DISTRIBUTIVE EQUITY

Part III of this book investigates the principles that should govern property arrangements. The investigation builds on the previous four chapters; without them, any justificatory arguments would remain abstract and their force uncertain. Part II, then, forms a psychological, social, and partly normative background theory in the light of which Part III now formulates explicit principles to justify and limit property rights. It will be recalled from § 1.2 that this book offers a pluralist theory of justification. The theory contains three principles: utility and efficiency, justice and equality, and desert by labor. The first three chapters of this part present the case for each of these principles in turn; the final chapter considers possible conflicts among the principles and guidelines for applying them.

Although public as well as private property requires justification, one can grasp the intellectual structure of the inquiry by concentrating for a moment on private property. If a society allows private property, it should ask how much inequality, if any, in property holdings is permissible. This is a question about distributive equity. The ethical pluralism of this book creates room for at least two competing perspectives. One is that the test for distributive equity is the moral merit of persons. The word “merit,” as used here, covers both desert and entitlement deriving from persons' actions in the world. If persons differ in moral merit, unequal property holdings may well be justifiable.