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This dissertation explores the role of information in justice, with an eye to taking choice seriously. Information is neither free nor ubiquitous, as has been obvious to economists for some time. Related puzzles are also prominent in epistemology and cognitive science, from framing effects to "fast and frugal heuristics". I import these concerns into distributive justice theory. One important goal of justice theory is to formulate what makes a socioeconomic institution just or unjust and provide criteria for judging whether one distribution of benefits and burdens is less unjust than another. Given the attention that voluntary choice has received in providing moral justification for unequal distributions, it is surprising that the related question of informed choice has been overlooked. Informed consent, for example, has more justificatory power than consent simpliciter. Information affects choice and choice affects outcomes. But if the costs and benefits of informing oneself are unknown to the agent before the point of choice but yet differ from agent to agent, then which allocation of information costs is just? This is a central question in this dissertation. Because the closest attempt to dealing with choices made under risk and uncertainty is Ronald Dworkin's brute/option luck distinction, I focus on option luck, framing distributive justice as interplay between process and pattern (chapter 2). I advance arguments for the following: option luck is insufficient for justice even if we presuppose ideal epistemic agents (chapter 3), how information is presented matters for justice between non-ideal epistemic agents (chapter 4), and informed choice requires cognitive fit between the agent and the agent's socioeconomic environment (chapter 5).I argue that Dworkin's hypothetical insurance market cannot guarantee any form of sufficientarianism even for affluent societies (chapter 6), proposing a different argument for sufficientarianism by combining (a) the perfect duty of beneficence with (b) the assumption that unfair disadvantages are unjust (chapter 7).I argue that the notion of option luck is ill-suited for cooperative contexts of socio-economic interactions (chapter 8) and outline how we could evaluate the justice of a given assignment of epistemic responsibilities, using buyer beware as a case study (chapter 9).

The future of our world will largely be determined by our willingness and ability to address practices and beliefs that threaten human dignity, promote violence, and impoverish communities. This dissertation develops an African humanist theology as a basis for concrete engagement with social problems (dehumanization, violence, and poverty) by drawing from Kenneth Kaunda’s concept of Christian humanism. Relying on writings by Kenneth Kaunda housed at Boston University library (books, pamphlets, and unpublished speeches), this dissertation argues that his concept of Christian humanism is a valuable, multidimensional concept that, properly understood can serve as a critical resource for addressing the ethical challenges related to human dignity, nonviolence, and economic justice. This dissertation undertakes four main tasks. First, the dissertation’s critical examination of Christian humanism and African humanism exposes shared yet distinctive emphases on human dignity. Second, the dissertation studies Kaunda’s biography to explore the contextual influences on his life and the development of his thought. Kaunda was deeply influenced by his missionary parents and, later in life, by thinkers such as Mahatma Gandhi. Third, the dissertation analyzes the theoretical bases of Kaunda’s Christian humanism with regard to the main themes of human dignity, nonviolence, and economic egalitarianism. Fourth, the dissertation proposes an African Christian humanist approach embodying the ideas espoused by Kaunda as a framework for addressing the ethical challenges in Africa related to violence and poverty. This study concludes that African Christian humanism in the sense proposed should be an important component of social ethics.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation argues that the use of rainbow imagery to describe efforts to bridge racial divides both inside and outside social justice campaigns became tied to concepts of economic justice in the 1960s but lost its radicalism following the failed presidential bids of Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. Conventional narratives analyze these multiracial campaigns —organized by figures as diverse as W.E.B. Du Bois in 1911, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panther Party in the civil rights era of the 1960s, and Jesse Jackson in the 1980s —as separate, isolated efforts. My research, however, examines the origins and trajectory of what I term “racial rainbow rhetoric,” —the use of rainbow imagery to describe racial difference in the United States, usually with the aspiration of overcoming these racial divisions – to underscore meaningful conceptual continuities in twentieth-century campaigns for social and economic justice.<i> </i>Although racial rainbow rhetoric did not initially emphasize economic justice activism, throughout the 1960s, activists increasingly used rainbow imagery to build interracial coalitions to attack poverty. This dissertation traces the history of racial rainbow rhetoric from its obscure origins in the early twentieth century to its intersection with the anti-poverty activism of the Poor People’s Campaign and the Black Panther Party to its appropriation by liberal politicians, such as Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. This history of rainbow symbolism in the struggle for racial justice demonstrates the longstanding and continuing damage that state violence and the cooptation of such concepts by indifferent, liberal politicians had on the implementation of genuine economic and social justice.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to present a conception of commutative justice. Commutative justice is defined as that part of justice in transfer (as opposed to justice in acquisition as well as distributive or rectificatory justice), which deals with transferring goods via market exchanges. Thus, this thesis examines which conditions a market exchange has to fulfil in order to be called just. Whereas traditionally speaking conditions like non-coercion or non-deception have received most attention – i.e. conditions focusing on the act of exchanging itself – the thesis' focus is a different one. It argues that we necessarily also have to take into account the consequences of a certain market exchange in order to judge whether it is just. Therefore, the thesis proceeds to analyze how problematic market outcomes like externalities, the formation of monopolies, violations of the Lockean proviso, inequality, and commodification affect the justice of the market exchanges which gave rise to them. The thesis finds that we need to broaden our conception of commutative justice – but only a little. Whereas the issues of externalities, violations of the Lockean proviso, and inequalities do not affect whether a certain market exchange is just, monopolization and commodification do. In order to be commutatively just, a market exchange must not only fulfil the traditional conditions of non-coercion, non-deception, etc., but it also must not bring about certain forms of monopoly nor further certain kinds of commodification. This conclusion leaves open the idea that, say, inequality or externalities could be relevant to distributive justice if not commutative justice.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-204). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This doctoral thesis analyzes the systematic role of Kant's conception of happiness in his moral, legal and political theory. Although many of his conclusions and arguments are directly or indirectly influenced by his conception of human happiness, Kant's underlying assumptions are rarely overtly discussed or given much detail in his works. Kant also provides different and apparently incompatible definitions of happiness. This research explores the domains of Kant's practical philosophy in which his conception of happiness plays a systematic role: the relation between the natural need of human beings to pursue happiness and the ends-oriented structure of the human will; Kant's anti-eudaimonism in ethical theory; Kant's claim that we have an indirect duty to promote our own happiness and the problem that under certain circumstances, the indeterminacy of happiness makes it not irrational to choose short term satisfaction at the costs of one's overall, long term happiness, given Kant's conception of non-moral choice as expectation of pleasure; Kant's justification of the duty to adopt the happiness of others as our ends (the duty of beneficence) and the latitude and eventual demandingness of this duty; finally, since Kant also subsumes subsistence needs and welfare under the concept of happiness of individuals, I also engage with the question of state provision for the poor in the Kantian Rechtsstaat and explore Kant's conception of equity or fairness (Billigkeit) as an alternative to the traditional minimalist and the welfare interpretations of the Kantian state.

In this thesis I aim to build a normative argument for equality of access to advantage at the global level, and motivate action conducive to the realization of this ideal. The normative argument is presented over the course of the first two chapters. In Chapter One I ask, ‘How should we conceive of distributive equality?’ Following G.A. Cohen, I argue that equality is best conceived as equality of access to advantage. I interpret this to require equal access to both ‘worldly autonomy’—a term I invoke to describe a certain basic threshold level of autonomy—and subjective preference satisfaction. In Chapter Two, I establish a justificatory basis for equality on a global scale. I argue that equality is justified at the global level on the basis of justice as reciprocity for the mutual provision of the global system of state-enforced borders, in which the participation of all people is equally necessary, and that makes possible a wide variety of institutional goods predominately enjoyed by people in rich developed countries. In Chapter Three, I take up the second aim of the thesis: to motivate action conducive to the realization of this global distributive ideal. I engage the concern that global equality is a poor ideal, demanding too much change in the attitudes and lifestyles of the well-off to motivate them to pursue it. I aim to show that, even if most people are not motivated to pursue global equality, there are alternative grounds for immediately feasible global reforms and redistributions likely to have greater motivational purchase on people’s sensibilities. Alternative grounds for redistribution and reform include reparative justice, cooperative justice, respect for basic human rights, and self-interest. Making these redistributions and reforms would not only be desirable from the perspective of the alternative grounds that explain them, but will have the further happy result of bringing the world closer to the global distributive ideal of equality of access to advantage. Plausibly, it will bring the world sufficiently close to this ideal that people will be motivated to pursue it for its own sake.

This study sets out to contribute to the expansive development of Systematic Theology and Black Theology, particularly in the struggle for economic justice in the democratic South Africa. The liberation of black people in South Africa and across the globe is the substantive reason for Black Theologies‘ existence and expression. The study‘s reflections on economic justice and Black Theology as sites of the intellectual focus and analysis is central to understanding the conditions of existence for the majority of South Africa‘s citizens, as well as understanding whether the fullness of life based on dignity and freedom as articulated in biblical witness, particularly John 10:10 is manifest for black people in South Africa. The study also seeks to identify, describe, analyse and understand the emancipatory theories and praxis, which entail a plethora of efforts they undertake to liberate themselves. Understanding and engendering the nexus of social practice and theological insights in the articulation of Black Theology as a particular expression of systematic theology, and drawing attention to the ethical foundations undergirding Black Theology, are important in demonstrating Black Theology‘s role and task as a multi-disciplinary discipline which encompass and engender dialogue within and between theory and praxis, and theology and ethics. This study thus suggests that since the locus of Black Theology and spirituality is embedded in the life, (ecclesial and missional) work (koinonia) and preaching (kerygma) of black churches, they have the requisite responsibility to engage in the efforts (spiritual and theological) in the struggle to finding solutions to the triple crises of unemployment, inequality and poverty which ravage the quality and dignity of life of the majority black people in post-apartheid South Africa. This study therefore concludes by asserting that, there are a variety of viable options and criteria relevant for facilitating economic justice in South Africa. These strategies include transformational distribution of land to the majority of South Africans, the implementation of heterodox economic policies which engender market and social justice values in the distribution of economic goods to all citizens. It also entails prioritization of the social justice agenda in economic planning and economic practice. In theological language, economic justice must involve the restoration of the dignity and the wellbeing of the majority of South Africans, who remain poor, marginalised and disillusioned. It also entails promoting justice as a central principle in correcting the remnants of apartheid injustices, which limit transformational justice which enables and facilitates equality, freedom and economic justice for all South African citizens. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Systematic Theology)