Memorandum
No 15/2004:
Rewarding effort
Alexander W. Cappelen ()
and Bertil Tungodden ()
Abstract: According to liberal egalitarian ethics, individuals
should be rewarded for factors under their control, but not for factors
outside their control. A fundamental challenge to liberal egalitarian
theories of justice is how to do this without violating minimal egalitarian
and liberal requirements. The paper analyses the effects of two such
requirements: the principle of equal reward and the principle of reward
independence. The exact formulations of these principles depend on how we
interpret the concept of reward. We propose two different definitions of
reward, contrafactual and interpersonal reward, where both can be given a
general and narrow interpretation. Given this, we show that it is
impossible to establish a framework that is truly liberal egalitarian in
all respects and that a generalized version of the egalitarian equivalent
mechanism is the most plausible liberal egalitarian approach.
Keywords: egalitarian; justice; reward; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: D63; (follow links to similar papers)
29 pages, October 27, 2004
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