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Pluralism about Distributive Justice 2 Years, 6 Months ago
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Most people that do political theory tend to think of positions in distributive justice as falling into one or other of a few main theories: Rawlsian, libertarian, utilitarian, egalitarian, etc.
Often overlooked is the idea that we might be pluralists about principles of distributive justice. Walzer makes something like this kind of case in his book Spheres of Justice. His thesis there is that principles of just distribution vary with respect to the sort of good at issue. He calls his position "complex egalitarianism". On a view like this, while we might argue that some goods ought to be distributed according to more or less egalitarian principles (e.g. those necessary for basic survival), still others might be best distributed according to other principles (conservatory education according to merit and interest, luxury goods according to ability to pay, etc.)
Walzer's view always struck me as one that deserved more discussion than it typically gets--especially since economic institutions on the ground seem to be at least somewhat pluralistic in practice. What do you all think?
td
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Re: Pluralism about Distributive Justice 2 Years, 6 Months ago
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Do the Rawlsian, libertarian, etc. positions not make distinctions between necessities and luxuries? Your suggestion seems too reasonable to be the exception.
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Solitude, my mother, tell me my life again. -- O.V. de Milosz
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Re: Pluralism about Distributive Justice 2 Years, 6 Months ago
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Well, the Rawlsian notion of 'primary goods' is a vexed one--I'm not at all sure that one can make the distinction given what Rawls says in Theory in a robust way. At the very least, I think it's hard to get a realistic sense of what goods are truly necessities and what aren't out of what he says there.
Other views have the same problem from different perspectives. Libertarian theories like Nozick's, for example, I think have a hard time explaining goods that many would consider necessary, e.g. friendship, given only the resources of their theories. It seems an overly strained metaphor to say, for example, that we offer our friendship to the "highest bidder" in a free-market of human associations. That way of speaking just seems to miss the core of what a good like friendship is really about.
So there are problems demarcating the kinds of goods that are appropriate subjects of justice across theories of justice that try to come up with a single coherent principle of justice. The pluralist proposal attacks the problem from the other end: it recommends that we let the type of good at issue influence the choice of principle according to which it will be "distributed", rather than gerrymander the class of important human goods to fit some single principle of distribution. Maybe the free market is okay for some things, but a Rawlsian system is better for others. What's wrong with fine tuning the principle to fit the sort of good at issue? (I actually think this is what we do most of the time anyway, but I'll hold off on that unless someone asks for more on that score.)
td
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Re: Pluralism about Distributive Justice 2 Years, 6 Months ago
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What's wrong with it, indeed.
If our aim is to describe "what we really do" confronted with the question of how goods ought to be distributed, then we are not concerned with how all our diverse intuitions can be brought under a single normative principle. If we want to discover a common ground in terms of our intuitions, we likewise don't need a conceptual category that includes them all, since we are interested in description rather than explanation, the point being to correctly reproduce the intuitions rather than justify them.
But if we want to know how goods ought to be distributed, then each good which obligates us in a different way toward others requires its own argument, presumably.
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Solitude, my mother, tell me my life again. -- O.V. de Milosz
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Re: Pluralism about Distributive Justice 2 Years, 6 Months ago
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TD, that is a very sensible idea. It's so simple that it's surprising it hasn't received more play. Personally, I always find myself agreeing with the various theories as I read them or refresh. In this particular area, I find it unsatisfying that one theory never does the trick. It's a lot more fun when I can be strident and inflexible. Secondly, as you note, it does reflect the reality of the modern welfare state. Very topical of course in the US, with the current health care debate. (Indeed, distributive justice is such a great example of the practical application of philosophy)
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Re: Pluralism about Distributive Justice 2 Years, 6 Months ago
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t_d.
To put my critique in a more pointed form, in what sense is your "pluralism" with respect to distributive justice not simply an inability to articulate a unifying moral principle? Without further argument, aren't you just saying that all the current theories fail? The theories were proposed to justify certain visions or policies; in their absence, what justifies them?
For instance, I would agree that all of those theories fail, for the reasons you suggest. But to me this points to the lack of a ground. They fail because it is not the case that there is a state of affairs in nature that determines its own moral meaning. But you seem to be saying that they fail because they do not grasp a (yet objectively existing) order of things that determines how goods ought to be distributed, according to their natures.
Edit: Actually a better way to restate my critique, pointedly, would be, In what sense is your "pluralism" with respect to distributive justice not simply a description of your reactions, a formula that reproduces your moral sense without trying to establish its legitimacy for all persons?
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