The Adjudicating Citizen: On Equal Membership in Walzer's Theory of Justice

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 29, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 225-258

  Van Der Veen, Robert J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0033469588     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123499000113     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. xiv.
2. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 100-2.
3. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 20.
4. This formulation brings out that local autonomy is necessary, but not sufficient for complex equality to obtain. As will be seen below, local autonomy is logically compatible with a situation in which an elite ends up on top in all spheres of justice. Walzer makes it clear that that situation is to be described as complexly inegalitarian, rather than egalitarian.
5. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 320.
6. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 8-9.
7. 'By and large, the most accomplished politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, soldiers and lovers will be different people, and so long as the goods they possess don't bring other goods in train, we have no reason to fear for their accomplishments.' (Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 20.)
8. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 20.
9. In a volume dedicated to Spheres of Justice Amy Gutman makes a similar, but less far-reaching, attempt in an essay entitled 'Justice Across the Spheres'. Gutman holds that overarching considerations of fairness, individual responsibility, equal citizenship and the dignity of persons 'point to a conception of social justice that is complex but not sphere-specific' (Amy Gutman, 'Justice Across the Spheres', in David Miller and Michael Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 99-119, at p. 119).
10. Miller, 'Introduction', in Miller and Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality, pp. 1-16, at p. 14.
11. 'Justice comprises the various criteria that govern the allocation of social goods, it is a distributive notion' (David Miller, 'Complex Equality', in Miller and Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality, pp. 197-225, at pp. 200-1).
12. Miller, 'Complex Equality', in Miller and Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality, p. 200.
13. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), p. 3.
14. Ronald Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality', Social Philosophy and Policy, 1 (1983), 24-40; and 'What is Equality? Part 3: The Place of Liberty', Iowa Law Review, 73 (1987), 1-54.
15. Ronald Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality', Social Philosophy and Policy, 1 (1983), 24-40; and 'What is Equality? Part 3: The Place of Liberty', Iowa Law Review, 73 (1987), 1-54.
16. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), chap. 1.
17. See in particular Ronald Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10 (1981), 283-345, and Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality'.
18. See in particular Ronald Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10 (1981), 283-345, and Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality'.
19. Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 2', Sections III and IV.
20. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 13-17. Walzer's criticism of 'simple equality' is not addressed to Dworkin, but rather to Rawls's edifice of principles for distributing primary goods in a well-ordered basic structure of institutions. I agree with Arneson that Walzer's characterization of A Theory of Justice as a conception of 'simple equality' is simplistic and misconceived. See Richard Arneson, 'Against Complex Equality', in Miller and Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality, pp. 226-52.
21. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 13-17. Walzer's criticism of 'simple equality' is not addressed to Dworkin, but rather to Rawls's edifice of principles for distributing primary goods in a well-ordered basic structure of institutions. I agree with Arneson that Walzer's characterization of A Theory of Justice as a conception of 'simple equality' is simplistic and misconceived. See Richard Arneson, 'Against Complex Equality', in Miller and Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality, pp. 226-52.
22. Ronald Dworkin, A Matter of Principle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 219.
23. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 88.
24. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 90.
25. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 90.
26. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 75.
27. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 26.
28. Dworkin, A Matter of Principle, p. 218.
29. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 89.
30. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 88.
31. The policy might be justified by arguments of two different - but politically related - kinds. Both of these are based on the premise that a co-ordinated programme of state-funded research in high-tech medical care is more efficient than private funding. The first argument is simply that the wealthy contribute more tax to the programme than the poor do, so that it is just that they are the first to be helped, by paying for the services in an open market. The second argument is a pragmatic 'trickle-down' variant of the Rawlsian difference principle. It says that the poor will eventually benefit from a scheme that distributes cosmetic surgery according to the 'tax contribution-cum-ability to pay principle', because that is the politically most effective way to get an efficient supply of it through collective funding, while the social cost of the collective investment will be justified over time, from the demand side, by gradually making cosmetic surgery more generally available, on the criterion of need. Neither of these two arguments are exemplars of the egalitarian justice that Walzer seems to appeal to. But they certainly can qualify as distributive considerations that lie behind the gradual process of 'socializing medicine' which he describes.
32. Dworkin, A Matter of Principle, p. 216.
33. Compare Dworkin's example of the place of private medicine in a system of national health care, in the context of his remarks on applying the resource egalitarian framework by means of a 'theory of improvement'. Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 3', pp. 50-1; as well as Ronald Dworkin, 'Justice in the Distribution of Health Care', McGill Law Journal, 28 (1993), 883-98.
34. Compare Dworkin's example of the place of private medicine in a system of national health care, in the context of his remarks on applying the resource egalitarian framework by means of a 'theory of improvement'. Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 3', pp. 50-1; as well as Ronald Dworkin, 'Justice in the Distribution of Health Care', McGill Law Journal, 28 (1993), 883-98.
35. Dworkin, 'Justice in the Distribution of Health Care', Section 4.
36. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 84.
37. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 84.
38. See for instance the contributions of Robert Goodin, Bill Jordan and Philippe Van Parijs, in Philippe Van Parijs, ed., Arguing for Basic Income (London: Verso, 1992).
39. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 26.
40. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 10.
41. Miller, 'Complex Equality', in Miller and Walzer, eds, Pluralism, Justice and Equality, p. 13.
42. Note that Walzer consistently applies his ideas on local autonomy to the relations between political communities, in stressing the right of sovereignty, as well as the right to admission and exclusion of 'strangers' as being essential to communal independence, subject only to a principle of mutual aid between states (Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 61-3). I shall not discuss these aspects
43. Michael Walzer, 'Philosophy and Democracy', Political Theory, 9 (1981), 379-99, p. 397.
44. Robert J. van der Veen, 'Sociale zekerheid: een omstreden verdelingsdomein' ('Social Security: A Contested Domain'), in Paul van den Berg and Margo Trappenburg, eds. Lokale rechtvaardigheid. De politieke theorie van Michael Walzer (Local Justice: The Political Theory of Michael Walzer) (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1994), pp. 15-40.
45. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 318.
46. See Amy Gutman and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), chap. 4.
47. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 85.
48. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 84.
49. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 84.
50. Michael Walzer, 'Exclusion, Injustice and the Democratic State', Dissent, Winter (1993), 55-64.
51. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 183.
52. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 176.
53. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 91.
54. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 105.
55. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 106.
56. This is the central point of Philippe Van Parijs's sustained defence of the highest feasible citizen's income. See Philippe Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What If Anything Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Brian Barry maintains that the citizen's income cannot be justified by its egalitarian effects on the distribution of opportunity sets, on the ground that the metric of opportunity is too indeterminate to enable one to rank institutional arrangements in terms of their contribution to a more equal state of affairs. See Brian Barry, 'Survey Article: Real Freedom and Basic Income', Journal of Political Philosophy, 4 (1996), 242-77. For a refutation of this claim, see Robert J. van der Veen, 'Real Freedom and Basic Income: Comment on Brian Barry', Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (1997), 274-86.
57. This is the central point of Philippe Van Parijs's sustained defence of the highest feasible citizen's income. See Philippe Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What If Anything Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Brian Barry maintains that the citizen's income cannot be justified by its egalitarian effects on the distribution of opportunity sets, on the ground that the metric of opportunity is too indeterminate to enable one to rank institutional arrangements in terms of their contribution to a more equal state of affairs. See Brian Barry, 'Survey Article: Real Freedom and Basic Income', Journal of Political Philosophy, 4 (1996), 242-77. For a refutation of this claim, see Robert J. van der Veen, 'Real Freedom and Basic Income: Comment on Brian Barry', Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (1997), 274-86.
58. This is the central point of Philippe Van Parijs's sustained defence of the highest feasible citizen's income. See Philippe Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What If Anything Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Brian Barry maintains that the citizen's income cannot be justified by its egalitarian effects on the distribution of opportunity sets, on the ground that the metric of opportunity is too indeterminate to enable one to rank institutional arrangements in terms of their contribution to a more equal state of affairs. See Brian Barry, 'Survey Article: Real Freedom and Basic Income', Journal of Political Philosophy, 4 (1996), 242-77. For a refutation of this claim, see Robert J. van der Veen, 'Real Freedom and Basic Income: Comment on Brian Barry', Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (1997), 274-86.
59. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 91.
60. It must be noted that Walzer himself does not pronounce himself squarely in favour of including a negative income tax. He sees it as one option, alongside the more conventional one, which would guarantee jobs and a minimal income 'on the premise that money and commodities are more likely to contribute to a strong sense of identity, in our culture, if they have been earned' (Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 106). For a review of the fundamental issues raised by the unconditional nature of negative income tax or citizen's income, see Robert J. van der Veen, 'Real Freedom Versus Reciprocity: Competing Views on the Justice of Unconditional Basic Income', Political Studies, 46 (1998), 140-63.
61. It must be noted that Walzer himself does not pronounce himself squarely in favour of including a negative income tax. He sees it as one option, alongside the more conventional one, which would guarantee jobs and a minimal income 'on the premise that money and commodities are more likely to contribute to a strong sense of identity, in our culture, if they have been earned' (Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 106). For a review of the fundamental issues raised by the unconditional nature of negative income tax or citizen's income, see Robert J. van der Veen, 'Real Freedom Versus Reciprocity: Competing Views on the Justice of Unconditional Basic Income', Political Studies, 46 (1998), 140-63.
62. Michael Walzer, 'Liberalism and the Art of Separation', Political Theory, 12 (1984), 315-30, pp. 312-22.
63. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 85.
64. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, p. 304.
65. Michael Walzer, 'The Idea of Civil Society: A Path to Social Reconstruction', Dissent, Spring (1991), 293-304.
66. Walzer, 'The Idea of Civil Society', pp. 298, 301-3.
67. Walzer, Spheres of Justice, pp. 92-3.
68. Walzer, 'The Idea of Civil Society', p. 295.
69. In their survey of citizenship theories, Kymlicka and Norman criticize Walzer for claiming, in his 1991 article on the idea of civil society, that the civility which democratic politics requires can only be learnt in the associational networks of civil society. This position, they note, is 'essentially an empirical claim, for which there exists no hard evidence one way or the other' (Will Kymlicka and William Norman, 'Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory', Ethics, 104 (1992), 352-81, p. 363). While this observation is correct, it should be noted that Walzer goes out of his way to show, in that same article, that the networks of civil society need to be sustained, themselves, by enmeshing them in institutions designed to mobilize democratic political activism. If we take account of this, then Walzer's empirical claim is much more sophisticated than the reviewers make it out to be. It is also a more radical claim.