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I argue for both Rawl's distributive justice and Nozick's entitlement theory.
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Redistribution vs. Protected Property • Honest Work Chapter 5 200-213
Justice Rawls v. Nozick
Conservative vs. Liberal • What if we actually thought about the ideas behind these political ideologies?
Rawls: The matter of social justice • “the primary subject of justice is…the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation.” (Rawls, 2) • “Social Justice” comes down to a “social contract” between citizens in a polity regarding the division of rights, labor and goods.
Rawls: “Justice as Fairness” • Rawls demands that citizens determine what is just at the outset of their society in a “foundation charter”. • At this outset each citizen is in a theoretical “Original Position” where each citizen is equal in every way to every other citizen behind a “Veil of Ignorance”: • No one knows their place in society. • No one knows their goods or abilities or lack thereof. • No one knows their rights or lack thereof.
Rawls: The Foundational Charter • All rational persons would choose the same set of principles: equality, liberty, etc. if each were situated behind the veil of ignorance. The process of this deliberating to a common end is called “reflective equilibrium”. • This is based on a fundamental conviction of egalitarianism. • Equality: • “no one should be advantaged or disadvantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances in the choice of principles.” (4)
Rawls: Two Principles of Justice • The result of reflective equilibrium is two principles of justice: • Rights and Basic Liberties will be distributed equally to all persons. • All social and economical inequalities will be rearranged to support the disadvantaged. This provided a new definition for “injustice”: Inequalities that do not benefit all people.
Nozick: Social Justice? • Nozick balks at Rawls term “social justice” as it is not the citizens that are demanding the Foundational Charter, but rather a governing body desiring to redistribute rights, goods, etc. • For Nozick, the best state is a “minimal state” whose only major concern is protection from external force. REAL social justice would entail a citizen based action, not a governmental one.
Nozick’s Problem of Distributive Justice: Acquisition • Entitlement Theory: Goods and Abilities are “naturally” acquired by birth right or by mixing of labor—by historical principles. • Distributive Justice provides only an artificial acquisition of goods and abilities. • Entitlement Theory is the only justified kind of acquisition. • So, Distributive Justice does not have a justified kind of acquisition.
Historical vs. End-Result Principles • Historical Principles (Nozick): The only just distribution is one that depends on how it comes about. • E.g. Inheritance. • End-Result Principles (Rawls): The only distribution is one that is dependent on an artificial principle based on the governing structures. • E.g. Welfare
An “End-Result” Problem • All artificial structures of distribution will be continually upset by natural occurrences. The only way to maintain distributive justice is by continual interference from a government. • Example: Imagine James, the greatest basketball player ever, was born in Communist China and demanded that each fan pay one dollar directly to him. People would come to see him, but in doing so, he would be redistributing goods using his own structure while likely preserving the general happiness of the citizenry.
Summary • Social justice for Rawls is really a form of distributive justice. • Distributive justice requires constant government intervention to maintain, often at the expense of the happiness of the citizenry. • The Entitlement Theory provides a natural grounds for distribution of goods and abilities.
