The Duty To Work

Political Studies, 2002

The paper responds to Cohen's critical claim that for agents who sincerely accept Rawls's difference principle it is not consistent to seek material incentives towards productivity. The central argument of the paper is that productive agents in a market economy would not be as productive without material incentives unless held to be under a (controversial) duty to increase productivity. This duty is distinct from merely having a duty to contribute up to a reasonable minimum, and then equalise material benefits. The controversial duty is not derivable from the difference principle itself, nor from the background motivations for it. Therefore, if Cohen's critique is internal to Rawlsian distributive justice, it is based on a controversial version of that view of distributive justice when applied to a market system. It is the reach, and not the core insight of Cohen's critique that is attacked here. If in any way sound, that insight does not un-controversially apply to all material incentive-seeking in a market economy.

The Journal of Philosophy, 2023, 2022

This paper examines whether certain workers have a moral claim to decent wages for work that contributes to the social surplus in a fundamental way. This "fundamental" way refers to work whose fruits other members of society need to live acceptably good lives (not maximally good ones). The paper argues that what is due to this type of worker is based on the nature of the benefit that her labor produces for others in society and on the returned value that such labor should, by virtue of fair play considerations, command. The core of the argument in the paper is that such benefit is connected to an important dimension of human freedom, which is enabled by the absence of necessity to toil to secure subsistence in society. The paper also dwells on questions related to whose responsibility should be to guarantee decent pay for contributions to society.

The Challenge of Charity: Freedom and Charity Working Together (MCE Books), 2015

In this chapter, we take up the question of whether the use of excess capital to create jobs (and wealth) can be an exercise of solidarity in the free economy. It is popular to suppose that solidarity with the poor can be expressed through the giving away of capital, either personally or through taxes. In some nations, taxes on wealth are even named "solidarity taxes" on these grounds. But then the question is raised: is the capital which remains after taxation, or after a charitable gift, doomed to the status of "non-solidarity" capital? It could seem so. For that which is invested (or reinvested) to create wealth through enterprise seems to be tainted with the stain of self-interest. Solidarity and activities of private enterprise, therefore, could appear to be substitutes: more investment implies less gift-giving, and as such, less solidarity. But what is the correct relationship between solidarity and job creation? We explore this question and make an argument in three parts. First, we propose a working definition of solidarity, consistent with the Tradition and the social doctrine of the Church, which is the first of its kind to our knowledge. Namely, we propose that solidarity is the unity of persons that arises from friendship. Second, we argue that the creation of jobs in wholesome enterprises can and should be seen as an expression of friendship in the free economy. Activities of job creation, we argue, fall under the virtue of magnificence (or munificence) as understood by Aristotle and St. Thomas, and are one of the chief means for the wealthy (those with capital) to fulfill their Christian obligation to the poor (those lacking capital), and to society. Thus, private enterprise can be seen as a real instance of solidarity between capital owners and laborers if true friendship between entrepreneurs and employees is fostered. Third, we argue that the obligation placed on capital owners to create opportunities for employment helps to define both the liberties and the restraints which mark a free economy: liberties to freely employ capital in productive enterprise, and restraints on business regulation and tax-and-transfer schemes.

Economica, 1987

Australian Journal of Social Issues, 2001

Welfare schemes which require recipients of benefits to 'give something hack: are often justified in terms of 'fairness' or fulfilling the 'social contract', The Australian Governments recent and proposed changes to unemployment benefits through the Mutual Obligation Scheme appeal to both justifications. However, insufficient attention has been paid the underlying ethical and political assumptions _Q serious deficiency, given their role in legitimating harsh new penalties. There are two broad reasons the current trend to tie benefits to obligations is inappropriate. First, the unemployed have little choice about their ~ontract. And second, there is insufficient mutuality shown towards the unemployed/or the Scheme to be obligation-generating. Rather than being a means a/encouraging panicipation or mutuality, the Scheme is essentially punitive.

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Justice in production is concerned with ensuring the benefits and burdens of work are distributed in a way reflective of persons' status as moral equals. While a variety of accounts of productive justice have been offered, insufficient attention has been paid to the distribution of work's benefits and burdens in the future. In this paper, after granting for the sake of argument forecasts of widespread future technological unemployment, we consider the implications this has for egalitarian requirements of productive justice. We argue that in relation to all the benefits affiliated with work, other than undertaking social contribution, the technological replacement of work is unproblematic as these benefits could in principle be attained elsewhere. But because social contribution uniquely corresponds to work (when work is understood as more than a paid job), the normative assessment of technological unemployment will turn on the value theories of justice give to contributive activity. We then argue that despite technological replacement being plainly beneficial insofar as it relieves persons from the burdens of work, such as dangerous work or drudgery, because the nature of care work makes it less susceptible to technological replacement, egalitarian concern will require the burdens of care work to be shared equally between individuals.

Res Publica, 2015

"In this paper I challenge the idea that there can be rights the rationale and content of which is securing subsistence goods for people. I do not question whether sometimes one can be entitled to minimum provisions on a different basis. For example, social justice standards entitle us to a fair share of the social product; in certain circumstances this might imply the minimum necessary to enjoy one’s equal rights as a citizen. Yet the same standards can entitle us to more than this in other circumstances. By contrast human rights aim to articulate minimal entitlements that do not vary with social circumstances. I argue that the minimum they aim to articulate is not best understood as an entitlement to an amount of some goods, even a subsistence amount, but rather as a minimum treatment. I then show how this notion of minimum treatment does not challenge the idea that we have social and economic rights – it just makes their basis and content more nuanced. I pose the following dilemma. Either a person’s claim to subsistence goods is against social institutions equipped to distribute social benefits and burdens fairly and equitably or it is made regardless of such a social scheme. If the former, then one’s claim is best understood as based on principles the content of which is not a minimum goods entitlement, but rather an equitable social distribution—a fair share. However, if the claim is not against a social scheme, there will be no plausible principle defining what counts as a reasonable burden for any of the available agents to secure subsistence. That means there is no justified principle implying perfect duties any agent could clearly follow or clearly breach that secure subsistence conditions for others. At best we can justify perfect, but singular, rescue duties under very specific conditions, or general but imperfect duties (allowing a degree of personal discretion concerning what any of us must do). Neither of these obviously correlates with human rights standards, for reasons I shall give. For more than singular duties such as rescue duties and imperfect duties to apply an institutional social agent with special redistributive powers is needed. But this reintroduces the first horn of the dilemma above: for that kind of agent the relevant standard is a fair share, not a minimal right. Attempts in the literature to overcome the second horn of the dilemma through claims that basic rights can correlate with imperfect duties or that basic rights can generate duties to work towards institutions that ‘perfect’ our imperfect duties, are shown to be faulty. My conclusion is that our entitlement to specific goods distributions is a different kind of question from entitlements based in rescue or imperfect duties of assistance. They are more appropriately addressed in an institutional context and in those contexts it is the standards of social justice/fairness that apply. Human rights standards engage with distributive questions in a different way: they define impermissible reasons on which to base distributive policies, ones implying negligent disregard. They are better understood as standards of minimum treatment rather than entitlement to minimum goods provision. "

2009

If the economy consisted of labor-managed rms, so the workplace is democratic, and in addition the bene ts and burdens of economic cooperation were shared equitably and the economy operated e ciently, might there still be a morally compelling case for further intervention into economic arrangements so as to increase the degree to which people gain meaningful or satisfying work? `No!', answers a 1987 essay by the author. This comment argues against that judgment, on the ground that morally required perfectionism or paternalism or simple fairness to the worse o might demand such intervention. It is plausible to hold the good life includes meaningful work, and that what we fundamentally owe one another is a fair distribution of good quality of life. However, this comment also takes issue with Russell Keats's argument against Arneson in his essay in this issue of this journal.