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The Many, Not the Few: Pluralism About Global Distributive Justice*
Abstract
Several theorists have recently advocated a move towards a more “pluralistic” approach to global distributive justice. What exactly would this move involve, and is it a good idea? This paper attempts to make some headway on these questions. I begin by distinguishing several candidate forms of pluralism in the domain of distributive justice. I next show how each of these forms is well supported, although for different reasons, within three widely endorsed approaches to distributive justice in general. I then vindicate the claim that current philosophical writing on global distributive justice in particular, by proponents of these three approaches among others, is at most weakly pluralistic in nature. I argue that this anti-pluralistic strain is both surprising in light of the theoretical consensus highlighted earlier, and counter-intuitive on its own terms. I finish by offering a set of debunking explanations for the force that anti-pluralism about global distributive justice exerts upon us, despite its apparently weak rationale. 1 The Many, Not the Few: Pluralism About Global Distributive Justice Theories of global distributive justice address the following sorts of questions. Should we
... This is in part because the concept of pluralism has been conceived in many different ways, but only seldom in terms of the context-dependency of justice principles(De Bres, 2012). Instead, pluralism commonly refers to various grounds of justice-related judgements (ground pluralism; De Bres, 2012;Rippon, Theuns, de Maagt, Zala, & van den Brink, 2018), to multiple actors who can be subject of justice decisions(subject pluralism;De Bres, 2012) or to the mere coexistence of various justice ideals in societies (multidimensionality of justice;Cappelen et al., 2007;Leventhal et al., 1980;Taylor-Gooby et al., 2018).Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. ...
... This is in part because the concept of pluralism has been conceived in many different ways, but only seldom in terms of the context-dependency of justice principles(De Bres, 2012). Instead, pluralism commonly refers to various grounds of justice-related judgements (ground pluralism; De Bres, 2012;Rippon, Theuns, de Maagt, Zala, & van den Brink, 2018), to multiple actors who can be subject of justice decisions(subject pluralism;De Bres, 2012) or to the mere coexistence of various justice ideals in societies (multidimensionality of justice;Cappelen et al., 2007;Leventhal et al., 1980;Taylor-Gooby et al., 2018).Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
Empirical public opinion research on distributive justice often does not acknowledge that individuals’ social justice preferences may strongly depend on the particular type of distribution at stake and therefore does not take into account the multiplicity of justice principles that people may simultaneously apply in their distributive judgements. As a result, to contribute to the understanding of differentiated justice preferences, we analyse citizens’ preferences for the principles of equality, equity and need in the three welfare domains of health care, pensions and unemployment benefits. In particular, this paper provides insight into the domain specificity of distributive justice preferences, into specific configurations or combinations of justice preferences across domains and into the social and ideological basis of these configurations. On the basis of data from the Belgian National Elections Study of 2014, we conduct a three-step latent class analysis. Results show that the distributive justice principles are preferred to a different extent for various welfare domains and that there is a substantial proportion of respondents that combines different principles of justice across welfare domains. This study also demonstrates that configurations are mainly structured by ideology instead of the social structure.
... The early global justice debate was dominated by the disagreement between global egalitarians who argued for a single global domain of justice and statists who held fast to the focus on bounded societies. If this suggested a form of monism about the domain of justice on both sides of the debate, 3 a "third wave" of global justice theorists has attempted to provide a more pluralistic and nuanced picture of the distinct justicegenerating phenomena in the global realm (Cohen and Sabel 2006;De Bres 2012;James 2012;Miller 2010;Risse 2012;Valentini 2011a). These phenomena include formal and informal institutions, regime complexes, or social practices that transcend the borders of any single country. ...
The global justice debate has increasingly moved toward the analysis of concrete issues in global politics, such as trade, migration, or climate change. This raises a methodological question: should the demands of justice in these domains be theorized independently or in conjunction with one another? Integrationists have championed the latter approach, arguing that it is better suited to guide our practical judgments. In contrast, internalists maintain that each domain is governed by its own set of principles. This paper defends the plausibility of the internalist approach against integrationist challenges. By examining different interpretations of internalism, it first seeks to provide a clearer overview of the methodological dispute. It then analyzes various arguments for integrationism, showing that their implications are more limited than their proponents believe. Finally, it focuses on the question of practical guidance, highlighting the value of idealized domain-specific theorizing in guiding transitions toward just arrangements.
Over the past two decades the academic literature on global distributive justice has generated a proliferation of positions regarding the question of how to conceive a globally just distribution of goods. One important development within this global justice debate is the emergence and increasing influence of several Pluralist theorists of global justice—including, perhaps most prominently, Fraser, R. Miller, and Risse. This article argues that Pluralists have not yet sufficiently engaged with the difficulty of how their conceptions of global justice could satisfy the publicity condition. This condition requires that the demands of justice must be publicly known to be recognized and fulfilled. This article explains why meeting this condition is especially difficult for the Pluralists. Then, it outlines an Integrated Pluralist position which, by placing special emphasis on global background justice, can meet the publicity condition. This position “integrates” concerns of justice emerging from a plurality of sites of justice. Thereby it follows “Integrationist” approaches to global justice—like those of Caney and Walton—which claim that the contents of justice of a given site of justice must not be determined in isolation from contents of other sites of justice.
The global city is a contested site of economic innovation and cultural production, as well as profound inequalities of wealth and life chances. These cities, and large cities that aspire to 'global' status, are often the point of entry for new immigrants. Yet for political theorists (and indeed many scholars of global institutions), these critical sites of global influence and inequality have not been a significant focus of attention. This is curious. Theorists have wrestled with the nature and demands of global justice, but have for the most part supposed that the debate is between statist and cosmopolitan formulations. Questions of redistribution, immigration, humanitarian obligations, coercion at borders, and territorial rights have correspondingly been cast as either the domain of sovereign territorial states, or of the nascent web of supranational institutions that might bind those states and peoples, morally and legally. Examining some of these issues and arguments through the lens of the global city casts them in a new and informative light, and buttresses an associative turn in thinking about global justice.
Investment protection clauses, and the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms they enable, have become a common feature of international agreements on trade and investment. Intended to promote foreign investment, these protections may also discourage governments from regulating in the public interest. This raises challenging normative questions about the rights of investors and distributive justice. In this paper, I argue that a global investment regime that disadvantages developing countries and socially disadvantaged groups is prima facie unfair. This conclusion must be defended against the claim that investors have certain independent moral rights to have their property protected, regardless of the distributive consequences. Granting the premise that such investor rights exist, I argue that these cannot plausibly ground a general rule against public interest regulation that undermines the value of property. I conclude that even if foreign investors have rights that must be safeguarded, the current investment regime must be reformed.
Pluralistic theories of global distributive justice aim at justifying a plurality of principles for various subglobal contexts of distributive justice. Helena de Bres has recently proposed the class of disaggregated pluralistic theories, according to which we should refrain from defending principles that apply to the shared background conditions of such subglobal contexts. This article argues that if one does not justify how these background conditions should be regulated by principles of a just global basic structure, then the (apparent) realization of the principles that are justified for the subglobal contexts of distributive justice can erode and undermine justice over time. For example, the realization of justice in international trade might undermine climate justice, at least if climate justice requires increasing tariffs (in order to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions) but justice in international trade calls for reducing tariffs (in order to create a level playing field). Principles of a just global basic structure would have to ensure that such justice-eroding spillover effects from one to another context of justice do not occur. Finally, the article responds critically to de Bres’ objections that an account of a just global basic structure is too idealistic, not action guiding, and superfluous.
This paper aims to outline a multi-layered conception of justice that is appropriate to the circumstances of justice in the European Union. Adopting the Rawlsian concept of public reason, it submits that duties of justice can only be imposed to the extent that the actors involved command a shared set of reasons by which these can be justified. The paper’s argument follows Rawls in using public reason to justify a qualitative distinction between the demands that derive from the domestic and the international domain of justice. It criticises Rawls, however, for misjudging the radical implications of this position in a world that has become much more internationalised than he recognised it to be.
Change is a central concept in Turkish and global politics. It forms the basis of liberal ideology, alongside freedom, democracy, and equality. In this spirit of change, radical liberal thinkers question the state of contemporary international relations with a focus on justice and fairness. Ahmet Davutoğlu appreciates the importance of these liberal considerations, and he claims the global order is in a period of transformation, in which Turkey and the rest of the world will come into new political roles. In order to facilitate the formation of a fair, cooperative world order, Davutoğlu promotes a global consensus based on cosmopolitanism and multilateralism. These ideas for international reform are consistent with radical liberalism. However, he also considers the formation of a new global order according to his conservative and Islamic ideas—a position inconsistent with liberalism. This contradiction demands a better understanding of Davutoğlu’s stance in domestic politics and international relations, and a consideration of implications for Turkey’s global identity.
The urgent need to address climate change poses a range of complex moral and practical concerns, not least because rising to the challenge will require cooperation among countries that differ greatly in their wealth, the extent of their contributions to the problem, and their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. This thesis by publication in the field of climate ethics aims to characterise a range of national responsibilities associated with acting on climate change (Part I), and to identify proposals for fulfilling those responsibilities through fair and feasible institutional arrangements (Part II). I aim not only to address substantive gaps in scholarly understanding of those responsibilities, but also to strengthen the ability of climate ethics to engage meaningfully with climate policy.
Chapter 2 addresses the question of whether wealthy countries owe a “climate debt” to poor countries. It finds that even if climate debt (suitably interpreted) may provide a coherent and morally plausible concept, its political value as a discursive frame that can provide a basis for cooperation is limited.
Chapter 3 investigates the role that equity may play in negotiations on a long-term climate change agreement. It argues that developed and developing countries may reach a “principled bargain” if both converge on a way of differentiating their responsibilities that places less emphasis on a rigid dichotomy between the two groups and more emphasis on objective criteria relating to their contribution to the problem and capacity to address it.
Chapter 4 explores a question largely overlooked in climate ethics, namely whether wealthy countries owe compensation to those who are adversely affected by the climate policies which they enact. I find that enacting countries have responsibilities to compensate both domestic and foreign citizens who would suffer disproportionate losses from the effects of policies.
Chapter 5 assesses whether wealthy countries may legitimately adopt unilateral (or “fragmented”) rather than multilaterally coordinated approaches to raising climate finance for developing countries. It finds that coordinated target-setting, effort sharing and oversight arrangements are essential, but that a mix of unilateral and coordinated approaches to raising funds will be necessary for securing legitimacy.
In Chapter 6, through addressing the broader question of what should count as official aid, I consider whether wealthy countries may draw on aid budgets to support developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I find that the current definition of official aid should be retained but supplemented by specified exclusions from eligibility in order to preserve the aid regime’s integrity. Nevertheless, some climate finance may justifiably be counted as aid provided that concerns relating to the diversion of aid funding are addressed.
In addressing these research questions, the thesis seeks not only to make original theoretical contributions to climate ethics but also to strengthen broader scholarly understanding of the ways in which ethics and international public policy may inform one another, particularly by highlighting the role of framing considerations (Chapter 2), feasibility considerations (Chapter 3), and the ways in which principles of fairness and legitimacy map onto institutional functions (Chapters 4, 5 and 6).
Within contemporary legal and political philosophy there is nothing more unpopular than defending a world state. It seems food for thought for writers like Huxley or Wells, but not a topic that deserves serious philosophical reflection. Fortunately, there are exceptions to this general rule. Theorists such as Höffe, Cabrera, Deudney and Yunker defend a version of a multilayered minimal world state - a model based on the dual principles of federalism and subsidiarity. The focus of this article is on the very fragile balance that proponents of this model have to keep between a simultaneous need for centralization and decentralization. On the basis of a critical analysis of the work of these theorists, it is argued in this article that the safeguards these authors defend to prevent a bloating of government themselves contain a tendency to hierarchical centralization. While some form of world state might be necessary to cope with the challenges posed by globalization, it is essential to discuss the shape and competences of the world state much more critically and in more detail than has been the case in the past.
Cosmopolitanism and statism represent the two dominant liberal theoretical standpoints in the current debate on global distributive justice. In this paper, I will develop a feminist argument that recommends that statist approaches be rejected. This argument has its roots in the feminist critique of liberal theories of social justice. In Justice, Gender, and the Family Susan Moller Okin argues that many liberal egalitarian theories of justice are inadequate because they assume a strict division between public and private spheres. I will argue that this inadequacy is replicated in statist approaches to global justice. To demonstrate this, I will show how an analogue of Okin's critique of Rawls's A Theory of Justice can be extended to his The Law of Peoples. I will conclude that statist theories inevitably assume a strong divide between public and private spheres and that by doing so they allow for situations marked by gross injustice which anyone concerned with the welfare of the world's most vulnerable should find unacceptable.
That our unexamined moral intuitions often lead us to commend conduct that is seriously wrong and to condemn conduct that is not wrong indicates the extent to which these intuitions clash with our Basic Moral Values. The view known as Liberationism, which holds that moral intuitions are often unreflective of basic values, contrasts with the more common view known as Preservationism, which maintains that our moral intuitions accord with our basic moral values. This book explores the inconsistencies in the Preservationist position by highlighting disparities in the responses that our intuitions generate for relevantly similar moral cases. These misleading responses are generated by psychological tendencies, such as projective separating and protophysical thinking, that distort the features of moral problems. In distorting our responses, the Preservationist position allows us to think erroneously that it is not difficult for well‐off people to lead a morally good life in a world in which serious suffering may easily be reduced. In fact, a moral life is extremely costly for well‐off people given how much we efficiently may do to alleviate the distant serious suffering of others.
In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the liberal tradition in international thought, with particular attention being paid to liberal conceptions of international distributive justice. This article describes and criticizes three different approaches to international distributive justice represented in the recent literature: (1) social liberalism, which takes the nation-state as basic and argues for international transfers to the extent necessary to sustain just domestic institutions; (2) laisser-faire liberalism, which, in its redistributivist variant, aims to rectify injustices arising from the unequal appropriation of natural resources; and (3) cosmopolitan liberalism, which takes each individual's interests as equally deserving of concern in the design of global (and sectional) institutions.
In this new book by the award-winning author of Just Healthcare, Norman Daniels develops a comprehensive theory of justice for health that answers three key questions: What is the special moral importance of health? When are health inequalities unjust? How can we meet health needs fairly when we cannot meet them all? Daniels’ theory has implications for national and global health policy: Can we meet health needs fairly in ageing societies? Or protect health in the workplace while respecting individual liberty? Or meet professional obligations and obligations of justice without conflict?
Examines which political principles should govern global politics. It explores ethical issues in justice that arise at the global level and addresses questions such as: are there universal values, and if so, what are they; what human rights, if any, are there; are there global principles of distributive justice; should there be a system of supra-state institutions; is national self-determination defensible; when, if ever, may political regimes wage war; and is humanitarian intervention justified?
The book outlines and defends an egalitarian liberal brand of cosmopolitanism to address these questions, maintaining that there are universal principles, arguing that these include universal civil and political human rights, and defending the application of global principles of distributive justice. On this basis, it makes a case for a system of supra-state political institutions to promote these universal principles of justice further. Having set out principles of ideal theory, the book then examines what principles should apply when injustices are committed. To do this it examines when political regimes may wage war and when they may engage in intervention, and thereby draws on cosmopolitan principles to derive and defend a cosmopolitan conception of just war and humanitarian intervention. In arriving at these conclusions, the book engages in a sustained analysis of the competing arguments on all the above issues, examining the arguments of nationalists, realists, and those who affirm the ideal of a society of states. To do this, the book explores and integrates the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars, and illustrates its ethical argument and theoretical analysis with empirical examples. Furthermore, it argues that the issues examined in the book cannot be adequately treated in isolation from each other but must be treated as an interlinked whole.
Want global justice? Promote global integration. That is Luis Cabrera's core claim in this book, which offers one of the firmest 'institutional cosmopolitanism' stances in the recent literature. He argues that those offering theories of global distributive justice or moral cosmopolitanism also should advocate democratically accountable integration between states as a means of ensuring more cosmopolitan outcomes. A system of competitive sovereign states is said to naturally reinforce biases against such outcomes. Selfishness becomes a patriotic virtue, and national communities left to be judge in their own cases about their own moral obligations will naturally tend to underestimate the contributions and accommodations they should make. Integration, over time taking the form of democratic global governing institutions, would help to ensure that fairer outcomes are promoted and more just distributions of resources and opportunities. made. Even if the fully integrated system is not achievable, however, accountable integration at lower levels could help to promote a range of outcomes consistent with moral cosmopolitanism and justice across borders.
Três enfoques de justiça distributiva internacional (que exprimem diferentes pressupostos da tradição liberal) representadas na literatura recente são descritos. Examina-se o tema com relação à questão dos direitos humanos.
Imagine that your body has become attached, without your permission, to that of a sick violinist. The violinist is a human being. He will die if you detach him. Such detachment seems, nonetheless, to be morally permissible. Thomson argues that an unwantedly pregnant woman is in an analogous situation. Her argument is considered by many to have established the moral permissibility of abortion even under the assumption that the foetus is a human being. Another popular argument is that presented by Singer and Unger to the effect that even those who are moderately prosperous are morally obliged to help the poor if they can do so at relatively small cost to themselves. The paper considers the question whether these two arguments can be simultaneously valid.
Standard economic theory teaches that trade benefits all countries involved, at least in the long run. While there are other reasons for trade liberalization, this insight, going back to Ricardo's 1817 Principles of Political Economy , continues to underlie international economics. Trade also raises fairness questions. First, suppose A trades with B while parts of A's population are oppressed. Do the oppressed in A have a complaint in fairness against B? Should B cease to trade? Second, suppose because of oppression or lower social standards, A's products are cheaper than B's. Can industries in B legitimately insist that their government take measures to help them compete? The Pauper-Labor Argument makes that case, and many economists enjoy dismissing it in undergraduate classes. Third, suppose A subsidizes its industries. If this lowers world market prices, does B have a fairness complaint against A? Ought countries to consider how trade policies affect others? This article is the first of two, which together develop a view that is meant to serve as a reference point for moral assessments of international trade policies. I develop this view by way of offering affirmative answers to these three questions. Since this discussion is organized around these three questions, the two studies can be read independently of each other.
This paper contrasts universalist approaches to justice with contextualist approaches. Universalists hold that basic principles of justice are invariant — they apply in every circumstance in which questions of justice arise. Contextualists hold that different principles apply in different contexts, and that there is no underlying master principle that applies in all. The paper argues that universalists cannot explain why so many different theories of justice have been put forward, nor why there is so much diversity in the judgements that ordinary people make. Several strategies open to universalists are considered and found to be wanting. Contextualism is defended against the charge that it cannot explain why contextually specific principles are all principles of justice, the charge that it can offer no practical guidance when principles conflict, and the charge that it inevitably collapses into a form of conventionalism.
L'A. presente un modele genetique de l'intersubjectivite defendant la conception phenomenologique de l'autre comme alter ego chez Husserl. Au-dela de l'objection d'une alterite absolue et de la critique de la perspective de la premiere personne, l'A. developpe une approche genetique de l'experience intersubjective en quatre etapes, selon le principe de la differenciation: 1) la proto-subjectivite de l'enfance regie par le paradigme de la similarite associative; 2) l'autre introjectif realisant la rupture de l'identite entre soi et autrui; 3) l'autre comme mise en perspective de l'alter ego et de la vie intentionnelle ; 4) l'autre individualise comme condition de l'appresentation empathique
A growing body of literature seeks to better understand the social determinants of health and, in parallel, to document the extent of health inequalities and disparities. The assumption behind this work is that inequalities are too large and that governments and international organizations ought to take steps to reduce the gaps. But what obligates society to act to reduce inequalities in health? And how does society know when inequalities are “too large”? These are the weighty questions Norman Daniels wrestles with in Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly. The book refines the theory presented in his earlier work, Just Health Care,1 with a greater emphasis on the nonmedical determinants of health and international health issues.
This chapter outlines the main ideas of my book National responsibility and global justice. It begins with two widely held but conflicting intuitions about what global justice might mean on the one hand, and what it means to be a member of a national community on the other. The first intuition tells us that global inequalities of the magnitude that currently exist are radically unjust, while the second intuition tells us that inequalities are both unavoidable and fair once national responsibility is allowed to operate. This conflict might be resolved either by adopting a cosmopolitan theory of justice (which leaves no room for national responsibility) or by adopting a ‘political’ theory of justice (which denies that questions of distributive justice can arise beyond the walls of the sovereign state). Since neither resolution is satisfactory, the chapter defends the idea of national responsibility and proposes a new theory of global justice, whose main elements are the protection of basic human rights worldwide, and fair terms of interaction between independent political communities.
The essay theorizes the responsibilities moral agents may be said to
have in relation to global structural social processes that have unjust
consequences. How ought moral agents, whether individual or institutional,
conceptualize their responsibilities in relation to global injustice? I
propose a model of responsibility from social connection as an
interpretation of obligations of justice arising from structural social
processes. I use the example of justice in transnational processes of
production, distribution and marketing of clothing to illustrate
operations of structural social processes that extend widely across
regions of the world.
The political pursuit of global justice is not a worthy goal, and our
aims in establishing international legal and political institutions should
be more modest. The pursuit of justice in the international order is
dangerous to the extent that it requires the establishment of powerful
supranational agencies, or legitimizes greater and more frequent exercise
of political, economic, and military power by strong states or coalitions.
The primary concern in the establishment and design of all legal and
political institutions should be not to secure justice but to limit power.
It is a mistake to think that a distinction can be drawn between power
created to do good and power created to do evil, or that we are capable of
devising institutions that can honor the distinction. a
Cosmopolitans argue that the account of human rights and distributive
justice in John Rawls's The
Law
of
Peoples is incompatible
with his argument for liberal justice. Rawls should extend his account of
liberal basic liberties and the guarantees of distributive justice to
apply to the world at large. This essay defends Rawls's grounding of
political justice in social cooperation. The Law of Peoples is drawn up to
provide principles of foreign policy for liberal peoples. Human rights are
among the necessary conditions for social cooperation, and so long as a
decent people respect human rights, a common good, and the Law of Peoples,
it is not the role of liberal peoples to impose upon well-ordered decent
peoples liberal liberties they cannot endorse. Moreover, the difference
principle is not an allocative or alleviatory principle, but applies to
design property and other basic social institutions necessary to economic
production, exchange and consumption. It presupposes political
cooperation—a legislative body to actively apply it, and a legal
system to apply it to. There is no feasible global state or global legal
system that could serve these roles. Finally, the difference principle
embodies a conception of democratic reciprocity that is only appropriate
to cooperation among free and equal citizens who are socially productive
and politically autonomous. a
Recent cosmopolitan thinking attempts to find a place for local (including national) attachment, but all of the proposals offered have been exposed to telling critique. There are objections to the claim that local obligations are only instances of cosmopolitan duty, and to the claim that we can give a moral justification to national societies as networks of mutual benefit. This article argues that it is not mutual benefit but mutual risk that grounds compatriot preference. While exposure to coercion as such does not track national boundaries, exposure to the risks of state abuse, political choice, and social conformity provide us with a reason to take our compatriots' interests seriously. The same argument, however, displays the limits of this reasoning, and also grounds a demanding obligation to aid other societies.
The paper suggests that the state is subject to assessment according to principles of social justice because state institutions or practices exercise forms of power over which no particular person has control. This rationale for assessment of social justice equally applies to legally optional or informal social practices. But it does not apply to individual conduct. Indeed, it follows that principles of social justice cannot provide a basis for the assessment and guidance of individual choice. The paper develops this practice-based conception of the subject of justice by rejoining G. A. Cohen's influential critique of Rawls’ focus on the “basic structure” of society.
In his classic article, Famine, Affluence, and Morality (Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), pp. 229–243), Peter Singer claimed that affluent people in the developed world are morally obligated to transfer large amounts of resources to poor people in the developing world. For present purposes I will not call Singers argument into question. While people can reasonably disagree about exactly how demanding morality is with respect to duties to the desperate, there is little question in my mind that it is much more demanding than common sense morality or our everyday behavior suggests. Even someone who disagrees with this might still find some interest in seeing what a demanding morality would imply for well-off residents of the rich countries of the world. I proceed in the following way. First, I survey humanitarian aid, development assistance, and intervention to protect human rights as ways of discharging duties to the desperate. I claim that we should be more cautious about such policies than is often thought. I go on to suggest two principles that should guide our actions, based on an appreciation of our roles, relationships, and the social and political context in which we find ourselves.
In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the liberal tradition in international thought, with particular attention being paid to liberal conceptions of international distributive justice. This article describes and criticizes three different approaches to international distributive justice represented in the recent literature: (1) social liberalism, which takes the nation-state as basic and argues for international transfers to the extent necessary to sustain just domestic institutions; (2) laisser-faire liberalism, which, in its redistributivist variant, aims to rectify injustices arising from the unequal appropriation of natural resources; and (3) cosmopolitan liberalism, which takes each individual's interests as equally deserving of concern in the design of global (and sectional) institutions.
The present paper defends two distinct rescues indicated by my recent book title, Rescuing Justice and Equality. Part One pursues the rescue of justice from constructivism. It is about the identity of justice. Part Two pursues the rescue of equality from the basic structure restriction. It is about the scope of justice. The identity question is at issue in an argument that I present against the Rawlsian identification of justice with the principles that constructivist selectors select. The scope question is at issue in an argument that I present against the Rawlsian restriction of the application of principles of distributive justice to the basic structure of society. The two Rawlsian positions (on identity and on scope) here under criticism are, as I shall explain, mainly in a very brief Part Three, substantially independent of each other, and so, too, as will be seen, are my arguments against them.
