Disparate Goods and Rawls’ Difference Principle: A Social Choice Theoretic Treatment

Allan Gibbard

A chapter in Game Theory, Social Choice and Ethics, 1979, pp 267-288 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Rawls’ Difference Principle asserts that a basic economic structure is just if it makes the worst off people as well off as is feasible. How well off someone is is to be measured by an ‘index’ of ‘primary social goods’. It is this index that gives content to the principle, and Rawls gives no adequate directions for constructing it. In this essay a version of the difference principle is proposed that fits much of what Rawls says, but that makes use of no index. Instead of invoking an index of primary social goods, the principle formulated here invokes a partial ordering of prospects for opportunities.

Keywords: Individual State; Difference Principle; Primary Good; Pareto Improvement; Interpersonal Comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1979
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-94-009-9532-1_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9532-1_7

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