Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle

Abstract

We analyse the implications of classical liberal and libertarian approaches for distributive justice in the context of social welfare orderings. We study an axiom capturing a liberal non-interfering view of society, the Weak Harm Principle, whose roots can be traced back to John Stuart Mill. We show that liberal views of individual autonomy and freedom can provide consistent foundations for welfare judgements. In particular, a liberal non-interfering approach can help to adjudicate some fundamental distributive issues relative to intergenerational justice. However, a strong relation is established between liberal views of individual autonomy and non-interference, and egalitarian principles in the Rawlsian tradition.

Equality of when?

“…Theoretically, a large literature has emerged on intergenerational justice and the evaluation of infinite utility streams, 1 and the issues that a dynamic approach poses to egalitarianism, including the trade-offs between distribution and growth, have been highlighted almost immediately after the publication of A Theory of Justice. 2 Yet, even when distributive dynamics, growth and time 1 For a discussion see Mariotti et al (2012) and Lombardi et al (2016). 2 See, for example, the classic papers by Arrow (1973) and Dasgupta (1974).…”

Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle

“…() have dropped continuity properties and have characterised a larger class of extensions of the leximin criterion satisfying strong Pareto, anonymity, and an infinite version of Hammond equity . Lombardi and Veneziani () have shown that it is possible to provide a characterisation of the leximin relation defined by Bossert et al . () based on strong Pareto, anonymity and the Weak Harm Principle.…”

A Characterization of the Rawlsian Social Ordering Over Infinite Utility Streams

“…Lombardi et al . () characterize the Rawlsian criterion using Positive Weak Pareto, Preference Continuity, Sup Continuity, Finite Anonymity , a weak version of completeness, and a liberal principle called Weak Harm Principle .…”