Jeppe von Platz

In Rawls’s justice as fairness, the moral powers of democratic citizenship are the capacity for a conception of the good and the sense of justice, and basic rights are those necessary for the development and exercise of these two powers. Since economic agency is not a power of democratic citizenship, economic rights are not basic. To libertarians, this relative devaluation of economic agency and economic rights is a mistake, since economic agency and economic rights are the main concerns of justice. This libertarian critique is correct: justice as fairness underestimates the importance of economic agency and economic rights. Yet libertarian critics mistake how we should care about economic agency and which economic rights are basic. The economic agency that matters for justice as fairness is the capacity to work together with others, and the basic economic rights are those that enable and protect this capacity.

Our choice of climate change mitigation target must, but cannot, be guided by economic cost-benefit analysis. That our choice must be guided by economic cost-benefit analysis follows from the fact that any mitigation choice is costly and the minimal requirements of practical rationality that we should avoid waste and use resources where we can expect to get the best return. Alas, we cannot construct a justifiable cost-benefit analysis, since the needed accounting must rely on a set of unjustifiable assumptions about what to count and how to count it. Since we must choose, we cannot avoid this dilemma.

Justice as mutual advantage appears to show inadequate concern for those that are insufficiently useful to others, implying that those that are most in need of the protections of justice fall outside the scope of justice as mutual advantage. Vanderschraaf offers a novel reply to this objection. He presents a game–the Indefinitely Repeated Provider-Recipient Game–which establishes that in some situations justice as mutual advantage can show concern for the vulnerable. This finding, however, does not match the problem raised by the vulnerability objection, for the objection says that in all relevant situations, justice requires equal basic concern for all–vulnerable and non-vulnerable alike.

I articulate and defend a Rousseauvian theory of alienation and argue that thus construed non-alienation is a requirement of justice. On the Rousseauvian account, alienation is a process whereby social and economic conditions produce a particular sort of moral-psychological failure. Alienation is undesirable in itself, but it also makes the alienated person miserable, wicked, and unfree. Since our social and economic conditions are chosen, we should choose those that do not have these undesirable consequences.

Some meritocratic defenders of capitalism rely on the principle that cooperators should receive a share of the product commensurate with their contribution. However, such defences of capitalism fail due to a dilemma. Either they rely on an understanding of contribution that arguably will be reflected by the capital-labour split in suitably idealized capitalist economies, but cannot serve as a plausible standard of merit; or they rely on an interpretation of contribution that is a plausible standard of merit, but which won’t tend to be reflected by the capital-labour split in capitalist economies.

What is a just distribution of economic benefits and burdens? Principles of distributive justice help us answer this and related questions about how we should design the economic system. Principles of distributive justice guide our perception and judgment by telling us what facts to care about and when and why these facts reveal justice or injustice in the distribution of some good or burden. Thus, these principles bridge the gap between basic normative categories of right and wrong and facts about our social world, guiding our attempts to build more just societies. This chapter presents and discusses the main principles of distributive justice—the principles of equality, sufficiency, liberty, utility, priority, merit, and equality of opportunity.

Is capitalism compatible with democratic equality? Rawls’s critique of welfare-state capitalism implies a negative answer. I argue that Rawls’s critique fails and that welfare-state capitalism can satisfy the demands of democratic equality. I articulate a social democratic interpretation of the ideal of democratic equality and show that it justifies welfare-state capitalism. This argument also implies that welfare-state capitalism can satisfy the demands of democratic equality as interpreted by Rawls’s justice as fairness. So, whether we accept Rawls’s interpretation of democratic equality or the social democratic alternative, welfare-state capitalism can satisfy the demands of democratic equality.

How should we design our economic systems? Should we tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor? Should we have a minimum wage? Should the state provide healthcare for all? These and many related questions are the subject of distributive justice, and different theories of distributive justice provide different ways to think about and answer such questions. This book provides a thorough introduction to the main theories of distributive justice and reveals the underlying sources of our disagreements about economic policy. It argues that the universe of theories of distributive justice is surprisingly simple, yet complicated. It is simple in that the main theories of distributive justice are just four in number, and in that these theories each offer a distinct, well-defined theoretical approach to distributive justice; yet it is complicated in that the main theories disagree at several distinct, fundamental levels, and in that it is possible to spin innumerable new theories from the elements of the four main theories.