Each new species extinction risks planetary extinction ... - ddw09

***A2 - Egalitarianism**
Egalitarianism Frontline (1/2) 1. Distributive justice leads to global poverty
Carl Knight - P.h.d International Studies 2008, 34, 713-733, British
International Studies Association "A pluralistic approach to global
poverty" But Rawls' masterpiece also presents some obvious obstacles to global
poverty alleviation. A Theory of Justice explicitly states that the
theory is only to be applied within a society. Furthermore, in those
few places where the book o?ers some tangential discussion of
transdomestic justice, it is characterised as a question of 'the
justice of the law of nations and of relations between states'.16 Hence,
in a discussion occasioned by his analysis of conscription and
conscientious refusal, Rawls suggests that 'one may extend the
interpretation of the original position and think of the parties as
representatives of di?erent nations who must choose together the
fundamental principles to adjudicate con?icting claims among states'.17
He com- ments that this procedure is 'fair among nations', and that
there would be 'no surprises' in the outcome, 'since the principles
chosen would . . . be familiar ones' ensuring treaty compliance,
describing the conditions for just wars, and granting rights of self-
defence and self-determination - the latter being 'a right of a people to
settle its own a?airs without the intervention of foreign powers'.18
This is, then, a thoroughly nationalist conception of justice: social
justice applies only within a state or nation. Rawls's radical
principles of distributive justice, such as the di?erence principle,
would only hold transdomestically where, improbably, states had signed
treaties to this e?ect. Given that such wide ranging internationally
redistributive treaties have never been signed, A Theory of Justice
provided a rationale for the Western general public's impression that
their duties to the global poor are, at most, those of charity.
Rawls' full expression of his views in this area came nearly three
decades later in The Law of Peoples.19 Here Rawls again uses the notion
of a transdomestic original position, arguing that it is an appropriate
instrument for selecting laws to govern relations between both liberal
societies and 'decent non-liberal societies', especially those which
are 'decent hierarchical societies', being non-aggressive, recognising
their citizens' human rights, assigning widely acknowledged additional
rights and duties, and being backed by genuine and not unreasonable
beliefs among judges and other o?cials that the law embodies a 'common
good idea of justice'.20 This Society of Peoples would agree to be
guided by eight principles constituting 'the basic charter of the Law
of Peoples'.21 2. Focusing exclusively on the poor stigmatizes the issue-no solvency
Patrick Boleyn-Fitzgerald - Assistant Professor of Philosophy @ Louisiana
State, January 1999 "Misfortune, welfare reform, and right-wing
egalitarianism" Yet nobody in the welfare debate, as far as I know, invoked the Charles
Murray of The Bell Curve rather than the Murray of Losing Ground.
Moreover, while many right-wing arguments are neutral about questions of
class distinctions, others actually seem to be grounded in a kind of
relational egalitarianism. For example, conservatives sometimes argue
that welfare stigmatizes recipients. As we have already heard Gingrich
(1995, 71) say, "The welfare state reduces the poor from citizens to
clients." This argument raises a serious issue for relational
egalitarians: How can the poor be given material aid with- out others
thinking less of them? The stigma of being on the receiving end of
welfare may create the very divisions in society that the relational
egalitarian seeks to avoid. If government programs designed to help the
poor stand in the way of citizens relating to each other non-
hierarchically, maybe we should abolish such programs in the interest of
a society in which citizens stand as equals. 3. Egalitarianism does not equate society
Jan Narveson - P.hD @ Harvard University 1997 "Egalitarianism: Partial,
Counterproductive and Baseless" Blackwell Egalitarianism forces persons who exceed the average, in the respect
deemed by the theorist to be relevant, to surrender, insofar as possible,
the amount by which they exceed that average to persons below it. On the
face of it, therefore, egalitarianism is incompatible with common good,
in empowering some people over others: roughly, the unproductive over the
productive. The former's interests are held to merit the imposition of
force over others, whereas the interests of the productive do not. Yet
producers, as such, merely produce; they don't use force against others.
Thus egalitarianism denies the central rule of rational human
association. What could be thought to justify this apparent bias in
favour of the unproductive, the needy, the sick, against the productive -
the healthy, the ingenious, the energetic? What are the latter supposed
to have done to the former to have merited the egalitarian's impositions?
The answer can't be, 'Oh, nothing - they're just unlucky!' or 'We don't
like people like that!' A rational social theory must appeal to
commonvalues. By definition, those have not been respected when a measure
is forced upon certain people against their own values.
Egalitarianism Frontline (2/2) 4. "Principles of justice" cement the political sphere-erode the
possibility for real change
William W. Sokoloff -- PhD Candidate @ Amherst. 2005 "Between Justice and
Legality: Derrida on Decision", Political Research Quarterly,
http://prq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/58/2/341 In Rawls's (1993: 157) universe, consensus is cemented into the political
founding and overrides all other issues. 26 Anything that triggers
political conflict is excluded from the public sphere: "A liberal view
removes from the political agenda the most divisive issues, serious
contention about which must undermine the bases of social cooperation."
Difficult issues may be interesting but, for Rawls, they are not the
stuff of politics. They threaten consensus and must be excluded or
contained in the private sphere. Politics is about tinkering, not
controversy. The only truly political moment in Rawls's work, then, is
laying the ground for justice as fairness in the original posi- tion.
Once the principles of justice as fairness are established, however, the
political sphere is essentially closed. Efforts to re-open the foundation
are a threat to political stability. The range of acceptable political
issues is framed by principles that are not up for debate. Hence,
citizens are prevented from pursuing those modes of civic involvement
that would open the political sphere to real contestation. Given the
imperative of consensus, the regime must protect its political founding
from interrogation. Narrowing the range of acceptable political issues
exacts a high cost from citizens. Space for dissent is eliminated. The
range of political possibilities is restricted to one (and only one) that
will be fixed "once and for all" (Rawls 1993: 161). Once the principles
of justice are instituted, only the support of the status quo is possible
(Alejandro 1998: 144). For Rawls, all citizens affirm the same public
conception of justice (1993: 39). Public discussion about alternative
political possibilities is not necessary.31 Since a critical disposi-
tion toward the founding moment of justice as fairness would risk
destroying consensus, it is better to treat it as a monument before which
one genuflects. Rawls, however, does not purge all conflict from his
model of politics in the name of consensus. Some level of reasonable
disagreement is permitted in his liberal utopia. It arises from the
"burdens of judgment." The causes of these burdens are formidable: 5. Inequality inevitable-capitalism
Stuart White 2k, "ReviewArticle: Social Rights and the Social Contract -
Political Theory and the New Welfare Politics" Cambridge University Press,
B.J.Pol.S. 30, 507-53
How Much Equality of Opportunity Does Fair Reciprocity Require? I have
presented only a very intuitive account of the conditions of fair
reciprocity; I have not formally presented a full conception of
distributive justice and demonstrated how each condition follows from
this conception, something one might attempt in a lengthier analysis.
However, I do wish to examine one general philosophical issue that arises
when we come to think about the conditions of fair reciprocity. Assume
that distributive justice is centrally about some form of equal
opportunity. The notion of equality of opportunity can, of course, be
understood in a number of different ways. But assume, for the moment,
that we understand it in the radical form defended in contemporary
egalitarian theories of distributive justice.40 Equal opportunity in this
sense requires, inter alia, that we seek to prevent or correct for
inequalities in income attributable to differences in natural ability and
for inequalities in capability due to handicaps that people suffer
through no fault of their own. The question I wish to consider can then
be put like this: How far must society satisfy the demands of equal
opportunity before we can plausibly say that all of its members have
obligations under the reciprocity principle? One view, which I shall call
the full compliance view, is that the demands of equal opportunity must
be satis?ed in full for it to be true that all citizens have obligations
to make productive contributions to the community under the reciprocity
principle. The intuition is that people can have no obligat