Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle

Lombardi, Michele and Miyagishima, Kaname and Veneziani, Roberto (2013): Liberal Egalitarianism and the Harm Principle.

Abstract

This paper analyses the implications of classical liberal and libertarian approaches for distributive justice in the context of social welfare orderings. An axiom capturing a liberal non-interfering view of society, named the Weak Harm Principle, is studied, whose roots can be traced back to John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty. It is shown that liberal views of individual autonomy and freedom can provide consistent foundations for social welfare judgements, in both the finite and the infinite context. In particular, a liberal non-interfering approach can help to adjudicate some fundamental distributive issues relative to intergenerational justice. However, a surprisingly strong and general relation is established between liberal views of individual autonomy and non-interference, and egalitarian principles in the Rawlsian tradition.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Liberal principles, maximin, intergenerational equity, infinite utility streams.
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D0 - General; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D60 - General; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D70 - General; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q0 - General > Q01 - Sustainable Development

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