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Rawls on Distributive Justice
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0:03
today we turn to the question of distributive justice how should income and wealth and power and opportunities be distributed according to what principles john rawls offers a detailed answer to that question and we're going to examine and assess his answer to that question today we put ourselves in a position to do so last time by trying to make sense of why he thinks
0:40
that principles of justice are best derived from a hypothetical contract and what matters is that the hypothetical contract be carried out in an original position of equality behind what roles calls the veil of ignorance so that much is clear
1:09
all right then let's turn to the principles that raul says would be chosen behind the veil of ignorance first he considers some of the major alternatives what about utilitarianism would the people in the original position choose to govern their collective lives utilitarian principles the greatest good for the greatest number no they wouldn't paul says and the reason is that behind the veil of ignorance everyone knows that once the veil goes up and real life begins
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we will each want to be respected with dignity even if we turn out to be a member of a minority we don't want to be oppressed
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and so we would agree to reject utilitarianism and instead to adopt as our first principle equal basic liberties fundamental rights to freedom of speech freedom of assembly religious liberty freedom of conscience and the like we wouldn't want to take the chance that we would wind up as members of an oppressed or a despised minority with the majority tyrannizing over us and so raul says utilitarianism would be rejected utilitarianism makes the mistake wallace writes
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of forgetting or at least not taking seriously the distinction between persons and in the original position behind the veil of ignorance we would recognize that and reject utilitarianism we wouldn't trade off our fundamental rights and liberties for any economic advantages that's the first principle
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second principle has to do with social and economic inequalities what would we agree to remember we don't know whether we're going to wind up being rich or poor healthy or unhealthy we don't know what kind of family we're going to come from whether we're going to inherit millions or whether we will come from an impoverished family so we might at first thought say well let's require an equal distribution of income and wealth just to be on the safe side but then we would realize
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that we could do better than that even if we're unlucky and wind up at the bottom we could do better if we agree to a qualified principle of equality rawls calls it the difference principle a principle that says only those social and economic inequalities will be permitted that work to the benefit of the least well-off so we wouldn't reject all inequality of income and wealth we would allow some but the test would be do they work to the benefit of everyone including those
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or as he specifies the principle especially those at the bottom
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only those inequalities would be accepted behind the bale of ignorance and so rawls argues only those inequalities that work to the benefit of the least well-off are just
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we talked about the examples of michael jordan making 31 million dollars a year of bill gates having a fortune in the tens of billions would those inequalities be permitted under the difference principle only if they were part of a system those wage differentials that actually work to the advantage of the least well-off well what would that system be maybe it turns out that as a practical matter you have to provide incentives to attract the right people to certain jobs
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and when you do having those people in those jobs will actually help those at the bottom strictly speaking rawls's argument for the difference principle is that it would be chosen behind the veil of ignorance let me hear what you think about rawls's claim that these two principles would be chosen behind the veil of ignorance is there anyone who disagrees that they would be chosen all right let's start up in the balcony if that's all right go ahead okay your argument depends upon us
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believing that we would argue and set policy or justice from a bottom for the disadvantaged and i just don't see from a proof standpoint where where we've proven that why not the top right and what's your name mike mike all right good question put yourself behind the veil of ignorance enter into the thought experiment what principles would you choose how would you think it through well i would say things like even harvard's existence is an example of preaching toward the top because harvard
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takes the top academics and i didn't know when i was born how smart i would be but i worked my life to get to a place of this caliber now if you'd said harvard's going to randomly take 600 people of absolutely no qualification we'd all be saying well there's not much not much to work for and so what principle would you choose in that situation i would say a merit-based one where one where i don't necessarily know what i have but i rather have a system that rewards me based on my efforts
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so you mike behind the veil of ignorance would choose a merit-based system where people are rewarded according to their efforts all right fair enough what would you say go ahead my question is if the merit-based argument is based on um when everyone is at a level of equality where from that position you be you're rewarded to where you get or is it regardless of of what advantages you may have when you begin your education to get where you are here i think what what do the question you're
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asking is saying you know if we want to look at whatever utilitarianism policy it is do we want to maximize world wealth and i think a system that rewards merit is the one that we've pretty much all established is what is best for for all of us despite the fact that some of us may be in the second percentile and some may be in the 98th percentile and the end of the day it lifts that lowest that lowest base level a a community that rewards effort as opposed to innate differences
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but i don't understand how how you're rewarding someone's effort who clearly has had not you but maybe myself advantages throughout to get where i am here i mean i can't say that that somebody else who maybe worked as hard as i did would have had the same opportunity to come to a school like this all right let's let's look at that point what's your name kate kate you suspect that the ability to get into top schools may largely depend on coming from an affluent family
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having a favorable back family background social cultural economic advantages and so on i mean economic but yeah social cultural all of those advantages for sure someone did a study of the 146 selective colleges and universities in the united states and they looked at the students in those colleges and universities to try to find out what their background was their economic background what percentage do you think come from the bottom quarter of the income scale you know what the figure is
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only three percent of students at the most selective colleges and universities come from poor backgrounds over 70 percent come from affluent families let's go one step further then and try to address mike's challenge roles actually has two arguments not one in favor of his principles of justice and in particular of the difference principle one argument is the official argument what would be chosen behind the veil of ignorance some people challenge that argument saying maybe people
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would want to take their chances maybe people would be gamblers behind the veil of ignorance hoping that they would wind up on top that's one challenge that has been put to rawls but backing up the argument from the original position is a second argument and that is a straightforwardly moral argument and it goes like this it says the distribution of income and wealth and opportunities should not be based on factors for which people can claim no credit it shouldn't be based on factors that
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are arbitrary from a moral point of view rawls illustrates this by considering several rival theories of justice
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he begins with the theory of justice that most everyone these days would reject a feudal aristocracy what's wrong with the allocation of life prospects in a feudal aristocracy raul says well the thing that's obviously wrong about it is that people's life prospects are determined by the accident of birth are you born to a noble family or to the family of peasants and serfs and that's it you can't rise it's not your doing where you wind up or what opportunities you have
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but that's arbitrary from a moral point of view and so that objection to feudal aristocracy leads and historically has led people to say careers should be open to talents there should be formal equality of opportunity regardless of the accident of birth every person should be free to strive to work to apply for any job in the society and then if you open up jobs and you allow people to apply and to work as hard as they can then the results are just so it's more or
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less the libertarian system that we've discussed in earlier weeks what does rawls think about this he says it's an improvement it's an improvement because it doesn't take as fixed the accident of birth but even with formal equality of opportunity the libertarian conception doesn't extend that doesn't extend its insight far enough because if you let everybody run the race everybody can enter the race but some people start at different starting points that race isn't going to be fair
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intuitively he says the most obvious injustice of this system is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by factors arbitrary from a moral point of view such as whether you got a good education or not whether you grew up in a family that supported you and developed in you a work ethic and gave you the opportunities so that suggests moving to a system of fair equality of opportunity and that's really the system that mike was advocating earlier on
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what we might call a merit-based system a meritocratic system in a fair meritocracy the society sets up institutions to bring everyone to the same starting point before the race begins equal educational opportunities head start programs for example support for schools in impoverished neighborhoods so that everyone regardless of their family background has a genuinely fair opportunity everyone starts from the same starting line well what does roles think about the meritocratic system
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even that he says doesn't go far enough in remedying or addressing the moral arbitrariness of the natural lottery because if you bring everyone to the same starting point and begin the race who's going to win the race who would win to use the runner's example the fastest runners would win but but is it their doing that they happen to be blessed with the athletic prowess to run fast
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so raul says even the principle of meritocracy where you bring everyone to the same starting point may eliminate the influence of social contingencies and upbringing but it still permits the distribution of wealth and income to be determined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents and so he thinks that the principle of eliminating morally arbitrary influences in the distribution of income and wealth requires going beyond what mike favors the meritocratic
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system now how do you go beyond if you bring everyone to the same starting point and you're still bothered by the fact that some are fast runners and some are not fast runners what can you do well some critics of a more egalitarian conception say the only thing you can do is handicap the fast runners make them wear lead shoes but who wants to do that that would defeat the whole point of running the race but wall says you don't have to have a kind of leveling equality
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if you want to go beyond a meritocratic conception you permit you even encourage those who may be gifted to exercise their talents but what you do is you change the terms on which people are entitled to the fruits of the exercise of those talents and that really is what the difference principle is you establish a principle that says people may benefit from their good fortune from their luck in the genetic lottery but only on terms that work to the advantage of the least well-off and so
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for example michael jordan can make 31 million dollars but only under a system that taxes away a chunk of that to help those who lack the basketball skills that he's blessed with likewise bill gates he can make his billions but he can't think that he somehow morally deserves those billions those who have been favored by nature may gain from their good fortune but only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out that's the difference principle and it's an argument from
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moral arbitrariness rawls claims that if you're bothered by basing distributive shares on factors arbitrary from a moral point of view you don't just reject a feudal aristocracy for a free market you don't even rest content with a meritocratic system that brings everyone to the same starting point you set up a system where everyone including those at the bottom benefit from the exercise of the talents held by those who happen to be lucky what do you think is that persuasive
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who's who finds that argument unpersuasive the argument from moral arbitrariness yes i think that in the egalitarian proposition the more talented people i think it's very optimistic to think that they would would still work really hard even if they knew that part of what they made would be given away so i think that the only way for for the more talented people to exercise their talents to the best of their ability is in the meritocracy and in a meritocracy what's your name kate
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kate does it bother you and mike does it bother you that in a meritocratic system even with fair equality of opportunity people get ahead people get rewards that they don't deserve simply because they happen to be naturally gifted what about that um i think that it is arbitrary um and obvious obviously it's arbitrary but i think that they're that correcting for it would be detrimental um and online because it would reduce incentives is that why use incentives yeah mike what do you say
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they we're all sitting in this room and we have undeserved we have undeserved glory of some sort that you should not be satisfied with the process of your life because you have not created any of this and i think from a standpoint of not just this room us being upset but from a societal standpoint we should have some kind of uh a gut reaction to that feeling that you know the guy who runs the race he doesn't he actually harms us as opposed to maybe makes me run that last 10 yards faster
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and that makes the guy behind me run 10 yards faster and the guy behind him 10 yards faster all right so mike let me ask you you talked about effort before effort do you think when people work hard to get ahead and succeed that they deserve the rewards that go with effort isn't that the idea behind your defense i mean of course bring michael jordan here i'm sure you can get him and have him come and defend himself about why he makes 31 million dollars and i think what you're going to realize is
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his life was a very very tough one to get to the top and that we are basically being the the majority of pressing the minority in a different light it's very easy to pick on him very easy effort you know what all right you've got you've persuaded you i've got a few things effort you know what raul's answer to that is even the effort that some people expend conscientious driving the work ethic even effort depends a lot on fortunate family circumstances for which you we can claim no credit
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now let's hey we're going to let let's do the test let's do a test here never mind economic class those differences are very significant put those aside psychologists say that birth order makes a lot of difference in work ethic striving effort how many here raise your hand those of you here who are first in birth order [Laughter] i am too by the way
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mike i noticed you raised your hand
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if the case for the meritocratic conception is that effort should be rewarded doesn't rawls have a point that even effort striving work ethic is largely shaped even by birth order is it your doing mike is it your doing that you were first in birth order then why raul says of course not so why should income and wealth and opportunities in life be based on factors arbitrary from a moral point of view that's a challenge that he puts to market societies but also to those of us
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at places like this a question to think about for next time
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