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Contemporary Political Philosophy Lecture Notes (Lectures 1-12) and *SOME* Required Readings
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Universiteit Leiden (UL)
Politicologie
Political Philosophy
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Chapter 1: Social Justice
introduction
● what does it mean to say that society is just or unjust?
○ different from retributive justice (criminal punishment)
● Rawls: a theory of justice
○ since rawls there is a systematic and substantive argument about what the
societies we live in should be like
○ justice is the first virtue of social institutions
■ all other goals can only be pursued to the extent that that pursuit is
compatible with the claims of justice
concepts vs. conceptions: the case of justice
● concept
○ general structure of a term such as justice
○ agreement on the concept, the fundamentals and when to use the term
● conception
○ the particular specification of the concept
○ disagreement on the conception, what the concept contains
● justice
○ a specific subset of morality
○ concerns giving people what they are due
● distinction between justice and other kinds of moral claim
○ state is justified in using coercive power
○ the state as the collective agent of citizens
○ following this logic citizens are justified in using the coercive apparatus to
force another to act a certain way
■ raises issue of state authority; when comply and when not?
○ justice as central to political morality; once we know what our duties are we
know when we are justified to use the coercive apparatus
■ justice is about identifying the scope and content of coercively
enforceable duties . It is important to identify the scope and limits of
justice
● different conceptions of concept
○ conceptions we favour reflect our other value commitments
■ can influence conceptions of other concept (If I think A about A, I
might think A about B)
○ if we think positively about some concepts this does not mean we must think
about these concepts so that there is no conflict between them
○ concepts are best when they are as distinct as possible
○ concepts should not always coincide, we make progress focussing on the
places where they come apart
○ justice is one dimension along which we can judge a society, but not the only
one
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,Hayek vs. social justice
● justice is an attribute of action, a predicate of agents
○ a person acts justly when it undertakes just action
● coercive redistribution
○ beyond the meeting of common basic needs involves an unjustifiable
interference with individual liberty
● the road to Serfdom (1944)
○ to realize social justice implies a centralized authority making people do
things they might not want to do
○ interfering with their freedom
● the market
○ state interference in the market limits individual freedom, and is inefficient
for the economy
● what matters is not whether anybody intends justice, but whether anybody is
responsible for the fact it exists
Rawls: justice as fairness
● veil of ignorance
○ the best form of justice is to think about what principles would be chosen by
people who don’t know how they are going to be affected by them
○ If I don’t know which piece of the cake I will get, I am more likely to cut it
fairly
● participants are unaware of two things
○ their natural talents
○ their conception of the good
○ participants are aware of their capacity to shape conception of the good
● only way for the state to treat all citizens fairly is to not take a view on how people
should live their lives
● choices under the veil of ignorance
○ each person is to have an equal rights to most extensive basic liberties
○ social and economic inequalities are to be arranged that they are to the
greatest benefit of the least advantaged and attached to offices and positions
open to all under equal opportunity
● justice as a contract between individuals
Nozick: justice as entitlement
● justice is about respecting people’s rights to self-ownership and to hold property
○ no meddling from the state
○ people create things through their own efforts, hence what they create is
theirs
● ownership according to Nozick
○ people themselves
○ the natural world
○ things that people make
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, ● three ways in which people can acquire legitimate property holding
○ initial acquisition: somebody comes to appropriate previously unowned bits of
the world
○ voluntary transfer: somebody giving their property to you
○ rectification: unjust transfers may be rectified by compensating transfers that
themselves create entitlements
● liberty upsets patterns
○ if people own property then they must be able to give it to others, the outcome
of which in turn is just
popular opinion: justice as desert
● justice is not based on people getting what they deserve
● conventional view
○ one person can deserve to earn less or more than another even if this is due to
factor that are beyond their control
● extreme view
○ people do not deserve to earn more or less than one another even if they are
exerting different amounts of effort
● mixed view
○ people don’t deserve to be rewarded differently for things that are beyond
their control, but deserve to be rewarded differently for things that are a
matter of choice
● desert
○ desert through institutional expectations: due to the setup of FIFA a football
player is expected to ‘deserve’ a higher pay
○ desert based on compensation: people with dangerous (physically straining)
jobs deserve more.
○ desert based on bad consequences: if brain surgeons didn’t earn more nobody
would want to be one
social justice vs. global justice
● cosmopolitans
○ the idea that all human beings are fundamentally equal means that their
nationality should not make a difference to what they can claim as justice
● distinction
○ members of societies have duties that they do not have to members of other
societies
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, Isaiah Berlin: Two concepts of liberty
the notion of negative freedom
● political liberty
○ the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. If someone is
prevented from doing something, he is in that sense unfree
○ incapacity to attain a goal is not a lack of political freedom
● coercion
○ implies the deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in
which one could otherwise act
● lack of freedom and poverty
○ if poverty is seen as a disease which prevents you from getting something, it is
not a lack of freedom
○ the inability to get something is due to the fact that others have made
arrangements that one cannot get something, is a lack of freedom
● classical thinkers: freedom must be limited by law
○ however there ought to exist a minimum of freedom which must not be
violated
○ liberty of some people depends on the restriction of others liberty
● liberty is not the only goal of people
● is compulsion ever justified?
○ justice demands that there is a minimum of freedom, others must be
constrained from depriving anyone of it
○ Mill: civilisation cannot advance unless someone can conduct as he wishes
■ coercion needs to be applied to prevent larger evil
■ actions of self development should take place in the limits of liberty
■ in this sense freedom is not connected with democracy or
self-government
■ the question who governs me is distinct from how far does government
interfere with me
the notion of positive freedom
● the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master
○ i wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of
whatever kind
● not being a slave of any kind
○ slave to nature?
○ political, legal, moral spiritual slavery?
● real self conceived as something wider than the individual
○ social whole of which the individual is an element or aspect (race, state,
church)
○ in doing so imposing a collective will upon the members ; justifying coercion
for the greater good
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