cannot* use the analysis
> and theory presented here to condemn any particular scheme of transfer
> payments, unless it is clear that no considerations of rectification
> of injustice could apply to justify it. (Nozick 1974, p.231)
> 



Unfortunately for the theory, it would seem that no such treatment
will ever be forthcoming because the task is, for all practical
purposes, impossible. The numbers of injustices perpetrated throughout
history, both within nations and between them, are enormous and the
necessary details of the vast majority of injustices are unavailable.
Even if the details of the injustices were available, the
counterfactual causal chains could not be reliably determined. As
Derek Parfit has pointed out, in a different context, even the people
who would have been born would have been different (Parfit 1986). As a
consequence, it is difficult to see how Nozick's entitlement
theory could provide guidance as to what the current distribution of
material holdings should be or what distributions or redistributions
are legitimate or illegitimate. (Indeed Nozick suggests, for instance,
the Difference Principle may be the best implementation of the
principle of rectification.) Although Nozick is fairly candid about
this consequence, many of his supporters and critics have ignored it
and have carried on a vigorous debate as though, contrary to
Nozick's own statement, his theory can be used to evaluate the
justice of current economic distributions. 



Classical libertarians such as Nozick usually advocate a system in
which there are exclusive property rights, with the role of the
government restricted to the protection of these property rights. The
property rights commonly rule out taxation for purposes other than
raising the funds necessary to protect property rights. One of the
strongest critiques of any attempt to institute such a system of
legally protected strong property rights comes, as we have seen, from
Nozick's theory itself--there seems no obvious reason to
give strong legal protection to property rights which have arisen
through violations of the just principles of acquisition and transfer.
But putting this critique to one side for a moment, what other
arguments are made in favor of exclusionary property rights?



As already noted, Nozick argues that because people own themselves and
hence their talents, they own whatever they can produce with these
talents. Moreover, it is possible in a free market to sell the
products of exercising one's talents. Any taxation of the income
from such selling, according to Nozick, 'institute[s] (partial)
ownership by others of people and their actions and labor'
(Nozick, p. 172). People, according to this argument, have these
exclusive rights of ownership. Taxation then, simply involves
violating these rights and allowing some people to own (partially)
other people. Moreover, it is argued, any system not legally
recognizing these rights violates Immanuel Kant's maxim to treat
people always as ends in themselves and never merely as a means. The
two main difficulties with this argument have been: (1) to show that
self-ownership is only compatible with having such strong exclusive
property rights; and (2) that a system of exclusive property rights is
the best system for treating people with respect, as ends in
themselves.



Nozick candidly accepts that he does not himself give a systematic
moral justification of the exclusionary property rights he advocates:
'This book does not present a precise theory of the moral basis
of individual rights.' (Nozick, p.xiv) But others have tried to
provide more systematic justifications of similar rights (Lomasky,
Steiner) or to develop, more fully, justifications to which Nozick
alludes.



In addition to the arguments from self-ownership, and the requirement
to treat people as ends in themselves, the most common other route for
trying to justify exclusive property rights has been to argue that
they are required for the maximization of freedom and/or liberty or
the minimization of violations of these (Hayek 1960). As an empirical
claim though, this appears to be false. If we compare countries with
less exclusionary property rights (e.g. more taxation) with countries
with more exclusionary property regimes, we see no systematic
advantage in freedoms or liberties enjoyed by people in the latter
countries. (Of course, we do see a *difference* in distribution
of such freedoms or liberties. In the latter countries, the richer
have more and the poorer less, while in the former they are more
evenly distributed.) Now if libertarians restrict what counts as a
valuable freedom/liberty (and discount other freedoms/liberties people
value), it will follow that exclusionary property rights are required
to maximize freedom and/or liberty or to minimize violations of these.
But the challenge for these libertarians is to show why only their
favored liberties and freedoms are valuable, and not those which are
weakened by a system of exclusive property rights.


## 8. Feminist Principles



There is no one feminist conception of distributive justice; feminists
defend positions across the political spectrum. Hence, feminists offer
distinctive versions of all the theories considered so far as well as
others. One way of thinking about what unifies many feminist theorists
is an interest in what difference, if any, the practical experience of
gender makes to the subject matter or study of justice; how different
feminists answer this question distinguishes them from each other and
from those alternative distributive principles that most inspire their
thinking.



The distributive principles so far outlined, with the exception of
strict egalitarianism, are often described as falling under the broad
classification of liberalism--they both inform, and are the
product of, the liberal democracies which have emerged over the last
two centuries. Lumping them together this way, though somewhat clumsy,
makes the task of understanding the emergence of feminist critiques
(and the subsequent positive theories) much easier.



John Stuart Mill in *The Subjection of Women* (1869) gives one
of the clearest early feminist critiques of the political and
distributive structures of the emerging liberal democracies. His
writings provided the starting point for many contemporary liberal
feminists. Mill argued that the principles associated with the
developing liberalism of his time required equal political status for
women. The principles Mill explicitly mentions include a rejection of
the aristocracy of birth, equal opportunity in education and in the
marketplace, equal rights to hold property, a rejection of the man as
the legal head of the household, and equal rights to political
participation. Feminists inspired by Mill believe that a proper
recognition of the position of women in society requires that women be
given equal and the same rights as men have, and that these primarily
protect their liberty and their status as equal persons under the law.
Thus, government regulation should not prevent women from competing on
equal terms with men in educational, professional, marketplace and
political institutions. The problem for women, on the liberal feminist
view, is not liberalism but the failure of society and the State to
properly instantiate liberal principles.



From the point of view of other feminisms, the liberal feminist
position is a conservative one, in the sense that it requires the
proper inclusion for women of the rights, protections, and
opportunities previously secured for men, rather than a fundamental
change from the traditional liberal position. One phrase or motto
around which a whole range of feminists have rallied marks a
significant break with Mill's liberalism: 'the personal is
political.' Feminists have offered a variety of interpretations
of this motto, many of which take the form of a critique of liberal
theories. Mill was crucial in developing the liberal doctrine of
limiting the state's intervention in the private lives of
citizens. Many contemporary feminists have argued that the resulting
liberal theories of justice have fundamentally been unable to
accommodate the injustices that have their origins in this
'protected' private sphere. This particular feminist
critique has also been a primary source of inspiration for the broader
multicultural critique of liberalism. The liberal commitments to
government neutrality and to a protected personal sphere of liberty,
where the government must not interfere, have been primary critical
targets.



While issues about neutrality and personal liberty go beyond debates
about distributive justice they also have application within these
debates. The feminist critics recognize that liberalism correctly
identifies the government as one potential source of oppression
against individuals, and therefore recommends powerful political
protections of individual liberty. They argue, however, that liberal
theories of distributive justice are unable to address the oppression
which surfaces in the so-called private sphere of government
non-interference. Susan Moller Okin, for example, documents the
effects of the institution of the nuclear family, arguing that the
consequence of this institution is a position of systematic material
and political inequality for women. Standard liberal theories,
committed to neutrality in the private sphere, seem powerless to
address (or sometimes even recognize) striking and lasting
inequalities for women, minorities, or historically oppressed racial
groups, when these are merely the cumulative effect of
individuals' free behavior. Okin and others demonstrate, for
example, that women have substantial disadvantages in competing in the
market because of childrearing responsibilities which are not equally
shared with men. As a consequence, any theory relying on market
mechanisms, including most liberal theories, will yield systems which
result in women systematically having less income and wealth than men.
Thus, feminists have challenged contemporary political theorists to
rethink the boundaries of political authority in the name of securing
a just outcome for women and other historically oppressed groups.



While the political effects of personal freedom pose a serious
challenge to contemporary liberal theories of distributive justice,
the feminist critiques are somewhat puzzling because, as Jean Hampton
puts it, many feminists appear to complain in the name of liberal
values. In other words, their claims about the fundamental flaws of
liberalism at the same time leave intact the various ideals of liberty
and equality which inspire the liberal theories of justice. Moreover,
the task of defining feasible pathways for modifying the structure of
liberal democracies without undermining their virtues and protections
has proved more difficult than setting out the criticisms of
liberalism. Indeed, despite a legitimate feminist worry about the
effects of so-called government neutrality on women's material
status, the relative neutrality of liberal democracies compared to
non-liberal societies has been one of the significant contributing
factors both to the flourishing of feminist theory and to the many
significant practical gains women in liberal democracies have made
relative to women in other parts of the world. The challenge, being
taken up by many, is to navigate both a coherent theoretical and
practical path in response to the best feminist critiques available
(see the entry on
 feminist ethics).
 


## 9. Methodology and Empirical Beliefs about Distributive Justice



How are we to go about choosing between the different distributive
principles on offer, and respond to criticisms of the principles?
Unfortunately, few philosophers explicitly discuss the methodology
they are using. The most notable exception is John Rawls (1971, 1974)
who explicitly brought the method of wide reflective equilibrium to
political philosophy. This method has been brilliantly discussed by
Norman Daniels over the years and the reader is strongly encouraged to
refer to his entry (see
 reflective equilibrium)
 to understand how to evaluate, revise and choose between normative
principles. While there is no point in reiterating the method here
there are some supplementary issues worth noting.



Empirical data on the beliefs of the population about distributive
justice was not available when Rawls published *A Theory of
Justice* (Rawls 1971) but much empirical work has since been
completed. Swift (1995, 1999) and Miller (1999, chaps. 3-4) have
provided surveys of this literature and arguments for why those
committed to the method of reflective equilibrium in distributive
justice should take the beliefs of the population seriously, though
not uncritically. Indeed, some go even further, arguing that the
distributive decisions arising through the legitimate application of
particular democratic processes might even, at least in part,
constitute distributive justice (Walzer 1984). Data on people's
beliefs about distributive justice is also useful for addressing the
necessary intersection between philosophical and political processes.
Such beliefs put constraints on what institutional and policy reforms
are practically achievable in any generation--especially when
the society is committed to democratic processes.



Two final methodological issues need to be noted. The first concerns
the distinctive role counterexamples play in debates about
distributive justice. As noted above, the overarching methodological
concern of the distributive justice literature must be, in the first
instance, the pressing choice of how the benefits and burdens of
economic activity should be distributed, rather than the mere
uncovering of abstract truth. Principles are to be implemented in real
societies with the problems and constraints inherent in such
application. Given this, pointing out that the application of any
particular principle will have some, perhaps many, immoral results
will not by itself constitute a fatal counterexample to any
distributive theory. Such counter-evidence to a theory would only be
fatal if there were an alternative, or improved, version of the
theory, which, if fully implemented, would yield a morally preferable
society overall. So, it is at least possible that the best
distributive theory, when implemented, might yield a system which
still has many injustices and/or negative consequences. This practical
aspect partly distinguishes the role of counterexamples in
distributive justice theory from many other philosophical areas. Given
that distributive justice is about what to do now, not just what to
think, alternate distributive theories must, in part, compete as
comprehensive systems which take into account the practical
constraints we face. 



The second and related methodological point is that the evaluation of
alternate distributive principles requires us (and their advocates) to
consider the application of the distributive principle in society. If
it is uncertain or indeterminate how a particular distributive
principle might in practice apply to the ordering of real societies,
then this principle is not yet a serious candidate for our
consideration. This is also true of principles whose implementation is
practically impossible given the institutional, psychological,
informational, administrative, or technical constraints of a society.
Distributive justice is not an area where we can say an idea is good
in theory but not in practice. If it is not good in practice, then it
is not good in theory either.