1 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 231Google Scholar. Theorists who conceive of justice as a device which rational, selfinterested agents erect in order to achieve mutual advantage in a stable environment may not be exercised by inequality, as such. Even here, however, it seems unlikely that the gap between rich and poor can honestly be represented as consistent with the terms of a rational contract negotiated between selfinterested agents. After all, those living in abject poverty have, on such theories, every reason to employ disruptive and violent tactics in order to improve their situation. So, even those among the rich who are concerned only about preserving their privilege can have self-interested reasons to be disturbed by the extent and depth of inequality.

2 With respect to issues of distributive justice, I emphasize the convictions of those who are wealthy and powerful because they have more at stake in resisting moves to reduce inequality for the simple reason that they have more to lose than others. Similarly, those who wield significant power are better able to initiate or resist the implementation of redistributive policies than those without such power.

3 I think this hypothesis is true even if optimism about the long-term prospects for eliminating poverty through increased economic productivity is justified (e.g., through increased reliance on the wealth-generating power of free markets). Even if the economic pie could, over time, be increased sufficiently and suitably distributed to permit the alleviation of poverty without requiring sacrifice by the rich, there is a time-lag problem with this approach. The roughly 1.2 billion people who live in absolute poverty now need resources now, and their justice-based entitlement to resources is an entitlement to resources now, not merely for a fair share in the future. (The figure of 1.2 billion is from Durning, Alan, “Life on the Brink,” World Watch, 3, 2 [1990].)Google Scholar

4 See Gauthier, David, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

5 See also Barry, Brian, Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 40Google Scholar. Barry argues that the problem with conceiving justice as mutual advantage is that it “offends against our most elementary ideas about what justice requires.”

6 Gauthier, Morals by Agreement, p. 268. See also Buchanan, James, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

7 Rawls, John, “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory,” Journal of Philosophy, 77, 9 (1980): 543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Gauthier, Morals by Agreement, p. 269.

9 There are at least two respects in which Nagel seems to diverge from the absolute priority assigned to the worse-off by the difference principle. First, he says that he favours “a somewhat weaker preference for the worse-off, which can be outweighed by sufficiently large benefit to sufficiently large numbers of those better off” (p. 73). Second, whereas the difference principle is insensitive to the moral significance of responsible individual choice in generating the entitlement to resources, Nagel recognizes that some inequalities in income and wealth which are attributable to the different choices or effort of individuals are justifiable (p. 119).

10 Nagel does not address the difficult question of what metric should be invoked to effect the relevant comparisons of well-being (e.g., primary goods, resources, utility, etc.).

11 Ideally, the market provides individuals with information about which of their talents can be productively exercised. From a social point of view, we do not want people to develop their talents, per se; rather, we want them to develop talents which are socially beneficial. In this respect, it is possible that market incentives may work against certain kinds of valuable individual selfdevelopment and personal satisfaction. A person might lead a fuller life if he were able to develop a natural talent for which there is no market demand.

12 Cohen, G. A., “Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 26, 1 (1997): 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cohen cites some interesting evidence concerning the variation in different countries with productive economies of the ratio of executive pay to workers' wages: “In 1988, the ratio of top executive salaries to production worker wages was 6.5 to 1 in West Germany and 17.5 to 1 in the United States.”

13 Strictly speaking, the issue, given Nagel's view on distributive justice, is whether economic incentives are necessary to generate the kind of productivity which is most advantageous to the worse-off.

14 The problem that arises here is not that non-egalitarians will resist egalitarian redistribution; rather, the problem is internal to the egalitarian outlook. Impartial moral concern appears to license as legitimate an acquisitive motive which, in turn, undermines commitment to the egalitarian objectives derived from impartiality.

15 Nagel notes a different obstacle to developing a viable form of egalitarianism, but does not give it much attention. Modern egalitarianism accepts that inequality in distributive shares can be legitimate if it reflects responsible choice, but it is illegitimate if it reflects arbitrary differences in natural endowment. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to disentangle the effects of endowment and choice on distributive shares in a market setting. Market-generated inequalities which track individual choice do not necessarily offend an egalitarian conception of justice. So, there may well be reluctance by the talented to accept egalitarian redistribution if redistributive schemes are perceived as violating legitimate choice-based entitlements to resources rather than extinguishing the arbitrary advantages of natural talents.

16 Nagel admits that he does not have a theory of intrinsic value to support this position, but he takes it to be intuitively obvious that “there are values which are not just the values things have for persons” (p. 133). He speculates that there may be some connection between the interests of humans and intrinsic value, but it is a weak one: “If the entire human race went permanently blind, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre would not be a further loss. But so long as there is one person to look at them, their destruction would be a catastrophe” (pp. 132–33).

17 I am not suggesting that everyone in his or her present state has this capacity, nor am I suggesting that there are no differences in the degree of aesthetic or intellectual appreciation which ordinary people are capable of. But the differences in the basic capacities of most humans are not very great, and it is certainly true that many people of ordinary intelligence appreciate art and intellectual achievement. So, it seems plausible that most people can learn to appreciate art and intellectual achievement if given the opportunity to develop ordinary human capacities.

18 Nagel also maintains that the poor can recognize that the resistance of the rich to radical change is reasonable: “Specifically, the poor may recognize that the rich are not unreasonable to resist more than a certain level of sacrifice, in light of their constellation of motives, while at the same time the poor may reasonably refuse to accept the resulting degree of benefit as sufficient, even in light of the recognition that the rich can reasonably refuse more” (p. 172).

19 I would like to thank Sue Donaldson, Avigail Eisenberg, Will Kymlicka, and Alistair Macleod for helpful discussion of the ideas in this paper. I have also benefited from the comments provided by anonymous referees for Dialogue.