Free Time by Rose Julie L.;

Author:Rose, Julie L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2016-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

4.5 DISTINCT DISTRIBUTIVE CONSIDERATIONS

Thus far, I have argued that citizens have legitimate claims to a fair share of free time, without specifying what constitutes a fair share. I address this question in full in 7.2, but to preview, the determination of what constitutes a citizen’s fair share of free time depends on (1) how much time a society must devote to the shared burdens of social cooperation, (2) which distributive principles apply to citizens’ resource claims, (3) the relative weights given to different resources, and (4) whether any special intervening reasons apply to an individual’s claim. The second consideration is the focus here, as it highlights another way in which theories of distributive justice ought to treat temporal resources distinctly from material resources. That is, on some distributive theories, there are considerations that tell in favor of applying a different distributive principle to citizens’ claims to free time than to their claims to income and wealth.

Within the diverse array of theories that endorse the effective freedoms principle, a range of justifications are offered to ground citizens’ claims to the resources they require to exercise their formal freedoms. Some of these justifications require or favor a strictly egalitarian distribution of resources, because they hold that inequality is in itself bad or unjust.29 Other justifications, however, are consistent with a range of distributive principles, including strict egalitarianism, but also Paretian egalitarianism (all should have the same unless inequalities benefit all), sufficientarianism (all should have enough), or prioritarianism (aiding the worst off should have priority).

When a theory of distributive justice does not hold that distributive inequality is intrinsically bad or unjust, and so does not hold that justice requires distributive equality, a range of other considerations are often invoked to determine the appropriate distributive principle. In this context, a variety of “non-intrinsic” reasons are commonly offered on behalf of an egalitarian distribution.30 These reasons generally derive from the importance distributive equality is taken to have for social equality, that is, for the maintenance of a society in which individuals regard and treat one another as equals.31 Distributive inequality can threaten social equality by creating and perpetuating stigmatization and status inferiority, objectionable power dynamics, and relations of servility, and by undermining individuals’ self-respect and society’s sense of community and fraternity.

Whether or not distributive inequality undermines social inequality is, in at least some respects, an empirical question. The assessment of how distributive inequality threatens social inequality is typically made with reference to income and wealth, and it is plain how material inequality could produce these problematic social effects. Even if everyone had some sufficient amount of material resources while a minority had much more, it is not difficult to see how the inequalities could be detrimental to social equality in these ways. Yet, the social egalitarian reasons to favor distributive equality may not apply with the same force to other goods or resources, such that social egalitarianism may be compatible with a different distributive principle, such as sufficientarianism, with respect to some goods or resources.

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