Question

1. We argued in the text that Rawls's Difference Principle asserts that it is only just to have an unequal distribution of wealth if all persons benefit from that allocation, relative to the situation of an equal distribution. But we also argued that the total level of utility attainable might depend on the distribution of wealth, as utility could be higher in an unequal position if incentive effects enhance productive efficiency. Discuss the implications of these comments for a morally just distribution of resources within and between countries. 2. In discussing the work of Robert Nozick, it was argued that libertarian ethics have been adopted most enthusiastically by those who believe in a limited role for government. But we also noted that it is by no means clear that a laisser-faire approach is necessarily implied. Three difficult issues arise in connection with the principle of just acquisition: What should government do about unjust holdings? How are open access or common property resources to be dealt with? How do external effects and public goods relate to the concept of just acquisition? Sketch out reasoned answers to these three questions. 3. If society deemed it to be correct that some animals or plants have intrinsic rights (such as rights to be left undisturbed or rights to be reasonably protected), then such rights can be protected by imposing them as constraints on what is legitimate human behaviour. Do humans appear to regard whales as having intrinsic rights, and if so, what rights are these? In what ways, if at all, do humans defend these rights by imposing constraints on human behaviour?

Answer 1

Ques 1

- Rawls' theory of justice rotates around the adjustment of two central principles of justice which would, thusly, ensure an equitable and ethically worthy society. The primary principle ensures the privilege of every individual to have the most broad fundamental freedom perfect with the freedom of others. The subsequent principle expresses that social and financial positions are to be (a) for everybody's potential benefit and (b) open to all.

- A key issue for Rawls is to show how such principles would be all around embraced, and here the work verges on broad moral issues. He presents a hypothetical shroud of numbness in which all the players in the social game would be set in a circumstance which is known as the first position Having just an overall information about the realities of life and society, every player is to make a soundly prudential decision concerning the sort of social foundation they would go into contract with.

- By denying the players a particular data about themselves it drives them to receive a summed up perspective that looks to some extent like the ethical perspective. Moral ends can be reached without forsaking the prudential viewpoint and placing an ethical standpoint just by seeking after one's own prudential thinking under certain procedural haggling and information limitations.

- John Rawls' option distributive principle, which he calls the Difference Principle, is relevant here. The Difference Principle licenses wandering from exacting fairness insofar as the disparities being referred to would make the least advantaged in the public arena substantially happier than they would be under severe correspondence.

- Some have imagined that neither exacting uniformity nor Rawls' Difference Principle catch the significant good jobs of karma and obligation.