Distributive Justice: Getting What We Deserve From Our Country
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| Anteprima |
This
book presents and defends a novel theory of distributive justice,
according to which political economic distributive justice reigns in a
state if the government of that state ensures that citizens receive the
benefits and burdens they deserve from it. The book starts with a more
precise characterization of the target of this inquiry - political
economic distributive justice. It then proceeds to explicate the concept
of desert, evaluate proposed ways of justifying desert claims,
formulate a number of desertist theories of justice, and draw out the
special features of the version defended here. Once the proposed form of
desertism has been stated, its implications are compared to those of
egalitarianism, luck egalitarianism, sufficientism, the difference
principle, libertarianism, and prioritarianism, with the aim of showing
that desertism yields more attractive results in cases that prove
difficult for other theories currently being discussed in the
literature. Arguments - especially arguments deriving from Rawls —
against desertism are explained and shown to be ineffective. There is
discussion of the distinction between comparative and non-comparative
justice. Emphasis is placed on the distinction between (a) theories
about the moral rightness of distributions, (b) theories about the
intrinsic value of distributions, and (c) theories specifically about
the justice of distributions. There is discussion of the unfortunate
results of confusion of these different sorts of theory. The views of
Rawls, Nozick, Parfit, Frankfurt, Feinberg and others are discussed. A
version of the method of reflective equilibrium is explained and
defended. The book concludes with a series of admissions concerning
puzzles that remain unsolved.
