Sidgwick and Rawls on distributive justice and desert

IF 1.6 2区 哲学 Q2 ETHICS Politics Philosophy & Economics Pub Date : 2021-08-30 DOI:10.1177/1470594X211036088
David Miller
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Abstract

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.
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西奇威克和罗尔斯关于分配正义和应得
本文从比较和批判的角度探讨了西季威克和罗尔斯拒绝将沙漠作为分配正义原则的原因。他们的伦理方法虽然不尽相同,但都需要重视关于正义的常识信念以及更高层次的原则。因此,这两个人都需要找到一种替代沙漠的方法来抓住沙漠的某些内容——在西吉威克的案例中,“准沙漠”采用了激励原则的形式,而在罗尔斯的案例中,则采用了合法权利原则的形式。然而,他们拒绝沙漠的理由是不清楚的,并且在某些点上似乎是基于有争议的概念或形而上学的主张,他们的方法论承诺是为了排除这些主张。为了澄清问题,这篇文章区分了反沙漠论点可能在三个层面上运作:1)那些旨在揭示沙漠概念本身的一些基本缺陷;2)那些声称我们无法为沙漠找到一个连贯的基础的人,至少在社会正义的目的上;3)那些旨在表明社会制度不可能根据人们的应得来奖励他们的人,无论选择哪种基础。在每一个层面上,西季威克和罗尔斯提出的论点都是站不住脚的。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
20
期刊介绍: Politics, Philosophy & Economics aims to bring moral, economic and political theory to bear on the analysis, justification and criticism of political and economic institutions and public policies. The Editors are committed to publishing peer-reviewed papers of high quality using various methodologies from a wide variety of normative perspectives. They seek to provide a distinctive forum for discussions and debates among political scientists, philosophers, and economists on such matters as constitutional design, property rights, distributive justice, the welfare state, egalitarianism, the morals of the market, democratic socialism, population ethics, and the evolution of norms.
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