| Description |
This dissertation argues first that social and economic institutions, rather than one's character or individual transactions, are the proper site of distributive justice-an account called "institutionalism." The dissertation makes a case for thinking that distributive justice is the solution to the conflict in claims to rights, resources, opportunities, and powers based on peoples' pluralistic and incompatible ideas of the good life, including their religious and ethical beliefs. Because justice is the solution to a practical interaction problem, the reasoning for a conception of justice needs to accurately represent the problem. Once our reasoning reflects the problem, it is argued that only institutionalism is justified. The reasoning for anti-institutionalist conceptions, such as utilitarianism and act-egalitarianism, does not accurately represent the interaction problem arising from distinct persons with their own ideas of the good. The dissertation uses the framework supporting institutionalism to argue second that distributive justice is global in scope-a view called "cosmopolitanism." It examines the main cases for distributive justice, compatible with institutionalism, that restrict the scope of justice to the institutions of a state. Conceptions of distributive justice are based on a universal conception of person, which people share across borders. So these cases hold that the social institutions of a state organize economic cooperation to conclude that distributive justice applies only among compatriots. This is because distributive justice organizes a reciprocal division of labor for a socioeconomic product, which only occurs iv with economic cooperation. The dissertation shows that if justice is a response to the conflicting claims we make on resources, then the main cases for distributive justice imply instead that justice is global in scope. Principles of distributive justice determine the functional roles of a socioeconomic system, that is, they determine what the division of labor in an economy is and who can participate. Thus, being members of an existing division of labor, organized by state institutions, cannot restrict the scope of justice. Instead, only the capacity to cooperate or be in a division of labor is morally relevant to the practical interaction problem of social justice. Distributive justice therefore applies to all persons as such. |
