WHO GETS WHAT: AN ESSAY

CONCERNING DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE*

Napoleon M. Mabaquiao, Jr.

OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:
1. Differentiate the basic kinds of justice and explain in what sense is distributive justice the most
comprehensive kind.
2. Distinguish among contractual, legal, and human rights, and between positive and negative rights.
3. Distinguish between horizontal and vertical distributions and explain how such distinction clarifies
issues on whether a given distribution should be equal or unequal.
4. Explain the basic claims and arguments of the various theories of distributive justice.

INTRODUCTION

During their Christmas break, Robert, Karl, Adam, John, Joel, and Jeremy, all college
students, went caroling for a number of days until Christmas Eve at the subdivision where
they were all residing in. When Christmas Eve came, they gathered all the money that they
were able to accumulate from such activity and then divided it among themselves in the most
natural way that they knew; that is, equally, wherein everyone received an equal share of the
total amount. After all, they all shared the idea that their close friendship was a sufficient
reason to entitle each of them of an equal share of the money. In our own culture, such
scheme of dividing things is often called "hating kapatid", where "kapatid" is understood as
"hindi ibang-tao."

But now let us imagine that these boys hold conflicting views on how to divide the
money among themselves, and that their discussion proceeds as follows. Adam begins by
arguing that his share should be bigger than everyone else, for being the one who has the most
beautiful voice in the group he believes that he has contributed the most to the success of their
activity. But Karl disagrees with Adam. He points out that Adam being blessed with having
wealthy parents does not really need much money; furthermore, Karl points out that since
singing is Adam’s natural talent, Adam should already be grateful for the mere opportunity
that the group gave him to put his talent to use. Karl, whose has a sick mother and a father
who just got laid off from his job, then claims that the biggest share should instead be given to
him since he is the one who needs the money the most. Joel disagrees with both Adam and
Karl. He explains that their given needs or blessings and natural talents are not things that
they are personally responsible for, and hence it would be unfair if these considerations be
made as bases of the distribution. He then recommends that the basis be effort or hard work as
this is something that everyone has an equal opportunity to perform well or not. He ends by
saying that he may not have a good voice but he still deserves the biggest share since he
worked the hardest in the group having organized the whole activity and attended all their
practices and actual sessions.

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 Jeremy, on the other hand, has a different take on the matter. He reminds his friends
that the ultimate objective of the whole activity is for them to be happy as a group. In this
light, he claims that any form of distribution should do as long as it will maximize the total
happiness of the group, even if this means sacrificing the personal happiness of one or two of
them. But John disagrees with Jeremy. John believes that the real issue is not happiness but
justice, and so far everyone is suggesting a basis that is favorable to their own particular
situation. John then suggests that before they discuss the basis of the distribution everyone
should first try to put aside their particular situations in life.

Robert too expresses disagreement with Jeremy; but he does not seem to favor any of
the other suggestions as well. Robert has a concern that he decides to share with the group.
Robert is quite popular in the neighborhood for being the son of a highly effective president
of their homeowners’ association. As a token of appreciation, many of their neighbors to
whom they have sung Christmas carols have given Robert a certain amount of money that was
separate from the one that they have given to the group. Robert’s concern is that the group
may ask him to put all the money that was separately given to him to the common fund to be
divided among themselves. Robert says that for the group to force him to do so would be
unfair, but he is willing to give a part of it to the common fund. After sharing his concern, he
then suggests that whatever basis of distribution that the group may decide the primary
consideration should be that everyone’s rights and freedom be respected.

The points and issues that are raised in this hypothetical discussion form part of what
constitute the philosophical issue on distributive justice, which this paper intends to examine.
The discussion divides into three parts. The first discusses the kinds of justice and rights; the
second tackles the kinds of distribution involved in the distribution of rights and socio-
economic goods; and the third examines the arguments of the various philosophical theories
of distributive justice.

I. KINDS OF JUSTICE

Plato views justice as some kind of harmony among the basic constituents of a certain
organization (see Denise 1996, 1-26). On the level of the person, it is the harmony among the
basic elements of the soul, namely reason, spirit (passion), and appetite (desire); while on the
level of the society, it is the harmony among the three main classes of people, namely the
rulers (the philosopher-kings), the military, and the artisans and farmers. Nowadays, however,
justice is generally understood as giving what is due to a person, or giving to a person what he
deserves to receive. In this light, a just society is a society that gives what is due to its
citizens; a just company is one that gives what is due to its employees; and a just person is one
who gives what is due to his fellowmen.

In light of this definition of justice, three basic kinds of justice are distinguished. The
first is distributive justice, which refers to the just distribution of benefits (such as rights and
socio-economic goods) and burdens (such as sacrifices and obligations). The second is
retributive (or retaliatory) justice, which refers to the just imposition of punishments and
penalties on those guilty of performing wrongful acts. And the third is compensatory justice,
which refers to the just way of compensating people for what they lost as a result of wrongful
actions done on them. Generally speaking, a certain kind of distribution is just if the recipients

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of the distribution receive what they deserve, an imposition of a certain type of punishment is
just if the guilty person deserves such punishment, and a certain type of compensation is just
if the victim of a wrongful act deserves such compensation. The critical question here, of
course, is what determines what one deserves in a given circumstance.

Now among the three kinds of justice, the distributive kind is considered to be the
most comprehensive for it can accommodate the other two kinds: punishments can be
regarded as a kind of burden while compensations as a kind of benefit that can be distributed.
This explains why social justice is often regarded in contemporary discussions on social and
political philosophy as almost identical with distributive justice. As John Rawls (1993, 90)
writes: “Our topic, however, is social justice. For us the primary subject of justice is the basic
structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute
fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social
cooperation.”

II. THE DISTRIBUTION OF RIGHTS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC GOODS

Distribution can involve various kinds of things and can be done on different levels. Among
others, it can be done on the level of the state involving rights, taxes, and punishments, on the
level of companies involving wages and work load, and on the level of families involving
chores and monetary allowances. Among the things that can be distributed, two primary social
goods are rights and socio-economic goods. The distribution of these two primary goods can
be done on different levels—on the levels of the state, corporation, and family, among others.
In this section, we shall look into the distribution of these two primary social goods. Now as
the distribution of socio-economic goods is dependent on the distribution of rights (for to
deserve a socio-economic good one must first deserve the right to have it) we shall begin our
discussion with the distribution of rights.

1. Rights and Duties

Rights, to begin with, are entitlements or interests one is allowed or permitted to pursue, or
more simply, things one may or may not do. Thus, education is a right because it is something
we are allowed to pursue but stealing is not because it is something we are prohibited to do.
Rights are better understood in relation to duties. Duties, unlike rights which one may or may
not exercise, are things one ought to perform. Thus, if a boy, for instance, is given the duty by
his mother to look after his baby brother, then the boy ought to do it. In contrast, if he is
merely given by his mother the right to look after his baby brother, then it is something he
simply may or may not do. Furthermore, there usually are sanctions (in the form of blame or
punishment) if one fails to perform a duty, while there are none if one fails to exercise a right.
If it is the duty of the boy to look after his baby brother and he fails to perform it, he will most
likely get scolded by his mother. But if it is merely his right and he chooses not to exercise it,
he will most likely not get scolded by his mother. Rights and duties, however, are tightly
correlated in that rights impose duties and duties exist in recognition of rights. Using the same
example, the mother has the right to impose duties on the boy but the boy recognizes them to
be his duties only because he recognizes the right of his mother to impose such duties on him.

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2. Kinds of Rights

Rights are classified in two ways. The first uses for its basis the kind of duties imposed by
rights; and in this classification, rights are either positive or negative. The second uses for its
basis the relevant features for the acquisition of rights; and in this classification, rights are
either legal, contractual, or human.

a. Positive and Negative Rights

The duties imposed by rights are of two kinds: duties of non-interference and of positive
performance. Duties of non-interference are duties not to interfere in the exercise of rights,
while duties of positive performance are duties to provide the necessary conditions for the
exercise of rights. All rights impose the duties of non-interference while some rights impose
the duties of positive performance as well. If rights only impose the duties of non-interference
such rights are called negative rights, whereas if rights impose both duties of non-interference
and positive performance such rights are called positive rights (see Velasquez 2002, 92-94).

Using the previous example, if the boy is given by his mother the right to look after
his baby brother and the boy decides to exercise such right, then such right imposes a duty on
other people, say on his brothers and sisters, not to prevent the boy from exercising such right.
In such case, the said right is a negative right. However, the right to life of the boy’s baby
brother does not just impose on his parents the duty not to interfere with the interest of the
baby to live, for it likewise imposes on his parents the duty to provide him the necessary
resources that will enable him to live. In this case, the right to life of the baby is a positive
right. The extent, however, to which some rights can be considered positive depends on
economic circumstances. For instance, the citizens’ right to education can be recognized by
the state as positive only to the extent that the state’s economic conditions will allow it. If the
state, for instance, intends to provide free education to children who lack the necessary
economic resources the state should itself first have the necessary economic resources. Be it
as it may, there is something intuitively wrong if it is within the economic capacity of the
state to provide such free education to unfortunate children and yet it does not do so.

b. Contractual, Legal, and Human Rights

Rights and duties are distributed among members of a certain group. Members of a family, for
instance, have their rights and duties, and so are members of an academic community, of a
church, of a sports club, of a nation, and of the whole human race. Membership in a certain
group, however, is based on possession of a certain relevant feature or a set of these features
that varies according to the nature of the group. If the group is academic in nature, then the
relevant features are also academic; if it is religious, then the relevant features are also
religious. In some cases, a person does not have a choice as regards the groups that he belongs
to, as in the case of being a member of the family one is born into. But in some cases, a
person has a choice, as in the case of being an employee of a business firm. Still in some
cases, a person initially does not have a choice but later on acquires it, as in the case of being
a citizen of a certain nation. Now in cases where a person has such choice, in addition to
possessing the relevant features, his or her membership in such group, from an ethical point of
view, should also have his or her voluntary and informed consent—that is, he or she must be
fully aware of the nature of such group and he or she must not in any way be forced to join it.

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 Membership in a group, therefore, is what gives an individual a certain kind of rights
and duties. Now the groups that we can be members of can be classified into three general
kinds; namely, contractual groups or institutions, nations or states, and humanity or the human
race. Accordingly, rights are classified as contractual, legal, and human or moral.

Contractual rights are rights one acquires when one enters into a contract or an
agreement with another party, which can be a person, a group of persons, a company, or an
institution. Contracts are basically agreements, consisting of rights and duties, between two or
more parties, which can be formal or informal. Formal contracts are written in that the rights
and duties of the parties involved are explicitly specified in some document. An example of a
contract of this sort is the contract that one signs when one begins to work in a company. In
contrast, informal contracts are unwritten agreements in that the rights and duties of the
parties involved are merely implied. Examples of contracts of this sort are the implied
agreements, consisting of implied rights and duties, in human relationships such as friendship
and romantic relationships. Needless to say, contractual rights are enjoyed only as long as the
contract is binding.

Legal rights, on the other hand, are rights that one possesses by virtue of one's
citizenship—which is acquired either by birth or by choice. Such rights are specified in the
constitution of the country in which one is a citizen, and are binding only within the
jurisdiction of the legal laws of such country. Legal rights, like contractual rights, are
temporary rights for once a person changes his or her citizenship he or she acquires a different
set of legal rights.

Lastly, human rights are rights all humans possess simply by virtue of being humans.
The only relevant feature to be entitled of such rights is being human. Thus, differences in
gender, race, character, intelligence, wealth, physical appearances, and nationality, among
others, do not have any bearing on one’s possession of such rights. Now, since being human is
the most general feature of all humans, human rights are therefore universal and the highest
kind of rights. For this reason, human rights serve as the basis for evaluating (instituting,
amending, or repealing) legal and contractual rights.

If contractual rights are known by looking at the terms of the contract while legal
rights by looking at a country's constitution, how are human rights known? More importantly,
how do we know whether a certain contractual or legal right conforms to or violates human
rights? The moral theory of Immanuel Kant, known as the categorical imperative, provides a
good answer. Two general principles constitute this moral theory; namely, universalizability
and respect for persons. These two principles are actually two formulas or ways to identify
the same morally good act. The principle of universalizability states that an act is morally
good if its maxim (the personal rule that it follows, which ensures that the act is intentional)
can meaningfully be made as a universal law (or as a law for everyone). The resulting
universal law is meaningful if its key concepts do not contradict one another; otherwise it is a
meaningless law and hence is non-universalizable. For instance, a person's act of stealing, if
intentional, follows a maxim that states “I ought to steal this person's properties”. When
universalized, this maxim becomes “Everybody ought to steal another person's properties”.
Now this universal law, on closer inspection, is a meaningless law because an inconsistency
occurs between the concepts of property and stealing. That is, the whole point of having

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properties is lost when in the first place they ought to be stolen. Consequently, this makes the
act of stealing morally wrong.

The principle of respect for persons, on the other hand, states that an act is morally
good if it does not use persons merely as means to satisfy one’s personal interests but treats
them as ends-in-themselves as well (that is, respects their choices and preferences as well).
One concrete way to find out whether or not person A respects person B in his act towards
person B is if person B voluntarily and knowingly gives his consent to person A to perform
such act towards him. Thus, stealing another person’s property is morally wrong because it is
done without the person’s voluntary and informed consent, or done against the will and
preference of the person.

Consequently, within the framework of Kant’s moral theory, rights are of the moral
kind if they are universalizable and they respect persons. As such, if legal and contractual
rights are universalizable and respect persons then they respect moral rights; otherwise they
do not. Thus, the previous legal right of White South Africans to racially discriminate against
Black South Africans (the practice called apartheid), for instance, violated the human rights
of the Black South Africans because the laws on which such right was based are not
universalizable (making all laws racially discriminatory contradicts the whole point of
makings laws, which is to establish social harmony) and do not respect the persons of Black
South Africans (the Black South Africans obviously did not knowingly and freely give their
consent to such treatment of them by White South Africans).

3. Equal and Unequal Distributions

Distributions can either be equal or unequal, and the basic problem of distributive justice is to
ascertain the conditions under which equal and unequal distributions are just. Much of the
confusions and disagreements over this problem can be avoided by introducing the distinction
between horizontal and vertical distributions. Mainly, a horizontal distribution distributes
goods to people with the same relevant features, while a vertical distribution distributes goods
to people with different relevant features. By relevant features we mean, as previously
explained, those features that qualify us to be members of a certain group and thereby entitle
us of the rights attached to such membership—for this reason, we shall also refer to such
features as qualifying features. Now it may happen that within a certain group a hierarchy of
positions (functions or duties) exists in which the qualifying features for each position vary.
For instance, in an academic institution, the positions of secretaries, instructors, professors,
deans, and the president require different qualifying features. An example of a horizontal
distribution in this context would be the distribution of wages to employees who are all
secretaries, while an example of a vertical distribution would be the distribution of wages to
employees who are secretaries, instructors, professors, and others.

With regard to horizontal distributions, logical consistency requires that they be equal.
That is, to give persons unequal share of the distribution when they have the same qualifying
features is logically inconsistent. If it is in virtue of their possession of a relevant feature that
entitles them to a share in the distribution, then their possession of the same relevant feature
should entitle them to an equal share in the distribution. In the context of the distribution of
rights, persons who have the same qualifying features should be given or recognized as
having the same rights. Consequently, since the only qualifying feature for one to be entitled

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of human rights is to be human, then all humans must be recognized as having the same
human rights. Likewise, since the only qualifying feature for one to be entitled of legal rights
is citizenship in the country that guarantees such legal rights, then all citizens of such country
are entitled to the same legal rights. To say that certain humans have more human rights than
others, and that certain citizens of a certain country have more legal rights than the other
citizens of the same country, are simply contradictory.

The case of contractual rights, however, is a little complex, for membership in

contractual communities requires a set of different qualifying features for each position in the
hierarchy. For instance, if one intends to be an employee of a business firm, his or her
qualifying features depend on the position he or she is applying for. Unlike human and legal
rights, contractual rights therefore have both vertical and horizontal distributions; but like
human and legal rights, their horizontal distributions should likewise be equal. If two or more
employees have the same qualifying features and thus occupy the same position in the
hierarchy, it is but logical that they enjoy the same contractual rights.

In contrast to horizontal distributions, logical consistency requires vertical

distributions to be unequal. In the realm of rights, vertical distributions, for reasons already
stated above, are only applicable to contractual rights. Each position in a hierarchy of
positions or functions requires its own qualifying features; as such, the same contractual rights
cannot be given to the different positions. The president and the maintenance crew of the
same company simply cannot have the same rights. To enable the president and the
maintenance crew to perform their respective functions, they must be accorded appropriate
rights. And since their functions differ, their rights should differ as well.

4. The Case of Socio-economic Goods

After dealing with the distribution of rights, let us now turn our attention to the distribution of
socio-economic goods. Socio-economic goods are things that are desirable for their social and
economic (or monetary) value. Social goods include wealth, honor, office, and power; while
economic goods include food, house, cars, books, computers, and other material possessions.
Socio-economic goods are also referred to as public goods for they are contrasted with private
goods whose value is privately determined, such as those things said to have a sentimental
value for an individual. It shall, however, be observed that what entitle us to possess socio-
economic goods of a certain kind and amount are rights. For instance, what entitles the
president of a certain company to a certain amount of wage is a particular contractual right
among those vertically distributed by such company. Thus, what we have said about the
distribution of rights generally applies to the distribution of socio-economic goods. More
specifically, if we attach a certain kind and amount of socio-economic goods to a certain kind
of right, then the distribution of such goods follows the distribution of that right.

Thus, if we attach a certain kind and amount of goods to human and legal rights, then
such goods can only be distributed horizontally and hence should be distributed equally. For
instance, if the state attaches to the right to education certain resources, say free tuition fees in
public schools, then all those entitled to such right should be able to avail themselves of such
resources. On the other hand, if a certain kind and amount of such goods is attached to
contractual rights, then such goods can both be distributed horizontally and vertically, and
hence should be distributed equally and unequally. In a corporate setting, attached to each

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position in the hierarchy of positions is the right to receive a particular amount of wage
(which varies for each position); as a result, employees who occupy the same position should
receive the same amount of wage while employees who occupy different positions should
receive different amounts of wage. Furthermore, since the attachment of socio-economic
goods to a certain right makes such right positive—for here the duty is basically one of
positive performance, the amount of such goods that can be attached to certain rights will be
dependent on the economic status of the one that will provide such goods.

III. BASES OF A JUST DISTRIBUTION

The arguments of the college students on how they ought to distribute the proceeds of their
joint undertaking, as discussed in the introduction, are actually intended to introduce the
various theories of distributive justice. These theories all seek to answer the question when is
a certain distribution just, or what is the basis for saying that one deserves what one receives
in a distribution. In what follows, we shall have a closer look at the claims of each of these
theories.

1. Equality

Egalitarianism claims that a certain distribution is just if every member of a group receives an
equal share of the distribution. On the level of state distributions, this view has two versions;
namely, Political Egalitarianism, which argues for equality in the distribution of legal rights,
and Economic Egalitarianism, which argues for equality in the distribution of socio-economic
goods (see Velasquez 2002, 109-110). Equality of legal rights is a widely accepted social
ideal. As humans are equal in terms of their possession of human rights, they ought to be
equal too in terms of their possession of legal rights. The assumption here is that what
legitimizes legal rights is their conformity with human rights. Equality of socio-economic
goods, however, is acceptable only on the level of the basic necessities of the citizens, the
satisfaction of which will enable them to live a decent life. This is what is supposed to be
guaranteed by the minimum wage law, wherein citizens are equal in terms of the lowest
possible wage that they can receive from doing work that is legal.

2. Contribution

Capitalist Justice claims that a certain distribution is just if every member of a group receives
his or her share in the distribution according to or in proportion to his or her contribution to
the success of the goals of the group. Consequently, the greater is one's contribution the
greater should be his or her share in the distribution, and the lesser is one’s contribution the
lesser should be his or her share in the distribution (see Velasquez 2002, 111-113). This is the
kind of justice that exists in the free market system where the value of goods and human labor
is determined by the market forces such as how they fare in an open and free competition and
the law of supply and demand. A major thinker behind the free market system is Adam Smith
who argues that allowing people to freely pursue their selfish economic interests (that is,
without any government intervention) will eventually lead to the good of society.

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3. Need

Socialist Justice claims that a certain distribution is just if every member of a group receives
his or her share in the distribution according to or in proportion to his or her needs.
Consequently, the greater is one’s needs the greater should be his or her share in the
distribution, and the lesser is one’s needs the lesser should be his or her share in the
distribution. This view seeks to balance off natural inequalities—referring to the inequality in
our initial endowments in life which include our genes, natural talents, inherited economic
resources, and the social status of our parents (see Velasquez 2002, 109-110 and Feinberg
1993, 80-88). Socialist justice is actually a critical reaction to capitalist justice, which, from
the point of view of socialist justice, simply worsens the said natural inequalities thereby
resulting in the widening gap between the rich who are few and the poor who are many. The
main argument is that the competition in the free market system is not fair and caters only to
the interests of the privileged class. More specifically, some people, because of their
unfortunate initial endowments in life, are initially disadvantaged thereby making it difficult
for them to compete with those who are initially advantaged. Justice based on needs is
actually a part of a larger principle enunciated by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalism;
namely, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” (“Critique of the
Gotha Programme” in Rosen and Wolff 1999, 231-33). According to this principle, the kind
of work that people should do should be based on their natural talents. This is to ensure that
their work will be fulfilling and not dehumanizing or alienating. On the other hand, their share
of the proceeds of their work should be based on their needs. And this is to prevent
inequalities concerning resources.

4. Effort

Justice Based on Fair Opportunity claims that a certain distribution is just if every member of
a group receives his or her share in the distribution according to or in proportion to the effort
he or she has exerted in achieving the goals of the group. Consequently, the greater is one’s
effort the greater should be his or her share in the distribution, the lesser is one’s effort the
lesser should be his or her share in the distribution. This view is advanced by Joel Feinberg
(1993, 80-88), who argues that the proper criterion for a just distribution should be a human
feature that everyone involved in the distribution should have a fair opportunity to acquire or
to work for in varying degrees, thereby making those who possess such feature responsible for
it. The point is that we should only be rewarded or punished for something we are responsible
for. In this light, Feinberg rejects the criteria of needs, merits and achievements, and
contribution or productivity, which he regards as heavily influenced by one’s initial
endowments in life; and favors effort, which he believes to be the criterion that satisfies the
fair opportunity requirement.

5. Utility

Utilitarianism, a moral theory developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, has a
different take on the issue. The issue for Utilitarianism is not whether a distribution is just, but
whether it is morally good according to its own standard of morality. To fully understand this
claim, we need to distinguish between those that are desired for their own sake, which are
considered to be inherently good, and those desired for the sake of attaining some other
desirable things, which are considered to be instrumentally good. Consequently, something

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that is inherently good will always be good whatever the circumstances are, while something
that is only instrumentally good is good only under certain circumstances. Utilitarianism
regards justice merely as an instrumental good, for Utilitarianism regards happiness or
pleasure as the only inherent good and pain as the only inherent evil. This view further
contends that since happiness is the only inherent good, then our moral duty is to maximize it
both in terms of quantity and quality. The guiding principle of such duty is the so-called
Greatest Happiness Principle, which states that an act is morally good if it promotes the
greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. This principle, however, does not mean
that the happiness of the greater number always constitutes the greatest happiness. If acts X
and Y will produce the same amount of happiness, say 3 units of happiness, but act X will
make ten people happy while act Y will only make five people happy, then act X is the
morally correct act. But if act X will produce one unit of happiness to each of five persons
while act Y will produce 8 units of happiness to only one person, here the morally correct act
is act Y. Consequently, for this view, any form of distribution, whether just or unjust, is
morally good if it accords with the Greatest Happiness Principle.

6. Fair Principles of Justice

Justice as Fairness is advanced by John Rawls (1993, 89-100) and it claims that a certain
distribution among members in a group is just if the principles that govern such distribution
are chosen by the members in a fair manner. Rawls further claims that in a fair manner of
choosing the principles that will govern distributions (basically, one in which biases are
temporarily put aside), two principles will be chosen; namely, the principle of equality, which
claims that everyone should have equal rights and liberties, and the difference principle,
which claims that inequalities in the distribution of socio-economic goods should likewise
benefit the least advantaged members of society and should be attached to positions and
offices open to all. The latter is meant to give opportunities to the least advantaged members
of society to improve their situation. Rawls comes up with a mechanism or procedure that will
ensure the fairness of the choice of the principles of distribution. He calls this procedure the
original position, where people are to imagine that they are under the veil of ignorance—a
condition where people are supposed to forget the particular characteristics of their lives, such
as their social status, gender, religious beliefs, and others. What should be included in the veil
of ignorance are features of one’s life that are irrelevant to the issue at hand and thus will only
make one’s decisions on the issue biased. That a feature of one’s life is irrelevant or
prejudicial is of course relative to the nature of the issue under consideration.

7. Moral Rights

Libertarianism is advanced by Robert Nozick (1993, 100-110) and it claims that distributions
are just when no moral rights are violated in the two processes involved in the act of
distribution—the process of acquiring ownership of the goods to be distributed and the
process of transferring the ownership of the goods to be distributed. More specifically, this
view claims that a distribution is just if the goods to be distributed are acquired by their owner
in a manner that does not violate moral rights and that such goods are distributed by the owner
to other people in a manner that does not likewise violate moral rights. Nozick speaks of a
minimum moral limitation or constraint to our dealings with one another. This limitation is set
by Kant’s principle of respect for persons, which we have discussed earlier in relation to
human rights. In its modern version, this principle states that we should treat our fellow

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humans only in a manner to which they will give their informed and voluntary consent.
Consequently, this principle serves as the test for whether the two processes of distribution are
done in violation of moral rights. Nozick classifies the various theories of distributive justice
as either end-result-oriented, if they judge the justice of a certain distribution on the basis of
what happens after the distribution; or means-oriented, if they judge the justice of a certain
distribution on the basis of how the distribution is carried out. Nozick classifies his own
theory as means-oriented while all the others as end-result-oriented. The problem with end-
result-oriented theories, according to Nozick, is that in ensuring that the end result of a
distribution complies with a certain pattern, say according to needs, effort, or contribution, the
moral rights of some persons involved in the distribution may be violated.

CONCLUSION

It is beyond the scope of this paper to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the various
theories of distributive justice, and likewise to consider which among them is the most
plausible one. Situations, however, are conceivable where these competing theories
supplement one another. One such situation can take place in the context of the workplace.
But here we need to make a distinction between the primary and secondary kinds of rights and
socio-economic goods being distributed. The primary kind refers to the basic wages while the
secondary kind refers to the bonuses, incentives, commissions, loans, and the like.
Considerations about productivity or contribution seem to be the more appropriate ones in
regard to the primary kind; while considerations about effort, need, and utility seem to be the
more appropriate ones in regard to the secondary kind. The considerations about respect for
moral rights and fairness or objectivity in making decisions, however, should apply to both
primary and secondary kinds.

Note
----------------------
*This is an updated and improved version of an essay with the same title by the same author in The
philosophical landscape, 5th Edition (R. Gripaldo, ed. 2008. Quezon City: C & E Publishing Inc.).

REFERENCES
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Questions for Discussion

1. “Suppose that a society which had no danger of nuclear war could be achieved only by
reducing the liberty of one percent of the world's population. Might it not be right to bring
about such a state of affairs if it were in one's power?” (Taken from: Smart, J. J. C. 1993.
Distributive justice and utilitarianism. In Business ethics: A philosophical reader. Edited
by: Thomas I. White. New York: Macmillan Publishing, p. 112) Defend your answer.
2. Is it right for the government to also tax earnings outside of one's regular job? Defend your
answer.
3. Would it be better to put a limit to the amount of wealth that one can accumulate legally?
Defend your answer.
4. Which of the theories of distributive justice is the most plausible for you? Defend your
answer.

[Published in Exploring the Philosophical Terrain. Edited by Elenita Garcia. Quezon City: C & E
Publishing, Inc., 2013.]

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