POLI 342 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Average Joe, Distributive Justice
11 May 2018
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Lecture 8: February 7:
As for readings- take a quick look at the reading and then after class go into depth in the
reading.
Cohen on ‘Fair Shares’ and ‘reasonable regret’-
-What is reasonable for people to regret and what is not ?
-Cohen responds to this argument- he thinks we can account for this notion just
with the idea of the opportunity for well-being.
-Even if we do need to rely on a prior notion of fair shares in determining how well
off someone is for purposes of distributive justice, there is no reason why we can’t
characterize a person’s fair share of society’s resources precisely as that bundle of
resources that would make their opportunity for well-being equal to that of every
other person in the society. We can say the same about the idea of what a person is
entitled to/can reasonably regret not having.
-So in itself Dworkin’s appeal to fair shares/ reasonable regret doesn’t constitute a
good argument that equality of resources is a relevant dimension of equality.
—Everyone is entitled to a certain idea of well-being.
Cheap Expensive Tastes:
-Initially comes into play with Dworkin with Jude-
-Cohen thinks that the cheap expensive tastes- expensive because they require
more resources. He suggest that cases of cheap expensive tastes again provide
reason to prefer equality of access to advantage to both equality of well-being and
equality of resources.
-We can see this by adding more detail to our previous example of Helen- Suppose
Helen was previously content with Molson Canadian, but resolved (under the
resolve of her hipster Montreal friends) to deliberately cultivate a taste for fancy
craft beers. Helen still requires fewer overall resources to attain the same level of
well-being as your average Joe six-packs, because her tastes remain in other
respects unusually modest. Still, raising her well-being to an average level is more
expensive than it would have been had she not gone out of her way to develop a
more refined beer palate.
-Two questions: should Helen receive fewer resources than Joe Six-Pack because
she is (still) a more efficient converter of resources into well-being? Should she
receive more resources than she would have retained her previous beer tastes?
-Cohen thinks that our answer to both of these questions should be ‘yes’. However,
equality of resources has to answer the first question in the negative. Equality of
well-being has to do the same with the second question. So they seem to both
capture only part of the truth. Concerned about opportunity for well-being and not
just well-being.
Scanlon’s 1st Challenge:
-Consider Pious Peter, who adheres to a very demanding set of religious strictures
and as a result is continually plagued with guilt. Moreover, Peter believes this guilt
is quite appropriate and world not chose to be rid of it. Even if, as most often the
Document Summary
As for readings- take a quick look at the reading and then after class go into depth in the reading. Cohen responds to this argument- he thinks we can account for this notion just with the idea of the opportunity for well-being. We can say the same about the idea of what a person is entitled to/can reasonably regret not having. So in itself dworkin"s appeal to fair shares/ reasonable regret doesn"t constitute a good argument that equality of resources is a relevant dimension of equality. Everyone is entitled to a certain idea of well-being. Initially comes into play with dworkin with jude- Cohen thinks that the cheap expensive tastes- expensive because they require more resources. He suggest that cases of cheap expensive tastes again provide reason to prefer equality of access to advantage to both equality of well-being and equality of resources. We can see this by adding more detail to our previous example of helen- suppose.
