Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics

Thresholds and Limits in Theories of Distributive Justice

Dick Timmer — 2022-04-05

Desert, Luck, and Justice

Huub Brouwer — 2022-05-29

Choice Architecture

Luca Congiu — 2022-05-29

Unfair Inequality

Paul Hufe — 2022-07-06

Issues on the Measurement of Opportunity Inequality

Hugo del Valle-Inclán Cruces — 2022-05-29

Three Economic Extensions of John Rawls’s Social Contract Theory

Klaudijo Klaser — 2022-07-10

Amartya Sen’s Earlier Conception of Economic Agents through the Origins and Development of his Capability Approach (1970–1993)

Valentina Erasmo — 2022-07-16

Measuring Freedom

Thomas Ferretti — 2022-08-05

Suppose a principle of distributive justice states that social institutions should maximize the freedom of the least well-off. Understanding how to do so would be easier if freedom only depended on one good, like income. If it depends instead on a composite index of social primary goods, a question arises: Which combination of social primary goods can maximize the freedom of the least well-off? This is John Rawls’ indexing problem. Solving it requires addressing two related problems. The first consists in evaluating, in theory, under which conditions it is acceptable to substitute goods, that is, their substitution rates. The second consists in evaluating which acceptable substitutions are feasible in practice. This article proposes a framework to think clearly about this indexing problem within a Rawlsian, resourcist conception of distributive justice. I conclude by discussing a path towards solving the indexing problem. While further empirical exploration is needed, plausible assumptions about social regimes suggest that maximizing the freedom of the least well-off is likely to require giving them access to a social position with a balanced combination of social primary goods.

The Case of Stated Preferences and Social Well-Being Indices

Shiri Cohen Kaminitz — 2022-07-07

This paper provides a real-world test case for how to approach contemporary preference aggregation procedures. We examine the method of using stated preferences (SP) to structure social well-being indices. The method has seen increasing popularity and interest, both in economists’ laboratory research and by governments and international institutions. SP offers a sophisticated aggregation of peoples’ preferences regarding social well-being aspects and, in this way, provides elegant and non-paternalistic techniques for deciding how to weigh and prioritize various potential aspects of social well-being (health, happiness, economic growth, etc.). However, this method also poses difficulties and limitations from broader political and philosophical perspectives. This paper comprehensively charts these difficulties and suggests that SP methods should be complemented with appropriate deliberation procedures. The paper bridges the distinct perspectives of economists and political theorists in order to make SP an attractive instrument in determining policy.

“The Hardest of All the Problems”

Daniel Kuehn — 2022-07-15

This paper provides a history of the development of Harold Hochman and James Rodgers’ (1969) theory of Pareto optimal redistribution, which modeled income transfers as a public good. Pareto optimal redistribution provided an economic efficiency case for redistribution policy. After reviewing the emergence of Pareto optimal redistribution at the University of Virginia and its elaboration at the Urban Institute in the early 1970s, the paper describes James M. Buchanan’s efforts to grapple with his colleague’s ideas in the context of public choice theory. Initially, Buchanan provided an even more expansive argument for redistribution than Hochman and Rodgers (1969). By the mid-1970s, though, Buchanan largely rejected his earlier approach to redistribution and theorized new criteria for redistribution that were narrower in scope.

Why ‘Indirect Discrimination’ Is a Useful Legal but Not a Useful Moral Concept

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen — 2022-07-19

A policy (practice, act, etc.) indirectly discriminates against a group, G, if, and only if: (1) it does not reflect an objectionable mental state regarding the members of G; (2) it disadvantages members of G; (3) the disadvantages are disproportionate; and (4) G is a socially salient group. I argue that indirect discrimination is not non-instrumentally morally wrong. Clearly, if it were, that would be because it harms members of G disproportionately, i.e., in virtue of features (2) and (3). Harming members of a group disproportionately does appear non-instrumentally wrong. But it is not easy to provide a plausible explanation for the kind of harm and disproportionality involved here that vindicates this initial appearance. This does not mean the concept of indirect discrimination should be jettisoned. It was originally a legal concept, and in closing I briefly suggest that in law it plays a valuable role, even if it is not a genuine moral category. Legal prohibition is an unreliable guide to what is morally wrong, but it is not supposed to be that anyway.

Review of Joshua L. Cherniss’s Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021, 305 pp.

Jon Murphy — 2022-07-08

Review of Randall G. Holcombe’s Coordination, Cooperation, and Control: The Evolution of Economic and Political Power. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, xii + 328 pp.

Vaios Koliofotis — 2022-07-18

Review of Avia Pasternak’s Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States: Should Citizens Pay for Their States’ Wrongdoings? New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021, 248 pp.

Solmu Anttila — 2022-07-17

Review of Keith Tribe’s Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850–1950. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2022, xiv + 425 pp.

Erwin Dekker — 2022-07-15

The Philosophy and Economics of Measuring Discrimination and Inequality

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen — 2022-07-19

This is an interview by the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics with Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Xavier Ramos, and Dirk Van de gaer, conducted as part of a roundtable on the philosophy and economics of discrimination and inequality. The interview covers the concepts of discrimination and inequality; the current state of the literature on measuring discrimination and inequality; the relevance of measuring discrimination and inequality for policymaking; and the future of measuring discrimination and inequality.