Fairness to non-participants: a case for a practice-independent egalitarian baseline

Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements only apply among participants in morally relevant practices. In this paper, I argue that these views are implausible because they allow for objectionable treatment of non-participants. I show that it is impossible, on the basis of practice-internal considerations alone, to determine the extent to which the pursuit of practices can permissibly limit the opportunities of non-participants. There are opportunities beyond the current holdings of practices to which no one has a privileged claim (such as unowned natural resources), and the distribution of which is a matter of justice. A just distribution of such unowned distributive goods, though, requires a practice-independent distributive baseline. I further show that such a baseline can only be egalitarian because all alternative baselines face serious objections. From this I conclude that any plausible theory of distributive justice must accept some form of equal practice-independent distributive entitlements.     

Intergenerational Justice and the Non-reciprocity Problem

Many of us share a strong intuitive sense that acts or policies that gravely threaten future people's well-being violate the requirements of justice. This intuition has proven problematic for theories that found justice on reciprocity because future people are viewed as powerless to reciprocate our actions towards them. The non-reciprocity problem appears to deliver a decisive blow to reciprocity-based theories of justice. I wish to dispute this view. I point to two well-known facts about human existence – generations overlap continuously and the old depend upon the young – to show that future generations are not asymmetrically vulnerable to our actions, and therefore that justice as reciprocity is not vulnerable to the non-reciprocity problem.     

Review Article: International Distributive Justice

The literature on global justice contains a number of distinct approaches. This article identifies and reviews recent work in four commonly found in the literature. First there is an examination of the cosmopolitan contention that distributive principles apply globally. This is followed by three responses to the cosmopolitanism, – the nationalist emphasis on special duties to co-nationals, the society of states claim that principles of global distributive justice violate the independence of states and the realist claim that global justice is utopian and that states should advance national interest.     

Intergenerational Justice and Climate Change

Global climate change has important implications for the way in which benefits and burdens will be distributed amongst present and future generations. As a result it raises important questions of intergenerational justice. It is shown that there is at least one serious problem for those who wish to approach these questions by utilizing familiar principles of justice. This is that such theories often pre-suppose harm-based accounts of injustice which are incompatible with the fact that the very social policies which climatologists and scientists claim will reduce the risks of climate change will also predictably, if indirectly, determine which individuals will live in the future. One proposed solution to this problem is outlined grounded in terms of the notion of collective interests.     

Falling into the justice gap? Between duties of social and global justice

The literature on cosmopolitan justice has yet to address what principles to adopt when duties of global justice and duties of social justice are in conflict. In this paper, I address David Miller’s contention that some may fall into the justice gap since we need to prioritize duties of social justice in cases of conflict. I argue that Miller’s analysis depends on three stipulations: the incommensurability of the values underlying duties of social justice and those of global justice; the need to justify duties of justice to their holders; and the need to consider the necessary institutions to realize and implement justice obligations. I argue against the incommensurability clause by showing that both conceptions of justice pursue moral equality as the underlying and commensurate value. Instead, I propose that the currencies of justice we employ in the two contexts of justice are different. Discussing the justifiability clause I agree with the stipulation that we have to justify decisions that affect the realization of justice to those who have to carry the burden of realizing them. This implies, however, that we may have to accept that some prioritize duties of global justice over duties of social justice. If this is the case, it seems as though the state has little recourse to prioritize duties of social justice. Finally, discussing Miller’s institutional clause I ask why the justice relevant institutions can only be those of the state. It is plausible to say that in our current world, institutions of humanitarian aid are effective means to satisfy duties of global justice.     

Fair trade: global problems and individual responsibilities

The topic of global trade has become central to debates on global justice and on duties to the global poor, two important concerns of contemporary political theory. However, the leading approaches fail to directly address the participants in trade and provide them with normative guidance for making choices in non-ideal circumstances. This paper contributes an account of individuals’ responsibilities for global problems in general, an account of individuals’ responsibilities as market actors, and an explanation of how these responsibilities coexist. The argument is developed through an extended case study of a consumer’s choice between conventional and fair trade coffee. My argument is that the coffee consumer’s choice requires consideration of two distinct responsibilities. First, she has responsibilities to help meet foreigners’ claims for assistance. Second, she has moral responsibilities to ensure that trades, such as between herself and a coffee farmer, are fair rather than exploitative.     

Political Coercion and the Scope of Distributive Justice

A prominent position in the global justice literature holds that claims of distributive justice are only 'activated' by the densely coercive institutional apparatus of states. I dispute this view in three ways. First, I argue that coercion is either justified by its results and rationale or it cannot be justified at all; as a result, coercive institutions do not demand an independent justification via distributive justice. Second, I contend that because the shape of coercive institutions is the result of political choices that have distributive implications, one cannot make normative judgements without asking why coercive institutions have the shape that they do. Third, even accepting (for the sake of argument) the claim that coercive institutions must be justified by a special focus on distributive justice among those subject to them, I argue that the resulting position does not justify restricting distributive justice to state borders. If (any of) these arguments are correct, it is a mistake to think that a concern with the coercive nature of political institutions legitimates restricting claims of distributive justice to compatriots.     

Does justice stand alone?

A common feature of leading liberal-egalitarian political theories is the sharp priority they attribute to justice, and to distributive justice in particular. In this article, I argue that liberal egalitarians have yet to offer a persuasive argument for prioritizing justice, and distributive justice in particular, in this way. I focus on assessing arguments advanced in the seminal work of John Rawls and employ the pluralist liberalism of Isaiah Berlin to illustrate that Rawls’ arguments are not even persuasive for reasonable liberals like Berlin, let alone for non-liberals. The upshot of my argument is not that liberals should abandon the pursuit of greater equality of wealth and income, but only that such goals should still be balanced against the claims of other fundamental values, such as individual liberty and the common good (contrary to those who want to give sharp priority to distributive justice).     

Democratic Legitimacy, Public Justification and Environmental Direct Action

This article addresses the question of whether environmental direct action against policies or institutions that are recognised as democratically legitimate can be justified. Arguments that seek to tie environmental outcomes to stipulated requirements of either the democratic process or distributive theories of justice are found wanting in this regard. However, one of the central justifications for the losers in a democratic settlement accepting defeat is policy reversibility. The non-reversible element in significant areas of environmental change entails that environmentalists are forced to play a 'one-shot' political strategy. This fact lends support to the justification of environmental direct action in such cases, although it may also apply beyond the sphere of environmental politics.     

Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources

What should a political theorist say about the justice of the global distribution of natural resources? One issue is whether principles of distributive justice should be applied globally, and this has been debated between nationalists and cosmopolitans. A second, though, is how the category of 'natural resources' should be conceived in relation to other distributable goods. This has not adequately been addressed even by theorists of global justice who expressly focus on natural resources. In particular, neither Charles Beitz's argument for a natural resources redistribution principle nor David Miller's argument against works with a satisfactory account of how the physical distribution of resources relates to the distribution of their economic value. A more satisfactory account can be developed from the perspective of ecological economics as inspired by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. From this perspective, global inequalities in the command of natural resources can be viewed with the clarity that a normative theory of their justice requires. If natural resources are re-conceptualised in terms of 'ecological space', Beitz's argument can be recast and vindicated. The re-conceptualisation is necessary to overcome the problems with the original version, as is shown by reference to the existing alternative formulations of Hillel Steiner and Thomas Pogge.     

In defense of the duty to assist: a response to critics on the viability of a Rawlsian approach to climate change

One test of the practical relevance of any theory of international justice will be to apply it to the case of global climate change. Several thinkers have already dismissed John Rawls’s Law of Peoples as a possible candidate for helping to manage this problem, arguing, among other things, that it demands too little, too late. This paper revisits and defends the Rawlsian framework as a viable approach to managing climate change. In particular, it argues that the duty to assist (the eighth principle of the Law of Peoples) may actually be an invaluable resource for dealing with the now inevitable consequences of global climate change.     

Environmental human rights and intergenerational justice

What do the living owe those who come after them? It is a question nonsensical to some and unanswerable to others, yet tantalizing in its persistence especially among environmentalists. This article makes a new start on the topic of intergenerational justice by bringing together human rights and environmental justice arguments in a novel way that lays the groundwork for a theory of intergenerational environmental justice based in the human rights to clean air, water, and soil. Three issues foundational to such a theory are explored here. First is the broad question of whether justice is applicable to future (or past) generations in any real sense, or do such issues fall under the rubric of superogation. Second, can environmental goods properly be contained in a theory of distributive justice at all, since, superficially at least, they seem different in kind than the usual objects of justice? I will discuss them as “emergent” goods in fact central to contemporary justice distributions. Third, what is the relationship of justice to rights, and how can environmental human rights be included in justice distributions?     

Justice,Efficiency, and the New Public Management

In this article I aim to explore the link between two normative values, namely justice and efficiency, and the New Public Management approach. In pursuing this task I offer several critical arguments against some of the recent justice‐based objections levied against New Public Management by David Arellano‐Gault. I claim that Arellano‐Gault's account of the relation between justice and the New Public Management is seriously undermined by two conceptual flaws: (1) a conflation of right‐libertarianism, utilitarianism, and desert theories of justice and (2) a conflation of the technical/productive sense of efficiency with the social/distributive sense. Furthermore, I maintain that even when the different theories of justice and the different senses of efficiency are properly delineated, the case for necessarily linking NPM to a particular theory of justice is markedly unconvincing.     

Taxation and Distributive Justice

Distributive justice concerns the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. Opposition to higher rates of taxation, or even existing levels of taxation, is often made on grounds that such taxes are unfair burdens. This fairness argument can be given a number of further, more-specific formulations. Libertarians, such as Robert Nozick, argue that taxation of income is unfair because it violates individual rights. They invoke an entitlement argument that presumes that the appropriate baseline of property rights is pretax income . Others take issue with specific policies that are supported by taxation, such as welfare provisions, and argue that welfare reform is necessary because tax burdens are only legitimate when they satisfy some form of reciprocity thesis . These arguments are critically assessed here in relation to three recent books – The Cost of Rights , The Myth of Ownership and The Civic Minimum – which explore different arguments often invoked in defence of tax cuts. Themes that raise important questions about taxation and justice are also examined – private property, welfare reform and inheritance. The real challenge facing justice theorists is to take scarcity seriously; thus, I emphasise the shortcomings of simply endorsing a 'cost-blind', rights-oriented conception of justice, which currently dominates debates in normative political theory.     

Public choice and three ethical properties of politics

Three major public choice findings about politics are analyzed for their implications regarding ethics and ethical analysis. The assumption that governments supply collective goods, and the ensuing implication that it is rational to stay ignorant is shown to decrease the moral involvement of the individual in political behavior. The difficulty of obtaining a stable political outcome with regard to distributive issues is shown to affect the relationship between fair political procedures and the attainment of justice. It is argued that the pursuit of justice may require the abandonment of procedural fairness. Implications of these findings for ethical reasoning are then discussed. Finally, questions regarding the relationship between the rather imperfect findings of the public choice theorist and their ethical implications for the political philosopher are raised.     

Preserving fairness: Williams against Cohen on just inequality

The view that the choices people make affect what it is fair for them to receive has widespread appeal. This very general thought has found particular and acute expression in the context of distributive justice in the form of the influential view that has become known as luck egalitarianism. In a surprising development, one of luck egalitarianism’s foremost advocates – G.A. Cohen – appeared, in one of his final papers, to reject the commitment to the fairness of chosen inequalities that defines luck egalitarianism. In opposition to the luck egalitarian view, Cohen suggests that choice merely deprives the disadvantaged of a complaint against being worse off, rather than rendering such inequality fair. Against Cohen’s revised view, Andrew Williams has argued that Cohen’s move underestimates an account of equality under which what individuals choose to do with their equal allocation affects what it is to treat them fairly. Here, I seek to show how the Williams response fails to undermine Cohen’s claims about the relation between fairness and choice. I draw on this analysis to show how the disagreement between Williams and Cohen on this issue illuminates a broader methodological divergence over how to approach questions of justice and fairness.     

Justice in a non-ideal world: the case of climate change

Ideal theory faces a paradox. The ‘capacity of guidance’ is an important feature of most normative theories, but ideal principles of justice are not well suited to guide action in non-ideal circumstances. This charge presses us to seek plausible avenues to connect ideal values with the non-ideal realisation of justice. The objective of this paper is to introduce an analytical framework and present a case study in support of what I call the ‘reflective integration thesis’. The thesis states that: if we wish to formulate principles of justice that can guide action in non-ideal circumstances, we need to integrate ideal and non-ideal theory, and the way to integrate ideal and non-ideal theory is by seeking reflective equilibrium between these levels. Taking climate justice as a model, this paper will explore the features of a non-ideal theory of justice, thereby providing insights about the structure of an action-guiding theory. It will show that, in order to guide action, our ideal principles of climate justice need to be reformulated in the light of real-world considerations, which we only obtain by integrating the relevant empirical work on the matter.     

The iteration deficit in responsive regulation: Are regulatory ambassadors an answer?

One reason that regulation is difficult is that repeated encounters between regulator and regulatee are rare. We suggest diplomacy as a model for reconfiguring regulatory institutions in response. Ambassadors for Regulatory Affairs who would be agents for all state regulatory agencies could be based in most large firms and small and medium enterprises that pose unusual regulatory risks. In rural towns, police would be trained as regulatory ambassadors. Just as a US Secretary of State can launch a “diplomatic surge” in Myanmar from 2009, so regulatory surges are possible in market sectors of high risk or high opportunity. We propose strategies of indirect reciprocity as a way in which reciprocity that is only episodic in these strategic ways can promote more general responsiveness. Indirect reciprocity is reciprocity that we do not personally experience, but learn from the experience of a culture. This means that so long as we sustain regulation as a relational as opposed to a purely technocratic process, indirect reciprocity might civilize regulatory compliance in an historical process informed by the theories of Elias and Putnam.     

Green citizenship and the political critique of injustice

Over recent decades, normative theories of green citizenship have drawn upon observations that a long-prevalent dualistic understanding of society, as completely subjecting nature, is being displaced by growing political and cultural support for a holistic view of society, as participating in nature. Differences between avowedly liberal and civic-republican interpretations of green citizenship notwithstanding, the normative theories share five key social critiques: (1) the need to challenge nature/culture dualism; (2) to dissolve the division between the public and private spheres; (3) to undermine state-territorialism; (4) to eschew social contractualism and (5) to ground justice in awareness of the finiteness and maldistribution of ecological space (ES). This article offers a sympathetic provocation to normative theories of green citizenship. Adopting a critical realist perspective, it describes the partial and problematic realisation of these critiques in the contemporary types of social and political participation, contents of the rights and duties and institutional arrangements of the ‘stakeholder’ citizenship that has become established within the neoliberal or weak eco-modernising, global competition state. This perspective is important because it offers new insights into the discursive framework that encompasses contemporary debates over justice and injustice. In particular, injustice from within the post-industrial ecostate appears to be a diffuse whole-of-society problem, the by-product of unsustainable development that lacks an identifiable class of perpetrators. This makes the progressive task of enunciating claims that injustice is present in some senses difficult, while conservative ideological positions are simplified.     

Should Egalitarians be Perfectionists?

Political philosophers often worry about the potentially elitist implications of perfectionism as the basis of distributive justice. Richard Arneson challenges this familiar connection between perfectionism and elitism by developing an egalitarian theory of distributive justice with distinctively perfectionist grounds. In this article, I argue that Arneson's theory is implausible, because an egalitarian political morality renders perfectionism either irrelevant or arbitrary.