Material scarcity and scalar justice
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Material scarcity and scalar justice Matthew Adams1
•
Ross Mittiga2
Accepted: 8 September 2020 Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract We defend a scalar theory of the relationship between material scarcity and justice. As scarcity increases beyond a specified threshold, we argue that deontological egalitarian constraints should be gradually relaxed and consequentialist considerations should increasingly determine distributions. We construct this theory by taking a bottom-up approach that is guided by principles of medical triage. Armed with this theory, we consider the range of conditions under which justice (of any form) applies. We argue that there are compelling reasons for thinking that justice applies under a far broader range of conditions than is standardly supposed, including those that could sensibly be labelled as conditions of extreme rather than moderate scarcity. Keywords Circumstances of justice Material resources Triage Scarcity Consequentialism Egalitarianism
& Ross Mittiga [email protected] Matthew Adams [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, Indiana University Bloomington, Sycamore Hall 026, 1033 E. 3rd St, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
2
Instituto de Ciencia Polı´tica, Pontificia Universidad Cato´lica de Chile, Av. Vicun˜a Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, RM 7820436, Chile
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M. Adams, R. Mittiga
1 Introduction Does justice depend on the relative quantity of material resources that are available? If so, how, and to what extent?1 Answering these questions is necessary for developing an adequate theoretical account of justice. Given the scarcity-inducing effects of climate change, such an inquiry will also, lamentably, take on an everincreasing practical relevance. In contemporary political philosophy, most discussion of this issue takes place in the context of theorizing about the circumstances of justice. One of the most important circumstances of justice is ‘‘the condition of moderate scarcity.’’ In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls explicates this condition as follows: ‘‘Natural and other resources are not so abundant that schemes of cooperation become superfluous, nor are conditions so harsh that fruitful ventures must inevitably break down.’’2 On this view, justice itself depends on the quantity of material resources: it only applies between the two threshold extremes of super-abundance and superscarcity. Whatever the other merits of this view, we argue that it is limited in a significant respect. For—at least if an egalitarian theory of justice is adopted—it fails to provide a complete account of the way in which justice depends on the relative quantity of material resources. We argue that justice does not depend on material scarcity merely in the sense that it applies between two threshold extremes. Rather, the content of justice itself should also be scaled to different levels of material scarcity within the range of material conditions in which it applies. More specifically, we argue that, as material scarcity increases—beyond the threshold in which there are sufficient
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