Arguing about justice © Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2011 Registration of copyright: D/2011/9964/17 ISBN: 978-2-87463-275-4 ISBN PDF version: 978-2-87463-298-3 Printed in Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, adapted or translated, in any form or by any means, in any country, without the prior permission of Presses universitaires de Louvain Photographs: Front cover: A. Gosseries (Sonian Forest near Brussels, not far from the linguistic border, December 2010) Back cover: © Bart Dewaele (Philippe Van Parijs in Brussels, June 2010) Distribution: www.i6doc.com, on-line university publishers Available on order from bookshops or at: Diffusion universitaire CIACO (University Distributors) Grand-Rue, 2/14 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Tel: +32 10 47 33 78 Fax: +32 10 45 73 50 [email protected] Distributor in France: Librairie Wallonie-Bruxelles 46 rue Quincampoix 75004 Paris, France Tel: +33 1 42 71 58 03 Fax: +33 1 42 71 58 09 [email protected] Contents On the contributors and editors 9 Abstracts 21 Foreword 35 Axel Gosseries & Yannick Vanderborght Using the internet to save journalism from the internet 41 Bruce Ackerman Marriages as assets? Real freedom and relational freedom 49 Anne Alstott The guaranteed income as an equal-opportunity tool in the transition toward sustainability 61 Christian Arnsperger & Warren A. Johnson The ideal of self-development: personal or political? 71 Catherine Audard Reflections on the limits of argument 79 John Baker Taxation, fees and social justice 87 François Blais Real freedom for all turtles in Sugarscape? 93 Paul-Marie Boulanger Linguistic diversity and economic security are complements 105 Samuel Bowles 5 6 Arguing about justice Legitimate partiality, parents and patriots 115 Harry Brighouse & Adam Swift Individual responsibility and social policy: the case of school allowances and truancy 125 Bea Cantillon & Wim Van Lancker Distributing freedom over whole lives 135 Ian Carter Love not war. On the chemistry of good and evil 145 Paula Casal Why do we blame survivors? 157 Jean-Michel Chaumont Why big ideas never change society 167 Denis Clerc Cooperative justice and opportunity costs 173 Laurent de Briey Too much punishment and too little forgiveness in the Eurozone 183 Paul De Grauwe Talking about democracy 191 Kris Deschouwer Let’s Brusselize the world! 199 Helder De Schutter Translations: economic efficiency and linguistic justice 207 Jacques H. Drèze If Marx or Freud had never lived? 219 Jon Elster C o n t e n t s 7 English or Esperanto: a case for levelling down? 229 Marc Fleurbaey The breeder's welfare state: a cautionary note 237 Robert E. Goodin A mobile water project: mobile-for-development meets human-centered design 245 Sangick Jeon, Eran Bendavid, Joshua Cohen, Katherine Hoffmann, and Terry Winograd Prospects for basic income: a British Perspective 253 Bill Jordan Should a Marxist believe in human rights? 261 Justine Lacroix Why has Cuban state socialism escaped its "1989"? Reflections on a non-event 269 Claus Offe A universal duty to care 283 Ingrid Robeyns The ideological roots of inequality and what is to be done 291 John E. Roemer Philosophers and taboo trade-offs in health care 303 Erik Schokkaert Multilingual democracy and public sphere: what Belgium and the EU can learn from each other 311 Dave Sinardet On genetic inequality 321 Hillel Steiner 8 Arguing about justice A federal electoral district for Belgium? An appraisal with three amendments inspired by the Swiss experience 327 Nenad Stojanovic Towards an unconditional basic income in Brazil? 337 Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy Is it always better to clear up misunderstandings? 347 Luc Van Campenhoudt Why auntie's boring tea parties matter for the fair distribution of gifts 355 Robert van der Veen Lamentation in the face of historical necessity 367 Nicholas Vrousalis Self-determination for (some) cities? 377 Daniel Weinstock Why we demand an unconditional basic income: the ECSO freedom case 387 Karl Widerquist Linguistic protectionism and wealth maximinimization 395 Andrew Williams In defense of genderlessness 403 Erik Olin Wright The capitalist road to communism: are we there yet? 415 Almaz Zelleke On the contributors and editors Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale. His major works include Social Justice in the Liberal State and his multivolume constitutional history, We the People . His most recent books are The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (2010), The Failure of the Founding Fathers (2005), and Before the Next Attack (2006). His book, The Stakeholder Society (with A. Alstott), served as a basis for Tony Blair’s introduction of child investment accounts in the United Kingdom. Bruce Ackerman is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Commander of the French Order of Merit, and the recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s Henry Phillips Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Jurisprudence. Anne Alstott is a professor of law at the Yale Law School. She is the author of numerous articles on social policy and the family, including 'Is the Family At Odds With Equality? The Legal Implications of Equality for Children', S. Cal. L. Rev. (2008); 'Private Tragedies? Family Law As Social Insurance', Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. (2010); and 'Family Values, Inheritance Law, and Inheritance Taxation', Tax L. Rev. (2009). She is also the author of two books: No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents (Oxford U. P., 2004), and (with B. Ackerman) and The Stakeholder Society (Yale U. P., 1999). Christian Arnsperger (Ph.D. and agrégation in economics) is Senior Research Fellow with the Belgian National Science Foundation (F.R.S.-FNRS). He is also a Professor of economics at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), teaching in both the economics and the sociology department, and a permanent member of the Hoover Chair. His research deals with issues of complexity theory applied to social science, sustainable economic systems, the transition toward alternative modes of production, monetary circulation and consumption, and the existential underpinnings of markets and competition. His books include Critical Political Economy and Full-Spectrum Economics (Routledge, respectively in 2008 and 2010) and Ethique de l'existence post-capitaliste (Cerf, 2009). Catherine Audard is a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Philosophy of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the Chair and 9 10 Arguing about justice co-founder of the Forum for European Philosophy . Her main interests rest with moral and political philosophy, theories of justice, utilitarianism, liberalism and the critique of multiculturalism. Her most recent books include John Rawls, (Acumen, 2007) and Qu’est-ce que le libéralisme? (Gallimard, 2009). John Baker is an Associate Professor of Equality Studies at University College Dublin. He is co-founder of the UCD Equality Studies Centre (1990) and of the UCD School of Social Justice (2005). He is the author of Arguing for Equality (Verso, 1987) and co-author of Equality: From Theory to Action (Palgrave, 2009, 2nd edn.) and of Affective Equality: Love, Care and Injustice (Palgrave, 2009). His main area of research is theoretical issues in equality studies. Eran Bendavid is an infectious diseases physician and an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University. His work explores the economic and political conditions that promote health improvements in developing countries. His latest writings evaluate the World Health Organization’s approach to treatment of HIV, and how the Global Gag Rule affected women’s reproductive choices in Africa. With the M-Maji group at Stanford, he explores how innovation and technological design can leapfrog institutional malaise in delivering clean water and increasing agency. François Blais is a political philosopher at the Political Science Dept. of Laval University (Québec city). He is the author of Ending Poverty. A Basic Income for All Canadians (Lorimer, 2002), and of several articles on related issues. He remains a strong advocate of basic income, and has delivered many conferences in order to promote this idea. Since 2006, he is the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Laval University, where he continues to teach the history of political thought. Paul-Marie Boulanger is an independent social scientist with degrees in sociology (Strasbourg & Louvain). He has been active in the fields of sustainable development, demography and social security (in developed countries), as well as food security and famine prevention in Africa. Regarding the latter, he supervised and designed the methodology of the Early Warning Systems (SAP) of famines in Mali, Chad, Mozambique and Madagascar. He heads the IDD (Belgium), a research institute that focuses on sustainability and well-being indicators, sustainable consumption, transition management, energy efficiency, etc. As a member of the Collectif Charles Fourier , he has been heavily involved together with Ph. Van Parijs in conceptualizing, analyzing and disseminating the idea of basic income. On the contributors and editors 11 Samuel Bowles (PhD, Economics, Harvard) is Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. He recently published (with Herbert Gintis) A Cooperative Species: Human reciprocity and its evolution (Princeton U.P., 2011). His next book is Machiavelli’s Mistake: Why good laws are no substitute for good citizens. He has also been a high school teacher in Nigeria and an economic advisor to the governments of Cuba and Greece, to presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy and Jesse Jackson and to President Nelson Mandela. Harry Brighouse is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Education Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and co- director of the Spencer Foundation’s Initiative on Philosophy in Educational Policy and Practice. He is author of School Choice and Social Justice (Oxford U.P., 2000), Justice (Polity, 2004) and On Education (Routledge 2005), and is a contributor to www.crookedtimber.org .