Introduction

Questions about work and its arrangement are the source of great

political controversy in society. The issues involved are highly divisive,

but the divisions generated do not neatly map onto the familiar political

Left-Right spectrum. Even amongst those of similar political persuasion,

there is a considerable disagreement about whether we should exercise

political power to pursue full employment, to discourage ‘overwork’, to

make job-holders more secure, or to incentivise workers to avoid

dependence on state aid.

Whilst we can make some progress with these questions by

consulting with our intuitions, a fully satisfactory response must make

use of an account of the political principles and social institutions that

ought to guide society’s arrangement of work. In this thesis I defend a

liberal egalitarian conception of justice, and then use it to develop such

an account. That is, in this thesis I develop and defend a liberal

egalitarian account of justice in work.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide an overview

of this thesis’s aims, structure, and conclusions. This chapter begins by

clarifying the subject matter of my inquiry – work and its arrangement.

Following this, I then draw attention to the political and philosophical

significance of questions concerning the arrangement of work. In doing

so, I illuminate the value of having an account of the political principles

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and social institutions that ought to guide society’s arrangement of work.

Over the course of the subsequent three sections, I then issue three

distinct sets of remarks relating to the methods used in this thesis: the

first concerns the concepts of ‘justice’ and ‘legitimacy’ and the

relationship between the two ideas; the second examines and specifies

the distinctive requirements of political morality; and the third addresses

the relationship between questions regarding society’s arrangement of

work and questions regarding society’s distribution of benefits and

burdens more generally. Finally, I conclude with a brief preview of the

thesis. This preview affords me the opportunity both to clarify the more

specific questions and literature that I engage with, as well as indicate

some of the conclusions that I later establish.

1 Work

This thesis is concerned with work. But, what is work? This is

simultaneously a very good and very bad question for a normative inquiry

of this kind to begin with. It is a very good question to begin with as it

prompts a clear delineation of the subject matter of the thesis.

Presumably, an investigation into normative issues relating to work is in

some way distinct from a normative investigation into global justice, the

family, climate change, or bioethics, for example. Moreover, in the

absence of any idea of what is meant by ‘work’, the questions this thesis

is concerned with may simply be impossible to answer: if we have no idea

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what work is, then it will be impossible to answer questions about its

appropriate arrangement.

However, it is also a very bad question to begin with in that it

invites us to engage in a form of conceptual analysis that is inessential to

our ends. Put in stark terms, we can theorise about what bankers,

surfers, or parents are owed as a matter of justice without recourse to

the conceptual matter of whether it is a misuse of a label to say that

banking, surfing, or parenting are properly regarded as ‘work’.1

Normative theory is primarily concerned with what we owe (to each

other) and for what reasons; it is not concerned with semantics.

In order to circumvent this problem, I instead stipulate a definition

of work. By work, I (stipulatively) mean paid employment. There are

three advantages to proceeding on the basis of this definition. First, as

will be explained in the next section, it enables us to engage with a set of

politically and philosophically important questions. Second, it leaves

open the possibility that closely related activities, such as volunteering or

parenting, say, should be governed by similar or identical normative

principles. In short, though this thesis is not concerned with these closely

related activities, it is in principle consistent with my approach that we

ought to think about them in precisely the same way that we think about

paid employment. Third, this definition of work is sufficiently close to the

1 In addition to being inessential, the task may also be impossible. A number of authors acknowledge that, if we attempt to discover a definition of work latent in common discourse, we may be forced to accept the conclusion that ‘no unambiguous or objective definition of work is possible’. See Keith Grint, The Sociology of Work: Third Edition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 6. Perhaps a more promising strategy (for those interested in such things) is to adopt a normative approach to conceptual interpretation. For an elaboration and defence of this method, see Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2011), chs. 7 and 8.

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definition utilised by other authors whose contributions bear upon this

inquiry.2 This ensures that my definition of work does not obscure this

thesis’s contribution to the academic literature.

Two clarifications are called for at this stage. First, let me

distinguish between those benefits and burdens that are internal to work,

and those that are external to work. A benefit is internal to work when a

worker’s possession of it results directly from her performance of the

task(s) involved. This is the case with self-realisation at work, for

example. By contrast, a benefit is external to work when a worker’s

possession of it results from it being conferred upon her as a result of her

performance of the task(s) involved. This is the case with a worker’s

salary, for example. This thesis is concerned with the distribution of both

the internal and external benefits and burdens of work. For this reason, it

is perhaps more accurate to say that this thesis is concerned with

normative questions concerning society’s arrangement of work and the

benefits and burdens that attach to it. Given how cumbersome this

phrase is, though, I shall simply continue to refer to ‘work’.

Second, it may help briefly to comment on the relationship between

work and jobs. Jobs provide vehicles through which citizens are assigned

work.3 To assert that a citizen has a job as a professional darts player,

say, is to claim nothing other than that she undertakes paid employment

2 See, for example, Russell Muirhead, Just Work (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 4-6.3 Many will also be tempted to draw a further distinction between jobs, careers, and occupations. The central feature of this distinction, it is sometimes claimed, is temporal. Whereas jobs are short-term, careers and occupations refer to more long-term projects. See, for example, Norman Care, ‘Career Choice’, Ethics, 94 (1984), 283-302 at 285. Though something like this distinction may be latent in common discourse, I see no need to employ it in this thesis. Instead, and for simplicity, I shall stick to the more restricted language of work and jobs.

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as a professional darts player. A corollary of this claim is that, for the

purposes of this thesis, volunteering and parenting are not jobs. This is

because they do not involve paid employment.4

2 Theorising about Work

Why bother to defend an account of the political principles and social

institutions that ought to guide society’s arrangement of work? There are

at least two compelling answers to this question. The first makes

reference to the fact that work is a huge part of many citizens’ lives. The

relationship between work and citizens’ interests is an extremely

complicated one (which I investigate in further detail in Chapter 1). A

central feature of the relationship is that the work that a citizen

undertakes greatly affects the extent to which she is able to pursue what

she regards as a flourishing life. Or, in slightly more technical terms,

arrangements of work greatly affect the extent to which she is able to

pursue her conception of the good.5 An implication of this is that

injustices in this aspect of citizens’ lives are likely to be particularly

grievous and, as a result, especially politically urgent.

Second, aside from questions of wage inequality, normative

questions relating to the arrangement of work have not received either

the political or philosophical attention they warrant. The assumption that

4 Some complications are raised by activities that, though not currently paid, should be paid. For the purpose of this thesis, I put these complications on hold. 5 A conception of the good is ‘an ordered family of final ends and aims which specifies a person’s conception of what is of value in human life or, alternatively, of what is regarded as a fully worthwhile life’. See John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 19.

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jobs ought to be arranged and distributed according to broadly laissez-

faire market principles is one that has been largely unchallenged both

politically and philosophically (at least outside of Marxist theory). There

are signs of change, however. First, as Alex Gourevitch has noted, in

addition to contesting wealth and income inequality, recent anti-capitalist

protests have also focused on the benefits and burdens that are internal

to work.6 Protestors have called for a transformation in the kind of work

that jobs typically involve.

Moreover, there has also been a resurgence from within academia

in issues relating to work and its arrangement. Most significantly, this

has come from liberal theorists, who have, with notable exceptions,7

traditionally neglected the topic.8 Even John Rawls fails to specify in any

detail the implications for work of either justice as fairness or political

liberalism.9 Whilst there is a little discussion of how precisely we ought

to respond, there is an emerging consensus that laissez-faire market

arrangements and distributions of jobs remain unjust, even once certain 6 Alex Gourevitch, 'Labor Republicanism and the Transformation of Work', Political Theory, 41 (2013), 591-617 at 592.7 I have in mind principally, though not exclusively, the contributions of Richard Arneson. See Richard Arneson, ‘Meaningful Work and Market Socialism’, Ethics, 97 (1987), 517-45; Richard Arneson, ‘Is Work Special? Justice and the Distribution of Employment’, The American Political Science Review, 84 (1990), 1127-47; and Richard Arneson, ‘Meaningful Work and Market Socialism Revisited’, Analyse & Kritik, 31 (2009), 139-151. See also Kory Schaff (ed.), Philosophy and the Problems of Work: A Reader (Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). 8 See, for example, Samuel Arnold, ‘The Difference Principle at Work’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 20 (2012), 94-118; G. A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2008), ch. 5; Russell Keat, ‘Anti-Perfectionism, Market Economies, and the Right to Meaningful Work’, Analyse & Kritik, 31 (2009), 121-138; and Stuart White, The Civic Minimum: On the Rights and Obligations of Economic Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).9 Rawls makes a number of claims regarding how work will be arranged in the just society, but the justifications for these claims are often left unclear. Samuel Arnold therefore concludes that ‘Rawls’s views on work are somewhat of a puzzle’. See Arnold, ‘The Difference Principle at Work’, 95. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1999), §65; and Rawls, Justice as Fairness, §53,

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wage inequalities have been corrected for. Together, these points

highlight the political and philosophical timeliness of a normative

investigation into the political principles and social institutions that ought

to guide society's arrangement of work.

3 Justice and Legitimacy

My investigation into society's arrangement of work makes use of the

ideas of ‘justice’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘legitimacy’. For this reason, it

will help for me to specify how I use these terms, which is a task that

requires a short detour.

Within normative theory, broadly understood, there are three types

of question that are normally asked.10 First, we can inquire into the moral

permissibility or impermissibility of actions. We could ask, for example,

ought the government to raise the minimum wage? Let’s call these

action-guiding questions. Second, we can inquire into the

blameworthiness or praiseworthiness of actions. We could ask, for

example, ought I to blame the current government for failing to raise the

minimum wage? Let’s call these ascriptive questions. Finally, we can

inquire into the goodness or badness of outcomes. We could ask, for

example, would the world be a better or worse place if the government

were to raise the minimum wage? Let’s call these axiological questions.

10 The framework that I offer here is similar to, though departs in crucial respects from, that offered in G. A. Cohen, ‘How To Do Political Philosophy’ in On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice and Other Essays in Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 225-35 at 227.

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Each of these types of questions can be applied to various aspects

of society's arrangement of work. First, we could ask, which social

institutions ought the government to set up to guide society's

arrangement of work? Second, we could ask, ought I to blame the

current government for failing to support these social institutions?

Finally, we could ask, how good or bad is the state of affairs that these

social institutions bring about?

This thesis is concerned with a specific set of action-guiding

questions – that is, with a specific set of questions about morally

permissible and impermissible action. It is tempting, therefore, to adopt

a definition of justice that directly tracks moral permissibility. According

to this view, an act is just if and only if it is morally permissible; and, by

implication, an act is unjust if and only if it is morally impermissible. To

say that an institution or set of public rules are just is to say that the

decisions that brought about that institution or set of public rules were

morally permissible ones.

This position is too simplistic, however. This is because there are

some actions that, though morally permissible, are not just. Let’s

consider Rawls’s example of a democratically-mandated decision to set

up legal institutions that seek to maximise overall well-being subject to a

constraint guaranteeing an adequate minimum for everyone.11 Though

this decision is according to Rawls less just than establishing legal

institutions that seek to maximise the position of the least advantaged

subject to respecting certain rights, given that it is democratically

11 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1996), xlviii-xlix.

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mandated, such a decision might still be morally permissible. In short, we

have a decision that is morally permissible, though not strictly just.

It is tempting to bite this bullet: we could affirm that, according the

definition of justice that has been stipulated, we should simply regard

both decisions as just by virtue of their moral permissibility. An

unfortunate implication of this response, though, is that it deprives us of

the theoretical tools to determine which action of a set of morally

permissible actions is the best one. This is unsatisfying both

philosophically and politically. It is philosophically unsatisfying because it

would result in many important normative questions being taken off of

the table, and it is politically unsatisfying because citizens would lack a

framework to help them determine which decision (of a set of morally

permissible ones) they ought to support.

A more sophisticated and promising alternative is offered by Rawls,

who distinguishes between justice and legitimacy.12 Questions of justice

concern the conditions the fulfillment of which ensures that everyone’s

interests are given equal weight. It is axiomatic of a just society that

political power is exercised in a way that respects the freedom and

equality of all citizens, and that this is achieved by treating all citizens’

relevant interests as equally weighty.13 By contrast, questions of

legitimacy concern the conditions the fulfillment of which is sufficient for

a decision to possess political authority, in the sense that it imposes of

citizens a pro tanto moral duty to obey its commands. Decisions that fail

to treat all citizens’ interests as equally weighty, and are hence unjust,

12 Rawls, Political Liberalism, Lecture IX, §5. 13 Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, chs. 15-18.

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may none the less command political authority, and hence remain

legitimate. As Rawls notes:

A legitimate procedure gives rise to legitimate laws and policies made in accordance with it….Neither the procedures nor the laws need be just by a strict standard of justice, even if, what is also true, they cannot be too gravely unjust. At some point, the injustice of the outcomes of a legitimate democratic procedure corrupts its legitimacy, and so will the injustice of the political constitution itself. But before this point is reached, the outcomes of a legitimate procedure are legitimate whatever they are.14

Legitimacy is a doubly-permissive concept. It is not merely that shortfalls

from strict justice can be legitimate when they result from a strictly just

procedure; rather, shortfalls from strict justice can also be legitimate

when they result from a procedure that is merely sufficiently just. It is

consistent with this view that particularly unjust decisions can never

command political authority, even if produced by a procedure that,

absent the grave injustice, would be strictly just.

My main concern is with the requirements of justice with respect to

society's arrangement of work. It is, therefore, consistent with the

account that I defend that there are alternative political principles and

social institutions that, though less just, may still command political

authority providing that they result from a suitable procedure. I leave

this as an open possibility.

4 Political Morality14 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 428.

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One way in which to develop an account of justice in work is by reference

to labour perfectionism.15 Labour perfectionism consists of two claims:

(1) meaningful work (however it is defined) is necessary for, or at least

conducive to, living a flourishing life; and (2) political power ought to be

exercised in a way that promotes and protects flourishing lives. Labour

perfectionism has the familiar implication that social institutions ought to

be arranged such that citizens’ jobs involve meaningful work.16

Labour perfectionism a powerful initial appeal. The fact that

certain arrangements of work preclude, or act as an obstacle to, citizens

leading flourishing lives seems clearly to be relevant to the development

of an account of justice in work. Indeed, as Muirhead points out, to fail to

pay attention to this idea is to fail to pay attention to ‘the source of the

reasons that motivate us most vitally in politics and elsewhere’.17 The

appeal of the second premise of labour perfectionism is also stressed by a

critic of the position, Jonathan Quong, who concedes that there is

‘enduring appeal’ to the idea that political power ought to be exercised in

a way that promotes and protects flourishing lives. In particular, he notes

that it chimes well with the ‘deeply attractive and intuitively compelling’

thought that ‘the aim of the state (or at least one of its major aims)

should be to improve the lives of citizens’.18

15 I take this term from White, The Civic Minimum, 89. 16 Karl Marx’s writings can be read as providing a partial defence of labour perfectionism. See Karl Marx, ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts’ in Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford University Press, 2000 [1844]), 83-121 at 85-95. This interpretation is not uncontroversial. See Arneson, ‘Meaningful Work and Market Socialism’, 519-20.17 Muirhead, Just Work, 24. 18 Jonathan Quong, Liberalism Without Perfection (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 30.

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Despite its initial intuitive appeal, however, labour perfectionism is

not a plausible starting position for a normative investigation into the

political principles and social institutions that ought to guide society's

arrangement of work. This is because our reasons to exercise political

power in a way that promotes and protects flourishing lives are reasons

that are typically defeated by other reasons.19 The argument for this

conclusion draws upon the familiar arguments given by liberal anti-

perfectionists, such as Rawls.

The response to labour perfectionism begins by noting that, at least

within liberal societies, there will be irreducible disagreement about the

relationship between meaningful work and human flourishing:20 there

will be disagreement about whether any kind of work is necessary for

human flourishing in addition to disagreement, among those who think it

is, about whether that work has to be ‘meaningful’.

The fact that the relationship between meaningful work and human

flourishing is controversial is significant because it has the implication

that when the exercise of political power is justified by reference to this

relationship, some citizens will inevitably be subject to the exercise of

political power that is justified by appeal to reasons whose validity they

reject. Justifying the exercise of political power in this way is oppressive

as it violates a basic liberal right to political autonomy. The right to

political autonomy protects citizens’ interests in being able to identify

freely ‘with the constraints that they face, in the sense that they

19 Rawls, Political Liberalism, Lecture IX.20 This disagreement is the inevitable outcome of the free exercise of human reason, and is explained by what Rawls calls the burdens of judgment. See Rawls, Political Liberalism, 54-8.

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understand the content and justificatory bases of the constraints, and

freely accept them’.21 The fact that justifying the exercise of political

power by appeal to controversial reasons leads to the violation of

citizens’ right to political autonomy is sufficient to demonstrate that the

exercise of political power in this way is morally impermissible.22 Ex

hypothesi, this sanctions the rejection of labour perfectionism.23

Citizens’ right to political autonomy is violated when the exercise of

political power is justified in this way even if the controversial reasons

appealed to turned out to be correct. That is, even if meaningful work

were necessary for flourishing life, it would remain morally

impermissible to justify the exercise of political power on this basis. This

is because, even if correct, some citizens will reject meaningful work’s

importance and hence none the less have their right to political

autonomy violated when the exercise of political power is justified in this

way.

21 Matthew Clayton, Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 15. As Rawls notes, the importance of political autonomy is also an idea present in the work of Jean Jacques Rousseau. See John Rawls, ‘The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus’ in Samuel Freeman (ed.), Collected Papers (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 426, n. 10; and Joshua Cohen, ‘Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 15 (1986), 275-97 at 274–88. 22 It is consistent with this that our interest in political autonomy can, in extreme cases, be defeated by a concern for other interests. See Rawls, Political Liberalism, 152. See also, Matthew Clayton and David Stevens, ‘When God Commands Disobedience: Political Liberalism and Unreasonable Religions’, Res Publica, 20 (2014), 65-84.23 Quong has suggested that citizens’ right to be treated as agents equally capable of planning, revising, and rationally pursuing their own conception of the good life is also violated. See Quong, Liberalism without Perfection, 100-107. It is not clear to me that this is the case. Judging that a citizen got it wrong in a given instance does not entail that she was, or in general is, less than equally capable of getting it right. To this extent, justifying the exercise of political power by appeal to reasons whose validity is rejected need not entail a violation of citizens’ right to be treated as agents equally capable of planning, revising, and rationally pursuing their own conception of the good life.

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The exercise of political power can be coercive or non-coercive. It is

coercive when it is imposes a limitation on a citizen’s liberty, and non-

coercive when it does not. Citizens’ rights to political autonomy can be

violated by the exercise of both coercive and non-coercive political

power.24 This is because, when non-coercive political power is justified by

appeal to reasons whose validity is rejected, citizens are no longer able

to accept the justificatory bases of the constraints they face. Though the

constraints faced have not been narrowed, the defence of these

constraints has a particular character that requires justification none the

less. This point is important as it reveals the way in which citizens’ rights

to political autonomy are violated even when labour perfectionism is

pursued through means that do not impose limitations on citizens’

liberty.

An implication of our concern for political autonomy is that we are

required to exercise justificatory restraint when justifying the exercise of

political power. This is in part what distinguishes political morality from

applied moral philosophy.25 More specifically, our concern for political

autonomy means that we ought to justify the exercise of political power

by appeal exclusively to reasons that all citizens can be expected to

accept, so-called public reasons. Let’s call this principle the liberal 24 It should also be noted that many exercises of political power that appear to be non-coercive in fact turn out to involve coercion. Let’s consider a policy that sought to use financial incentives to encourage citizens to undertake meaningful work. On the surface, this policy does not appear coercive since it does not aim at constraining citizens’ options. However, this analysis ignores the fact that the financial incentives offered to citizens are typically funded through the use of coercive taxation. The policy is thus coercive in that it involves forcing citizens to contribute to its maintenance. For more on this, see Bernard Gert and Charles Culver, ‘Paternalistic Behaviour’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 6 (1976), 45-57.25 ‘Neither political philosophy nor justice is fairness is, in that way, applied moral philosophy. Political philosophy has its own distinctive features and problems.’ See Rawls, Justice as Fairness, 14.

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principle of legitimacy,26 and let’s call those who accept it liberal anti-

perfectionists.27

Liberal anti-perfectionism has been attacked on many fronts. Since

this is a thesis about justice in work, though, it is not desirable for me to

respond to each of these worries here. Many will, therefore, find my

discussion of the demands of political morality, and in turn my rejection

of labour perfectionism, to be too brief to be satisfactory. It is for this

reason that liberal anti-perfectionism is better characterised as an

undefended premise of my investigation, rather than as a conclusion that

I hope to establish.

Having said this, it will help for me to comment on, albeit not

respond to, a particularly common objection: the asymmetry objection.

Consideration of this objection clarifies the structure of liberal anti-

perfectionism. The asymmetry objection claims that the liberal principle

of legitimacy proves too much. This is because citizens disagree about

more than the importance of meaningful work; they also disagree about

almost all values, including political values, such as freedom and

equality. This suggests that there are no public reasons. Even when

political power is used in seemingly just ways, such as to serve equality,

some citizens will inevitably be subject to the exercise of political power

that is justified by appeal to reasons whose validity they reject. Doesn’t

the exercise of political power in ways that promote equality similarly

violate some citizens’ rights to political autonomy? To claim not would 26 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 137. 27 Perfectionism ‘is merely a term used to indicate that there is no fundamental principled inhibition on governments acting for any valid moral reason’. Anti-perfectionism is the denial of perfectionism. See Joseph Raz, ‘Facing Up: A Reply’, Southern California Law Review, 62 (1989), 1153-235 at 1230.

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seem to involve treating this case and the case of labour perfectionism

asymmetrically.28

A compelling response to the asymmetry objection will distinguish

between two different kinds of inevitable disagreement. First, citizens

inevitably disagree about the value of various conceptions of the good.

Second, citizens inevitably disagree about the value of various

conceptions of justice. The asymmetry objection gets its force from the

apparent symmetry between these two kinds of disagreement. In order to

respond to this objection, liberal anti-perfectionists must explain why

these two kinds of disagreement differ. In particular, liberal anti-

perfectionists must explain why citizens’ political autonomy is not

violated when political power is justified on the basis of reasons of justice

whose validity they reject, but it is violated when political power is

justified on the basis of other reasons whose validity they reject. If this

conclusion can be sustained, then liberal anti-perfectionist can justify

restricting the scope of the liberal principle of legitimacy exclusively to

disagreements about the value of various conceptions of the good.

I do not attempt to take on this task.29 I mention it only because it

helps to illuminate further the content of liberal anti-perfectionism. This

section’s clarification regarding the distinctiveness of political morality is

28 Various versions of this objection have been presented in Michael Sandel, ‘Review of Political Liberalism’, Harvard Law Review, 107 (1994), 1765-94 at 1782-9; Stephen Mulhall and Adam Swift, Liberals and Communitarians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 234; Simon Caney, ‘Anti‐perfectionism and Rawlsian Liberalism’, Political Studies, 43 (1995), 248-64 at 257-8; and Jeremy Waldron, ‘Disagreements about Justice’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 75 (1994), 372–87. 29 There are several notable defences of this position. See Clayton, Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing, 19-27; Steven Lecce, Against Perfectionism: Defending Liberal Neutrality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), chs. 4 and 8; Quong, Liberalism without Perfection, ch. 7; and Micah Schwartzman, ‘The Completeness of Public Reason’, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 3 (2004), 191-220.

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important for two reasons. First, it shows why we have decisive reasons

to reject labour perfectionism, which is a historically dominant position

within accounts of justice in work. Second, it is important because a

commitment to liberal anti-perfectionism informs other aspects of the

investigation. In this respect, this section serves to clarify a further key

premise of my project.

5 Generalism and Integrationism

In this section I address the relationship between the political principles

that ought to guide society’s arrangement of work specifically and the

political principles that ought to guide society’s distribution of benefits

and burdens more generally. To serve this end, I shall distinguish

between, and subsequently offer answers to, two distinct questions: the

generalism/non-generalism question and the integrationism/isolationism

question.

The generalism/non-generalism question concerns the grounds of

the political principles that are used to evaluate arrangements of work.30

Generalists affirm that the political principles that ought to guide

society's arrangement of work derive entirely from the more general

political principles that ought to guide society's distribution of benefits

and burdens. Non-generalists deny this. Non-generalists affirm that in

order plausibly to answer political questions about work we must appeal,

at least in part, to good-specific principles concerning paid employment.

On this view, the political principles that govern society's arrangement of

30 Though he uses different labels, the same issues are discussed in [reference removed].

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work are in some sense sui generis, and that work thus generates its own

internal political principles that either replace or operate in addition to

the political principles identified by generalists.

To illuminate the disagreement here, let’s briefly consider a

different case: the distribution of health.31 One familiar position states

that health is special such that we ought to be more averse to

inequalities in its distribution than to inequalities in the distribution of

other goods that are relevant to justice.32 One explanation for this is

offered by the non-generalist, who is willing to affirm that there are sui

generis political principles that apply to health, perhaps in addition to

more general political principles. An alternative position is offered by

Ronald Dworkin, who utilises a generalist approach. Dworkin begins with

a general inquiry into the political principles that ought to guide society's

distribution of benefits and burdens, and then seeks to derive political

principles to guide the distribution of health from this.33 It is consistent

with this position that we ought to be more averse to inequalities in the

distribution of health than to inequalities in the distribution of other

goods that are relevant to justice. It is just that the increased averseness

must be explained by more general political principles.34

31 I take this example from [reference removed]. Whereas his case involves the distribution of healthcare, I prefer to talk about the distribution of health. This is for reasons made familiar in Norman Daniels, Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 32 See Daniels, Just Health; and Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 64-94.33 Ronald Dworkin, ‘Justice in the Distribution of Health Care’, McGill Law Journal, 38 (1993), 883-98.34 See, for example, Shlomi Segall, Health, Luck, and Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), esp. ch. 6.

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By contrast, the integrationism/isolationism question concerns to

extent which considerations about justice in general should affect our

evaluation of arrangements of work that satisfy the particular demands

of the political principles that ought to guide the arrangement of work.35

Integrationists affirm that we should analyse justice in work in

conjunction with considerations about what justice in general requires.

Isolationists deny this claim. Isolationists affirm that we should respond

to the requirement of justice in work in isolation from considerations

about what justice in general demands.

To illuminate the disagreement here, let’s briefly return to the case

of health. This time, let’s also assume (for the sake of simplicity) that the

political principles that guide the distribution of health dictate that it

ought to be distributed equally. In this case, isolationists will claim that

there are equally weighty reasons to bring about any set of institutions

that protects this outcome. This is because isolationists are committed to

evaluating the distribution of health in isolation from other justice-

relevant considerations. It is consistent with this view that, of those sets

of institutions that protect equal health, we ought to favour some sets

over others on the grounds that they do a better job of protecting other

justice-relevant considerations. For integrationists, however, the

weightiness of the reason to bring about institutions that protect an

equal distribution of health is itself contingent upon the effects that those

institutions have on other justice-relevant considerations. It is even

35 I take these terms from Simon Caney, ‘Just Emissions’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 40 (2012), 255-300 at 258-9. Again, though he uses different labels, the same issues are also discussed in [reference removed]

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possible that our reasons to bring about certain institutions will be

cancelled if doing so involved too great a departure from what justice

requires in general.36

I favour a generalist, integrationist approach. This means that I

defend an account of justice in work that is (i) derived entirely from the

political principles that ought to guide society's distribution of benefits

and burdens, and (ii) sensitive to other justice-relevant considerations

beyond those directly affecting work. There are at least two reasons for

preferring this approach. The first appeals to the fact that simplicity is a

desideratum of a normative theory. That is, it is a desirable feature of a

normative theory that ‘it yields a body of judgments out of a relatively

sparse amount of theory, deriving the numerous complex variations of

the phenomena from a small number of basic principles’.37 This

consideration counts in favour of the generalist approach only if we add

the further assumption that a generalist normative analysis of society’s

arrangement of work can be at least as compelling as a non-generalist

normative analysis of society’s arrangement of work. In the rest of this

thesis I hope to establish that this is the case.

Second, if we are concerned at all with what we ought to do ‘all

things considered’, then it is more fruitful to theorise about work in a

way that is in principle sensitive to other institutional structures.38 It is

36 For more on cancelling reasons, see Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 27.37 Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 11. 38 Within the context of climate change, rather than work, similar arguments are offered in Simon Caney, ‘Global Justice, Climate Change, and Human Rights’ in Douglas Hicks and Thad Williamson, Leadership and Global Justice (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 91-112 at 93-6; Samuel Scheffler, Boundaries and Allegiances: Problems of Justice and Responsibility in Liberal Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 166-70 and 190-2. Within the context of global trade, similar arguments are offered in

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myopic to think that (even pro tanto) reasons regarding how work ought

to be arranged are insensitive to facts concerning that society’s

educational system, healthcare system, or the extensiveness of that

society’s welfare state, for example. It is perhaps this kind of thought

that motivated John Rawls to conclude that justice ought to be concerned

with ‘the way in which the major social institutions fit together into one

system’.39

An upshot of my endorsement of a generalist, integrationist

approach is that the political principles and social institutions that ought

to guide society’s arrangement of work that are most plausible are ones

that make explicit reference to the political principles and social

institutions that ought to guide society’s distribution of benefits and

burdens more generally. Beyond this, further implications of my

commitment to this approach will become clearer as I proceed.

6 Preview of the Thesis

Let’s consider the following. First, there is Annabel, who values and

enjoys her work. In addition to this, she gets paid handsomely, and gets

plenty of time off to spend with her children. Second, there is Binita, who

was brought up to expect so much more from life than she has

accomplished and, though she performs the same actual work as

Annabel, she finds it merely tolerable. Third, there is Charlotte, whose

[reference removed]39 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 258 [emphasis added].

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natural talents are not nearly as marketable as Annabel’s and Binita’s.

Charlotte spends frequent periods involuntarily unemployed and, when

she can find work, it tends to be in time-consuming, dead-end jobs that

pay just enough to keep her afloat. Charlotte gets by knowing that she’s

making the most of a bad situation. Fourth, there is Danielle, who has a

rare talent that could be put to use for considerable social gains. Danielle

is not motivated to maximise her social contribution, though, and so she

happily takes on much less socially productive work instead.

Annabel’s, Binita’s, Charlotte’s, and Danielle’s situations all differ

in potentially morally salient ways. By considering reflecting on their

situations, as well as the lives of other characters in different situations,

we are able to identify morally relevant considerations that any

satisfactory account of justice in work must be appropriately sensitive to.

This is the approach that I adopt in throughout the thesis.

Accurately analysing these characters’ lives is tough. It requires

consideration of difficult questions that involve many complications. To

mitigate these problems, it may help to make use of several simplifying

assumptions. The logic is as follows: if we can determine the political

principles and social institutions that ought to guide the arrangement of

work in deliberately artificial cases, then afterwards we can attend to the

subsequent task of amending these conclusions in light of certain

complexities that are thrown up by the real world.

At various points throughout this thesis I make use of three distinct

sets of simplifying assumptions. These are the assumptions of (i) equal

talents, (ii) equally productive work, and (iii) ideal theory. I begin the

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thesis with all three assumptions in place and I then remove each of

these assumptions as I progress.

When all three assumptions are in place, our attention is channeled

into cases in which differences between citizens arise as a result of their

different ambitions only. These cases can be modeled by comparing

Annabel’s and Binita’s situations. Chapter 2 engages with the Rawlsian

analysis of cases of this kind. Though Rawlsians correctly draw our

attention to important considerations that any plausible account should

be sensitive to, I show that their position is insufficiently fine-grained to

be capable of yielding instructive policy advice. I conclude that, for this

reason, we must turn to an alternative approach. This approach, which is

developed and defended in chapter 3, utilises a form of resource

egalitarianism in order to defend the appeal of a job market.

Of course, in the real world, the assumption of equal talents does

not hold: whereas some have very marketable talents, others do not. This

is where Charlotte comes in. If work were distributed according to the

principles of the market, those who lack marketable talents would end up

having many fewer valuable opportunities than those who have

marketable talents. This implication would seem to cut strongly against

the familiar egalitarian conviction that citizens’ entitlements ought not to

depend upon factors for which they are not responsible.40 In chapter 4, I

invoke Ronald Dworkin’s model of hypothetical fair insurance in order to

40 This conclusion, which can be called anti-luckism, is most closely associated with luck egalitarianism. See Zofia Stemplowska, ‘Luck Egalitarianism’ in Gerald Gaus and Fred D’Agostino (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2013), 389-99 at 389.

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theorise about the conclusions of the previous chapter ought to be

amended in light of differences in citizens’ talents.41

In chapter 5, I then drop the assumption of equally productive

work. This permits examination of the difficulties raised by Danielle’s

situation. In this chapter, I illustrate how our account of justice in work

ought to be amended in light of the fact that doctoring, let’s say, makes

more of a social contribution than gardening. More specifically, I argue

that [INSERT CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 5].

The third assumption is finally dropped in chapter 6. The task of

this chapter is to inquire into how best to amend our account in light of

the fact the conditions of ideal theory are not always necessarily in place.

Ideal theory has two components: the first is full compliance, and second

is favourable circumstances.42 The assumptions ensure that all citizens

(past and present) discharge their duties, and that the historical,

economic, social conditions necessary for the possibility of a stable, well-

ordered society are in place. Dropping this assumption invites us to

consider how we ought to amend our position in light of, for example,

severe global poverty, partial compliance, and material scarcity. The

argument that I advance defends the claim that these factors should

make us generally more willing to bear and to impose greater

occupational burdens than is standardly assumed.

41 Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2000), chs. 2 and 9.42 This definition is stipulated, but it bears considerable resemblance to how the term is used by Rawls. Zofia Stemplowska and Adam Swift, 'Ideal and Nonideal Theory' in David Estlund (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 373-89.

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Before this, however, I offer a general discussion of how citizens’

interests are affected by arrangements of work. Here, I flesh out the

various ways in which different arrangements of work can affect citizens’

attainment of purportedly valuable goods, and, in doing so, I illuminate

some of the complexities that an account of justice in work must be

sensitive to. This is the subject of Chapter 1, to which I now turn.

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