CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Vargovic, Emil |
|---|---|
| Title | Between Ideal Theory and Practice: Justice as Fairness, Productive Ownership Rights and Wider Economic Liberties |
| Summary | This thesis explores two main interconnected issues. First, it questions whether mainstream Rawlsian conception of justice and institutional regimes favored on such a conception are the most reasonable option, and would be selected as such, for actual societies characterized by ongoing disagreements on justice. It is explored how various idealizations underlying Rawls's account are used to make the proposed regimes appear more feasible and appropriate for actual societies than they would have been on a more “realistic” approach. Reasonable individuals have many reasons to be attracted to the broad ideal of justice as fairness. However, even if we assume there would be no radical disagreement over the broad ideal of justice as fairness, Rawls's own conception and his preferred regimes may not be selected as the most reasonable options. The problem is that the establishment, well-functioning and stability of the proposed regimes may be too dependent on the presumed existence of favorable socio-political conditions, appropriate individuals' attitudes and motivations. All things considered, less robust and more market-friendly regimes akin to Nordic regimes could better approximate justice as fairness than Rawls's own preferred regimes. The first issue reveals a deeper problem in mainstream liberal egalitarian conceptions of justice: Relative neglect of individuals' economic liberties, specifically neglect of productive ownership rights and entrepreneurial liberties. The objection is that many liberal egalitarians, Rawls included, have wrongly neglected the value individuals assign to their economic liberties as important for their autonomy and have failed to recognize the moral significance of various “capitalist” activities, i.e. business ownership. As a consequence, liberal egalitarian conceptions and institutional regimes allow only a modest scheme of economic liberties and therefore can be seen as inadequate for securing a sufficiently wide room for individuals' autonomy. The implication is that individuals, who aspire to be autonomous and who highly value their economic liberties, could reasonably reject such regimes. They would also seek principles which assign greater weight to their economic liberties. Therein, given individuals' enduring preference for productive ownership and entrepreneurial liberties, assigning more weight to these liberties in principle and institutional design is a reasonable accommodation under real-world constraints, even if such accommodation comes at some cost in terms of the distributive ideal of justice. Using Raz's notion of autonomy as self-authorship, three main arguments for productive ownership rights and entrepreneurial liberties are explored: the argument from economic independence, the argument from occupation choice (active independence) and the argument from self-authorship. The overall argument is that wider economic liberties fully enable (and meaningfully enhance) individuals' autonomy both directly and indirectly. The proposed Rawlsian-inspired approach aspires to assign more weight to individuals’ productive ownership and entrepreneurial freedoms (and reasonably widen their scope), while retaining the core elements of justice as fairness. Finally, the last part of the argument elaborates how commitments to wider autonomy and economic liberties could be adequately balanced with the core requirements of justice as fairness and relational equality. |
| Supervisor | Miklosi, Zoltan |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/vargovic_emil.pdf |
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