The Problem of Historical Rectification for Rawlsian Theory

In this paper we claim that Rawls’s theory is compatible with the absence of rectification of extremely important historical injustices within a given society. We hold that adding a new principle to justice-as-fairness may amend this problem. There are four possible objections to our claim: First, that historical rectification is not required by justice. Second, that, even when historical rectification is a matter of justice, it is not a matter of distributive justice, so that Rawls’s theory is justified in leaving it unaddressed. Third, that dealing with historical injustice is outside of the scope of ideal theory, so that even when historical rectification is required by justice, Rawls’s theory starts with the assumption that no such historical injustice has occurred. Fourth, that while historical injustice is within the scope of Rawls’s theory, there is no need for further principles of justice to deal with it, so that the correct regulation of the principles of justice-as-fairness would ensure the rectification of all relevant historical injustices of a particular society. While we offer several arguments against the first and second objections, we address the last two at length and show that both fail.     

All Justice is Social but it’s not all Social Justice

I take social injustice to be injustice perpetrated on members of society by laws and public social practices. I take social justice to be the struggle to right social injustice. After explaining these ideas, I then address the question: why are so many people opposed to the very idea of social justice? I offer a number of explanations, among them, that to acknowledge that there is social injustice in one’s society often requires considerable change on one’s part.     

Political reconciliation at the level of global governance1

This article applies the idea of political reconciliation to current debates on the role and legitimacy of global governance. My underlying thesis is that the idea of reconciliation fits better with the non-ideal circumstances of global injustice. To this end, I will first of all develop a three-tiered model of political reconciliation and introduce the related concept of restorative justice. I will then look at some of the most obvious forms of international and global injustice – historical injustice, economic exploitation, and political domination – and argue that a normative theory of political reconciliation provides better proposals for feasible global governance reforms than do theories of corrective, retributive, or distributive justice. Finally, I will make a few comments on the role of political philosophy as a medium of ‘narrative reconciliation’.     

理性-经验加工对不公正情绪和行为反应的影响:公正敏感性的调节作用

基于认知-经验理论,采用行为实验法和情境故事法,探讨了不同信息加工方式对不公正情绪和行为反应的影响,以及受害者敏感性对两者关系的调节作用。结果表明,与理性加工相比,经验加工下个体对不公正有更强烈的负性情绪反应,合作意向更低;受害者敏感性调节加工方式与不公正行为反应之间的关系,即受害者敏感性低时,加工方式与人际公正对合作意向交互作用显著,受害者敏感性高时,加工方式与人际公正对合作意向没有交互作用。     

TO INTERPRET,OR TO BE OMNISCIENT

Abstract

Susan Moller Okin has criticized Michael Sandel's view that the family is an example of an institution that is sometimes ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ justice, and for which justice is not, under the best conditions, a virtue. She argues that he both misses the point of justice as a virtue of social institutions and that he idealizes the family, and after undertaking this ‘ground-clearing’, goes on to argue that families should be just. This paper offers a qualified defense of Sandel. I argue, first, that Sandel has not missed the point of justice as a virtue of social institutions. But I go on to argue, more centrally, that if we distinguish between what I call ‘internal’ and ‘social’ justice of the family, and look carefully at the conclusions of Okin's own arguments, we see that she has really argued for the social justice of the family, and that this can be maintained alongside Sandel's vision of the family as an institution within which considerations of justice are neither central, nor necessarily appropriate. I try to carve out space both for Sandel's vision of the family, and for Okin's substantive feminist conclusions about family-based gender injustice.     

The Tragedy of the Few

In this article I elaborate and defend a rights-based understanding of climate politics, that is, one that takes climate politics to concern the rights to access of natural resources as opposed to people’s economic incentives. The argument contains two parts. The first is negative: to demonstrate that the tragedy of the commons as a story of climate change is inadequate. The second is positive: to suggest a more satisfactory framework, which I call the tragedy of the few. In this view, climate politics is neither primarily mitigation nor economic incentive politics, but one of distributing rights to access natural resources in a fair and environmentally-friendly way. By changing both the narrative and underlying methodological assumptions, my goal is to enable us to accommodate the rights to access natural resources as a key moral issue in climate politics. I begin by sketching the main features of the tragedy of the commons and demonstrate its inadequacy. I then provide an account of the rights-based view of climate change that consists of two arguments. First, I demonstrate the normative side of the argument by highlighting the importance of environmental rights, and second, I outline the empirical side of the argument by discussing recent studies on the properties of natural resources and on the corporate agents who extract the resources that emit greenhouse gasses.     

Beyond “Empowerment”? Sexuality in a Sexist World

The subject of girls’ sexual empowerment is a fertile area for feminist debate. While most feminists are committed to the promotion of diverse and egalitarian sexual possibilities for girls (and women), we differ in our views on how to hold an aspirational vision alongside paying attention to real world constraints on its unfolding. A specific instance of this tension is posed in considering how relevant claims to individual empowerment are within a broader context that remains broadly sexist and limiting as well as saturated with racist and other forms of discrimination and inequality. In this paper, I join the dialogue opened by Lamb and Peterson (2011) to explore some of these questions. I argue that the concept of sexual empowerment, as taken up in these debates, might be too flexible to do the work we require of it. In particular, I suggest that it is unhelpful to fix our lens on claims of individual empowerment, if and where this involves eliding the broader sociocultural conditions of possibility for “intimate justice” (McClelland 2010) for girls and women; and, where it leads us to over-ride the psychosocial complexity of all individuals in ways that distract us from attending to ambivalence and understanding the “cruel attachments” that can bind us to injustice. Rather than seeking to offer an “‘expert’ view of empowerment,” I argue for the value of reflexive, empathic, and respectful feminist critique of the cultural conditions of possibility for such a thing.     

Epistemic Injustice in Social Cognition

Silencing is a practice that disrupts linguistic and communicative acts, but its relationship to knowledge and justice is not fully understood. Prior models of epistemic injustice tend to characterize silencing as a symptom that follows as a result of underrepresenting the knowledge of others. In this paper, I advance a model of epistemic injustice in which the opposite sometimes happens. Drawing on recent work in experimental cognitive science, I argue that silencing can cause misrepresentations of knowledge and, subsequently, epistemic injustice to occur. Drawing on recent work in epistemology, I also argue that, according to some leading theories, silencing potentially causes ignorance by depriving individuals and communities of knowledge itself. These findings expand our understanding of silencing in social practice, contribute a broader model of epistemic injustice for research at the intersection of ethics and philosophy of mind, and have implications for leading theories of knowledge in epistemology.     

Justice,Health, and Healthcare

Healthcare (including public health) is special because it protects normal functioning, which in turn protects the range of opportunities open to individuals. I extend this account in two ways. First, since the distribution of goods other than healthcare affect population health and its distribution, I claim that Rawls's principles of justice describe a fair distribution of the social determinants of health, giving a partial account of when health inequalities are unjust. Second, I supplement a principled account of justice for health and healthcare with an account of fair process for setting limits or rationing care. This account is provided by three conditions that comprise "accountability for reasonableness."     

分配不公正下的退缩行为：程序公正和互动公正的影响

以160名中学教师为被试,采用2×2的完全随机设计,以模拟故事（scenarios）的方法呈现刺激,研究了在职称评定中分配不公正的前提下,程序公正/不公正,互动公正/不公正对教师的退缩行为（消极怠工、拒绝帮助、离职、对校长的消极态度）的影响。结果表明,在分配不公正条件下：（1）程序公正、互动公正均影响教师的消极怠工程度;（2）程序公正、互动公正均影响教师的拒绝帮助行为程度,而且交互作用显著;（3）互动公正影响教师对上司的消极态度,程序公正无显著影响;（4）程序公正和互动公正对离职意愿影响均不显著     

Towards a Theory of Pure Procedural Climate Justice

A challenge for the theorising of climate justice is that even when the agents whose actions are supposed to be regulated are cooperative and act in good faith, they may still disagree about how the burdens and benefits of dealing with climate change should be distributed. This article is a contribution to the formulation of a useful role for normative theorising in light of this bounded nature of climate justice. We outline a theory of pure procedural climate justice; its content, function in relation to international climate diplomacy, and justification. The theory is ‘pure' in the sense that it does not rely on an independent criterion of what are just outcomes in negotiations of climate responsibilities. Rather, it specifies procedural fairness norms, such as transparency, reciprocity and participation, which make the process of negotiation fair independently of which account of substantive climate justice happens to be correct. Such procedural fairness norms are justified in part by being expressions of an ideal of a reasonable negotiator, an ideal which itself commands respect. They are also justified as means to an effective coordinated response to dangerous climate change in virtue of their capacity to create trust, predictability and accountability.     

An institutional political economy view on Thomas Nagel's ‘minimum humanitarian morality’ in global justice

Thomas Nagel's conservative position of the political conception for world politics and his insightful ‘Minimum Humanitarian Morality’ (MHM) view on global justice are laudable. He admits that the path from anarchy to justice must go through injustice. But Nagel does not clearly identify the conditions under which we put up with global injustice. This paper reviews the conception of MHM through the lens of the institutional political economy. In my view, to recognize the degree of structural failure (weakness in governance) as well as the degree of transition failure (elite bargain or personalization of power being interlocked) in each state can give us a hint on how to conceptualize and apply Nagel's MHM. We also argue that the scope and degree of humanitarian aid may vary in accordance with the options to global justice open to each state.     

Is Health (Really) Special? Health Policy between Rawlsian and Luck Egalitarian Justice

In recent work, Norman Daniels extends the application of Rawls's principle of ‘fair equality of opportunity’ from health care to health proper. Crucial to that account is the view that health care, and now also health, is special. Daniels also claims that a rival theory of distributive justice, namely luck egalitarianism (or ‘equal opportunity for welfare’), cannot provide an adequate account of justice in health and health care. He argues that the application of that theory to health policy would result in an account that is, in a sense, too narrow, for it denies treatment to imprudent patients (e.g. lung cancer patients who smoked). In a different sense, Daniels argues, luck egalitarian health policy would be too wide: it arguably tells us to treat individuals for such brute‐luck conditions as shyness, stupidity, ugliness, and having the ‘wrong’ skin colour. I seek to advance three claims in response to Daniels's revised theory, and in defence of a luck egalitarian view of health policy. First, I question Daniels's assertion regarding the specialness of health. While he is right to abandon his insistence on the specialness of health care, it is doubtful that health proper can be depicted as special. Second, I try and meet Daniels's objections to luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarian health policy escapes being too narrow for it does not in fact require denying basic care to imprudent patients. As for it being allegedly too wide, I try to show that it is not, after all, counterintuitive to rid individuals of unfortunate and disadvantageous biological traits (say, a disadvantageous skin colour). And third, I question whether Daniels's own Rawlsian account is in fact wide enough. I argue that fair equality of opportunity fails to justify some standard medical procedures that many health systems do already practice.     

Justice, health, and healthcare

Healthcare (including public health) is special because it protects normal functioning, which in turn protects the range of opportunities open to individuals. I extend this account in two ways. First, since the distribution of goods other than healthcare affect population health and its distribution, I claim that Rawls's principles of justice describe a fair distribution of the social determinants of health, giving a partial account of when health inequalities are unjust. Second, I supplement a principled account of justice for health and healthcare with an account of fair process for setting limits of rationing care. This account is provided by three conditions that comprise "accountability for reasonableness."     

The Social Construction of Injustice: Fairness Judgments in Response to Own and Others' Unfair Treatment by Authorities

The research literature in organizational justice has examined in some detail the dynamics and consequences of justice judgments based on direct experiences with fair and unfair authorities, but little is known about how people form justice judgments on the basis of reports of injustice by others or how group discussion changes justice judgments. The present study examined the consequences of distributed injustice, in which all members of a group experience some denial of voice, and concentrated injustice, in which one member experiences repeated denial of voice and others do not. It was predicted and found that mild personal experiences of injustice are a more potent source of group impressions of injustice than are reports of more severe injustice experienced by others. In both conditions, group ratings of unfairness were more extreme than were the mean of individual ratings either before or after discussion.     

Compensation for Historical Emissions and Excusable Ignorance

This article defends the idea of applying principles of corrective justice to the matter of climate change. In particular, it argues against the excusable ignorance objection, which holds that historical emissions produced at a time when our knowledge of climate change was insufficient ought to be removed from the equation when applying rectificatory principles to this context. In constructing my argument, I rely on a particular interpretation of rectificatory justice and outcome responsibility. I also address the individualism objection by showing why we should view states as relevant agents of climate change. This argument is built on the assumption that states are institutions set up to coordinate and regulate human interaction, so as to protect their citizens from the unwanted consequences of such interaction.     

Self-Respect or Self-Delusion? Tomasi and Rawls on the Basic Liberties

A central feature of John Tomasi’s ‘Free Market Fairness’ is the emphasis it places upon the good of self-respect. Like Rawls, Tomasi believes that accounts of justice ought to offer support for the self-respect of citizens. Indeed, this is a key way in which Tomasi aspires to engage with the ‘high-liberal’ tradition. Unlike Rawls however, Tomasi argues that this support is best provided by our treating a broader set of economic liberties as basic liberties. In this paper I raise two concerns about this latter claim. Firstly, I trace a number of significant ways in which Tomasi’s discussion of self-respect differs from that of Rawls. Whilst such divergences are not necessarily problematic, I argue that they serve to limit the purchase his account has on left-liberals. Further, I argue that the ideal of self-respect is more deeply ‘hard-wired’ into Rawls’s account of justice than Tomasi recognises. As such, Tomasi fails to address the full range of additional (and important) ways in which Rawls expects his principles of justice to support citizens’ self-respect. I argue that this also limits the force of Tomasi’s claims. Secondly, and more seriously, I argue that there are significant tensions between Tomasi’s discussion of self-respect and his most forceful argument (the ‘greater wealth thesis’) in favour of the market democratic model he proposes. I argue firstly that Tomasi’s account of when (and why) citizens’ self-respect is jeopardised does not allow us to readily distinguish between economic security born of systems of welfare and redistribution, and economic security born of market forces and historical contingency. And more troubling still, is Tomasi’s belief that self-respecting citizens must view themselves as a ‘central cause’ of their situation. Such self-conceptions, I argue, can only coexist alongside the greater wealth thesis if citizens engage in quite naked self-delusions about their causal power. I argue that theorists of justice have good reason to be suspicious of promulgating such delusions and, as such, that this poses a serious problem for a justification of market democracy which aspires to rest upon an appeal to self-respect.     

Justice and Civic Friendship： An Aristotelian Critique of Modern Citizenry

Modem moral and political theorists make a sharp separation between justice and civic friendship, arguing that justice deals with the fair terms of co-operation in the social sphere whereas civic friendship is about an individual＇s contingent affections in the political domain. In addition, they also argue that the principles of justice must determine the nature and function of civic friendship in modem liberal society. Even though the historical origin of the above view can be traced to the writings of Immanuel Kant （2007）, John Rawls provides us with its most cogent formulation in recent times. In his book A Theory of Justice （1971）, Rawls argues that the considerations of right are prior to the considerations of good; therefore the principles of justice must determine the limits of civic friendship. Against RaMs, I argue that justice and civic friendship are intrinsically connected and that they cannot be separated in experience. I draw upon Aristotle＇s theory of virtue to strengthen my arguments. Following Aristotle, I show that both justice and friendship are virtues and that all virtues hold together. The Aristotelian coherence of virtues, I argue, can be useful in redefining the obligations of justice and civic friendship in contemporary liberal democracies.     

Distributive Justice in the State of Nature: An Egalitarian View

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel egalitarian answer to the question: what initial distribution of the world’s resources could possibly count as just? Like many writers in the natural rights tradition, I take for granted that distributive justice consists in conformity to pre-political principles that apply to property regimes. Against the background of that assumption, the paper distinguishes between broadly Lockean and broadly Grotian conceptions of distributive justice in the state of nature. After an extended critique of various versions of the Lockean approach, it argues for a particular, egalitarian version of the Grotian view. My position is based on what I call the common ownership formula, which says: each human being, as an equal co-owner of the world’s resources, may use those resources provided that the terms of their use are in conformity with principles that no co-owner could reasonably reject as the basis of an informed, unforced general agreement between all of the world’s co-owners who sought to find equitable principles of resource division. Using this principle, I suggest how an unequivocally egalitarian view of pre-political entitlement can be justified without recourse to any alleged duty to ameliorate the effects of brute bad luck on people’s lives.     

Access to Assistive Technology,Systems Thinking,and Market Shaping: A Response to Durocher et al.

Fairness of access to assistive technology is important for its allocation on an equitable basis and for broader social justice and rights issues. Although the use of Daniels’s notion of “justice as fair opportunity” is helpful to the context of assistive technology, other aspects of Daniels’s broader conceptualisation of “just health” are not appropriate in this context. It is argued that fairness of access to assistive technology is crucial for the equitable attainment of the sustainable development goals; however, such access will be achieved only by the sector developing a much stronger systems thinking and market shaping perspective.