Abstract
Many political theorists think about how to make societies more just. In recent years, with interests shifting from principles to their institutional realization, there has been much debate about feasibility and the role it should play in theorizing. What has been underexplored, however, is how feasibility depends on the attitudes and perceptions of individuals, not only with regard to their own behaviour, but also with regard to the behaviour of others. This can create coordination problems, which can be described as “feasibility gridlocks”. These problems are interesting from a normative perspective, not only because they arguably play an important role for the feasibility of institutions, but also because they contain a normative element themselves: individual might be willing to cooperate in order change the “feasibility frontier” (Wiens D (forthcoming) Political ideals and the feasibility frontier. Econ Philos), but only if others are also willing to do their bit, which contains a judgment about the fair distribution of burdens. Beliefs about the selfish nature of human beings, however, can make feasibility gridlocks more likely. This is why what I call, for the sake of brevity, “economic ideology”, i.e. an account of human nature as fundamentally self-interested, can be harmful. Finding a way out of such equilibriums therefore is an important task for political theorists and social reformers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Notes
Some authors, however, for example Sen 2008 and Wiens (esp. 2012) argue that we can address current injustices and institutional failures directly. This position seems correct with regard to some injustices—in fact, some current injustices might be such that we do not need any theorizing at all—but it does not seem correct with regard to all questions political theorists work on.
There can be indirect connections to questions of motivation, for example via the motivation of public service employees, but I cannot go into these details here.
See also Cohen 2001 for a discussion of G.A. Cohen’s critique of Rawls. One of J. Cohen’s replies is that for Rawls, egalitarian institutions would lead to an egalitarian ethos, which would make high incentives for talented workers less necessary.
One problem in this context is that economic models often work at a level of abstraction that makes it hard to reject their assumptions. For example, they assume that individuals prefer more money to less money, working with an implicit “ceteris paribus” clause: if one can work in exactly the same job for more or less money, it seems plausible that most people would choose more money. But often “ceteris” is not “paribus”; for example, jobs usually differ along more dimensions than the wage level. Thus, the statement that individuals prefer more money to less money may not be very useful for making predictions about their behaviour in real-life situations, and it may be misleading if it implies that this is the only, or the most important, factor determining their decisions.
Whether working harder and earning more actually go hand in hand in our economies is an open question. I here assume it only for the sake of argument.
Of course, there could also be different “economic ideologies”, for example in different historical eras. I use the term “ideology” because such views have wide-reaching implications for how one sees the world, which are based on—at least partly—wrong assumptions and which favour certain interests over others.
If the utility individuals draw from their income also depends on their relative position, this can add to the unwillingness to contribute if others do not do their bit, because in addition to the loss in absolute terms, there would be an even greater loss in relative terms.
In addition, it might also characterize economic failure as a matter of lacking ambitions or bad character, rather than bad luck or structural tendencies in the economy.
One might also imagine that individuals are not only “conditional co-operators”, but also hold certain views about what they are obliged to do depending on what others do. As Lawford-Smith (2013b) discusses, if some task is only feasible for a group, and an individual correctly anticipates that others will fail to do their bit, there can be cases in which individuals do not have an obligation to attempt to do the task on their own, because such an attempt would be futile. The cases I am interested in concern large-scale societies; one can imagine that in them some individuals hold such views, rightly or wrongly, which can exacerbate the problem.
Lawford-Smith (2013a, 247) explicitly notes that “uncoordinated aggregates of individuals” may not have the possibility to “bring about” an outcome that matters for evaluating its feasibility. In 2013b, she analyses various forms of collective action, and how they relate to the individuals’ duties. Wiens (2014, 5) mentions the “problem of assurance” as affecting an individual’s motivation to cooperate, but he does not discuss this point any further.
Of course, individuals might also hold overly positive beliefs about the willingness to cooperate and to behave altruistically. But a person who wrongly believes her peers to be more altruistic than they really are is likely to learn her lesson relatively quickly. In the scenario that underestimates the willing to cooperate, it is more likely to be stuck in an equilibrium in which individuals have no opportunity to find out that their beliefs are wrong.
van Someren Greve (2014) discusses feasibility and fairness from a different perspective, namely whether or not it can be unfair to be required to do something one cannot do, a claim which he rejects. What I am interested in is the question of fairness with regard to some doing their duty and other failing to do so.
I would like to thank Andrew Walton and audiences at the University of Tilburg and the University of Zurich, as well as two reviewers of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, for their helpful questions and comments.
References
Brennan G, Pettit P (2005) The feasibility issue. In: Jackson F, Smith M (eds) Oxford handbook to contemporary philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 258–297
Carens JH (1981) Equality, moral incentives, and the market. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Ciepley D (2013) Beyond public and private: toward a political theory of the corporation. Am Polit Sci Rev 107(1):139–158
Cohen J (2001) Taking people as they are? Philos Public Aff 30(4):363–386
Cohen GA (2003) Facts and principles. Philos Public Aff 31(3):211–245
Cunningham F (2005) Market economies and market societies. J Soc Philos 36(2):129–142
Easterlin RA (1974) Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In: David PA, Reder MW (eds) Nations and households in economic growth: essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz. Academic, New York, pp 89–125
Estlund D (2011) Human nature and the limits (if any) of political philosophy. Philos Public Aff 39(3):207–237
Estlund D (2014) Utopophobia. Philos Public Aff 42(2):113–134
Fehr E, Fischbacher U, Gächter S (2001) Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Econ Lett 71(3):397–404
Feldstein M (1995) The effect of marginal tax rates on taxable income. J Polit Econ 103:551–572
Frank R, Gilovich T, Regan DT (1993) Does studying economics inhibit cooperation. J Econ Perspect 7(2):159–171
Geuss R (2008) Philosophy and real politics. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Gheaus A (2013) The feasibility constraint on the concept of justice. Philos Q 63(252):445–464
Gilabert P (2009) The feasibility of basic socioeconomic human rights: a conceptual exploration. Philos Q 59(237):659–681
Gilabert P (2012) Comparative assessments of justice, political feasibility, and ideal theory. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 15(1):39–56
Gilabert P, Lawford-Smith H (2012) Political feasibility. A conceptual exploration. Polit Stud 60(4):809–825
Herzog L (2012) Ideal and non-ideal theory and the problem of knowledge. J Appl Philos 29(4):271–288
Hungerford TL (2013) Corporate tax rates and economic growth since 1947. Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief #364, available at http://www.epi.org/publication/ib364-corporate-tax-rates-and-economic-growth/
Lawford-Smith H (2013a) Understanding political feasibility. J Polit Philos 21(3):243–259
Lawford-Smith H (2013b) The feasibility of collectives’ actions. Australas J Philos 90(3):453–467
Liberman V, Samuels SM, Ross L (2004) The name of the game: predictive power of reputations versus situational labels in determining prisoner’s dilemma game moves. Personal Soc Psychol Bull 30(9):1175–1185
Miller D (1999) Principles of social justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Murphy LB (2003) Moral demands in nonideal theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Murphy LB, Nagel T (2002) The myth of ownership: taxes and justice. Oxford University Press, New York
Pink D (2009) Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us. Penguin, New York
Polanyi K (1944) The great transformation. Beacon, New York
Räikkä J (1998) The feasibility condition in political theory. J Polit Philos 6(1):27–40
Rawls J (1982) Social unity and primary goods. In: Sen A, Williams B (eds) Utilitarianism and beyond. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 159–185
Ricardo D (1821) On the principles of political economy and taxation. John Murray, London
Roemer J (2012) Ideology, social ethos, and the financial crisis. J Ethics 16:273–303
Rousseau JJ (1997) [1762] Second discourse. In The discourses and other early political writings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Sen A (2008) What do we want from a theory of justice? J Philos 103:215–238
Slemrod J, Bakija J (2000) Taxing ourselves, 2nd edn. MIT Press, Cambridge
Taylor C (1985) Self-interpreting animals. In: Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Philosophical Papers II. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 45–76
Valentini L (2012) Ideal vs. nonideal theory: a conceptual map. Philos Compass 7(9):654–664
Van Someren Greve R (2014) ‘Ought’, ‘can’, and fairness. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 7(4):433–451
Verhaege P (2014) What about me? The struggle for identity in a market-based society. Scribe Publications, London
von Hayek FA (1945) The use of knowledge in society. Am Econ Rev 35:519–530
Wiens D (2012) Prescribing institutions without ideal theory. J Polit Philos 20(1):45–70
Wiens D (2013) Demands of justice, feasible alternatives, and the need for causal analysis. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 16(2):325–338
Wiens D (2014) Going evaluative’ to save justice from feasibility—a pyrrhic victory. Philos Q 64(255):301–307
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Herzog, L. Distributive Justice, Feasibility Gridlocks, and the Harmfulness of Economic Ideology. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 18, 957–969 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-015-9565-9
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-015-9565-9