On the circumstances of justice

Adam James Tebble

doi:10.1177/1474885116664191

On the circumstances of justice

Adam James Tebble

Political Economy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

325 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian ‘standard account’ of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume, the possibility and necessity of justice are rooted not in limited beneficence or confined generosity, but in the epistemic insight that the knowledge relevant to deciding what to do with the fruits of social cooperation is for a variety of reasons uncentralisable. Second, and regardless of whether Rawlsian ethical disagreement is more persuasive as a circumstance of justice than Humean confined generosity, it does not explain the possibility and necessity of justice, for the uncentralisability of social knowledge would be decisive even under conditions of unanimity. Finally, the epistemic account not only shows what the circumstances of justice are but, contra Cohen’s critique of the standard account, also provides at least some guidance as to what justice itself may be.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3-25
Number of pages	23
Journal	EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY
Volume	19
Issue number	1
Early online date	5 Sept 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1474885116664191
Publication status	Published - 2020

Keywords

Cohen
Hayek
Hume
Rawls
circumstances of justice
epistemic liberalism

Access to Document

10.1177/1474885116664191

On the circumstances of justice_TEBBLE_Accepted15July2016_GREEN AAMAccepted author manuscript, 157 KB

Cite this

@article{093564e67f4a4c4495081fa5fb03a368,

title = "On the circumstances of justice",

abstract = "An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian {\textquoteleft}standard account{\textquoteright} of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume, the possibility and necessity of justice are rooted not in limited beneficence or confined generosity, but in the epistemic insight that the knowledge relevant to deciding what to do with the fruits of social cooperation is for a variety of reasons uncentralisable. Second, and regardless of whether Rawlsian ethical disagreement is more persuasive as a circumstance of justice than Humean confined generosity, it does not explain the possibility and necessity of justice, for the uncentralisability of social knowledge would be decisive even under conditions of unanimity. Finally, the epistemic account not only shows what the circumstances of justice are but, contra Cohen{\textquoteright}s critique of the standard account, also provides at least some guidance as to what justice itself may be. ",

keywords = "Cohen, Hayek, Hume, Rawls, circumstances of justice, epistemic liberalism",

author = "Tebble, {Adam James}",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1177/1474885116664191",

language = "English",

volume = "19",

pages = "3--25",

journal = "EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY",

issn = "1474-8851",

publisher = "SAGE Publications Ltd",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - On the circumstances of justice

AU - Tebble, Adam James

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian ‘standard account’ of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume, the possibility and necessity of justice are rooted not in limited beneficence or confined generosity, but in the epistemic insight that the knowledge relevant to deciding what to do with the fruits of social cooperation is for a variety of reasons uncentralisable. Second, and regardless of whether Rawlsian ethical disagreement is more persuasive as a circumstance of justice than Humean confined generosity, it does not explain the possibility and necessity of justice, for the uncentralisability of social knowledge would be decisive even under conditions of unanimity. Finally, the epistemic account not only shows what the circumstances of justice are but, contra Cohen’s critique of the standard account, also provides at least some guidance as to what justice itself may be.

AB - An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian ‘standard account’ of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume, the possibility and necessity of justice are rooted not in limited beneficence or confined generosity, but in the epistemic insight that the knowledge relevant to deciding what to do with the fruits of social cooperation is for a variety of reasons uncentralisable. Second, and regardless of whether Rawlsian ethical disagreement is more persuasive as a circumstance of justice than Humean confined generosity, it does not explain the possibility and necessity of justice, for the uncentralisability of social knowledge would be decisive even under conditions of unanimity. Finally, the epistemic account not only shows what the circumstances of justice are but, contra Cohen’s critique of the standard account, also provides at least some guidance as to what justice itself may be.

KW - Cohen

KW - Hayek

KW - Hume

KW - Rawls

KW - circumstances of justice

KW - epistemic liberalism

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077205659&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1474885116664191

DO - 10.1177/1474885116664191

M3 - Article

SN - 1474-8851

VL - 19

SP - 3

EP - 25

JO - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY

JF - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL THEORY

IS - 1

ER -

On the circumstances of justice

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this