Robin Hood Justice: Why Robin Hood Took from the Rich and Gave to the Poor (and We Should Too)

The legend of Robin Hood exemplifies a distinct concern of justice neglected by theorists: the distributive results of systemic injustices. Robin Hood’s redistributive activities are justified by the principle that the distributive results of systemic injustices are unjust and should be corrected. This principle has relevance beyond the legend: since current inequalities in the US are results of systemic injustices, the US has good reason to take from the rich and give to the poor

Democratic Rights and the Choice of Economic Systems

Holt argues that Rawls’s first principle of justice requires democratic control of the economy and that property owning democracy fails to satisfy this requirement; only liberal socialism is fully democratic. However, the notion of democratic control is ambiguous,and Holt has to choose between the weaker notion of democratic control that Rawls is committed to and the stronger notion that property owning democracy fails to satisfy. It may be that there is a tension between capitalism and democracy, so that only liberal socialism can be fully democratic, but if so, we should reject, rather than argue from, the theory of democracy we find injustice as fairness

The Veil of Ignorance in Rawlsian Theory

As part of his effort to answer the question What is the best conception of justice for a democratic society? philosopher John Rawls constructed a thought experience called the original position. In the original position, representativs of members of society choose principles of justice for society in light of limited interests and with limited information. Situated behind the veil of ignorance, the parties in the original position have no knowledge about particular facts that could lead them to prefer principles of justice partial to those they represent. The veil of ignorance is thus an important part of Rawls\u27s argument that his conception of justice-justice as fairness-is the best conception for a democratic society

From Justice to Fairness: Does Kant\u27s Doctrine of Right Imply a Theory of Distributive Justice?

The fact that Kant does not articulate a theory of distributive justice has not kept political philosophers from citing Kant as inspiration and support for whatever theory of distributive justice they favor - including those who argue that the notion of distributive justice is itself mistaken. This widespread reliance on Kant invites the question, Does the Doctrine of Right imply a theory of distributive justice? To address this question, we discuss Paul Guyer\u27s argument that Kant\u27s Doctrine of Right implies, roughly, the principles of distributive justice as found in Rawls\u27s justice as fairness. Guyer\u27s argument is that Kant\u27s theory of property implies a contractualist theory of distributive justice; in turn, this implies that the distribution of property rights must be fair, and that fairness is secured only by something like Rawls\u27s second principle of justice

Liberalism and Economic Liberty

The problem of economic liberty can be understood along two dimensions: the first concerns what significance economic liberties should have; the second concerns why they should have this significance. The significance of a liberty is a function of two variables; weight and scope. The weight of a liberty is the importance it should be accorded in political deliberation vis-a-vis other societal considerations that might inform the exercise of political authority. The weightier the liberty, the more significant it is, meaning that fewer or stronger societal considerations can justify regulating the sphere of agency protected by this liberty

Negative Perfectionism

In this essay I defend a variety of political perfectionism that I call negative perfectionism. Negative perfectionism is the position that if some design of the basic structure of society promotes objectively bad human living, then this should count as a reason against it. To give this hypothetical some bite, I draw on Rousseau’s diagnosis of the maladies of his society to defend two further claims: first, that some human lives are objectively bad, and, second, that some designs of the basic structure promote objectively bad human living. It follows that we have should avoid such designs of the basic structure, which means that negative political perfectionism presents true requirements of justice

The structural diversity of historical injustices

Driven by a sharp increase in claims for reparations, reparative justice has become a topic of academic debate. To some extent this debate has been marred by a failure to realize the complexity of reparative justice. In this essay we try to amend this shortcoming. We do this by developing a taxonomy of different kinds of wrongs that can underwrite claims to reparations. We identify four kinds of wrongs: entitlement violations, unjust exclusions from an otherwise acceptable system of entitlements, and two kinds where a social practice systematically fails to embody an acceptable system of entitlements. In deliberation about what is required to repair a historical injustice the weight of backward- and forward-looking considerations is a function of the distinctive features of the injustice in question. Hence, the first step in adjudicating claims for reparation is to identify what kind of wrong the claim arises from. From the taxonomy of wrongs we are thus able to construct what we call the Field of Reparative Justice, which illustrates how the structure of deliberation for reparative justice tracks the distinctive features of different kinds of wrongs