Equity,equality, and need: Three principles of justice or one? An analysis of “equity as desert”

Contemporary reviews of the psychology of distributive justice have tended to emphasize three main allocation principles, equity, equality, and need, and to propose that each operates within a specific sphere of influence. However, results in this area are not entirely consistent, and do not tie in readily with work on attributions of responsibility. This article reviews research into this issue and attempts to encorporate the three principles, together with the notion of causal responsibility, with a single compound equity principle, labelled “equity as desert” (EAD), based on traditional historical and philosophical conceptions of proportional desert. Two empirical studies are reported in support of this idea. The author argues that a compound equity principle of the kind proposed here may be able to provide a unifying theme in an otherwise fragmented area.     

基于贡献原则的幼儿分配公平性

分配公平性是指个体如何以公平的方式对资源进行分配, 其主要依据3个原则：贡献(equity)、平等(equality)和需要(need)。最新研究表明, 幼儿很早就已经具有基于贡献原则的分配公平性判断与行为, 双加工理论对于该研究结果能够给出更为适当的解释, 心理理论与情境卷入水平分别从认知和情绪方面对幼儿分配公平性的发展有着重要影响。未来研究应注重研究内容的具体化, 对幼儿基于贡献原则的分配公平性发展特点、相关影响因素及其内部动机进行深入探究。     

The moral significance of the genetic relation

Our ordinary moral attitudes give a prominent place to the principle that each person ought specially to care for any child who is his or her genetic offspring. From this principle of genetic-parental responsibility and other plausible premises, we can derive the principle that each person has the right to control the genetic use of his or her own genes. But there are competing principles of parental responsibility that require consideration. Principles of nurture are among the important competitors. Also, the view that a woman has the right to control her own body for reproductive purposes may be based on a principle that denies the genetic-parental principle. An analysis is developed of the relations that constitute the criteria for the various possible principles of parental responsibility. Causality, temporality, spatiality, and resemblance are considered. The genetic relation is not any one of these relations, but it includes some of them. The justification of any principle of parental responsibility requires a detailed consideration of the principle from the viewpoint of a deontological or consequentialist moral theory. This examination is beyond the scope of this paper, but consideration is given to some issues and problems of justification, and difficult or unusual cases are discussed. There remain, then, complexities that require further study.     

Moral Responsibility and the Metaphysics of Free Will: Reply to van Inwagen

In The Philosophical Quarterly , 47 (1997), pp. 373–81, van Inwagen argues in a critical notice of my book The Metaphysics of Free Will that the impression that Frankfurt-type examples show that moral responsibility need not require alternative possibilities results from insufficient analytical precision. He suggests various precise principles which imply that moral responsibility requires alternative possibilities. In reply, I seek to defend the conclusion I have drawn from Frankfurt-type examples: moral responsibility need not require alternative possibilities. I contend that van Inwagen's principles — the principle of possible prevention and the no-matter-what principle — are invalid, and I suggest that their plausibility comes from thinking about a proper subset of the relevant cases.     

IX—Responsibility and the Consequences of Choice

Contemporary egalitarian theories of justice constrain the demands of equality by responsibility, and do not view as unjust inequalities that are traceable to individuals' choices. This paper argues that, in order to make non-arbitrary determinate judgements of responsibility, any theory of justice needs a principle of stakes , that is, an account of what consequences choices should have. The paper also argues that the principles of stakes seemingly presupposed by egalitarians are implausible, and that adopting alternative principles of stakes amounts to fleshing out the demands of responsibility rather than imposing limits on them.     

The logic of scientific and religious principles

Summary In every domain, the philosopher finds some principle which is unfalsifiable in so far as all experience is interpreted in accordance with it. This principle is tautologous or analytic-within-its domain in that it defines fundamental terms with which it characterizes experiences: Newton’s Laws define “mass” and “the equality of times”; the Principle of the Rectilinear Propagation of LIght defines “light”; the Principle of Evolution defines “adaptation” and “natural selection”; and the Principle of the Conservation of Energy defines “a closed system.” Moreover, each principle is employed as a methodological rule or a tacit imperative to the investigator to interpret experience or to draw inferences in accordance with it. Nevertheless, each principle has empirical content: not only by virtue of its place within its respective domain but also because there are sufficient rules of correspondence which make the statement-form empirically relevant; not only because the principle itself is taken to be true but also because empirical inferences are drawn in accordance with it. To construe these principles as mere counterfactuals would be clearly incorrect. Counterfactuals, as Rescher would characterize them, are “belief-contravening suppositions” because certain beliefs are excluded if one is to be consistent. Although this is certainly true of these principles, the range of beliefs contravened is far larger than those beliefs excluded in mere laws of nature. For, to give up these principles would be to give up explaining the entire domain of experience to which they are applicable.     

In Defence of Bad Science and Irrational Policies: an Alternative Account of the Precautionary Principle

In the first part of the paper, three objections to the precautionary principle are outlined: the principle requires some account of how to balance risks of significant harms; the principle focuses on action and ignores the costs of inaction; and the principle threatens epistemic anarchy. I argue that these objections may overlook two distinctive features of precautionary thought: a suspicion of the value of “full scientific certainty”; and a desire to distinguish environmental doings from allowings. In Section 2, I argue that any simple distinction between environmental doings and allowings is untenable. However, I argue that the appeal of such a distinction can be captured within a relational account of environmental equity. In Section 3 I show how the proposed account of environmental justice can generate a justification for distinctively “precautionary” policy-making.     

Neo-Frankfurtians and buffer cases: the new challenge to the principle of alternative possibilities

The debate over whether Frankfurt-style cases are counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) has taken an interesting turn in recent years. Frankfurt originally envisaged his attack as an attempting to show that PAP is false—that the ability to do otherwise is not necessary for moral responsibility. To many this attack has failed. But Frankfurtians have not conceded defeat. Neo-Frankfurtians, as I will call them, argue that the upshot of Frankfurt-style cases is not that PAP is false, but that it is explanatorily irrelevant. Derk Pereboom and David Hunt’s buffer cases are tailor made to establish this conclusion. In this paper I come to the aid of PAP, showing that buffer cases provide no reason for doubting either its truth or relevance with respect to explaining an agent’s moral responsibility.