17. Distributive Justice and the Welfare State

What this lecture covers

This lecture works through the second half of Rawls's theory of justice: how liberties, opportunities, and income and wealth are ranked and distributed. It picks up from an earlier class on the first principle (liberty) and moves into the two parts of the second principle, ending on the difference principle, Rawls's most debated idea.

By the end you should be able to state Rawls's lexical ranking of liberties, opportunities, and income and wealth, explain the difference principle in your own words, and describe both Shapiro's defense of it and the objections it runs into, including the problem of effort and desert.

Key ideas

• Lexical ranking: Rawls orders his values so that a higher-ranked value (liberty, then fair equality of opportunity, then income and wealth) can never be sacrificed to gain more of a lower-ranked one.
• Fair equality of opportunity: positions must be open to all, which rules out systems like apartheid or systematic pay discrimination by gender.
• Difference principle (maximin): income and wealth should be distributed to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged person, an idea borrowed from welfare economics' "maximin" rule.
• Grave risks argument: even in a generally prosperous society some people face severe deprivation, so you should plan as if you might be that person, even if the odds are low.
• Chain connection: Rawls's claim that helping the worst-off has knock-on benefits for everyone else; Shapiro treats this as an unconvincing add-on.
• Basic structure, not policy: Rawls's principles are meant to guide the design of institutions, not to settle specific policy trade-offs like a particular tax cut.
• Moral arbitrariness: differences between people, whether from nature or nurture, are matters of luck, so justice should not reward or punish people for them.
• The effort problem: if capacities are morally arbitrary, so is the capacity or will to work hard, which undercuts any attempt to say effort alone deserves reward.

Walkthrough

Principle of Justice I: Distribution of Liberties (0:00)

Shapiro recaps Rawls's shift away from measuring justice by utility toward a resourcist approach based on basic goods: liberties, opportunities, and income and wealth. He explains the lexical ranking that governs conflicts among these values and reviews the first principle, illustrated by the example of religious freedom: you compare the position of the worst-off person under different arrangements, such as a fundamentalist regime versus one with a disestablished church, and prefer whichever leaves the least advantaged person better off.

Fair Equality of Opportunity (4:46)

The lecture turns to the second principle's opportunity component, which Rawls numbers 2b despite it being logically prior to 2a. Fair equality of opportunity rules out systems that systematically disadvantage a group, such as apartheid-style job reservation or gender-based pay gaps. Shapiro connects this to the lexical ranking by discussing how a proposed affirmative-action remedy could conflict with liberties protected by the first principle, using the New Haven firefighters case as an example of that kind of dispute.

Incomes and Wealth (9:16)

Shapiro introduces the difference principle: income and wealth should go to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. He traces it to the older welfare-economics idea of maximin, and explains why focusing on the worst-off person follows from the veil of ignorance. He then raises the hard case Rawls has to answer: what if a tiny gain for the poorest comes at a large cost to the middle class? Rawls's two responses are the grave-risks argument, that even low-probability severe deprivation matters enormously, and chain connection, the claim that helping the bottom eventually helps everyone. Shapiro finds grave risks only partly satisfying and treats chain connection skeptically, since it would collapse the difference between Rawls and utilitarianism. He also defends Rawls against the charge that the theory endorses any specific bad policy, arguing that Rawls is describing the basic structure of society, not giving marginal policy advice, and famously declines to choose between capitalism and socialism.

Incomes and Wealth: The Difference Principle (23:21)

Using a Pareto-style diagram with two people, A and B, Shapiro shows why the difference principle produces L-shaped indifference curves: you move toward equality and then only accept further changes that raise the position of whoever is worst off, since you don't know behind the veil of ignorance whether you'll be A or B. A student exchange clarifies that moving past equality in the wrong direction would just swap who counts as least advantaged, which the principle is designed to avoid.

Rawls, Bentham and Pareto Compared (33:59)

Shapiro compares the difference principle with Pareto improvements and Bentham's utilitarianism, showing that Rawls's principle contains the Pareto principle and overlaps with Bentham where a change benefits the least advantaged. He then presents what he sees as the theory's genuinely radical move: since differences between people, whether from genetics or upbringing, are morally arbitrary, justice should be indifferent to who ends up worst off. A classroom discussion pushes on this by raising effort: if two equally capable people choose differently, hard work versus leisure, shouldn't the hard worker deserve more? Shapiro shows that Rawls's own attempt to protect desert for effort fails, because the capacity or disposition to work hard is itself a matter of moral luck. He also distinguishes this argument from determinism and closes by noting the irony that Rawls's reasoning, if followed through, places him to the left of Marx, since Marx still cared about who produced what, while Rawls denies that production gives anyone a moral claim.

Before you watch

• Have Rawls's veil of ignorance and his first principle of equal basic liberties fresh, since this lecture builds directly on them.
• Recall the general conception of distributive justice from the previous class: distribute goods equally unless inequality benefits everyone.
• Be ready to think about Pareto improvements, since the lecture uses Pareto-style diagrams to explain the difference principle.

Check your understanding

1. What does Rawls's lexical ranking require when two of his principles come into conflict?
2. Why does the difference principle focus on the position of the least advantaged person rather than an average?
3. What is the grave risks argument, and why does Shapiro call it only partly satisfying?
4. Why does Rawls's attempt to preserve desert for effort fail, according to the classroom discussion?
5. In what sense does Shapiro argue the difference principle is philosophically radical but not necessarily radical in its distributive consequences?