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Rawls and the Collective Ownership of Natural Abilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Andrew Kernohan
Andrew Kernohan*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, CanadaB3H 4H6
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Extract

In two passages of A Theory of Justice Rawls suggests that, as a consequence of his egalitarian theory, the natural talents of persons are common property.

We see then that the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset and to share in the benefits of this distribution whatever it turns out to be.

The two principles are equivalent, as I have remarked, to an undertaking to regard the distribution of natural abilities as a collective asset so that the more fortunate are to benefit only in ways that help those who have lost out.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 19 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1990

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References

1 Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1971), 101Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 179

3 Nozick, R. Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books 1974), 228Google Scholar

4 Cohen, G. A. ‘Self-ownership, World Ownership, and Equality: Part II,’ Social Philosophy & Policy 3 (1986), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Sandel, M. J. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982), 70Google Scholar

6 Macpherson, C. B. ‘The Meaning of Property’ in his anthology, Property: Mainstream and Critical Positions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1978), 4–6Google Scholar

7 This sense of ‘asset’ is a new one. Fowler's Modern English Usage, first published in 1926, rails against it: ‘The great popularity that this word now enjoys as a saver of trouble to those who have not time to choose between possession, gain, advantage, resource, and other synonyms is modern, and an effort should be made to keep it within bounds.’ The 4th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary labels as improper the useful quality sense of ‘asset.’ The 5th edition calls it colloquial. The 7th permits it.

8 Rawls, Theory of Justice, 60Google Scholar

9 The Basic Liberties and Their Priority,’ in McMurrin, Sterling M. ed., Liberty, Equality and the Law: Selected Tanner Lectures on Moral Philosophy (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press 1987), 50Google Scholar

10 Honoré, A. M. ‘Ownership,’ in Guest, A. G. ed., Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1961), 107-47Google Scholar

11 Rawls summarizes these arguments in Theory of Justice, 103-4. Sandel calls these arguments the argument from arbitrariness and the argument from the precedence of institutions respectively. See Liberalism, 77.

12 Honoré himself emphasizes this in his critique of Nozick, ‘Property, Title and Redistribution,’ in Becker, L. C. and Kipnis, K. eds., Property: Cases, Concepts, Critiques (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall 1984), 162-70Google Scholar

13 See section 48 of Theory of Justice, ‘Legitimate Expectations and Moral Desert,’ 310-15.

14 I would like to thank Karen Wendling for helpful discussions of this material and for her generosity with her extensive knowledge of Rawls's work. I also profited from Douglas Butler's comments at the Canadian Philosophical Association meeting in Windsor in June 1988. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided me with financial support, and the University of Toronto Department of Philosophy with hospitality, during the period in which this paper was written.