Unit #3 - Textbook Notes

• Basic Structure

  • the fundamental social institutions and their arrangement into one scheme
  • Rawls believes that social justice concerns the basic structure of society, not transactions between individuals
• Declining Marginal Utility of Money

  • any additional money to someone's income produces less, happiness or welfare, than earlier additions did
• Distributive Justice

  • the proper distribution of social benefits and burdens (in particular economic benefits and burdens)
• Free Market

  • unregulated market transactions
• Property Rights

  • what you have legitimately acquired is yours to do with as you will
• State of Nature

  • the existence of people without an overseeing authority
• Worker Participation

  • Mill advocated for breaking down the divide between producers and capitalists, arguing that this would enhance productivity and promote the well-being of people involved.
  • He believed that partnership, either between laborers and capitalists or among themselves, would eventually replace the traditional master-work relationship.
• Justice - Fairness

  • concerns the fair treatment of members of groups of people or fair compensation of prior injuries
• Justice - Equality

  • justice requires that our treatment of people reflect their fundamental moral equality
  • however, we all believe that some differences in the treatment of people, is consistent with equality (ex: capital punishment)
• Justice - Desert

  • justice requires that people get what they deserve
• Justice - Rights

  • one is treated unjustly when one's moral rights are violated
  • JS Mill made this the defining characteristic of injustice
  • he believes that what distinguishes injustice from other types of wrongful behaviour is that it involves violating the rights of a person
• Aristotle's Formal Principle of Justice

  • similar cases must be treated alike except when there are relevant differences
  • this principle emphasizes the role of impartiality and consistency in justice
  • however it's a purely formal principle because it doesn't clearly state which differences are relevant and which are not
• Rawls Natural Lottery Argument

  • Distributive shares should NOT be allotted on the basis of morally arbitrary contingencies
  • justice is not to be understood in terms of moral desert but rather a matter of correcting the social consequences of morally arbitrary natural differences
• Meritorious system


  People ought to get what they deserve
• Talents that we think are deserving of a reward


  A matter of luck
• Whether society values the talent

  A matter of luck
• Whether we were raised in an environment that motivates us to work hard and develop our talents


  A matter of luck