Week 9- Post 1: Distribution of Wealth and Income

  Source: Justice course on EdX by HarvardX

Lecture 15: John Rawls 

• imagine a scenario where all the members of society have to vote on a prinicple that the policies put on them have to follow, but all of the members do not know their class, race, gender. just dk information about their place in society that would have persuaded their decisions if they knew those while voting
• question of distributive justice
• how should income, wealth, power, and opportunities be distributed? according to what principles
• john rawls offers a detailed answer to that question
• john first talks about the principles people would have chose behind what he calls "the veil of ignorance"
• utilitarianism (the greatest good for greatest number): he says no becayse behind the veil of ignorance, we know that once the veil goes up we want everyone to be respected, so if we turn out to be a member of a minority we don't want to be oppressed. so thats why he believes ppl would agree to reject utilitarianism. they wouldnt want to take the chance of winding up as membeers of a minority than have the majority tyrannizing over us. therefore, utilitarianism would be rejected.
• rawl says utilitarianism makes the mistake of forgetting/not taking seriously the distinctions between people, so being behind the veil of ignorance would make poeple recognize that
• ppl dont want to trade off our fundamental rights/liberties for any economic advantages
• benefit the least advantaged: rawls calls it the difference principle. this is a prinicple that says only those social and economic inequalities will be permitted that wokr to the benefit of the least well off. so the priniple would look to see that policies work to the benefit of everyone. with rich people making millions each year, those types of inequalities would only be permitted if people less well off benefit from it somehow. for example maybe youo have to provide incentives to attract the right people to certain jobs, but when you do, having those poeple in those jobs will actually help those at the bottom. rawls says YES this will be chosen behind the veil of ignorance.
• rawls argues that only the inequalities that work to the benefit to the least well off are just
• permit whatever inequalities reside when people work hard: rawls believes that it doesnt go far enough in addressing the moral arbitariness(randomness) of the natural lottery. if you bring everyone at the same starting point and begin the race, whos going to win? the fastest runners. but is it their doing that they happen to be blessed with the athletic ability to run fast? so rawls says that even though the principle of bringing everyone to the same starting point may eliminate the advantage of social upbringing, it still allows for the distribution of wealth and income to be determined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents
• some critics say that if you bring everyone to the same starting point but are still bothered by the gift of fast running, then handicap the fast runners. establish a principle that says people may benefit from their good fortune but this can only be on terms that poeple who are less off benefit. which rounds back to the "benefit the least advantaged" principle.
• someone argues against rawl: they say that the distribution of income, wealth, and opportunities shouldnt be based on factors for which people can claim no credit, it shouldnt be based on factors that are arbitrary from a poitn of view
• they bring up formal equality of opportunity that poeple want
• people would reject a feudal aristocracy bc poeple woudl be born into noble families, and if youre not you have no chance of rising. so poeple would prefer a society where they have equal chance of opportunity. every person should be free to strive, to work, to apply for any job in the society. these results from working and applying to these jobs would be just
• relates back to libertarianism
• rawl responds by saying that this system has an injustice of  permitting distributive shares to be improperly influenced by factors arbitrary from a moral point of view.
• mentions the analogy of a race. if everyone can run in a race, then everyone can enter. but if some people enter from different starting points they immediately have an unfair advantage. relates to irl how some people have the advantage of good education, support from peers, money, race