Markets, Distributive Justice and Community: The Egalitarian Ethos of G. A. Cohen

2022

Public Health Ethics

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Hassoun argues that the poor in the world have a right to health and that the Global Health Impact Index provides consumers in well-off countries with the opportunity to ensure that more people have access to essential medicines. Because of this, these consumers would be ethically obliged to purchase Global Health Impact Index-labeled products in the face of existing global inequalities. In presenting her argument, Hassoun rejects the so-called democratic account of ethical consumption in favor of the positive change account. Two versions of the democratic change account are relevant. One underscores the importance of democratic procedures and institutions, while the other stresses our fundamental moral equality. While at least one prominent institutionalist account has problems, revised versions would be less vulnerable to Hassoun’s counterexamples. Furthermore, institutionalist accounts come with the epistemological gains from democratic procedures and deliberations, which may be especially important under uncertainty. Finally, and perhaps more challenging for the Global Health Impact index project, this measure may place the burden unfairly on those who need to buy medicines. This is a pivotal insight from the non-institutionalist version of the democratic account of ethical consumption.

Section: Demoractic Equalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic Ethical Consumption and Social Justice

2022

Public Health Ethics

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“…Mutations may alter every iii For further discussions of justice and markets see. 29 Current controversy society's ability to deal with the virus and even threaten the efficacy of vaccines. This means that every country has a selfinterest in ensuring that other countries do not become home to new mutations.…”

Section: Current Practices: Vaccines As Aid and Commoditiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A vaccine tax: ensuring a more equitable global vaccine distribution

2021

J Med Ethics

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While COVID-19 vaccines provide light at the end of the tunnel in a difficult time, they also bring forth the complex ethical issue of global vaccine distribution. The current unequal global distribution of vaccines is unjust towards the vulnerable living in low-income countries. A vaccine tax should be introduced to remedy this. Under such a scheme, a small fraction of the money spent by a country on vaccines for its own population would go into a fund, such as COVAX, dedicated to buying vaccines and distributing them to the world’s poorest. A vaccine tax would provide a much-needed injection of funds to remedy the unequal distribution of vaccines. The tax allows for a distribution that, to a lesser degree, reflects the ability to pay and is superior to a donation-based model because it minimises the opportunity for free-riding.

“…Under such an ethos, people would not demand incentive pay for their talents, and they would, when acting as consumers, buy products that would benefit the worst-off. In this way they would make choices that are both equality-preserving and to the benefit of the worst-off (Albertsen 2019;Carens 1981;Cohen 2008;Furendal 2017;Lippert-Rasmussen 2008;Vandenbroucke 2001). 15 If such an ethos is sufficiently strong, perhaps no inequalities would ever arise that were justified by one of Piketty's inequality-permitting conditions and not the other.…”

Section: Tensions In Participatory Socialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tensions in Piketty’s Participatory Socialism: Reconciling Justice and Democracy

Lippert‐Rasmussen

2021

Analyse &Amp; Kritik

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In the final parts of Piketty’s Capital and Ideology, he presents his vision for a just and more equal society. This vision marks an alternative to contemporary societies, and differs radically both from the planned Soviet economies and from social democratic welfare states. In his sketch of this vision, Piketty provides a principled account of how such a society would look and how it would modify the current status of private property through co-managed enterprises and the creation of temporary ownership models. He also sets out two principles for when inequalities are just. The first principle permits inequalities that are beneficial to the worst-off, while the second permits inequalities that reflect differences in people’s choices and ambitions. This article identifies a tension between Piketty’s two inequality-permitting principles. It also argues that the procedural limits on how decisions are made within the enterprises of participatory socialism might create inequalities not permitted by the guiding distributive principles of participatory socialism. This tension points to the need for either further changes in firm structure and ownership, an even more progressive taxation scheme, or an egalitarian ethos reflected in citizens’ choices in their everyday lives under participatory socialism.