The notion of sufficiency has recently gained some momentum in separate discourses on distributive justice ('sufficientarianism') and the environment ('eco-sufficiency'). An investigation of their relationship is warranted, as their scope overlaps in areas such as environmental justice and socio-economic policy. This paper argues that the two understandings of sufficiency are incompatible, because eco-sufficiency has adopted an extremely perfectionist view of the good life while sufficientarianism is committed to pluralism. A plausible explanation for this incompatibility relates to the two different meanings (...) of the term sufficiency as a limit (eco-sufficiency) and as a minimum requirement (sufficientarianism). (shrink)

Sufficientarian theories of distributive justice are often considered to be vulnerable to the ‘blindness to inequality and other values objection’. This objection targets their commitment to holding the moral irrelevance of requirements of justice above absolute thresholds of advantage, making them insufficiently sensitive to egalitarian moral concerns that do have relevance for justice. This paper explores how sufficientarians could reply to this objection. Particularly, I claim that, if we accept that the force of the aforementioned objection comes from relational, and (...) not distributive, inequalities, different strategies are open for sufficientarians in order to be sensitive to these concerns. Drawing on recent literature about the relation between distributive and relational egalitarianism, and the possibility of reducing one to the other, strategies of ‘internalizing’ and ‘externalizing’ relational egalitarian concerns to a distributive sufficientarian framework are explored. In turn, I suggest that both strategies fail in their standard versions, but argue that a particular ‘hybrid view’ about justice is an attractive candidate for the sufficientarian theorist. (shrink)

A common objection to sufficientarianism is that it allows large inequalities above the threshold. A sharpened form of this objection highlights that this indifference also encompasses large inequalities in the distribution of burdens. Consider the burdens that follow from climate change. A theory that does not rule out placing these burdens on the worst off (of the sufficiently well off) will appear implausible to many. This paper assesses ways of addressing this objection and defends a revised conception of sufficientarianism (...) that can demand fair distribution of burdens (and benefits) above the sufficiency threshold, without giving up core sufficientarian theoretical commitments. (shrink)

According to the sufficiency principle, distributive justice requires that everyone have some sufficient level of resources or well-being, but inequalities above this threshold have no moral significance. This paper defends a version of the sufficiency principle as the appropriate response to moral uncertainty about distributive justice. Assuming that the appropriate response to moral uncertainty is to maximize expected choiceworthiness, and given a reasonable distribution of credence in some familiar views about distributive justice, a version of the sufficiency principle (...) strikes the optimal balance between the competing moral risks posed by implementing these views. In particular, it avoids the moral risk posed by views like Nozick’s libertarianism, which forbid redistributive taxation even for the sake of helping to provide for people’s basic needs: failing to do the latter, if it turns out that justice does require it, would be very morally wrong. This “uncertainty argument” has the advantage of minimizing reliance on controversial intuitions about distributive justice, helps to specifying a non-arbitrary threshold for sufficiency, and shows that the substantive moral implications of moral uncertainty are not limited to high-stakes applied ethics issues such as abortion and vegetarianism but instead extend to an issue at the heart of political philosophy. (shrink)

Distributive justice decision making tends to require a trade off between different valued outcomes. The present study tracked computer mouse cursor movements in a forced-choice paradigm to examine for tension between different parameters of distributive justice during the decision-making process. Participants chose between set meal distributions, to third parties, that maximised either equality (the evenness of the distribution) or efficiency (the total number of meals distributed). Across different formulations of these dilemmas, responding was consistent with the notion that individuals (...) tend to base decisions in part on the magnitude of these parameters. In addition, dilemmas associated with inconsistent responding across the sample tended to elicit the greatest spatial deviation of the cursor, potentially reflecting dilemma difficulty. One interpretation of these results is that individuals value equality and efficiency in such a way that moral dilemmas are resolved by comparing the perceived value of these qualitatively different parameters, consistent with a value pluralistic framework of decision making. A post-hoc analysis indicated that individuals also incorporated sufficiency concerns during distributive justice decision making. The results are discussed in relation to political philosophy. (shrink)

Distribution of sufficient health care resources to the maximum number of people in LIC is the central theme of the book. Bangladesh is taken as a representative of low income countries (LIe. In LIC, there is scarcity of health care resources like other resources but the deserving persons are numerous. Therefore, it requires an efficient distribution of resources. Considering 'Inequality to get access to health care' as the basic problem in LIC, John Rawls' principle of fair equality (...) of opportunity is proposed to apply to give people access to health care resources. In this book it is critically analyzed how the principle fails to return a good result in LIC. Instead the principle of maximizing utility is proposed for the purpose. It is argued that maximum number of people can be provided sufficient health care by applying the principle. The principle has also been justified theoretically in concerned low income country and a fruitful result has been achieved from the test. It is claimed that applying principle of utility to provide sufficient health care to the maximum number of people is the most efficient way of health care resources distribution in LIC. (shrink)

I begin by discussing forms of cosmopolitanism that motivate challenges to distributive accounts of global justice. I then use Sen's version of the capabilities approach to show how distributive accounts fall short, why an overarching theory of justice is not needed, and that democracy understood as the exercise of public reasoning can do the work of identifying and addressing injustices. That said in favor of Sen, I argue that his account fails to attend to the kinds of injustices emerging from (...) relationships of power and the institutions and structures in which these relationships are embedded. To show this, I outline features of a feminist relational approach, which I then apply to Canada's attempt to address historic harms through the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While I agree with Sen that we do not need a theory of global justice that is universal, ideal, impartial, or abstracted from context, I aim to broaden the scope of justice beyond both distributive accounts and Sen's version of the capabilities approach. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an account of member obligation: the obligations that fall on the members of an obligated collective in virtue of that collective obligation. I use this account to argue that unorganized collections of individuals can constitute obligated agents. I argue first that, to know when a collective obligation entails obligations on that collective’s members, we have to know not just what it would take for each member to do their part in satisfying the collective obligation, but (...) also what they should do if they cannot do their part because others will not do theirs. I go on to argue (contra recent proposals) that it is not good enough for members in this situation to reasonably believe that others will not do their part. Rather, for a member of an obligated collective to permissibly escape doing her part in a collective obligation, she must both reasonably doubt that others will do their part and stand ready to act in case others do as well. -/- This necessary condition for collective obligation points the way to plausible sufficient conditions – conditions that, I argue, allow unstructured collectives to bear obligations. For (a) if a collective’s members are individually obligated to be ready to do their part, in a given collective action, and (b) if that individual readiness makes it sufficiently likely that the collective will in fact act, then it is hard to see what could block an attribution of collective obligation. In particular, in that case there ought to be no additional objection that there is no existing, organized “agent” on which the obligation might fall. For agents are, simply, things that can act. To be able to act is just to be able to succeed by trying. Unstructured collectives try to do something, I argue, when each member acts on their willingness to do their part in that thing if others do theirs; sometimes they succeed, producing a collective action. Some unstructured collectives, therefore, can succeed by trying; therefore, they can act; therefore they are agents. (shrink)

In this paper I address the objection to sufficientarianism posed by Paula Casal and Richard Arneson, that it is hard to conceive of a sufficiency threshold such that distribution is highly important just below it, and not required at all just above it. In order to address this objection, I elaborate on the idea that sufficientarianism structurally can be seen to require two separate thresholds, which may or may not overlap. I then argue that a version of such a (...) view is plausible. Lastly, I distinguish this view from related proposals in the literature. (shrink)

It is traditional to ascribe to Locke the view that every person who acquires natural property rights by labouring on resources is obligated to leave sufficient resources for everyone else. But during the last several decades, a number of authors have contributed to a compelling textual case against this reading. Nevertheless, Locke clearly indicates that there is something wrong with distributions in which some suffer while others thrive. But if he does not endorse the traditional proviso, what exactly is (...) the problem? In this paper, I offer a solution to this puzzle. I argue that according to Locke, once people use their natural rights to acquire large properties, many individuals are unable to enjoy the material and moral wellbeing, or “preservation,” that is the end of natural law. For even if such large properties pose no problem for material preservation, they foster arbitrary power that offends against moral preservation. (shrink)

Distributive theories evaluate distributions of goods based on candidate recipients’ characteristics, e.g. how well off candidates are, how deserving they are, and whether they fare below sufficiency. But such characteristics vary across possible worlds, so distributive theories may differ in terms of the world which for them settles candidates’ characteristics. This paper examines how distributive theories differ in terms of whether candidate recipients’ relevant characteristics are grounded in the possible world that would take place if the distributor does not intervene (...) (call it the “input” world) or if they are grounded in each possible world that the distributor can bring about through different decisions (call each an “output” world). We illustrate the importance of this distinction in relation to one distributive theory, prioritarianism. As we show, both input and output versions of prioritarianism are plausible interpretations of the literature, and there are good reasons to take input prioritarianism seriously. Ultimately, however, we argue that input prioritarianism should be rejected. (shrink)

The human conceptual system comprises simulated information of sensorimotor experience and linguistic distributional information of how words are used in language. Moreover, the linguistic shortcut hypothesis predicts that people will use computationally cheaper linguistic distributional information where it is sufficient to inform a task response. In a pre‐registered category production study, we asked participants to verbally name members of concrete and abstract categories and tested whether performance could be predicted by a novel measure of sensorimotor similarity (based on an (...) 11‐dimensional representation of sensorimotor strength) and linguistic proximity (based on word co‐occurrence derived from a large corpus). As predicted, both measures predicted the order and frequency of category production but, critically, linguistic proximity had an effect above and beyond sensorimotor similarity. A follow‐up study using typicality ratings as an additional predictor found that typicality was often the strongest predictor of category production variables, but it did not subsume sensorimotor and linguistic effects. Finally, we created a novel, fully grounded computational model of conceptual activation during category production, which best approximated typical human performance when conceptual activation was allowed to spread indirectly between concepts, and when candidate category members came from both sensorimotor and linguistic distributional representations. Critically, model performance was indistinguishable from typical human performance. Results support the linguistic shortcut hypothesis in semantic processing and provide strong evidence that both linguistic and grounded representations are inherent to the functioning of the conceptual system. All materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/vaq56/. (shrink)

The distribution of parts between the available actors in ancient comedy has frequently engaged critical attention, but it has only recently become possible to test the principles believed to be at work against a play of Menander which is for practical purposes preserved complete. The present inquiry will suggest that either four principal actors are needed or, alternatively, that three actors can carry the major roles between them, provided that the part of Getas is split between two of them (...) and that a supernumerary actor is available for two small parts, together with parachoregemata in a few places and a kophon prosopon twice. It is not easy to choose between these two possibilities, but there may be sufficient hints in the dramatic economy of the play to warrant preference for the three-actor alternative. (shrink)

This article identifies value‐satiability sufficientarianism as a distinctive version of the sufficiency view, which has been ignored in the literature on distributive justice. This is unfortunate because value‐satiability sufficientarianism is much better equipped than alternative sufficiency views to cope with the standard objections against sufficiency. Most often, sufficientarianism refers to satiability as a feature of moral principles and reasons. But value‐satiability sufficientarianism also invokes satiability in the space of value‐theory, as it determines the sufficiency threshold at the point where justice‐relevant (...) values have been completely fulfilled. The article gives examples of how this view is widely apparent in the literature, and it provides some reasons in its favour. It then presents the two standard objections against sufficientarianism – the threshold objection and the indifference objection – and argues that these critiques do not apply to value‐satiability sufficientarianism. The general argument of the article therefore proves sufficientarianism more difficult to refute than is commonly credited. (shrink)

In recent decades political philosophers have increasingly been engaged with the issue of educational equality. However, egalitarians typically focus on achieving equality in the distribution of education, and ignore the relevance of an alternative, relational conception of equality. An exception to this is Elizabeth Anderson, who applies relational egalitarian principles to education in her 2007 article ‘Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective’. Although Anderson remains one of the few relational egalitarians to consider what this ideal requires in (...) education, her arguments have received less attention than they deserve. In this article I examine Anderson's theory of fair educational opportunities for a democratic society of equals and develop an internal critique of her approach. I suggest that the sufficientarian standard Anderson proposes for education has the propensity to undermine the process of integration and the relations of equality she aspires to. Even if all children receive a sufficient education, inequality above the threshold could result in social divisions and status differentials that encourage informal segregation because people typically prefer to associate with other people who are similar to themselves. The article will finish by considering what implications this has for Anderson's relational egalitarian approach to education. (shrink)

Utilitarians, maximinners, prioritarians, and sufficientarians each provide examples of situations demonstrating, often apparently compellingly, that a sensible ethical observer must adopt their view and reject the others. I argue, to the contrary, that an attractive ethic is eclectic or pluralistic, in the sense of coinciding with these apparently different views in different regions of the space of social states. I reject the view that an appealing ethic can be universally maximin, prioritarian, or utilitarian. Key Words: distributive justice • utilitarianism • (...) maximin • sufficiency • priority. (shrink)

An idea salient in the African and East Asian philosophical traditions is that the right sort of socio-political interaction would be similar to the intuitive ways that family members ought to relate to each other. Applying this perspective to economic and ecological inequalities, I articulate some principles implicit in healthy familial relationships, show what they entail for certain aspects of distributive justice at the national level, and contend that the implications are plausible relative to competing theories such as utilitarianism, Rawlsianism, (...) and the Capabilities Approach. Specifically, I maintain that reflection on familial norms suggests that an array of objective goods, particularly ones pertaining to relationality, the development of talents, and life, should be central to what the state distributes, an account that rivals subjective well-being, primary goods, or democratically chosen capabilities. When it comes to how much the state should ideally ensure each citizen has, reflection on familial norms supports a new, balancing approach, according to which all have a comparable share of resources needed for objective goodness, but more go to those with great ability or great disability, an approach that differs, and plausibly so, from maximizing, prioritizing the worst off, equalizing, or providing a sufficient minimum. (shrink)

This book argues that the risk of harm in armed conflict should be divided equally between combatants and enemy non-combatants. International law requires that combatants in war take 'all feasible precautions' to minimise damage to civilian objects, injury to civilians, and incidental loss of civilian life. However, there is no clear explanation of what 'feasible precautions' means in this context, or what would count as sufficiently minimised incidental harm. As a result, it is difficult to judge whether a particular war (...) or offensive actually satisfies this requirement. Just war theorists often consider it common sense that merely not intending to harm innocent civilians is not sufficient, but there is little clarity in the literature regarding what this means. One crucial question that is almost always overlooked is that of what the appropriate baseline distribution of risk should be. This book defends the Minimal Harm Requirement, which states that combatants should make an effort to reduce merely foreseen harm to enemy non-combatants to the lowest reasonable level. In order to assess which risk impositions are reasonable, and which are not, an egalitarian baseline should be adopted, suggesting that other things being equal risk of harm should be distributed equally between just combatants and unjust non-combatants. This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, ethics, security studies, and international relations. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the dynamics of autonomous and nonautonomous stochastic toxin-producing phytoplankton–zooplankton system. For the autonomous system, we establish the sufficient conditions for the existence of the globally positive solution as well as the solution of population extinction and persistence in the mean. Furthermore, by constructing some suitable Lyapunov functions, we also prove that there exists a single stationary distribution which is ergodic, what is more important is that Lyapunov function does not depend on existence and (...) stability of equilibrium. For the nonautonomous periodic system, we prove that there exists at least one nontrivial positive periodic solution according to the theory of Khasminskii. Finally, some numerical simulations are introduced to illustrate our theoretical results. The results show that weaker white noise and/or toxicity will strengthen the stability of system, while stronger white noise and/or toxicity will result in the extinction of one or two populations. (shrink)

The symbolism introduced earlier provides a convenient vehicle for examining the status and consistency of Aristotle's three diverse justifications and for explaining how he means to avoid Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. When the variables ‘ x ’ and ‘ y ’ are allowed to range over the groups of free men in a given polis as well as over individual free men, the formula for the Aristotelian conception of justice expresses the major premiss of Aristotle's three justifications: (1) (...) (∀ x )(∀ y ) (P(x)·W(x)/P(y)·W(y)=V(T(x))/V(T(y)))Democracy is justified by adding a minor premiss to the effect that as a group the many ( m ) are superior (>) in virtue and wealth to the few best men ( f ): 85 (2 d ) (P(m) · W(m)) > (P(f) · W(f)) (3 d ) V(T(m))>V(T(f))Absolute kingship is justified when a godlike man ( g ) appears in a polis who is incommensurably superior (≫) in virtue and wealth to all the remaining free men ( r ): (2 k ) (P(g) · W(g)) ≫ (P(r) · W(r)) (3 k ) V(T(g)) ≫ V(T(r))True aristocracy requires a more complex justification, which was symbolized in Section 4. These justifications are compatible with each other since they apply to different situations. The polises where democracy and true aristocracy are justified contain no godlike men, and the polis in which democracy is justified differs from that in which true aristocracy is justified in containing a large group of free men who individually have little virtue ( Pol. III.11.1281b23-25, 1282a25-26). Each of the justifications is a valid deductive argument. Aristotle affirms the major premiss they share on the basis of a twofold appeal to nature. The principle of distributive justice, the concept as distinguished from the various conceptions of distributive justice, is itself according to nature ( Pol. VII.3.1325b7-10) and so too is one particular standard of worth, the standard of the best polis. Consequently, the question of the status of these three justifications, whether they are purely hypothetical or not, is a question about the minor premiss or premisses of each. In the case of the democratic premiss Aristotle's answer is straightforward: it is sometimes but not always true ( Pol. III.11.1281bl5-21). Hence the justification of democracy is not purely hypothetical. Nor is the justification of absolute kingship. The man who is “like a god among men” ( Pol. III.13.1284a10-11) would be a man of heroic virtue (see VII.14.1332bl6-27); and such a man, Aristotle says, is “rare” ( σπávιoη ) (not nonexistent) ( E.N. VII.1.1145a27-28). The minor premisses of the aristocratic argument describe a situation where all of the free men in a given polis have sufficient wealth for the exercise of the moral and intellectual virtues and where all of the older free men of the polis are men of practical wisdom. In the Politics Aristotle makes only the modest claim that such a situation is possible: It is not possible for the best constitution to come into being without appropriate equipment [that is, the appropriate quality and quantity of territory and of citizens and noncitizens]. Hence one must presuppose many things as one would wish them to be, though none of them must be impossible ( Pol. VII.4.1325b37-38; see also II.6.1265al7-18). But Aristotle appears to subscribe to the principle that every possibility is realized at some moment of time ( Top. 11.11.115bl7-18, Met. Θ.4.1047b3-6, N.2.1088b23-25). This principle together with the claim that the situation described is possible entails that the situation sometimes occurs. Thus even Aristotle's justification of true aristocracy is not purely hypothetical. The final question is Aristotle's way of avoiding Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. The relativist, along with everyone else ( E.N. V.3.1131a13-14, Pol. III.12.1282bl8), can accept the principle of distributive justice: Q(x)/Q(y) = V(T(x))/V(T(y)) And he can concede that particular instances of this principle, particular conceptions of justice, accurately describe the modes of distributing political authority that appear just to particular polises and to particular philosophers. What he denies is that there is any basis for ranking these various conceptions of justice or for singling one out as the best (Plato, Theaet. 172A-B). Aristotle, following in Plato's track ( Laws X.888D7-890D8), maintains against the relativist that nature provides such a basis. But he departs from Plato in his conception of nature. For Plato “the just by nature” ( τó ρυσει δίκ↑oν }) ( Rep. VI.501B2) is the Form of justice, an incorporeal entity ( Phdo. 65D4-5, Soph. 246B8) that exists beyond time and space ( Tim. 37C6-38C3, 51E6-52B2), whereas for Aristotle the sensible world is the realm of nature ( Met. A.1.1069a30-b2). Thus in appealing to nature Aristotle does not appeal to a transcendent standard. Nor does he appeal to his main criterion of the natural, namely, happening always or for the most part. Aristotle's theory of justice is anchored to nature by means of the polis described in Politics VII and VIII, and he regards this polis as natural because it fosters the true end of human life and because its social and political structure reflects the natural hierarchy of human beings and the natural stages of life. Thus the nature that Aristotle's theory of justice is ultimately founded on is human nature. (shrink)

In this paper, I ask what is wrong with sufficiency. I formulate a generic sufficiency principle in relation to which I discuss possible problems for sufficientarianism. I argue against the arbitrariness–concern, that sufficiency theory need only to identify a possible space for determining a plausible threshold, and I argue against the high–low threshold dilemma concern, that multiple-threshold views can solve this dilemma. I then distinguish between currency-pluralist and currency-monist multiple-threshold views and test them against two different versions of the widely (...) shared ‘ignorance of inequality objection’ to sufficientarianism—a benefit-driven and a burden-driven version. I argue that currency-pluralist sufficiency views are better capable of responding to the former than currency-monist views. However, I show that no existing sufficiency view can provide a plausible response to the burden-driven version. Hence, I conclude that the problem of unequal distribution of burdens above the thresholds represents an overlooked threat to the sufficiency view, in any version. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with the moral-philosophical dimensions of global poverty and inequality. The first chapter argues in favour of justice-based – contrasted with beneficence-based – obligations asking the wealthy to actively do something about severe poverty abroad. The distinguishing property of justice-based obligations is that they derive their high level of moral stringency from the fact that they ask the obligation-bearer to rectify for past and/or present violations of negative obligations, such as the obligation not to harm anybody. Partly (...) in following and partly in reinterpreting Thomas Pogge the first chapter concludes that the current economic and political order harms the global poor by making it difficult or impossible for them to satisfy their basic needs. To the extent that better-off states uphold such an unjust global order and contribute to the poor’s enduring dire straits they have obligations of justice to secure the basic needs of the poor. This is why the approach introduced and defended in this essay is called “basic needs cosmopolitanism”. The second chapter examines the idea of “basic needs” more detailed. Basic needs cosmopolitanism employs a specific notion of basic needs that is derived from Martha Nussbaum’s list of ten central human functional capabilities. These capabilities are of universal appeal, i.e. they are concerned with activities and states of being that are indispensable features of every human life. After discussing Nussbaum’s justification for the universal applicability of her list and after examining in more detail the list itself the argument distinguishes between basic needs for the material and basic needs for the non-material prerequisites for possessing these central capabilities. Both groups of basic needs have to be satisfied by a sufficient quality and quantity in order for a society to count as being able to meet its citizens basic needs and as being able to secure all its citizens’ central capabilities. The crucial idea is that if Nussbaum’s central capabilities are presented as having universal appeal, the related basic needs are of global applicability as well. The standard of material and non-material prerequisites is applied to a) the question of whether and to what extent the global order harms the poor and b) the question of what and how much material transfers from the wealthy to the poor are required on grounds of justice. Since this dissertation’s topic is global distributive justice the primary focus of this argument lies on the material pre-requisites that have to be available in order to secure central capabilities for all. This does not imply that the non-material basic needs for living in a society ruled by just and stable political and social institutions are less important. A complete version of basic needs cosmopolitanism will have to dedicate equal consideration to obligations of justice related to the global order’s responsibility for poor countries’ lack of the non-material prerequisites. The notion of “potential functionings”, introduced in concluding this essay, is supposed to underline the importance of securing central capabilities for all members of poor societies and expresses again basic needs cosmopolitanism’s commitment to identifying universal minimal standards of social and economic global justice. (shrink)

What is a just way of spending public resources for health and health care? Several significant answers to this question are under debate. Public spending could aim to promote greater equality in health, for example, or maximize the health of the population, or provide the worst off with the best possible health. Another approach is to aim for each person to have "enough" so that her health or access to health care does not fall under a critical level. This latter (...) approach is called sufficientarian. Sufficientarian approaches to distributive justice are intuitively appealing, but require further analysis and assessment. What exactly is sufficiency? Why do we need it? What does it imply for the just distribution of health or healthcare? This volume offers fresh perspectives on these critical questions. Philosophers, bioethicists, health policy-makers, and health economists investigate sufficiency and its application to health and health care in fifteen original contributions. (shrink)

This article investigates the weak distributivity of Boolean σ-algebras satisfying the countable chain condition. It addresses primarily the question when such algebras carry a σ-additive measure. We use as a starting point the problem of John von Neumann stated in 1937 in the Scottish Book. He asked if the countable chain condition and weak distributivity are sufficient for the existence of such a measure.Subsequent research has shown that the problem has two aspects: one set theoretic and one combinatorial. Recent (...) results provide a complete solution of both the set theoretic and the combinatorial problems. We shall survey the history of von Neumann's Problem and outline the solution of the set theoretic problem. The technique that we describe owes much to the early work of Dorothy Maharam to whom we dedicate this article.§1. Complete Boolean algebras and weak distributivity. ABoolean algebrais a setBwith Boolean operationsa˅b,a˄b and −a, partial orderinga≤bdefined bya˄b=aand the smallest and greatest element,0and1. By Stone's Representation Theorem, every Boolean algebra is isomorphic to an algebra of subsets of some nonempty setS, under operationsa∪b,a∩b,S−a, ordered by inclusion, with0= ∅ and1=S.Complete Boolean algebras and weak distributivity.A Boolean algebrais a setBwith Boolean operationsa˅b,a˄b and -a, partial orderinga≤bdefined bya˄b=aand the smallest and greatest element.0and1. By Stone's Representation Theorem, every Boolean algebra is isomorphic to an algebra of subsets of some nonempty setS, under operationsa∪b,a∩b,S-a, ordered by inclusion, with0= ϕ and1=S. (shrink)

In some discussions on global distributive justice, it is argued that the factthat the state exercises coercive authority over its own citizens explains whythe state has egalitarian distributive obligations to its own but not to otherindividuals in the world at large. Two recent works make the case that the globalorder is indeed coercive in a morally significant way for generating certainglobal distributive obligations. Nicole Hassoun argues that the coercivecharacter of the global order gives rise to global duties of humanitarian aid.Laura (...) Valentini argues that the existence of global coercion triggers globaldistributive duties more demanding than mere humanitarianism, but notnecessarily as demanding as cosmopolitan egalitarian duties. This reviewessay suggests that Hassoun’s and Valentini’s depictions of the global orderas coercive entitle them to the stronger conclusion that there are globalegalitarian duties. (shrink)

What is a just way of spending public resources for health and health care? Several significant answers to this question are under debate. Public spending could aim to promote greater equality in health, for example, or maximize the health of the population, or provide the worst off with the best possible health. Another approach is to aim for each person to have "enough" so that her health or access to health care does not fall under a critical level. This latter (...) approach is called sufficientarian. Sufficientarian approaches to distributive justice are intuitively appealing, but require further analysis and assessment. What exactly is sufficiency? Why do we need it? What does it imply for the just distribution of health or healthcare? This volume offers fresh perspectives on these critical questions. Philosophers, bioethicists, health policy-makers, and health economists investigate sufficiency and its application to health and health care in fifteen original contributions. (shrink)

According to the so-called presumption of equality, a person who does not know whether there is an acceptable reason for differential treatment should just presume the similarity of the cases and treat them equally. If we assume that the presumption of equality is an acceptable moral principle, at least when the allocation cannot be postponed and an equal distribution of goods is possible, then an important question arises: when exactly does the allocator have sufficient reasons for differential treatment (...) and is not relevantly ignorant? This is a question about the required strength of the “acceptable reasons” for differential treatment. It has been commonplace to think that the presumption of equality demands that the reasons that refute the presumption must be very strong and that differential treatment requires that there is a proper justification for the claim that the cases are relevantly different. I will argue, however, that refuting the presumption and solving the issue are two separate matters. A person can have good enough reasons for rejecting the presumption that the cases are relevantly similar without having reasons that she could present as a full justification for the claim that the cases are relevantly different. A precondition of the applicability of the presumption of equality is ignorance, but not ignorance in the sense of “not having a full justification”. (shrink)

We consider the problems arising from using sequences of experiments to discover the causal structure among a set of variables, none of whom are known ahead of time to be an “outcome”. In particular, we present various approaches to resolve conflicts in the experimental results arising from sampling variability in the experiments. We provide a sufficient condition that allows for pooling of data from experiments with different joint distributions over the variables. Satisfaction of the condition allows for an independence (...) test with greater sample size that may resolve some of the conflicts in the experimental results. The pooling condition has its own problems, but should—due to its generality—be informative to techniques for meta-analysis. (shrink)

In this article, I firstly discuss why a prioritarian clause can rescue the utilitarian doctrine from the risk of exacerbating inequality in the distribution of resources in those cases in which utility of income does not decline at the margin. Nonetheless, when in the presence of adaptive preferences, classic prioritarianism is more likely than utilitarianism to increase the inequality of resources under all circumstances, independently of the diminishing trend of utility. Hence, I propose to shift the informational focus of (...) prioritarianism from welfare to either social income or capabilities in order to safeguard those who are worse off. Following this, I argue that we may have reasons to limit the aggregative logic of priority-amended utilitarianism through one or more sufficiency thresholds, and that we can partially defuse the negative-thesis objection that is usually levelled against sufficientarianism, provided we interpret the threshold(s) as valid only as long as everyone is led above it. (shrink)

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not (...) equality. The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision. (shrink)

Liam Shields systematically clarifies and defends the political philosophy of Sufficientarianism, which insists that securing enough of some things, such as food, healthcare and education, is a crucial demand of justice. By engaging in practical debates about critical issues such as child-rearing and global justice, the author sheds light on the potential implications of suffientarianism on the social policies that affect our daily lives.

I argue that Harry Frankfurt’s doctrine of sufficiency, properly understood, presents a plausible alternative to egalitarianism. My position may be more general than Frankfurt’s, insofar as he limits himself to economic sufficiency; on my view, insufficiency is a generic reason for the rejection of principles governing permissible behavior. By situating sufficiency within a contractualist framework of moral permissibility, I provide an alternative to common (and, I think, mistaken) characterizations of the doctrine of sufficiency as either subordinate to equality or primarily (...) concerned with maximizing cases of sufficiency. (shrink)

Some contend that in the absence of a world state, it is nonsense to speak of the principles of distributive justice. Thomas Nagel is among those who claim that the principles of social justice can only be effectively applied after a world state is established. Nagel supports this claim on the basis of the social contract theory; namely, that a coercive collective authority is necessary to secure obedience to the principles of justice. In this essay, I argue that a world (...) state is neither necessary nor sufficient to fulfill the requirements of social justice among nations. There are good reasons for doubting the efficiency of a world state in satisfying the principles of global distributive justice. Also, there are alternative ways of executing these principles through nation-states on the basis of international agreements or through voluntary international organizations. (shrink)

Computational models have shown that purely statistical knowledge about words’ linguistic contexts is sufficient to learn many properties of words, including syntactic and semantic category. For example, models can infer that “postman” and “mailman” are semantically similar because they have quantitatively similar patterns of association with other words. In contrast to these computational results, artificial language learning experiments suggest that distributional statistics alone do not facilitate learning of linguistic categories. However, experiments in this paradigm expose participants to entirely novel (...) words, whereas real language learners encounter input that contains some known words that are semantically organized. In three experiments, we show that the presence of familiar semantic reference points facilitates distributional learning and this effect crucially depends both on the presence of known words and the adherence of these known words to some semantic organization. (shrink)

The distribution of the flap allophone [ɾ] of American English, along with the other allophones of /t/,[t h,t =, ʔ, t] has been accounted for in various formal frameworks by assuming a number of different abstract mechanisms and entities. The desirability or usefulness of these formalisms is not at issue in the present paper. Instead, a computationally explicit model of categorization is used (Skousen 1989, 1992) in order to account for the distribution of the allophones of /t/ without (...) recourse to such formalisms. The simulations that were carried out suggest that they are not needed because analogy to surface apparent variables such as phones and word boundaries is sufficient to predict allophony. In analogy, the particular allophone of /t/ (i.e. [ɾ, t h, t =, ʔ, t]) that appears in a given context is determined on the basis of similarity to stored exemplars in the mental lexicon. From an acquisitional standpoint, categorization by analogy to stored exemplars dispenses with the need for rule induction although it does suggest that speakers group functionally related sounds into mental categories, a process that is influenced to a great deal by orthography. Analogy also explains the stochastic nature of linguistic performance. In the present study, 3,719 tokens of the allophones of the phoneme /t/ were extracted from the TIMIT corpus and constitute the database from which analogs were chosen. The variables used included the three phones or boundaries on either side of /t/, and the stress of the syllables preceding and following /t/. The model proves quite successful in predicting the correct allophone, and the errors made are generally possible alternative pronunciations (e.g. moun[ʔ]ain, moun[t h ]ain). The success rate changes little when only small sub-samples of the database are incorporated. In addition, exemplar-modeling is found to be quite robust because even when a feature such as stress is eliminated, (a feature which is critical in most rule approaches), allophony is still highly predictable. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged that most accounts of distributive justice face a trilemma pertaining to agents who are badly off, or risk becoming so, due to their own imprudent behavior: If we a) leave such agents to their own devices, some might perish, which is harsh (Harshness). If we b) force such agents to buy insurance, for their own good (or ban certain risky activities), we act paternalistically (Paternalism). If we c) secure sufficiency for such agents by taxing everyone, we (...) exploit the prudent (Exploitation). This paper discusses how luck egalitarianism should handle this trilemma. The view defended is that luck egalitarianism should avoid Harshness and Paternalism, and accept Exploitation, by incorporating a sufficientarian constraint. The paper further shows how this can be done without violating core luck egalitarian commitments. Lastly, the paper asks whether securing sufficiency for the imprudent really amounts to exploitation as such, and whether it is, in any case, unfair. (shrink)

The distinction between equality and sufficiency, much discussed in the distributive justice literature, is here applied to democratic theory. Overlooking this distinction can have significant normative implications, undermining some defences and criticisms of political equality, as I show by discussing the work of three prominent democratic theorists: Thomas Christiano, David Estlund, and Mark Warren. Most importantly, Christiano sometimes defends egalitarian conclusions using sufficientarian premises, or worries about inequality in situations where insufficiency is also part of the problem; inequality above the (...) level of sufficiency is not always as troubling. Estlund makes the reverse error. He attacks rather than defends political egalitarianism, but insufficiency seems to explain some of his concerns. Nonetheless, I show that political egalitarians may need to specify a sufficientarian threshold, to avoid levelling-down objections. Democratic theorists should thus take seriously the distinction between political equality and political sufficiency. More generally, political theorists and philosophers should be aware of omitted variable bias and interaction effects due to conceptual stretching arising from under-theorised distinctions in their thought experiments. (shrink)

The essay "The Problem of Global Distributive Justice in The Law of Peoples by John Rawls" is concerned with the question of distributive claims of justice in the global realm. The conception of international justice developed by John Rawls in his book The Law of Peoples offers a very limited kind of distribution of goods beyond state borders, where the matter of the distribution of wealth is restricted to a single state. The Rawlsian point of view is frequently (...) objected to by proponents of so-called cosmopolitanism, like Thomas Pogge or Charles Beitz, who argue for globalizing Rawlsian justice as fairness. Five objections that may be raised against the Rawlsian idea of limiting the scope of distributive justice are analysed: the consistency problem; the status of the principles of the law of peoples; the method of justification; the self-sufficiency of states; and tolerance. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged that most accounts of distributive justice face a trilemma pertaining to agents who are badly off, or risk becoming so, due to their own imprudent behavior: If we a) leave such agents to their own devices, some might perish, which is harsh. If we b) force such agents to buy insurance, for their own good, we act paternalistically. If we c) secure sufficiency for such agents by taxing everyone, we exploit the prudent. This paper discusses how (...) luck egalitarianism should handle this trilemma. The view defended is that luck egalitarianism should avoid Harshness and Paternalism, and accept Exploitation, by incorporating a sufficientarian constraint. The paper further shows how this can be done without violating core luck egalitarian commitments. Lastly, the paper asks whether securing sufficiency for the imprudent really amounts to exploitation as such, and whether it is, in any case, unfair. (shrink)

A republican theory of social justice specifies how republican freedom should be distributed. The goal of this paper is to assess the plausibility of two recently proposed principles of republican social justice: an aggregative maximizing principle defended by Philip Pettit in Republicanism and a sufficiency principle of republican social justice offered by Pettit in On the People’s Terms. The maximizing principle must be rejected because it permits under-protecting vulnerable members of society in favor of increasing the freedom of the powerful. (...) The sufficiency principle avoids the most basic objection to the maximizing principle, but it is at best an incomplete theory of social justice. Social justice requires principle(s) for determining the justice of distributions above the sufficiency threshold and republican theory does not determine which principle(s) should govern distributions above the threshold. Republicans must decide whether they will incorporate an independent commitment to equality within their theory of social justice. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between distributive injustice and political obligation within the confines of the fair-play theory of political obligation. More specifically, it asks how the distribution of benefits and burdens of a cooperative scheme affects people’s fair-play obligations to that scheme. It argues that neither a sufficiency-based nor a proportionality-based approach is capable of answering that question singlehandedly. However, the two approaches can be combined in a plausible way. Noting that some of the duties that go into (...) our fair-play obligations are ‘gradual’ and others are ‘non-gradual’, the article argues that the sufficiency-based approach explains non-gradual duties such as the duty to obey the law, and that the proportionality-based approach explains gradual duties like political participation and civic responsibility. Thus, the article contends that the fair-play theory should be extended beyond the question of legal compliance and be applied to the duties of good citizenship more generally. (shrink)

As I sit down to begin this essay, the strains of “Tristan und Isolde” are still ringing in my ears; meanwhile, another dozen or so Pakistanian refugees have died for lack of sufficient food, shelter, or medical attention, probably, during the time it will have taken to compose this paragraph. The Isolde in that performance commanded, probably, a fee of four or five thousand dollars; each member of the audience paid, on the average, perhaps ten dollars to see the (...) performance. This works out, probably, to an average of one year’s worth of refugees kept alive and in some sort of health for every two members of the audience, or about two hundred for the wages of the leading soprano for one evening. The arithmetic is doubtless inaccurate: possibly it would require as much as three opera tickets to keep our refugee going, and Isolde could manage but fifty. But the orders of magnitude are about right. (shrink)

What is a just distribution of economic benefits and burdens? Principles of distributive justice help us answer this and related questions about how we should design the economic system. Principles of distributive justice guide our perception and judgment by telling us what facts to care about and when and why these facts reveal justice or injustice in the distribution of some good or burden. Thus, these principles bridge the gap between basic normative categories of right and wrong and (...) facts about our social world, guiding our attempts to build more just societies. This chapter presents and discusses the main principles of distributive justice—the principles of equality, sufficiency, liberty, utility, priority, merit, and equality of opportunity. (shrink)

[Comment] Jonathan Herington argues that harms can occur whether or not there is actually a loss. He claims that subjectively or objectively merely being at risk of losing access to basic goods is sufficient for lowering that individual’s well-being for the value of ‘security’. I challenge whether losing access to basic goods is sufficient to justify the introduction of this value. I also point to some issues in his interpretation of IPCC risk categories and the social science research (...) he relies on. [Open access]. (shrink)

The welfare state raises questions concerning the just distribution of benefits. The proceeds from tort liability and insurance supplementing or replacing such liability are benefits that must be included in this context. The author argues that neither distribution based solely on the needs of various persons injured nor considerations of economic efficiency are sufficient. Commutative justice must be considered relevant as well. The ultimate valuations cannot be justified by rational arguments alone but such arguments must be taken (...) into account in order to reach legitimate results. (shrink)

On some accounts of vagueness, predicates like “is a heap” are tolerant. That is, their correct application tolerates sufficiently small changes in the objects to which they are applied. Of course, such views face the sorites paradox, and various solutions have been proposed. One proposed solution involves banning repeated appeals to tolerance, while affirming tolerance in any individual case. In effect, this solution rejects the reasoning of the sorites argument. This paper discusses a thorny problem afflicting this approach to vagueness. (...) In particular, it is shown that, on the foregoing view, whether an object is a heap will sometimes depend on factors extrinsic to that object, such as whether its components came from other heaps. More generally, the paper raises the issue of how to count heaps in a tolerance-friendly framework. (shrink)

The paper introduces the concept of B-Almost distributive fuzzy lattice in terms of its principal ideal fuzzy lattice. Necessary and sufficient conditions for an ADFL to become a B-ADFL are investigated. We also prove the equivalency of B-algebra and B-fuzzy algebra. In addition, we extend PSADL to PSADFL and prove that B-ADFL implies PSADFL.

Even if a lattice L is not distributive, it is still possible that for particular elements x, y, z ∈ L it holds ∧z = ∨. If this is the case, we say that the triple is distributive. In this note we provide some sufficient conditions for the distributivity of a given triple.

This study examines public health nurses’ perceptions and concerns about the implications of Japan’s new long-term care insurance law concerning care provision for elderly people and their families. Respondents voiced their primary concern about this law as access to services for all elderly people needing care, and defined their major responsibility as strengthening health promotion and illness prevention programmes. Although wanting to expand their roles to meet the health care, social and public policy advocacy needs of elderly persons and their (...) families, respondents also stated their concern for the possible lack of enough resources for this expansion to support family caregivers adequately. They viewed their first function as developing collaborative relationships with local government officials to help to assure sufficient resources to provide the necessary foundation for long-term care programmes to deliver services to all those in need. These concerns fall within the larger ethical issue of distributive justice in a society based on the obligations of the state to citizens and the family to its members, especially elderly relatives, who, according to traditional Japanese values, retain respect. (shrink)

In the paper, I distinguish the bottom-up strategy and the intentional stance strategy of analyzing group intentional states, and show that the thesis of distributed group subject of knowledge could be accommodated by either of them. Moreover, I argue that when combined with virtue reliabilism the thesis satisfactorily explains the phenomenon of group knowledge. To justify my argument, in the second part of the paper, I distinguish two accounts of justification pointing to conditions of group knowledge. The first, which I (...) call the belief-centered approach to group intentional states, determines the concept of group belief and group justificatory reason. The second, the process-centered approach represented by S. Orestis Palermos, employs the theory of virtue reliabilism and focuses on the group knowledge-conducive process. In the paper, I argue in favor of the latter as the internalism associated with the former appears to lack sufficient explanatory power. The theory of virtue epistemology runs into considerable difficulties when trying to deal with an extended epistemic subject composed of one individual and her cognitive artifact. In the two last parts of the paper, I consider the most important difficulties and argue that these obstacles are overcome once one adopts an approach combining virtue epistemology and the thesis of distributed group epistemic subject. (shrink)