Distributive Justice for Democracies: A Needs-Based Sufficientarian Approach.

Abstract

I argue that members of a democratic society owe one another, as a matter of justice, access to what they need to function as full and equal citizens. My view pairs the measure of citizens’ needs with a sufficientarian principle of distribution: that is, a principle aimed at moving individuals from a position of objective lack to a position of objective satisfaction. I argue that this pairing is fitting because citizens’ needs can be satisfied at an objective, finite level of capabilities and an objective, finite level of effective opportunities to exceed this minimum.

I am not unique in taking individuals’ needs qua full and equal citizens as central to democratic distributive justice. However, the needs-based accounts proposed by Rawls and Anderson test the expectation that reasons will be available to citizens that they can offer one another in justification of their society’s principles of justice. These views rely on moral intuitions that citizens need not accept as part of their implicit commitment to basic democratic values. I demonstrate how far-reaching and attractive a floor for distributive justice can be, even when based on an insistently political account of full and equal citizenship that eschews controversially egalitarian intuitions.

Chapter one introduces an account of the citizen role from which citizens’ needs are derived. It is distinguished by a strictly political account of citizens’ equality that is closely tied to central citizenship functions. I also describe a social minimum that enables individuals to occupy this role. Chapter two proposes regulating opportunities above the guaranteed minimum to prevent the emergence of castes and to express an understanding of reciprocity that respects citizens’ standing as equals. Chapter three addresses the challenge posed by individuals with extraordinarily costly citizenship-related needs. I argue that claims of distributive justice may be overridden by other claims of justice and at the margins by efficiency considerations. Lastly, I survey the sufficientarian landscape, defining the conceptual space that my view occupies in relationship to the views of Frankfurt, Rosenberg, Crisp, Hayek, Satz, and Anderson.