Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
| |||
|
| |||
| Justice: Justice can be understood as the fair and impartial treatment of all people. It is often associated with the law. Some key elements are fairnes, equality, proportionality, accountability. See also Law, Rights, Equality, Impartiality._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
| Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Charles Beitz on Justice - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 294 Justice/international relations/Beitz/Brown: BeitzVsRawls: Beitz offers two reasons why Rawls is wrong. Cf. >Justice/Rawls, >Distributive Justice/Rawls. 1) even if we accept that states are separate self-contained societies, their representatives would insist on a more wide-ranging contract than Rawls envisages. But, 2) since states are not self-contained there is no reason to look for a second contract between them; instead Rawls's full account of justice should be applied worldwide, including a global 'difference principle'. >Difference principle/Rawls. Ad 1) Beitz's first argument concerns the treatment of 'natural' resources. He argues contra Rawls that the representatives of states meeting in the second original position would not agree to a rule that confirmed that natural resources belong to the states whose territory encompasses them; risk-averse representatives would introduce a rule that distributed the world's resources equally, via some kind of global wealth tax. This is, on the face of it, a rather strong and widely supported argument; (...), Barry also argues for a global tax system (>Justice/Barry), though without employing the veil of ignorance or a second original position, while Hillel Steiner (1999)(2) Gaus I 295 derives a similar idea for a redistributive global fund from libertarian foundations. >Justice/Steiner. The main problem with these proposals is that they could produce unintended and counter-intuitive results; as Rawls (1999)(3) points out in his later defence of his position, the wealth of a state is only very loosely, if at all, correlated with its material resource base. 2) Beitz's second position is that, as a result of interdependence, the world must now be treated as a single society, which means that Rawls's full account of social justice applies, with no necessity for a second contract between state representatives. VsBeitz: the problem here is that, however interdependent the present world order may be, it can hardly be seen as a co-operative venture for mutual advantage given the gross inequalities it generates. The international economy is certainly based on the idea that everyone benefits from economic exchange, but it would be a particularly enthusiastic neoliberal who argued that this applies across the board to all interactions between rich and poor. BeitzVsVs: Beitz has now acknowledged the strength of this criticism and effectively abandoned much of the Rawlsian justification for his cosmopolitanism in a later article - but not the cosmopolitanism itself, which he now grounds in a Kantian account of the moral equality of persons (Beitz, 1983)(4). To some extent, Beitz's original position is restated by Thomas Pogge in his Realizing Rawls (1989)(5). >International relations/Pogge. 1. Beitz, C. R. (2000) Political Theory and International Relations (1979), 2nd edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2. Steiner, H. (1999) 'Just taxation and international redistribution'. In I. Shapiro and L. Brilmayer, eds, Global Justice: NOMOS XLI. New York: New York University Press, 171-91. 3. Rawls, J. (1999) The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 4. Beitz, C. R. (1983) 'Cosmopolitan ideas and national sovereignty'. Journal of Philosophy, 80: 591-600. 5. Pogge, T. (1989) Realizing Rawls. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Brown, Chris 2004. „Political Theory and International Relations“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Beitz, Charles Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
||
