Incentives and the Natural Duties of Justice
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9256.00106 |
| Author | Colin Farrelly |
| Published date | 01 February 2000 |
| Date | 01 February 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Politics (2000) 20(1) pp. 19–24
© Political Studies Association 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
19
In this paper I explore a possible response to
G.A. Cohen’s critique of the Rawlsian defence
of inequality-generating incentives. Much of
the debate on this topic has neglected the im-
portance Rawls places on the principles that
apply to individuals. I explore two possible
strategies. First, to argue that self-seeking
high-fliers fail to fulfil the natural duty to
uphold justice; secondly, to argue that such
individuals fail to fulfil the natural duty
of mutual respect. These two strategies allow
Rawlsians to argue that justice as fairness
does require an ethos that is violated by the
market behaviour of self-seeking high-fliers.
Introduction
John Rawls’s difference principle allows
for departures from equality provided that
such socio-economic inequalities are to the
greatest benefit of the least advantaged and
attached to offices and positions open to all
under conditions of fair equality of oppor-
tunity (see Rawls, 1971 and 1996). Such
inequalities can benefit the least advantaged
if they motivate the talented to be more
productive than they would be if such in-
centives did not exist. G.A. Cohen’s critique
of the Rawlsian defence of inequality-
generating incentives2has sparked much
debate among defenders and critics of Rawls’s
theory of justice as fairness (see Cohen, 1992,
1995 and 1997; Bertram, 1993; Estlund, 1998;
Williams, 1998). Cohen argues that ‘the
principles of distributive justice, principles,
that is, about the just distribution of benefits
and burdens in society, apply, whatever else
they do, to people’s legally unconstrained
choices’ (Cohen, 1997, p. 3). In particular,
Cohen claims that the demands of social
justice apply to the legally unconstrained
choices of self-seeking high-fliers. Such an
ethos is undermined, claims Cohen, by
Rawls’s claim that the two principles of
justice only apply to the basic structure of
society – that is, to society’s main political,
social and economic institutions.
In this paper I shall explore a possible
Rawlsian response to Cohen’s critique that
much of the recent literature has ignored.
By focusing on the principles that apply to
social systems and institutions, Cohen and
other commentators have neglected Rawls’s
discussion of the principles that apply to
individuals (see Rawls, 1971, pp. 108–117
and ch. VI). The principles of natural duty
and obligation, claims Rawls, ‘are an
essential part of a conception of right: they
define our institutional ties and how we
become bound to one another. The con-
ception of justice as fairness is incomplete
until these principles have been accounted
for’ (1971, p. 333). Once we consider what
Rawls has to say about the principles that
apply to individuals we see that these
Incentives and the
Natural Duties of Justice
Colin Farrelly
1
Colin Farrelly, University of Aberdeen
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