Análisis estático

As with so many of the views widely held by political philosophers, the best-known proponent of the claim that strong norms of justice are triggered by considerations of reciprocity is John Rawls:

The intuitive idea [behind Justice as Fairness] is that since everyone’s well-being depends upon a scheme of cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life, the division of advantages should be such as to draw forth the willing cooperation of everyone taking part in it, including those less well situated.³⁸

Rawls thought that the only fair way to ‘draw forth the willing cooperation of everyone taking part’ in a joint venture for mutual advantage was to include them in the

State’, Political Studies, 56 (2008), 487-518.

37 See, in particular, A. Abizadeh, 'Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion: On the Scope (not Site) of Distributive Justice', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 35 (4) (2007), 318-358; R. Pevnik, 'Political Coercion and the Scope of Distributive Justice', Political Studies, 56 (2008), 399-413.

38 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.13.

scope of a scheme of strong distributive justice. And since Rawls is the best-known proponent of statism it is plausible to interpret his argument concerning the link between cooperation, reciprocity, and inclusion in a scheme of strong distributive justice, as representing his answer to the normative condition of statism. But even if this interpretation is correct, and even if one is convinced by Rawls’s answer to the normative condition of statism, his view cannot be considered a fully-fledged version of reciprocity-based statism until we have some explicit answers to the inclusivity and exclusivity conditions. Rawls was obviously aware of this. But, rather than argue the point, he (in)famously chose to assume the problem away.³⁹ In the absence of a substantive argument for this assumption it would be unfair, not to mention inaccurate, to criticise Rawls’s view as if it was a conception of reciprocity-based statism.

Compare the quote from Rawls with the following quote from Andrea Sangiovanni:

We owe obligations of egalitarian reciprocity to fellow citizens and residents in the state, who provide us with the basic conditions and guarantees necessary to develop and act on a plan of life, but not to non-citizens, who do not.⁴⁰

Whereas Rawls talks loosely about ‘everyone’ (in part, no doubt, because he has already assumed the boundaries of the world he is talking about) Sangiovanni explicitly distinguishes between those who are inside and those who are outside the cooperative scheme which provides the ‘conditions and guarantees necessary to develop and act on a plan of life’. Sangiovanni thus offers us explicit answers to all three conditions of statism. Before applying the immigration objection to Sangiovanni’s view it will be helpful to reconstruct the precise steps his argument takes. The first of five premises recalls another core Rawlsian idea about the arbitrariness of talents:

39 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.7, p.401. For well-known critiques of Rawls based directly on the falsity of this assumption, see, C. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999); T. Pogge, Realizing Rawls, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1989).

40 Sangiovanni, 'Global Justice', p.20.

(P1) Talented individuals do not deserve their place in the distribution of native endowments.⁴¹

P1 plays a conditional, negative role in the argument. It says that if the exercise of talent creates wealth, then the talented have no prior moral claim to this wealth simply because it was their talent that was exercised. Of course, we still need a positive argument for redistributing this wealth if such redistribution is to avoid the charge of arbitrariness, and this is where the idea of reciprocity comes in.⁴² Talents count for little (financially at least) unless there is a market for them – both in the sense that they are recognised as talents in the first place (perhaps because of cultural idiosyncrasies or changes in fashion) and that, once recognised, they can be used to create wealth. The positive part of Sangiovanni’s argument, which rests on this idea, consists of four further premises. The first two empirical premises are intended to satisfy the inclusivity condition:

(P2) In the world as it is now, the stable conditions necessary for wealth creation through the exercise of talent are provided by the institutions that comprise modern states.⁴³

(P3) In a number of ways – for example, ‘through taxation, through participation in various forms of political activity, and through simple compliance’ – citizens maintain the institutions that comprise modern states. ⁴⁴

The fourth premise is intended to satisfy the normative condition:

41 See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.89.

42 ‘From the bare assumption that [talents are] morally arbitrary, no obligation to share follows. The lucky ones could admit that their luck is morally arbitrary, and still ask “Why share?”’ A. Gibbard, 'Review: Constructing Justice', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20 (3) (1991), 264-279, p.269.

43 ‘When well-functioning…basic state capacities, backed by a system of courts, administration, police, and military, free us from the need to protect ourselves continuously from physical attack, guarantee access to a legally regulated market, and establish and stabilise a system of property rights and entitlements’, Sangiovanni, 'Global Justice', p.20.

44 Sangiovanni, 'Global Justice', p.20.

(P4) The principle of reciprocity: those who willingly contribute to the conditions necessary for the accumulation of benefits are owed a fair share of these benefits.

It is important to emphasise that what is doing the work in Sangiovanni’s argument is not the fact that citizens are coerced by the state into paying taxes, participating in political activity, and complying with laws and social rules. Part of the reason why Sangiovanni thinks that reciprocity-based accounts of statism are preferable to coercion-based accounts lies in the fact that citizens can (and usually do) do all of these things without their compliance being guaranteed by a coercive authority. I shall say more about this important point below.

The fifth and final premise of Sangiovanni’s argument is intended to satisfy the exclusivity condition:

(P5*) Only citizens, and not non-citizens, contribute to the conditions necessary for wealth creation in a particular state.

Because the state offers the stable conditions necessary to extract value from individuals’ talents and because the state, in turn, is maintained by its members (citizens), and only its members, the demands of reciprocity entail the statist conclusion that:

(SC) Only the distribution of goods between citizens (and not non-citizens) should be regulated by strong norms of distributive justice.

The problem with this argument is that, even if we accept P1-P4, the statist conclusion does not follow, because P5* is false. If my argument in the next section is right, what it shows is that Sangiovanni’s doctrine of reciprocity-based statism actually

entails that strong distributive justice applies to both members and non-members of the state and, thus, that the scope of (strong) justice is global rather than statist.