Incentives, structures and ethos: GA Cohen’s internal critique of Rawls’s difference principle

This thesis concerns GA Cohen’s critique of John Rawls’s difference principle, the principle of justice which permits social and economic inequalities that are structured to the maximal benefit of the least advantaged class. Cohen expresses concern that the economic inequalities which the difference principle permits are inconsistent with the rationale of justice, that individuals should receive full redress for inequalities that are the outcome of luck, rather than choices one makes. This is because the difference principle permits economic incentives to the more talented members of society, those with more favourable, or useful, talents, when the deployment of those talents maximally benefit the least fortunate. But this is at odds with the rationale of justice as talents are the outcome of nature rather than the outcome of choices and efforts one makes and so the talented ought not receive incentive payments which make them better off than the less talented.

My study of Cohen’s critique aims to show that Cohen‘s concerns about incentives arise from a mis-reading of Rawls and that when these mistakes are corrected, his disagreement with Rawls is significantly narrowed. Primarily, Cohen overlooks that it is not only the difference principle which regulates the distribution of income and wealth but also the other principles of justice. Once the other principles are also accounted for, we see that both the Rawlsian citizen and a Rawlsian society far more closely resemble Cohen’s egalitarian ideal than he realises. The primary disagreement between them is not that Rawls unjustly permits incentives to the talented but rather Cohen’s narrow conception of justice, that the sole or primary aim of social justice is to make redress for bad luck. While this principle of redress might be the primary aim of a conception of justice, it is implausible as an ideal of social or distributive justice, as Cohen believes, as social justice must account, not only for what one is due, but also for what one contributes.