Spring Term
Weeks 6-10: Justice in Distribution – Who Gets What?
Lecturer: Professor Hallvard Lillehammer
Week 6: Rawls’ Theory of Justice
Essential Reading:
• Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice (Clarendon Press, 1972), §§1-4, 11, & 24-26.
Additional Reading:
• Kymlicka, W. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford
University Press, 1990), pp. 50-70.
Week 7: Criticisms of Rawlsian Justice
Essential Reading:
• Kymlicka, W. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford
University Press, 1990), pp. 70-90.
Additional Reading:
• Cohen, G. A. Rescuing Justice and Equality (Harvard University Press, 2008), Ch.1.
Week 8: Locke on Property
Essential Reading:
• Locke, J. Two Treatises of Government [many editions], Book II, Chs. 1, 2 & 5.
Additional Reading:
• Mautner, T. ‘Locke on original appropriation’, American Philosophical Quarterly
19/3 (1982).
Week 9: Nozick’s Libertarian Justice
Essential Reading:
• Nozick, R. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Blackwell, 1974), pp. 149-64, 167-82, &
262-5.
Additional Reading:
• Cohen, G. A. Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality (Cambridge University Press,
1995), Ch. 1, §§ 1, 5-8, & Ch. 2, §2.
Week 10: Desert and the Market
Essential Reading:
• Miller, D. ‘Distributive justice’, Ch. 6 of his Market, State, and Community
(Clarendon Press, 1989), §2 onwards.
Additional Reading:
• Olsaretti, S. ‘Productive contributions and deserved market rewards’, Ch. 3 of her
Liberty, Desert and the Market (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
ESSAY QUESTIONS
- Explain and assess Rawls’s principles of justice.
Essential Reading:
• Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice (Clarendon Press, 1972), §§1-4, 11, & 24-26.
Additional Reading:
• Kymlicka, W. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford
University Press, 1990), pp. 50-90.
- Are market outcomes deserved? If so, how? If not, so what?
Essential Reading:
• Miller, D. ‘Distributive justice’, Ch. 6 of his Market, State, and Community
(Clarendon
Press, 1989), §2 onwards.
Additional Reading:
• Olsaretti, S. ‘Productive contributions and deserved market rewards’, Ch. 3 of her
Liberty, Desert and the Market (Cambridge University Press, 2004).