The video investigates John Rawls' philosophy on Distributive justice, focusing on how income, wealth, and opportunities should be allocated within society. Rawls uses the concept of a Hypothetical contract performed behind a 'Veil of ignorance,' advocating for principles that do not rely on Utilitarianism but rather promise Equal basic liberties and the benefit of the least well-off through social and economic inequalities.

Rawls critiques various justice theories, from aristocracy to libertarianism, and highlights problems in meritocracy due to its reliance on arbitrary factors such as birth order and social status. His 'Difference principle' advocates structuring society so that talents and opportunities help those least advantaged. This leads to complex discussions on social equality and the fairness of rewarding inherent abilities.

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1. Distributive [dɪˈstrɪbjʊtɪv] - (adj.) Relating to the way something is shared across a group.

Today we turned to the question of Distributive justice.

2. Veil of ignorance [veɪl əv ˈɪgnərəns] - (n.) A hypothetical state where individuals are ignorant of their personal circumstances to make unbiased decisions.

What matters is that the Hypothetical contract be carried out in an original position of equality behind what Rawls calls the Veil of ignorance.

3. Utilitarianism [juːˌtɪlɪˈtɛːriənɪzm] - (n.) A doctrine that actions are right if they benefit the majority.

Would the people in the original position choose to govern their collective lives? Utilitarian principles...

4. Arbitrary [ˈɑːrbɪtrɛri] - (adj.) Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

Rawls claims that if you're bothered by basing distributive shares on factors arbitrary from a moral point of view...

5. Meritocratic [ˌmerɪtəˈkrætɪk] - (adj.) Relating to a system in which people succeed because of their abilities and merit.

In a fair meritocracy, the society sets up institutions to bring everyone to the same starting point...

6. Intrinsic [ɪnˈtrɪnzɪk] - (adj.) Belonging naturally; essential.

What they are entitled to is not proportional to nor dependent on their intrinsic worth.

7. Egalitarian [ɪˌɡalɪˈtɛːrɪən] - (adj.) Believing in or based on the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights.

He doesn't say that the only way to remedy or to compensate for differences in natural talents and abilities is to have a kind of leveling equality...

8. Contribution [ˌkɒntrɪˈbjuːʃən] - (n.) A part played by a person or thing in bringing about a result or helping something to advance.

But contribution takes us straight back to our natural talents and abilities, not just effort.

9. Libertarian [ˌlɪbərˈterɪən] - (n./adj.) A person who advocates for minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.

This objection has to do with reasserting the idea of self-ownership.

10. Legitimate Expectations [ləˈdʒɪtəmət ˌɛkspɛkˈteɪʃənz] - (n.) A legal principle that safeguards fairness during administrative proceedings.

Distributive justice is not about moral desert. Now here Rawls introduces an important and a tricky distinction between moral desert on the one hand, and entitlements to legitimate expectations on the other.

Veil Of Ignorance The Moral Basis Of Distributive Justice

Today we turned to the question of Distributive justice. How should income and wealth and power and opportunities be distributed according to what principles? John Rawls offers a detailed answer to that question, and we're going to examine and assess his answer to that question today. We put ourselves in a position to do so last time by trying to make sense of why he thinks that principles of justice are best derived from a Hypothetical contract. And what matters is that the Hypothetical contract be carried out in an original position of equality behind what Rawls calls the Veil of ignorance. So that much is clear.

All right, then let's turn to the principles that Rawls says would be chosen behind the Veil of ignorance. First, he considers some of the major alternatives. What about Utilitarianism? Would the people in the original position choose to govern their collective lives? Utilitarian principles, the greatest good for the greatest number. No, they wouldn't, Walt says. And the reason is that behind the Veil of ignorance, everyone knows that once the veil goes up and real life begins, we will each want to be respected with dignity. Even if we turn out to be a member of a minority, we don't want to be oppressed. And so we would agree to reject Utilitarianism and instead to adopt as our first principle Equal basic liberties, fundamental rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, religious liberty, freedom of conscience, and the like. We wouldn't want to take the chance that we would wind up as members of an oppressed or a despised minority, with the majority tyrannizing over us. And so, Rawls says, Utilitarianism would be rejected. Utilitarianism makes the mistake, Rawls writes, of forgetting, or at least not taking seriously, the distinction between persons. And in the original position, behind the Veil of ignorance, we would recognize that and reject Utilitarianism. We wouldn't trade off our fundamental rights and liberties for any economic advantages. That's the first principle.

Second principle has to do with social and economic inequalities. What would we agree to? Remember, we don't know whether we're going to wind up being rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy. We don't know what kind of family we're going to come from, whether we're going to inherit millions, or whether we will come from an impoverished family. So we might at first thought say, well, let's require an equal distribution of income and wealth just to be on the safe side. But then we would realize that we could do better than that, even if we're unlucky and wind up at the bottom. We could do better if we agree to a qualified principle of equality. Rawls calls it the Difference principle, a principle that says only those social and economic inequalities will be permitted that work to the benefit of the least well off. So we wouldn't reject all inequality of income and wealth. We would allow some. But the test would be, do they work to the benefit of everyone, including those, or, as he specifies the principle, especially those at the bottom? Only those inequalities would be accepted behind the Veil of ignorance. And so, Rawls argues, only those inequalities that work to the benefit of the least well off are just.

We talked about the examples of Michael Jordan making $31 million a year, of Bill Gates having a fortune in the tens of billions of. Would those inequalities be permitted under the Difference principle? Only if they were part of a system. Those wage differentials that actually work to the advantage of the least well off. Well, what would that system be? Maybe it turns out that as a practical matter, you have to provide incentives to attract the right people to certain jobs. And when you do, having those people in those jobs will actually help those at the bottom. Strictly speaking, Rawls argument for the Difference principle is that it would be chosen behind the Veil of ignorance. Let me hear what you think about Rawls claim that these two principles would be chosen behind the Veil of ignorance. Is there anyone who disagrees that they would be chosen? All right, let's start up in the balcony, if that's all right.

Your argument depends upon us believing that we would argue and set policy or justice from a bottom for the disadvantaged. And I just don't see from a proof standpoint where we've proven that, why not the top, right? And what's your name? Mike. Mike, all right, good question. Put yourself behind the Veil of ignorance. Enter into the thought experiment. What principles would you choose? How would you think it through? Well, I would say things like, even Harvard's existence is an example of preaching toward the top, because Harvard takes the top academics. And I didn't know when I was born how smart I would be, but I worked my life to get to a place of this caliber. Now, if you'd said Harvard's going to randomly take 1600 people of absolutely no qualification, we'd all be saying, well, there's not much, not much to work for. And so what principle would you choose in that situation? I would say a merit based one where I don't necessarily know what I have, but I'd rather have a system that rewards me based on my efforts. Mike, behind the Veil of ignorance, would choose a merit based system where people are rewarded according to their efforts. All right, fair enough.

What would you say? Go ahead. My question is, if the merit based argument is based on when everyone is at a level of equality, where from that position, you're rewarded to where you get, or is it, regardless of. Of what advantages you may have when you began your education, to get where you are here? I think the question you're asking is saying, if you want to look at whatever Utilitarianism policy or it is, do we want to maximize world wealth? And I think a system that rewards merit is the one that we've pretty much all established is what is best for all of us, despite the fact that some of us may be in the second percentile and some may be in the 98th percentile. And the end of the day, it lifts that lowest base level, a community that rewards effort as opposed to innate differences. But I don't understand how you're rewarding someone's efforts who clearly has, not you, but maybe myself, advantages throughout to get where I am here. I mean, I can't say that somebody else who maybe worked as hard as I did would have had the same opportunity to come to a school like this.

All right, let's look at that point. What's your name? Kate. Kate, you suspect that the ability to get into top schools may largely depend on coming from an affluent family, having a favorable family background, social, cultural, economic advantages, and so on. I mean, economic, but yes, social, cultural, all of those advantages, for sure. Someone did a study of the 146 selective colleges and universities in the United States, and they looked at the students in those colleges and universities to try to find out what their background was, their economic background. What percentage do you think come from the bottom quarter of the income scale? You know what the figure is. Only 3% of students at the most selective colleges and universities come from poor backgrounds. Over 70% come from affluent families.

Let's go one step further, then, and try to address Mike's challenge. Rawls actually has two arguments, not one in favor of his principles of justice and in particular, of the Difference principle. One argument is the official argument, what would be chosen behind the Veil of ignorance. Some people challenge that argument, saying maybe people would want to take their chances. Maybe people would be gamblers behind the Veil of ignorance, hoping that they would wind up on top. That's one challenge that has been put to Rawls. But backing up the argument from the original position is a second argument, and that is a straightforwardly moral argument. And it goes like this. It says, the distribution of income and wealth and opportunities should not be based on factors for which people can claim no credit. It shouldn't be based on factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view.

Rawls illustrates this by considering several rival theories of justice. He begins with the theory of justice that most everyone these days would reject a feudal aristocracy. What's wrong with the allocation of life prospects in a feudal aristocracy? Rawls says, well, the thing that's obviously wrong about it is that people's life prospects are determined by the accident of birth. Are you born to a noble family or to the family of peasants and serfs? And that's it. You can't rise. It's not your doing where you wind up or what opportunities you have. But that's arbitrary from a moral point of view. And so that objection to feudal aristocracy leads, and historically has led people to say, careers should be open to talents, there should be formal equality of opportunity, regardless of the accident of birth. Every person should be free to strive, to work, to apply for any job in the society. And then if you open up jobs and you allow people to apply and to work as hard as they can, then the results are just so. It's more or less the Libertarian system that we've discussed in earlier weeks.

What does Rawls think about this? He says it's an improvement. It's an improvement because it doesn't take as fixed the accident of birth. But even with formal equality of opportunity, the Libertarian conception doesn't extend its insight far enough. Because if you let everybody run the race, everybody can enter the race. But some people start at different starting points. That race isn't going to be fair. Intuitively, he says, the most obvious injustice of this system is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by factors arbitrary from a moral point of view, such as whether you got a good education or not, whether you grew up in a family that supported you and developed in you a work ethic and gave you the opportunities. So that suggests moving to a system of fair equality of opportunity. And that's really the system that Mike was advocating earlier on, what we might call a merit based system, a Meritocratic system.

In a fair meritocracy, the society sets up institutions to bring everyone to the same starting point before the race begins. Equal educational opportunities, head start programs, for example, support for schools in impoverished neighborhoods, so that everyone, regardless of their family background, has a genuinely fair opportunity. Everyone starts from the same starting line. Well, what does Rawls think about the Meritocratic system? Even that, he says, doesn't go far enough in remedying or addressing the Moral arbitrariness of the natural lottery. Because if you bring everyone to the same starting point and begin the race, who's going to win the race? Who would win? To use the runner's example, the fastest runners would win. But is it their doing that they happen to be blessed with the athletic prowess to run fast? So, Rawls says, even the principle of meritocracy, where you bring everyone to the same starting point, may eliminate the influence of social contingencies and upbringing, but it still permits the distribution of wealth and income to be determined by the natural distribution of abilities and talents. And so he thinks that the principle of eliminating morally arbitrary influences in the distribution of income and wealth requires going beyond what Mike favors, the Meritocratic system.

Now, how do you go beyond, if you bring everyone to the same starting point and you're still bothered by the fact that some are fast runners and some are not fast runners, what can you do? Well, some critics of a more Egalitarian conception say the only thing you can do is handicap the fast runners, make them wear lead shoes. But who wants to do that? That would defeat the whole point of running the race. But Rawls says, you don't have to have a kind of leveling equality if you want to go beyond a meritocratic conception. You permit, you even encourage, those who may be gifted to exercise their talents. But what you do is you change the terms on which people are entitled to the fruits of the exercise of those talents. And that really is what the Difference principle is.

You establish a principle that says people may benefit from their good fortune, from their luck in the genetic lottery, but only on terms that work to the advantage of the least well off. And so, for example, Michael Jordan can make $31 million, but only under a system that taxes away a chunk of that to help those who lack the basketball skills that he's blessed with. Likewise, Bill Gates. He can make his billions, but he can't think that he somehow morally deserves those billions. Those who have been favored by nature may gain from their good fortune, but only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out. That's the Difference principle, and it's an argument from Moral arbitrariness. Rawls claims that if you're bothered by basing distributive shares on factors arbitrary from a moral point of view, you don't just reject a feudal aristocracy for a free market. You don't even rest content with a Meritocratic system that brings everyone to the same starting point. You set up a system where everyone, including those at the bottom, benefit from the exercise of the talents held by those who happen to be lucky. What do you think? Is that persuasive? Who finds that argument unpersuasive? The argument for Moral arbitrariness?

Yes. I think that in the Egalitarian proposition, the more talented people, I think it's very optimistic to think that they would still work really hard even if they knew that part of what they made would be given away. So I think that the only way for the more talented people to exercise their talents to the best of their ability is in the meritocracy. And in a meritocracy. What's your name? Kate. Kate, does it bother you? And, Mike, does it bother you that in a Meritocratic system, even with fair equality of opportunity, people get ahead, people get rewards that they don't deserve simply because they happen to be naturally gifted? What about that? I think that it is arbitrary, and obviously it's arbitrary, but I think that correcting for it would be detrimental because it would reduce incentives. Is that why, Mike, what are you saying?

We're all sitting in this room and we have undeserved. Undeserved glory of some sort, so that you should not be satisfied with the process of your life because you have not created any of this. And I think from a standpoint of not just this room, us being upset, but from a societal standpoint, we should have some kind of a gut reaction to that feeling that, you know, the guy who runs the race, he doesn't. He actually harms us, as opposed to maybe makes me run that last ten yards faster, and that makes the guy behind me run ten yards faster and the guy behind him ten yards faster. All right, so, Mike, let me ask you, you talked about effort before effort. Do you think when people work hard to get ahead and succeed that they deserve the rewards that go with effort? Isn't that the idea behind your defensive. I mean, of course, bring Michael Jordan here. I'm sure you can get him and have him come and defend himself about why he makes $31 million. And I think what you're going to realize is his life was a very, very tough one to get to the top and that we are basically being the majority, oppressing the minority in a different light. It's very easy to pick on him. Very easy. Effort. You know what you've got? You've persuaded? I've got a few persuaded. A lot of people. Effort.

You know what Raul's answer to that is? Even the effort that some people expend conscientious driving. The work ethic, even effort, depends a lot on fortunate family circumstances for which you, we can claim no credit. Now let's, let's do the test. Let's do a test here. Never mind economic class. Those differences are very significant. Put those aside. Psychologists say that birth order makes a lot of difference in work ethic, striving effort. How many here raise your hand. Those of you here who are first in birth order. I am too. By the way, Mike, I noticed you raised your hand. If the case for the meritocratic conception is that effort should be rewarded, doesn't Rawls have a point that even effort striving work ethic is largely shaped even by birth order? Is it your doing, Mike? Is it your doing that you were first in birth order?

Then why? Rawls says, of course not. So why should income and wealth and opportunities in life be based on factors arbitrary from a moral point of view? That's a challenge that he puts to market societies, but also to those of us at places like this. A question to think about for next time. A justice of the United States Supreme Court. What do they make? It's just under $200,000. But there's another judge who makes a lot more than Sandra Day O'Connor. Do you know who it is? Judge Judy. Judge Judy. How did you know that? Judge Judy. You know how much he makes? $25 million. Now, is that just, is it fair?

We ended last time with that remarkable poll. You remember the poll about birth order? What percentage of people in this room raised their hands? Was it to say that they were the firstborn? 75? 80%? And what was the significance of that? If you're thinking about these theories of Distributive justice, remember, we were three different theories of Distributive justice. Three different ways of answering the question, how should income and wealth and opportunities and the good things in life be distributed? And so far, we've looked at the Libertarian answer that says the just system of distribution is a system of free exchange, of free market economy against a background of formal equality, which simply means that jobs and careers are open to anyone. Rawls says this represents an improvement over aristocratic and caste systems because everyone can compete for every job, careers open to talents. And beyond that, the just distribution is the one that results from free exchange, voluntary transactions, no more, no less.

Then, Rawls argues, if all you have is formal equality, jobs open to everyone. The result is not going to be fair. It will be biased in favor of those who happen to be born to affluent families who happen to have the benefit of good educational opportunities. And that accident of birth is not a just basis for distributing life chances. And so many people who notice this unfairness, Rawls argues, are led to embrace a system of fair equality of opportunity that leads to the Meritocratic system, fair equality of opportunity. But Rawls says, even if you bring everyone to the same starting point in the race, what's going to happen? Who's going to win? The fastest runners. So once you're troubled by basing distributive shares on morally arbitrary contingencies, you should, if you reason it through, be carried all the way to what Rawls calls the democratic conception, a more Egalitarian conception of Distributive justice that he defines by the Difference principle.

Now, he doesn't say that the only way to remedy or to compensate for differences in natural talents and abilities is to have a kind of leveling equality, a guaranteed equality of outcome. But he does say there's another way to deal with these contingencies. People may gain, may benefit from their good fortune, but only on terms that work to the advantage of the least well off. And so we can test how this theory actually works by thinking about some pay differentials that arise in our society. What does the average schoolteacher make in the United States, do you suppose? Roughly 45,000, professor? It's a little more. 40. 42,000. What about David Letterman? How much do you think David Letterman makes more than a schoolteacher? $31 million.

David Letterman, is that fair, that David Letterman makes that much more than a schoolteacher? Well, Rawls answer would be, it depends whether the basic structure of society is designed in such a way that Letterman's $31 million is subject to taxation, so that some of those earnings are taken to work for the advantage of the least well off. One other example of a pay differential, a justice of the United States Supreme Court. What do they make? It's just under $200,000. Here's Sandra Day O'Connor, for example. There she is. But there's another judge who makes a lot more than Sandra Day O'Connor. Do you know who it is? Judge Judy. Judge Judy. How did you know that? You watched. No, but you've heard. You're right. Judge Judy. You know how much she makes? There she is. 25. $25 million. Now, is that just, is it fair?

Well, the answer is, it depends whether this is against a background system in line with the Difference principle, where those who come out on top in terms of income and wealth are taxed in a way that benefits the least well off members of society. Now we're going to come back to these wage differentials, pay differentials, between a real judge and a tv judge, the one Marcus watches all the time. What I want to do now is return to these theories and to examine the objections to Rawls more Egalitarian theory. The Difference principle. There are at least three objections to Rawls Difference principle. One of them came up last time in the discussion, and a number of you raised this. What about incentives? Isn't there the risk if taxes reach 70, 80, 90% marginal rate, that Michael Jordan won't play basketball, that David Letterman won't do late night comedy, or that CEO's will go into some other line of work? Now, who among those who are defenders of Rawls, who has an answer to this objection about the need for incentives? Yes, go ahead, stand up.

Rawls idea is that there should only be so much difference that it helps the least well off the most. So if there's too much equality, then the least well off might not be able to watch late night tv or might not have a job because their CEO doesn't want to work. So you need to find the correct balance where taxation still leaves enough incentive for the least well off to benefit from the talents. Good. And what's your name? Tim. All right. So Tim is saying, in effect, that Rawls takes account of incentives and could allow for pay differentials and for some adjustment in the tax rate to take account of incentives. But Tim points out the standpoint from which the question of incentives needs to be considered is not the effect on the total size of the economic pie, but instead from the standpoint of the effect of incentives or disincentives on the well being of those at the bottom. Right. Good. Thank you. I think that is what Rawls would say. In fact, if you look in section 17, where he describes the Difference principle, he allows for incentives.

The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education, and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. So you can have incentives, you can adjust the tax rate. If taking too much from David Letterman or from Michael Jordan or from Bill Gates winds up actually hurting those at the bottom. That's the test.

So incentives, that's not a decisive objection against Rawls's Difference principle, but there are two weightier, more difficult objections. One of them comes from defenders of a meritocratic conception, the argument that says, what about effort? What about people working hard, having a right to what they earn because they've deserved it, they've worked hard for it. That's the objection from effort and moral desert. Then there's another objection that comes from libertarians, and this objection has to do with reasserting the idea of self ownership. Doesn't the Difference principle, by treating our natural talents and endowments as common assets, doesn't that violate the idea that we own ourselves?

Now let me deal first with the objection that comes from the Libertarian direction. Milton Friedman writes in his book free to choose life is not fair, and it's tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But his answer is the only way to try to rectify that is to have a leveling equality of outcome, everyone finishing the race at the same, and that would be a disaster. This is an easy argument to answer, and Rawls addresses it in one of the most powerful passages I think of a theory of justice. It's in section 17, the natural. And here he's talking about the natural distribution of talents and endowments. It's neither just nor unjust. Nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.

That's his answer to Libertarian laissez faire economists like Milton Friedman who say, life is unfair, but get over it. Get over it, and let's see if we can at least maximize the benefits that flow from it. But the more powerful Libertarian objection to Rawls is not Libertarian. From the Libertarian economists like Milton Friedman, it's from the argument about self ownership developed as we saw in Nozick. And from that point of view, yes, it might be a good thing to create head start programs and public schools so that everyone can go to a decent school and start the race at the same starting line. That might be good. But if you tax people to create public schools, if you tax people against their will, you coerce them. It's a form of theft. If you take some of Letterman's 31 million, tax it away to support public schools against his will, the state is really doing no better than stealing from him. It's coercion. And the reason is we have to think of ourselves as owning our talents and endowments, because otherwise we're back to just using people and coercing people.

That's the Libertarian reply. What's Rawl's answer to that objection. He doesn't address the idea of self ownership directly, but the effect, the moral weight of his argument for the Difference principle is maybe we don't own ourselves in that thoroughgoing sense after all. Now, he says, this doesn't mean that the state is an owner in me in the sense that it can simply commandeer my life, because, remember, the first principle we would agree to behind the Veil of ignorance is the principle of Equal basic liberties, freedom of speech, religious liberty, freedom of conscience, and the like. So the only respect in which the idea of self ownership must give way comes when we're thinking about whether I own myself in the sense that I have a privileged claim on the benefits that come from the exercise of my talents in a market economy. And Rawls says, on reflection, we don't. We can defend rights, we can respect the individual, we can uphold human dignity without embracing the idea of self possession. That, in effect, is his reply to the Libertarian.

I want to turn now to his reply to the defender of a meritocratic conception who invokes effort as the basis of moral desert. People who work hard to develop their talents deserve the benefits that come from the exercise of their talents. Well, we've already seen the beginning of Rawls answer to that question, and it goes back to that poll we took about birth order. His first answer is even the work ethic, even the willingness to strive conscientiously, depends on all sorts of family circumstances and social and cultural contingencies for which we can claim no credit. You can't claim credit for the fact that you, most of you, most of us, happen to be first in birth order, and that for some complex psychological and social reasons, that seems to be associated with striving, with achieving, with effort. That's one answer. There's a second answer. Those of you who invoke effort, you don't really believe that moral desert attaches to effort. Take two construction workers. One is strong and can raise four walls in an hour without even breaking a sweat. And another construction worker is small and scrawny and has to spend three days to do the same amount of work. No defender of meritocracy is going to look at the effort of that weak and scrawny construction worker and say, therefore he deserves to make more.

So it isn't really effort. This is the second reply to the meritocratic claim. It isn't really effort. That the defender of meritocracy believes is the moral basis of distributive shares its contribution. How much do you contribute but contribution takes us straight back to our natural talents and abilities, not just effort. And it's not our doing, how we came into the possession of those talents in the first place.

All right, suppose you accepted these arguments that effort isn't everything, that contribution matters from the standpoint of the meritocratic conception, that effort even isn't our own doing. Does that mean, the objection continues, does that mean that, according to Rawls, moral desert has nothing to do with Distributive justice? Well, yes. Distributive justice is not about moral desert. Now here Rawls introduces an important and a tricky distinction. It's between moral desert on the one hand, and entitlements to legitimate expectations on the other. What is the difference between moral deserts and entitlements? Consider two different a game of chance and a game of skill. Take a game of pure chance. Say I play the Massachusetts State lottery and my number comes up. I'm entitled to my winnings. But even though I'm entitled to my winnings, there's no sense in which, because it's just a game of luck, no sense in which I morally deserve to win in the first place. That's an entitlement.

Now contrast the lottery with a different kind of game, a game of skill. Now imagine the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series. When they winden they're entitled to the trophy. But it can be always asked of a game of skill, did they deserve to win? It's always possible in principle, to distinguish what someone's entitled to under the rules and whether they deserve to win in the first place. That's an antecedent standard, moral desert. Now, Rawls says Distributive justice is not a matter of moral desert, though. It is a matter of entitlements to legitimate expectations.

Here's where he explains it. A just scheme answers to what men are entitled to. It satisfies their legitimate expectations as founded upon social institutions. But what they are entitled to is not proportional to nor dependent on their intrinsic worth. The principles of justice that regulate the basic structure do not mention moral desert, and there is no tendency for distributive shares to correspond to it. Why does rawls make this distinction? What morally is at stake? One thing morally at stake is the whole question of effort that we've already discussed. But there's a second contingency, a second source of Moral arbitrariness that goes beyond the question of whether it's to my credit that I have the talents that enable me to get ahead, and that has to do with the contingency that I live in a society that happens to prize my talents.

The fact that David Letterman lives in a society that puts a great premium, puts a great value on a certain type of smirky joke, that's not his doing. He's lucky that he happens to live in such a society. But this is a second contingency. This isn't something that we can claim credit for. Even if I had sole unproblematic claim to my talents and to my effort, it would still be the case that the benefits I get from exercising those talents depend on factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. What my talents will reap in a market economy, what does that depend on? What other people happen to want or like? In this society, it depends on the law of supply and demand. That's not my doing. It's certainly not the basis for moral desert.

What counts as contributing depends on the qualities that this or that society happens to prize. Most of us are fortunate to possess, in large measure, for whatever reason, the qualities that our society happens to prize, the qualities that enable us to provide what society wants. In a capitalist society, it helps to have entrepreneurial drive. In a bureaucratic society, it helps to get on easily and smoothly with superiors. In a mass democratic society, it helps to look good on television and, to speak, in short, superficial songbites. In a litigious society, it helps to go to law school and to have the talents to do well on lsats. But none of this is our doing. Suppose that we, with our talents, inhabited not our society, technologically advanced, highly litigious, but a hunting society or a warrior society. What would become of our talents then? They wouldn't get us very far. No doubt some of us would develop others. But would we be less worthy? Would we be lessen, virtuous? Would we be less meritorious if we lived in that kind of society rather than in ours? Rawls answer is no. We might make less money and properly sow, but while we would be entitled to less, we would be no less worthy, no less deserving than we are now.

And here's the point. The same could be said of those in our society who happen to hold less prestigious positions, who happen to have fewer of the talents that our society happens to reward. So here's the moral import of the distinction between moral desert and entitlements to legitimate expectations. We are entitled to the benefits that the rules of the game promise for the exercise of our talents. But it's a mistake and a conceit to suppose that we deserve in the first place, a society that values the qualities we happen to have in abundance.

Now, we've been talking here about income and wealth. What about opportunities and honors? What about the distribution of access of seats in elite colleges and universities? It's true all of you, most of you firstborn, worked hard, strived, developed your talents to get here. But Rawls asks, in effect, what is the moral status of your claim to the benefits that attach to the opportunities you have? Our seats in colleges and universities a matter a kind of reward, an honor for those who deserve them because they've worked so hard? Or are those seats, those opportunities and honors entitlements to legitimate expectations that depend for their justification on those of us who enjoy them doing so in a way that works to the benefit of those at the bottom of society? That's the question that Rawls Difference principle poses. It's a question that can be asked of the earnings of Michael Jordan and David Letterman and Judge Judy. But it's also a question that can be asked of opportunities to go to the top colleges and universities. And that's a debate that comes out when we turn to the question of affirmative action.

Education, Philosophy, Global, Distributive Justice, John Rawls, Egalitarianism