Justice as mutual advantage and the vulnerable

Peter Vanderschraaf
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Peter Vanderschraaf: University of California Merced, USA, pvanderschraaf@ucmerced.edu

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2011, vol. 10, issue 2, 119-147

Abstract: Since at least as long ago as Plato’s time, philosophers have considered the possibility that justice is at bottom a system of rules that members of society follow for mutual advantage. Some maintain that justice as mutual advantage is a fatally flawed theory of justice because it is too exclusive. Proponents of a Vulnerability Objection argue that justice as mutual advantage would deny the most vulnerable members of society any of the protections and other benefits of justice. I argue that the Vulnerability Objection presupposes that in a justice-as-mutual-advantage society only those who can and do contribute to the cooperative surplus of benefits that compliance with justice creates are owed any share of these benefits. I argue that justice as mutual advantage need not include such a Contribution Requirement. I show by example that a justice-as-mutual-advantage society can extend the benefits of justice to all its members, including the vulnerable who cannot contribute. I close by arguing that if one does not presuppose a Contribution Requirement, then a justice-as-mutual-advantage society might require its members to extend the benefits of justice to humans that some maintain are not persons (for example, embryos) and to certain nonhuman creatures. I conclude that the real problem for defenders of justice as mutual advantage is that this theory of justice threatens to be too inclusive.

Keywords: contribution requirement; Humean strategy; justice as mutual advantage; moral standing; Provider-Recipient game; Vulnerability Objection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:10:y:2011:i:2:p:119-147

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X10386566

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