Egalitarianism Against the Veil of Ignorance

@article{Roemer2001EgalitarianismAT,
  title={Egalitarianism Against the Veil of Ignorance},
  author={John E. Roemer},
  journal={Yale: Cowles Foundation Working Papers},
  year={2001}
}
  • J. Roemer
  • Published 1 September 2001
  • Economics, Philosophy
  • Yale: Cowles Foundation Working Papers
J. Rawls and R. Dworkin have each used veils of ignorance to justify equality (Rawls) or to compute what equality entails (Dworkin). J. Harsanyi has also derived a distributive ethic from a veil of ignorance argument, which, although not egalitarian, is believed by Harsanyi to be not excessively inegalitarian. Harsanyi's analysis does not determine a unique social choice function, but rather a family of such functions. Here, by appending more information to Harsanyi's environment, and an Axiom… 
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31 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
1
Background Citations
12
Methods Citations
2
Results Citations
1

31 Citations

THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE VIOLATES PRIORITY*
The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool for recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi's model of the veil of ignorance by…
Objectivity, Priority, and the Veil of Ignorance
The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool of recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi's model of the veil of ignorance by…
IMPARTIALITY , SOLIDARITY , AND PRIORITY IN THE THEORY OF JUSTICE By
The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool for recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We show that John Harsanyi’s and Ronald Dworkin’s conceptions of…
A Reconsideration of the Harsanyi–Sen–Weymark Debate on Utilitarianism
Harsanyi claimed that his Aggregation and Impartial Observer Theorems provide a justification for utilitarianism. This claim has been strongly resisted, notably by Sen and Weymark, who argue that…
Rawls’s Self-Defeat: A Formal Analysis
One of John Rawls’s major aims, when he wrote A Theory of Justice, was to present a superior alternative to utilitarianism. Rawls’s worry was that utilitarianism may fail to protect the fundamental…
Rank-Weighted Utilitarianism and the Veil of Ignorance*
Lara Buchak argues for a version of rank-weighted utilitarianism that assigns greater weight to the interests of the worse off. She argues that our distributive principles should be derived from the…
Rawls ’ s Self-Defeat : How the Utilitarian Dog Bit the Rawlsian Hand that Fed It , A Formal Analysis 1
[Abstract] One of John Rawls’s major aims, when he wrote A Theory of Justice, was to present a superior alternative to utilitarianism. Rawls’s worry was that utilitarianism may fail to protect the…
Taxation behind the veil of ignorance
We explore the design of impartial tax schemes in a simple setup where agents’ incomes are completely determined by their inborn talents. Building on Harsanyi’s veil-of-ignorance approach, we…
Rawls’s Self‐Defeat : A Formal Examination of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice1
[Abstract] One of John Rawls’s major aims, when he wrote A Theory of Justice, was to present a superior alternative to utilitarianism. Rawls’s worry was that utilitarianism may fail to protect the…
ON SEVERAL APPROACHES TO EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
  • J. Roemer
  • Economics
    Economics and Philosophy
  • 2012
The formal theory of equality of opportunity emerged as a response – a friendly amendment – to Ronald Dworkin's (1981) characterization of resource egalitarianism, as defined by the allocation that…
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