Principles Of Distributive Justice Research Articles

Sensitivity to befallen injustice and reactions to unfair treatment in a laboratory situation

At Time 1, 171 students were administered questionnaires for measuring sensitivity to befallen injustice (SBI), trait anger, anger in, anger out, anger control, self-assertiveness, and attitudes toward principles of distributive justice (equality of chances, equity). Two months later (Time 2), 75 of these subjects were treated unfairly in a laboratory situation dealing with competition and achievement behavior. Two justice principles were violated: the equality of chances principle and the equity principle. Four weeks later (Time 3), 32 subjects evaluated the unfair treatment in retrospect. All three occasions were presented as independent studies with the subjects perceiving no connection between them. In line with our hypotheses, we found that immediate and delayed reactions to the unjust treatments depended to a considerable degree on SBI. For example, the combined score of the SBI questionnaire predicted, with a beta weight of .71, a combined rating of three experts who used various sources of objective information (e.g., tape-recorded interactions between subject and experimenter) to estimate the degree to which the subject displayed emotional, verbal, and behavioral resentment against the unfair treatment. At the same time, measures for other constructs (e.g., assertiveness, trait anger, anger expression), which can also be linked theoretically to the criteria, explained either none or a much smaller proportion of variance in reactions to unjust treatment.

Opportunity costs of drug prohibition

Psychoactive substances have benefits as well as risks. The benefits foregone by people who obey prohibition laws (as well as the costs of enforcing those laws against actual and would-be users) should be acknowledged when considering the ethics of drug policies. Older or terminally ill people, who would most likely benefit from psychological or spiritual insights, currently have less access to psychoactive substances than younger people who tend to use the substances for entertainment. The principle of distributive justice suggests that law-abiding citizens should not disproportionately suffer the opportunity costs of unenforceable policies of prohibition. A positive alternative policy would allow adult citizens access to certain psycoactive substances, comparable in safety and effectiveness to drugs now prescribed for medical purposes, as a valued resource for self-actualization.

Allocation Criterion as a Function of Situational Factors and Caste

Perception and principles of distributive justice may vary due to the sociocultural variations and availability of resources. This study examines perception of determinants of allocation norms in a predominantly scarce resource society, like India. One-hundred forty-eight respondents belonging to the upper, middle, and lower caste groups were asked to rate the factors (e.g., educational qualifications, economic condition, caste, etc.) that may influence decisions related to admission, award of financial assistance, and job recruitment. Results suggest that perception of salience of factors was determined both by the nature of the situation and caste background of the respondent.

Allocation Criterion as a Function of Situational Factors and Caste

Perception and principles of distributive justice may vary due to the sociocultural variations and availability of resources. This study examines perception of determinants of allocation norms in a predominantly scarce resource society, like India. One-hundred forty-eight respondents belonging to the upper, middle, and lower caste groups were asked to rate the factors (e.g., educational qualifications, economic condition, caste, etc.) that may influence decisions related to admission, award of financial assistance, and job recruitment. Results suggest that perception of salience of factors was determined both by the nature of the situation and caste background of the respondent.

Justice and health care: comparative perspectives

The Use of Financial Incentives in Medical Cases: The Case of Commerce in Transplantable Organs (J. Blumstein) Forcing Rescue: The Landscape of Health Care Provider Obligations to Treat Patients (B. Furrow) The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Corpus of Anti-Discrimination Law: A Force for Change in the Future of Public Health Regulation (L. Gostin) Racist Health Care: Reforming an Unjust Health Care System to Meet the Needs of African-Americans (V. Randall) Life Style, Health Status and Distributive Justice (R. Schwartz) Principles and Power in the Health Care Arena: Reflections on the Canadian Experience (C. Tuohy) A Right to Health Care? A Comparative Perspective (D. Giesen) Distributing Health Care Rationing and the Role of the Physician in the United Kingdom National Health Service (A. Maynard) Legal Issues Arising Out of Medical Provision for Ethnic Groups (D. Pearl).

Political Economy of Fairness

Part 1 Basic economic concepts and ideas: introduction and overview the concept of economic efficiency more economic concepts externalities and public goods on firms (private or public organizations) risk and incentives - principal-agent theory. Part 2 Fairness theory: a brief intellectual history of the economist's current ethical outlook normative theories I - John Rawls normative theories II - Robert Nozick, utilitarianism and superfairness positive theories I - the formal principle of distributive justice and institutional framing positive theories II - perceived economic justice in public utility regulation strategic uses of fairness. Part 3 Normative and positive economic theories of regulation: public interest (normative) economic theories of regulation interest group (positive) economic theories of regulation - incentive-compatible regulation. Part 4 Case studies and applications: introduction to part 4 progressive taxation unfair pricing I - cross-subsidization unfair pricing II - predatory pricing and dumping - whose ox is being gored? evaluating assets fairly - the example of public utility the supreme court's struggle with mergers and breakups attempts to break out of the regulatory straitjacket, fairly social regulation - a medley of the power of the media, efficiency, utilitarianism and individual rights.

Sustainability and Historical Injustice: Lessons from the Moose River Basin

Our paper examines the role of distributive justice in the pursuit of sustainable development. One goal of the paper is to challenge the assumption that sustainability is an exclusively forward looking idea. The tool of analysis is a case study of a proposed hydro electric development on the Mattagami River in Northern Ontario. We look at the conflicts the project has generated as arising in large measure from historical injustices inflicted on aboriginal project stakeholders. Two principles of distributive justice are identified and then used to evaluate three proposals for resolving those conflicts advanced by the principal stakeholders, Ontario Hydro, the First Nations affected and the provincial government. We conclude that sustainability has moral structure, and go on to evaluate the distributive justice dimension of that structure and its implications for sustainable resource development.

Operationalizing Concepts of Equity for Public Project Investments

Decisions for evaluating public project investment most frequently use benefit-cost analysis. The procedure rests on the assumption that an efficient alternative should be selected that maximizes the net aggregate benefits to society as a whole. However, this selection results in projects that invariably provide different levels of benefits to members of a community, thus contravening the principles of equity or distributive justice. Six strategies for dealing with the problem of distributive justice are explored and examined and then applied in a common setting to a public project where several efficient alternatives are proposed. While this research is not prompted by the desire to proclaim a winner from among the strategies, it is evident that some strategies make heroic attempts to reduce inequity. Issues connected with obtaining public consensus are also briefly mentioned.

Operationalizing Concepts of Equity for Public Project Investments

Decisions for evaluating public project investment most frequently use benefit-cost analysis. The procedure rests on the assumption that an efficient alternative should be selected that maximizes the net aggregate benefits to society as a whole. However, this selection results in projects that invariably provide different levels of benefits to members of a community, thus contravening the principles of equity or distributive justice. Six strategies for dealing with the problem of distributive justice are explored and examined and then applied in a common setting to a public project where several efficient alternatives are proposed. While this research is not prompted by the desire to proclaim a winner from among the strategies, it is evident that some strategies make heroic attempts to reduce inequity. Issues connected with obtaining public consensus are also briefly mentioned.

Social position, ideology, and distributive justice

This paper addresses two important questions regarding distributive justice. First we ask whether people use standards or principles of distributive justice regarding the allocation of income. The study confirms our expectation that there are at least two principles, viz., the merit and the need principle. Our data show that there is no generally held consensus about the applicability of these two principles. Second, we looked for explanations to explain variations in adherence to these principles. The literature suggests five different theses: 1. self-interest; 2. ideology; 3. enlightenment; 4. historical shift; and 5. gender. Results provide qualified support for the Theses 1, 2 and 4. Class, ideology, and age affect the preferences for the principles of justice. Further elaboration suggests the data point to a specific version of the self-interest thesis, viz., the underdog thesis. Theses 3 and 5 are not confirmed. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The equitable international allocation of tradable carbon emission permits

The claim that equity considerations can play a significant role in negotiations over the international allocation of tradable permits for carbon emissions is challenged on the grounds that theories of distributive Justice have very little to contribute as regards distributive Justice between sovereign states. In so far as distributive justice principles are to be invoked at all they would imply that some International agency should be allowed to sell or lease some of the total permits to be allocated and to use the revenues for ald to the most needy individuals in society, irrespective of where they live. The remaining permits should be distributed between countries according to criteria that enjoy wide acceptability in negotiation situations involving mutual shares in collective burdens.

Physicians do not have a responsibility to provide futile or unreasonable care if a patient or family insists.

This article was written to argue that physicians are not ethically obligated to provide care which they consider futile, unreasonable, or both, either voluntarily or in response to patient or surrogate demands. Data used to prepare this article were drawn from published articles, including original investigations, position papers and editorials in the author's personal files. Articles were selected for their relevance to the subjects of medical ethics, the concepts of futility and medical reasonableness, case law, and healthcare reform. The author extracted all applicable data. Physicians may feel obligated to provide care in all clinical circumstances due to the single master view of medicine and the ethical principle of autonomy. However, care may be considered futile according to several definitions of that word, including that which describes futile treatment as something that does not benefit the patient as a whole. Furthermore, care may be considered unreasonable if it is excessive and not generally agreed upon. Physician refusal to provide futile or unreasonable care is supported by the ethical principles of nonmaleficence, beneficence, and distributive justice. The last principle is particularly relevant in the current climate of healthcare reform. Although the issue of physician refusal of requested care has not been resolved by case law or legal statute, it is supported by compelling ethical principles. Physicians are not ethically required to provide futile or unreasonable care, especially to patients who are brain dead, vegetative, critically or terminally ill with little chance of recovery, and unlikely to benefit from cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The myth of property: toward an egalitarian theory of ownership

The Myth of Property is the first book-length study to focus directly on the variable and complex structure of ownership. It critically analyses what it means to own something, and it takes familiar debates about distributive justice and recasts them into discussions of the structure of ownership. The traditional notion of private property assumed by both defenders and opponents of that system is criticized and exposed as a myth. The book then puts forward a new theory of what it means to own something, one that will be important for any theory of distributive justice. This new approach more adequately reveals the disparate social and individual values that property ownership serves to promote. The study has importance for understanding the reform of capitalist and welfare state systems, as well as the institution of market economies in former socialist states, for the view developed here makes the traditional dichotomy between private ownership capitalism and public ownership socialism obsolete. This new approach to ownership also places egalitarian principles of distributive justice in a new light and challenges critics to clarify aspects of property ownership worth protecting against calls for greater equality. The book closes by showing how defenders of egalitarianism can make use of some of the ideas and values that traditionally made private property appear to be such a pervasive human institution.

Allocation of Cadaver Kidneys: New Pressures, New Solutions

Equitable allocation of human cadaver kidneys is complex and challenging, both from the ethical and scientific points of view. It is based on the principles of distributive justice and medical utility. However, the optimal application of ethical principles will require further resolution of medical issues that currently focus on the number of transplants for a single patient, six antigen matches, lesser degrees of HLA matching, marginal recipients, various positive cross-match situations, and cold ischemia time. New HLA matching techniques and enhanced computer organ allocation systems have the potential to surmount racial differences and increase significantly the number of compatible renal allografts.

Distributive Justice in Intercollegiate Athletics: Development of an Instrument

This study examined the development of an instrument to assess the views held by NCAA male and female coaches and administrators concerning the principles of distributive justice used in the allocation of resources in athletic departments. The steps in the development of the instrument, including the use of a panel of experts, a pilot study, and a confirmatory study, are presented. Scenarios were developed describing situations involving either distribution or retribution of three different resources within athletic departments; money, facilities, or support services. The eight allocation principles listed under each scenario were (a) equality of treatment, (b) equality of results, and (c) equality of opportunity; contributions based on (d) productivity, (e) spectator appeal, (f) effort, and (g) ability; and (h) need. Subjects were asked to rate the justness of each allocation principle in each scenario and to choose which allocation principle they would implement in that scenario.

Distributive Justice in Intercollegiate Athletics: The Views of NCAA Coaches and Administrators

This study examined the principles of distributive justice held by male and female coaches and athletic administrators from all three NCAA divisions in allocating resources within athletic departments. A total of 328 subjects from Divisions I, II, and III responded to the instrument, which contained 12 scenarios describing situations of either distribution or retribution of three different resources-—money, facilities, or support services. The eight allocation principles listed under each scenario were (a) equality of treatment, (b) equality of results, and (c) equality of opportunity; contributions based on (d) productivity, (e) spectator appeal, (f) effort, and (g) ability; and (h) need. In each distributive situation, subjects were asked to rate the justness of each allocation principle and to choose one of the eight principles for implementation. All subgroups rated equality of treatment, need, and equality of results as the most just and the other principles as relatively unjust. These principles were also the principles most frequently chosen by subjects for implementation.

Four Unsolved Rationing Problems A Challenge

Faced with limited resources, medical providers and planners often ask bio-ethicists how to limit or ration the delivery of beneficial services in a or just way. What advice should we give them? To focus our thinking on the problems they face, I offer a friendly challenge to the field: solve the four rationing problems described here. We have generally ignored these problems because we think rationing an unusual phenomenon, associated with gas lines, butter coupons, or organ registries. But rationing is pervasive, not peripheral, since we simply cannot afford, for example, to educate, treat medically, or protect legally people in all the ways that their needs for these goods require or that accepted distributive principles seem to demand. Whenever we design institutions that distribute these goods, and whenever we operate those institutions, we are involved in rationing. Rationing decisions, both at the micro and macro levels, share three key features. First, the goods we often must provide--legal services, health care, educational benefits--are not sufficiently divisible (unlike money) to avoid unequal or lumpy distributions. Meeting the educational, health care, or legal needs of some people, for example, will mean that the requirements of others will go unsatisfied. Second, when we ration, we deny benefits to some individuals who can plausibly claim they are owed then in principle; losers as well as winners have plausible claims to have their needs met. Third, the general distributive principles appealed to by claimants as well as by rationers do not by themselves provide adequate reasons for choosing among claimants. They are too schematic; like my fair equality of opportunity account of just health care, they fail to yield specific solutions to these rationing problems. Solving these problems thus bridges the gap between principles of distributive justice and problems of institutional design. The Fair Choices/Best Outcomes Problem How much should we favor producing the best outcome until our limited resources? Like the other problems, the chances/best outcomes problem arises in both micro and macro contexts. Consider first its more familiar microrationing form: which of several equally needy individuals should get a scarce resource, such as a heart transplant? Suppose that Alice and Betty are the same age, have waited on queue the same length of time, and will each live only one week without a transplant. With the transplant, however, Alice is expected to live two years and Betty twenty. Who should get the transplant?[1] Giving priority to producing best outcomes, as in some point systems for awarding organs, would mean that Betty gets the organ and Alice dies (assuming persistent scarcity of organs, as Dan Brock notes).[2] But Alice might complain, Why should I give up my only chance at survival--and two years of survival is not insignificant--just because Betty has a chance to live longer? Alice demands a lottery that gives her an equal chance with Betty. To see the problem in its macroallocation version, suppose our health care budget allows us to introduce one of two treatments, T1 and T2, which can be given to comparable but different groups. Because T1 restores patients to a higher level of functioning than T2, it has a higher net benefit. We could produce the best outcomes by putting all our resources into T1; then patients treatable by T2 might, like Alice, complain that they are being asked to forgo any chance at a significant benefit. The problem has no satisfactory solution at either the intuitive or theoretical level. Few would agree with Alice, for example, if she had very little chance at survival; more would agree if her outcomes were only somewhat worse that Betty's. At the level of intuitions, there is much disagreement about when and how much to favor best outcomes, though we reject the extreme positions of giving full priority to chances or best outcomes. …

Belonging: The Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship

Several contributors deal with the quality of Canadian citizenship and the principle of distributive justice applied to all citizens. Others offer a lament for the Canadian nation, analysing and explaining why the vision of Canadian citizenship as an allegiance to the federation did not succeed in overcoming the varied loyalties pulling Canadians in different directions. Some authors celebrate this failure, arguing that maintaining dual alliance to the nation and province is more important. The essays reflect a consensus that Canada and Canadians have failed to give their citizenship meaning. One explanation for this, offered by the editor William Kaplan, is that Canadians are private about their patriotism, even if it is deeply felt. If Canadian citizenship is to endure, that patriotism will have to be more strongly and publicly expressed. Contributors to this volume are Daryl Bean, Neil Bissoondath, Robert Bothwell, Alan Cairns, Marc Cousineau, Robert Fulford, J.L. Granatstein, Darlene Johnston, William Kaplan, the late Paul Martin Sr, Rosella Melanson, Desmond Morton, Peter Neary, Maureen O'Neil, Robert J. Sharpe, Monique Simard, Glenda Simms, Daniel Turp, and Michael Walker. The essays by Simard and Turp are in French.

Reciprocity, Elder Satisfaction, and Caregiver Stress and Burden: The Exchange of Aid in the Family Caregiving Relationship

In this exploratory research we propose a theoretical model and estimate a system of equations in which an impaired mother's reciprocation of assistance provided by a caregiving daughter simultaneously influences the satisfaction of the elder and the stress and burden of the caregiver. The results indicate that, consistent with some previous research, reciprocity does not directly or indirectly affect the satisfaction of older women. Conversely, reciprocity does significantly reduce the stress and burden experienced by caregiving daughters. Reciprocating a gift or service with something of equal value contributes to the initiation and persistence of social ties among individuals (Levi-Strauss, 1964). Such exchanges frequently occur in the context of family relationships both in the course of normative familial intergenerational assistance and in the context of family caregiving for infirm parents (Walker & Pratt, 1991). The inability to provide immediate compensation (specific reciprocity), a characteristic of many older persons due to limited resources and failing health (Dowd, 1975, 1980), results in dependence on the more resourceful party and, perhaps, low levels of psychological well-being (Stoller, 1985). Alternatively, familial norms may place greater emphasis on generalized reciprocity, in which exchanges balance out over a lifetime (Blieszner & Hamon, 1992; Ingersoll-Dayton & Antonucci, 1988; Walker, Pratt, & Oppy, 1992) and, therefore, psychological well-being may be unaffected by elders' inability to reciprocate. The caregiving support provided by adult children to impaired parents has been interpreted frequently as being motivated by their desire to reciprocate for help provided to them in the past (Doty, 1986; Seelbach, 1984; Walker, Pratt, Shin, & Jones, 1989). However, the demands of caregiving for an infirm parent are often so great that the adult children experience high levels of stress and burden (Stoller & Pugliesi, 1989). These negative outcomes may be attenuated if the elderly recipient of care provides some form of contemporary or concurrent reciprocation in exchange for assistance such as financial support, help with domestic chores, or child care (Dwyer & Miller, 1990). Furthermore, such reciprocation may ease the psychological burden of dependence experienced by the elderly parent, resulting in increased psychological well-being (Stoller, 1985; Walker, et al., 1992; Wentkowski, 1981). The purpose of this exploratory study is to propose a theoretical model and estimate a system of equations in which reciprocity simultaneously influences the well-being of elderly, infirm mothers and the stress and burden of their daughters who are primary caregivers. We hypothesize that mothers' reciprocation for caregiving received from daughters reduces caregivers' stress and burden and, partially as a consequence of this, positively affects elders' psychological well-being. The data set employed in this study provides an opportunity to address these relationships with a matched set of impaired older women and the daughters who are their primary sources of care. THEORY AND PRIOR RESEARCH RECIPROCITY AND ELDER WELL-BEING Exchange theory suggests that it is psychologically uncomfortable to be the dependent party in an exchange relationship (Lee, 1985). Actors who consistently receive more from interaction partners than they provide in return are dependent on the partners for the continuation of benefits, but have no power in the relationship because the partners do not depend on them. Dowd (1975, 1980) argues that the diminishing resources of aging persons frequently mean that their only currency in exchange relations with nonelderly persons is their capacity to comply with the wishes of the others. Thus, according to the principle of distributive justice (Homans, 1961), older participants in intergenerational relationships may experience feelings of guilt as a consequence of their inability to reciprocate. …

Principles of Distributive Justice, Counterfactuals and History*

Principles of Distributive Justice, Counterfactuals and History*