Introduction to Political Philosophy

Distribution, Entitlement, and Merit

As you read the material for the next class, keep the questions below in mind. To answer these questions you will have to reflect critically on what you have read and possibly re-read important passages. Keep in mind that there are two basic kinds of information that you need to look for in the readings.

  1. What are the main points or conclusions that an author accepts with respect to a particular issue?
  2. What are the reasons or important considerations that lead the author to accept that conclusion?

For our purposes, it is information of the latter sort (2) that will be our primary concern since our most basic task is to evaluate the reasons that are offered to support accepting one possible conclusion about an issue, rather than another. Although I strongly suggest that you write out brief answers to these questions, you do not have to turn in written responses. You do, however, need to be prepared to speak intelligently to these issues in the next class meeting.

Reading:

  • John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Chapters V (Sections 41, 47-48) and VII (Section 68), pp. 228-234, 267-277, 392-396.

Questions:

  1. What does Rawls mean by “political economy”? Why does this require moral and political conceptions and not merely economic ones?
  2. If the basic structure of society shapes individual desires and wants, how is it possible to use the contract approach (as embodied by Justice as Fairness) to assess that very same basic structure? Wouldn’t the influence of the basic structure utterly confound this process, biasing any outcome? Give Rawls’ solution to this problem.
  3. How do common sense precepts of justice arise with respect to distributive shares? Are they necessarily dependent on what public conception of justice governs the society? What about the weightings used to trade-off these precepts when they conflict? Why are these precepts necessarily subordinate? How is all this exemplified with the competing precepts “to each according to his contribution” and “to each according to his effort”?
  4. What gives rise to legitimate expectations and how are these different from moral desserts? Why would distribution according to moral merit not be agreed to in the original position?
  5. What three contrasts does Rawls discuss obtaining between theories of the right and theories of the good?
  6. Why does Utilitarianism suffer from indeterminacy and why is this not a problem for Justice as Fairness?

 

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