The labor theory of justice

• Main Author: KUKATHAS, Chandran
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: Ethics and Political Philosophy; International Relations; Political Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2983; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4240/viewcontent/labor_theory_of_justice__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions as truth is of systems ofthought. So John Rawls famously proclaimed in the beginning of hismasterwork, A Theory of Justice. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if untrue. Laws and institutions no matterhow efficient and well arranged must be reformed or abolished if unjust.Justice, perhaps unlike some other values, was not something we mightreadily trade a little of in exchange for other benefits.1In his critique ofRawls, Rescuing Justice and Equality, G. A. Cohen proposes to take justicemore seriously while at the same time conceding that justice might justifiably be traded off against other goods.2 His objection to Rawls is that hehas, without warrant, presented justice as quite compatible with extensive social inequality when inequalities serve to improve the condition ofthe worst off or least advantaged in society. If a departure from equality is what is necessary to improve the condition of the least fortunatethen departing from equality may have to be countenanced; but such adeparture is unjust. If Rawls truly takes justice to be as important as heproclaims, he must not present justice as a notion whose meaning mustbe revised to take into account the feasibility of sustaining some kinds ofsocial institutions. In particular, he must not build into the conceptionof justice he defends the idea that very unequal rewards for the talentedare just when they induce them to produce more – even if this is to thebenefit of all.