Just Savings and the Difference Principle

Author: Wall S.

Source: Philosophical Studies, Volume 116, Number 1, 200310 , pp. 79-102(24)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

The issue of just savings between generations presents an important, and for the most part unappreciated, problem for Rawls's theory of distributive justice. This paper argues that the just savings principle, as Rawls formulates it in his recent work, stands in tension with the difference principle. When thought through, the just savings principle – and more precisely the foundation on which it rests – give us reason to reject the difference principle in favor of a less egalitarian principle of distributive justice.

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Centre for Human Values, Princeton University, 5 Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ 08544-1013, USA

Publication date: 2003-01-01