1. Distributive Justice II: John Rawls Ethics Dr. Jason M. Chang

2. Are Your Accomplishments YOUR doing? Factors contributing to your achievement Family income level Family upbringing Natural talents Personality Racial and gender discrimination (???) Factors arbitrary from a moral point of view

3. Rawls’s worries about a free market system… “[D]istributive shares are decided by the outcome of the natural lottery; and this outcome is arbitrary from a moral perspective. There is no more reason to permit the distribution of income and wealth to be settled by distribution of natural assets than by historical and social fortune.” John Rawls

4. Veil of ignorance Persons behind veil of ignorance are ignorant of… Social position or status Income level Race or gender Personal talents or characteristics Athletic or sedentary, artistic or tone deaf, intelligent or not very bright, physically sound or handicapped, talented or untalented, attractive or unattractive, etc.

5. What System of Distribution? Equal share for everyone? Distribution based on effort? Distribution based on achievement? Distribution based on just transfer and just acquisition? Distribution based greatest good for greatest number?

6. Rawls’s Difference Principle Economic and social inequalities arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least well- off

7. Table from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/ Economy Least-Advantaged Group Middle Group Most-Advantaged Group A10,000 B12,00030,00080,000 C30,00090,000150,000 D20,000100,000500,000 Rawls’s Difference Principle The difference principle selects Economy C, because it contains the distribution where the least-advantaged group does best.

8. Rawlsian society What would a Rawlsian society look like? Sufficient welfare provisions for all Taxes and income redistribution? More egalitarian than pure free market capitalism Inequalities allowed to a certain extent

9. “Those who have been favored by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out.” Natural Talents and Abilities as a Public Asset