THE PRINCIPLE

This chapter argues for a combined principle of justice and equality. The principle maintains that unequal property holdings are justifiable if (1) everyone has a minimum amount of property and (2) the inequalities do not undermine a fully human life in society. This principle is a standard of justice in that it regulates morally how benefits and burdens are to be shared among persons. It is also a standard of equality in that it requires showing, in the event that persons are treated differently, why different treatment is morally proper.

The combined principle proceeds from an interpretation of the equal moral worth of persons. This interpretation differs from the utilitarian interpretation of equal worth as equal counting. The present interpretation can be loosely labeled “Kantian.” It contends that counting persons equally does not go far enough. Equal counting is compatible with sacrificing the individual utility of some in order to promote overall utility, and any such sacrifice ignores or undervalues the separateness of persons. Here separateness is not isolation or atomism, for persons live in societies. Separateness also differs from the idea that there are distinct persons who have individual interests. Rather, it involves the idea that persons have rights not to have certain of their interests traded for overall utility. Or, to use the more precise language of §§ 2.2 and 3.3, the rights are not to have certain morally justifiable individual advantages sacrificed for overall utility.