Public Reason » Uncategorized http://publicreason.net a blog for political philosophers Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:01:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 en ©Public Reason admin@publicreason.net (Public Reason) admin@publicreason.net(Public Reason) 1440 political philosophy, philosophy, political theory, political science a blog for political philosophers Public Reason Public Reason admin@publicreason.net No no http://publicreason.net/wp-content/images/Washington-PR-icon-100.jpg Public Reason http://publicreason.net 144 144 My Warmest Thanks, and One Final Bleg http://publicreason.net/2011/08/22/my-warmest-thanks-and-one-final-bleg/ http://publicreason.net/2011/08/22/my-warmest-thanks-and-one-final-bleg/#comments Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:10:57 +0000 Marcus Arvan http://publicreason.net/2011/08/22/my-warmest-thanks-and-one-final-bleg/ I’d like to thank all of you who sent me comments on the RNR (”Foundations of a Nonideal Theory of Justice”) I posted here the other week. Almost all of you homed in on a problem with the Side-Constraint Principle that had been worrying me: its unexplained (and unjustified) reference to ideal primary goods.  I’ve now fixed the issue and would like to post the paper here one final time (old revisions are in red; new ones in blue) before I send the paper back to the journal later this week.  Any last-minute comments/suggestions/worries would be immensely appreciated.  Again, I really can’t thank you all enough.  Your feedback has been invaluable!

Foundations of a Nonideal Theory of Justice 

]]> http://publicreason.net/2011/08/22/my-warmest-thanks-and-one-final-bleg/feed/ Distributive Justice in the Abstract and Concrete http://publicreason.net/2009/06/19/distributive-justice-in-the-abstract-and-concrete/ http://publicreason.net/2009/06/19/distributive-justice-in-the-abstract-and-concrete/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:22:24 +0000 Joshua Knobe http://publicreason.net/2009/06/19/distributive-justice-in-the-abstract-and-concrete/ In talking with people about questions of distributive justice, one often encounters a peculiar sort of conflict or tension. It’s not just that different people hold different views on the question. Rather, each individual person seems somehow to be pulled in a number of different directions.

In an exciting new paper in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Christopher Freiman and Shaun Nichols report an experimental study that helps to shed light on this sort of conflict. Subjects were randomly assigned either to receive an ‘abstract’ question or a ‘concrete’ question.

Subjects assigned to the abstract version were told:

Suppose that some people make more money than others solely because they have genetic advantages.

Subjects assigned to the concrete version were told:

Suppose that Amy and Beth both want to be professional jazz singers. They both practice singing equally hard. Although jazz singing is the greatest natural talent of both Amy and Beth, Beth’s vocal range and articulation is naturally better than Amy’s because of differences in their genetics. Solely as a result of this genetic advantage, Beth’s singing is much more impressive. As a result, Beth attracts bigger audiences and hence gets more money than Amy.

All subjects were then asked whether it was fair for the genetically advantaged individuals in the scenario to make more money. Surprisingly enough, subjects in the abstract cases said that the genetically advantaged did not deserve more money, while subjects in the concrete cases said that the genetically advantaged actually did deserve more money.

Freiman and Nichols suggest that this study might be getting at a fundamental conflict between two different aspects of the way people ordinarily think about questions of distributive justice. They then raise a difficult philosophical question: if our intuitions in the abstract case differ from those in the concrete case, which sort of intuition should we trust when we are actually doing philosophy?

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