Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle

Michele Lombardi and Roberto Veneziani

No 649, Working Papers from Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance

Abstract: This paper analyses Rawls's celebrated difference principle, and its lexicographic extension, in societies with a finite and an infinite number of agents. A unified framework of analysis is set up, which allows one to characterise Rawlsian egalitarian principles by means of a weaker version of a new axiom - the Harm Principle - recently proposed by [12]. This is quite surprising, because the Harm principle is meant to capture a liberal requirement of noninterference and it incorporates no obvious egalitarian content. A set of new characterisations of the maximin and of its lexicographic refinement are derived, including in the intergenerational context with an infinite number of agents.

Keywords: Difference principle; Leximin; Weak harm principle; Infinite utility streams (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-09-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle (2013)
Working Paper: Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:649

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