THEORIES OF (DISTRIBUTIVE) JUSTICE
– WHAT, FOR WHOM AND WHY?
Kadri Simm,
Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics
University of Tartu
May 22, 2014 in Tallinn
CONTENTS
What is justice - some definitions and central
questions from philosophy
 So – what do we do with all this theory?
 Some attempts at application via John Rawls and
Martha Nussbaum
 Instead of conclusion

JUSTICE
FOCUS ON:
Distributive justice
/ social justice
Leave aside other
types of justice
(rectificatory,
retributive)
WHAT IS JUSTICE?
Aristotle - equals should be treated equally and
unequals unequally.
 Plato - to each his/her due
 Marx –from each according to his ability, to each
according to his need
 Rawls – Principles of justice pertain to the
assigning of rights and duties and to the
distribution of benefits and burdens of social
cooperation.

DISTRIBUTION OF WHAT, BY WHOM,
WHERE AND BASED ON WHAT?
 What
are the benefits and burdens to
be socially distributed? Rights, duties,
services (medicine, education), honours
and dishonours, privileges, support etc
 Who is distributing them? The state,
NGO sector, for-profit sector(+various
combinations).
 Distributed where? Local government
territories, nation-states, supra-national
or even global distribution.
DISTRIBUTION BASED ON WHAT?
DESERT – distribution is based on what people
deserve.
 EQUALITY – classical liberal principle of each
accounting for one.
 NEED – distribution is based on what people
need.

SO WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THIS THEORY?

Problems for theory (J Wolff):
No interest in application
 No interest in compromise
 In policy areas there is overwhelming support for
status quo

Principles of distributive justice are therefore best
thought of as providing moral guidance for the
political processes and structures that affect the
distribution of economic benefits and burdens in
societies. (Stanford Enc of Philosophy)
JOHN RAWLS
Principles of justice pertain to the assigning of
rights and duties and to the distribution of benefits
and burdens of social cooperation.
Justice as the most important characteristic of
social institutions and practices
 Justice as an agreement of rational egoists who
are interested in cooperation.

RAWLS. PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE
1: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to
a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties,
which scheme is compatible with the same
scheme of liberties for all;
 2: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy
two conditions:

They are to be attached to offices and positions open
to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity;
 They are to be to the greatest benefit of the leastadvantaged members of society (the difference
principle). (JF, 42–43)

CAPABILITIES APPROACH
Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen
 Starting point – Aristotelian teleology.
 In cooperation with Amartya Sen Nussbaum has
worked out the so-called „capabilities approach“
that allows for the evaluation of social policies as
they either support or hinder the development of
certain capabilities for their subjects. These are
standards against which policies can and should
be judged.

MARTHA NUSSBAUM (ALSO AMARTYA SEN)
“The idea is that once we identify a group of
especially important functions in human life, we
are then in a position to ask what social and
political institutions are doing about them. Are
they giving people what they need in order to be
capable of functioning in all these human ways?
And are they doing this in a minimal way, or are
they making it possible for citizens to function
well? (Nussbaum 1992:214)
LIST OF HUMAN CAPABILITIES

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
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
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Mortality
The human body
Capacity for pleasure and pain
Cognitive capability
Being able to have attachments to things and persons
outside ourselves
Practical reason
Being able to live for and with others
Relatedness to other species and to nature
Humor and play
Being able to live one's on life and nobody else's
PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE AND THE
KINDERGARTEN PLACES
EQUALITY – cheap to manage, fairly
transparent, equal starting point (in some sense)
 NEED – assessment needed (expensive to
manage), decision criteria, less transparent,
outcomes potentially problematic
 DESERT – linked up with need? For institutional
kindergartens?

APPLICABLE SOCIAL POLICY GOALS
We want lots of children
 We want women to actively participate in labour
market
 We want social inequalities contained

Goals\PRINCIPLES
EQUALITY
More children
Women employed
Social equality
NEED
x
x
x