Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Equality 12/12/17 (First thoughts (Definition (A principle in itself, one…

- - - - At most basic, principles of justice apply equally across the population
      - To what extent do all other principles ride on equality?
        
        Kymlicka
    - - Miller seems to assume that equality governs distribution directly only in some specific cases where others principles do not apply
        
        absence of claim
        
        uncertain claim
        
        distribution in group membership
        
        Group membership -> equal social rights?
- - - - Distributive implications
        Miller 1999: 241
        "Social equality is not a distributive ideal in itself, but it does have distributive implications. First of all, it requires that our most important associations be formed on the basis of equality. This is particularly the case with the political community of which we are members, whose preeminence stems from the fact that it is the final authority responsible for regulating all other distributive practices. Unless we enjoy an equal status as citizens, we cannot have an equal status in social life more generally..."
        Miller 1999:241
        ..."This then entails the claims about distributive equality that I outlined earlier in the chapter: citizens must have equal voting rights, equal welfare rights, and so forth. If they are not being treated equally in these ways, they are not being treated as equal citizens; and if people are not associated politically as equals they will certainly not enjoy social equality."
        
        Miller 1999:241
        "Second, a commitment to social equality may help shape other practices of distributive justice that are not themselves internally egalitarian, so to speak. It does so in the following way. In may instance our concern for justice will impose constraints without fully determining their form..."
        
        e.g. justice requiring certain procedures such as around distribution of pay
        
        Miller 1999: 242
        "Equally, there are cases in which it is a matter of contingency, from the point of view of justice, whether a certain practice exists at all, but given that the practice does exist, questions of justice or fairness arise in the course of its operation."
        Miller 1999: 242
        "If we want out society to be egalitarian, then we will try to shape our distributive practices so that the emergence of hierarchy is discouraged; in particular, we will try to avoid the emergence of large-scale, cumulative inequalities of advantage that make it difficult for people to live together on terms of equality, even if politically they are defined as equals.
        Miller 1999:243
        "...wherever there is a choice as to which practices to create or maintain, we can allow that choice to be guided by considerations of social equality."
- - - - Intuitionism and the Rawlsian contract
        p 68
        
        Certain intuitions might seem less compelling when they are viewed from a perspective detached from one's own position in society. The contract argument tests our intuitions by showing whether they would be chosen from an unbiased perspective.
    - - Basic liberties
        p54
        
        it is important to note that Rawls is not endorsing a general principle of liberty, such that anything that can plausibly be called a liberty is to be given overriding priority. Rather, he is giving special protection to what he calls the 'basic liberties', by which he means the standard civil and political rights recognized in liberal democracies - the right to vote, to run for office, due process, free speech, mobility etc. (1971: 61). These rights are very important to liberalism - indeed, one way of differentiating liberalism just is that it gives priority to the basic liberties.
        
        However, the assumption that civil and political rights should have priority is widely shared in our society. As a result, the disputes between Rawls and his critics have tended to be on other issues.
      - Arguments for the principles
        p55
        Rawls has two arguments for his principle of justice
        
        One is to contrast his theory with what he takes to be the prevailing ideology concerning distributive justice - namely, the ideal of equality of opportunity. He argues that his theory better fits our considered intuitions concerning justice, and that it gives a better spelling out of the very ideals of fairness that the prevailing ideology appeals to.
        
        The second argument is quite different. Rawls argues that his principle of justice are superior because they are the outcome of a hypothetical social contract.
        
        Original Position etc.
        
        On equality of opportunity
        p55
        
        whilst Rawls also requires equality of opportunity in allotting positions, he denies that the people who fill the positions are thereby entitled to a greater share of society's resources.
        
        p56
        
        ...under the difference principle, people only have a claim to a greater share of resources if they can show that it benefits those who have lesser shares.
        
        Motivating idea behind equality of opportunity - but issues with luck
        
        it is fair for individuals to have unequal shares of social goods if those inequalities are earned and deserved by the individual, that is, they are the product of the individual's actions and choices. But it is unfair for individuals to be disadvantaged or privileged by arbitrary and undeserved differences in their social circumstances.
        
        ...the injustice in both cases is the same - distributive shares should not be influenced by factors which are arbitrary from the moral point of view. Natural talents and social circumstances are both matters of brute luck, and people's moral claims should not depend on brute luck.
        
        p57-63 Ongoing discussion of natural talents debate, original position, and veil of ignorance
        
        How they get chosen
        p63-64
        
        The basic idea is this: while we do not know what position we will occupy in society, or what goals we will have, there are certain things we will want or need to enable us to live a good life. Whatever the differences between individuals' plans of life, they all share on thing - they all involve leading a life. As Waldron puts it, 'there is something like pursuing a conception of the good life that all people, even those with the most diverse commitments, can be said to be engaged in... although people do not share one another's ideal, they can at least abstract from their experience a sense of what it is like to be committed to an ideal of the good life (Waldron 1987: 145; cf. Rawls 1971: 92-5, 407-16).
        
        'Maximin'
        p65
        
        Rawls says that it is rational to adopt a 'maximin' strategy - that is, you maximise what you would get if you wound up in the minimum*, or worst-off position.
      - Reflective equilibrium - working from both ends
        p67
        
        ...in deciding on the preferred description of the original position we 'work from both ends'. If the principles chosen in one version do not match our convictions of justice, then
        
        we have a choice. We can either modify the account of the initial situation or we revise our existing judgements, for even the judgements we take provisionally as fixed points are liable to revision. By going back and forth, sometimes altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances, at others withdrawing our judgements and conforming them to principle, I assume that eventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgements duly pruned and adjusted. (Rawls 1971: 20)
        
        p70
        
        As Rawls says, 'a conception of justice cannot be deduced from self-evident premises or conditions on principles; instead, its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitting together into one coherent view' (1971: 21). He calls this 'reflective equilibrium', and that is his aim. His principles of justice are mutually supported by reflecting on the intuitions we appeal to in our everyday practices, and by reflecting on the nature of justice from an impartial perspective that is detached from our everyday positions. #