Sidgwick and Rawls on distributive justice and desert

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7354176
AutoresDavid Miller (0000-0002-3868-5792, University of Oxford, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen20
Número4
Páginas385-408
Fecha de publicación2021-08-30
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolitics Philosophy & Economics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1470-594X • E-ISSN: 1741-3060
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1470594x211036088
OpenAlexW3198633530
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas24

This article explores, comparatively and critically, Sidgwick’s and Rawls’s reasons for rejecting desert as a principle of distributive justice. Their ethical methods, though not identical, each require giving weight to common sense convictions about justice as well as higher-level principles. Both men, therefore, need to find a substitute for desert that captures some of its content – in Sidgwick’s case ‘quasi-desert’ takes the form of an incentive principle, and in Rawls’s case a principle of legitimate entitlement. However their reasons for rejecting desert are unclear, and at points appear to rest on contestable conceptual or metaphysical claims that their methodological commitments are meant to rule out. To clarify matters, the article distinguishes between three levels at which anti-desert arguments may operate: 1) Those purporting to reveal some fundamental defect in the idea of desert itself; 2) Those purporting to show that we cannot find a coherent basis for desert, at least for purposes of social justice; 3) Those purporting to show that it is impossible for social institutions to reward people according to their deserts, no matter which basis is chosen. At each level, the arguments put forward by Sidgwick and by Rawls are shown to be unsound

Desert (philosophy · Distributive justice · Distributive property · Economic Justice · Economics · Entitlement (fair division · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Mathematical economics · Metaphysics · Political science · Sociology · Law · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Political Theory and Influence