John Rawls famously holds that the basic structure is the 'primary subject of justice.'1 By this, he means that his two principles of justice apply only to a society's major political and social institutions, including chiefly the constitution, the economic and legal systems, and (more contentiously) the family structure.2 This thesis — call it the basic structure restriction — entails that the celebrated difference principle has a narrower scope than one might have expected. It doesn't apply directly to choices that (...) individuals make within the basic structure. Individuals can live up to the demands of justice simply by obeying whatever rules are set by, and by doing what is necessary to sustain, the basic .. (shrink)

The central claim of Kant's political philosophy is that rational agents sharing a territory can justifiably be forced to live under a state; they have, in Kant's words, a duty of right to leave the state of nature. Perhaps something along these lines is entailed by any theory of state legitimacy, but the point raises special difficulties for Kant. He believes that rational agents have a right to freedom; that is, he believes that a rational agent's external freedom - her (...) ability to set and pursue ends for herself without being subject to the choices of others - can justifiably be restricted only for the sake of external freedom itself. To establish that human beings can be forced to join a civil condition, it will therefore not do to show that the state promotes security, prosperity or any other such value: Kant has to show that human beings living side by side need a state to be free. (shrink)

Do the demands of egalitarian justice extend to the international realm? Some believe that a positive answer follows from a simple line of reasoning: where a child happens to be born is a morally arbitrary fact; accordingly, it shouldn’t unduly influence her life prospects, as will inevitably be the case unless economic inequalities between countries are ironed out. I argue that this style of argument overlooks an important problem concerning the extent to which a person can unilaterally impose enforceable obligations (...) on others by choosing to have a child. I maintain that properly egalitarian duties of distributive justice only arise when this problem of unilateral imposition has been solved. I further argue that solving the problem requires robust political institutions that do not exist in the international context—institutions instantiating a version of what John Rawls calls pure procedural justice, to ensure that the aggregate result of individual reproductive choices is acceptable to all. (shrink)

Kyle Johannsen soutient que, pour être pleinement convaincante, la théorie de la justice de John Rawls doit incorporer la conception de l’équité associée avec l’égalitarisme des chances de G.A. Cohen. Il maintient également que, lorsqu’on modifie ainsi la théorie de Rawls, on voit que les principes choisis dans la position originelle doivent être ce que Cohen appelle des «règles de régulation». Je rétorque que la conception de l’équité qu’adopte Rawls est idéalement adaptée aux besoins de sa théorie, et que l’incorporation (...) de la conception de l’équité que défend Cohen rendrait indéterminé le résultat de la position originelle. (shrink)

The possibility of collective action is essential to human freedom. Yet, as Rousseau famously argued, individuals acting together allow themselves to depend on one another’s choices and thereby jeopardize one another’s freedom. These two facts jointly constitute what I call the normative problem of collective action. I argue that solving this problem is harder than it looks. It cannot be done merely in terms of moral obligations; indeed, it ultimately requires putting in place a full-fledged system of contract rights. The (...) point has important ramifications for contract theory. The role that contract rights play in reconciling collective action and freedom turns out to be crucial to understanding how—and by whom—these rights can legitimately be enforced. It also explains why expectation damages should be the standard remedy for breach of contract. (shrink)

Does the kind of socialist ideal articulated by G. A. Cohen in Why Not Socialism? add anything substantial to the Rawlsian conception of justice? Is it an ideal that Rawlsians should want to take on board, or is it ultimately foreign to their outlook? I defend a mixed answer to these questions. On the one hand, we shouldn’t underestimate the extent to which Rawls's theory already addresses the concerns that motivate Cohen’s appeal to the socialist ideal. Within the bounds of (...) a society living up to Rawls’s two principles of justice, I maintain, there would be little room left for an ideal of social relations to do any independent work. On the other hand, Cohen’s ideal may still have an important role to play within Rawlsian theory – not within the confines of a given society but on the international stage, beyond the liberal state as we know it. This asymmetry between the domestic and the international case stems from the fact that Rawls's principles of justice apply in full strength only at the domestic l... (shrink)