G.A. Cohen’s critique of John Rawls holds that it is insufficient to approach the problem of justice as one of principles governing laws and institutions alone. Instead, an appropriate social ethos must motivate the citizens to act from these principles in order to ensure that society is characterized by equality. The following will argue that Cohen’s concerns with Rawls are well-founded. However, even citizens motivated by a sense of justice will possess motives that are non-egoistic, yet inegalitarian in effect. Therefore, just citizens should not be expected to enact the same principles as just institutions. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-02 08:20:09.804

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I argue that welfare considerations should play an important role in egalitarian thought. Ronald Dworkin, in contrast, has argued that welfare should play no role in a principle of equality of distribution. I explore his discussion of this issue, finding that many of his arguments presuppose the truth of his alternative account, which focuses on resources rather than welfare. His remaining arguments rely on the counter-intuitive nature of compensating for expensive tastes. I argue that if we examine this case more carefully, it is not as counter-intuitive as it first appears. Having replied to his objections to the welfare account, I turn to his positive argument for the principle of equality of resources, namely, that it is the only principle which respects the equal worth of persons. I explore several examples to demonstrate that pure welfare deficiencies merit compensation. These examples suggest, I argue, that respecting the equal worth of persons requires us to consider welfare in a principle of equality of distribution. Finally, I argue that if we should compensate for welfare deficiencies, we should also compensate for expensive tastes; indeed, considerations of equal worth require this compensation. / Master of Arts

This thesis assesses the relation between equality and justice by exploring and identifying the relation between equality and justice in Rawls's theory of justice, Sandel's communitarian account of Justice and Sen's capability approach. And these accounts of justice are evaluated from an egalitarian point of view. The main argument defended in the thesis is that justice requires equality. Accordingly, these three accounts of justice are evaluated by taking their understanding of equality into consideration. Egalitarian evaluation of these accounts of justice reveals that all three of them fall short in accordance with the relation between equality and justice in their understanding of justice. Keywords: Capabilities, distributive justice, egalitarianism, equality, fairness, inequality, justice, social justice, virtues

This thesis defends John Rawls’s constructivist theory of justice against three distinct challenges. Part one addresses G.A. Cohen’s claim that Rawls’s constructivism is committed to a mistaken thesis about the relationship between facts and principles. It argues that Rawls’s constructivist procedure embodies substantial moral commitments, and offers an intra-normative reduction rather than a metaethical account. Rawls’s claims about the role of facts in moral theorizing in A Theory of Justice should be interpreted as suggesting that some of our moral beliefs, which we are inclined to hold without reference to facts, are, in fact, true, because certain facts obtain. This thesis and the acknowledgement of the moral assumptions of Rawls’s constructivism help to show that Rawls does not, and does not need to, deny Cohen’s thesis. Part two defends the characterization of the decision problem in Rawls’s original position as a decision problem under uncertainty. Rawls stipulates that the denizens of the original position lack information that they could use to arrive at estimates of the likelihood of ending up in any given social position. It has been argued that Rawls does not have good grounds for this stipulation. I argue that given the nature of the value function we should attribute to the denizens of the original position and our cognitive limitations, which also apply to the denizens of the original position, their decision problem can be characterized as one under uncertainty even if we stipulate that they know that they have an equal chance of being in any individual’s place. Part three assesses the claim that a true commitment to Rawls’s difference principle requires a further commitment to an egalitarian ethos. This egalitarian ethos is offered as a means to bring about equality and Pareto-optimality. Accordingly, I try to undermine the case for an egalitarian ethos by challenging the desirability of the ends it is supposed to further or by showing that it is redundant. I argue that if primary goods are the metric of justice, then Pareto optimality in the space of the metric of justice is undesirable. I then argue that if the metric of justice is welfare, depending on the theory of welfare we adopt, an egalitarian ethos will either be redundant or will have objectionably paternalistic consequences.

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.