PRESENTATION: TWO POLAR VALUES AND INTERMEDIATE ONES

Chapter 23 emphasized the general structural properties of distributive principles. The present chapter focuses on issues concerning their “substance,” their material, or their basic concern. For individualistic principles, this material belongs to one of two broad families: freedom and possibilities, on the one hand, and happiness, satisfaction, or just preference, on the other hand. Both have held a central place in the normative side of economics for centuries, and, on the whole, freedom, with liberalism, has probably been the most important. Freedom is directly relevant – and, indeed, essential – for macrojustice. It has thus been discussed in Part I of this study for this application, and more broadly in Chapter 22 for comparison with various brands of economic thought. The present chapter is thus restricted, for both fields, to briefly pointing out the main applications, and to discussions of critical points, notably the interpersonal comparisons of freedom and of happiness that are, by logical necessity, required by the corresponding principles.

Indeed, we have seen that principles of justice require the interpersonal comparability of their basic concerns, whether they are the items or their variations, by logical necessity. Equality across individuals has to be considered across states for defining the basic property of nondiscernable permutations, in the same state for defining the ideal equality, and in comparing various states when differences in individual items across states are relevant.