Introduction
Questions about work and its arrangement are the source of great political controversy in society. The issues involved are highly divisive, but the divisions generated do not neatly map onto the familiar political Left-Right spectrum. Even amongst those of similar political persuasion, there is a considerable disagreement about whether we should exercise political power to pursue full employment, to discourage ‘overwork’, to make job-holders more secure, or to incentivise workers to avoid dependence on state aid.
Whilst we can make some progress with these questions by consulting with our intuitions, a fully satisfactory response must make use of an account of the political principles and social institutions that ought to guide society’s arrangement of work. In this thesis I defend a liberal egalitarian conception of justice, and then use it to develop such an account. That is, in this thesis I develop and defend a liberal egalitarian account of justice in work.
The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide an overview of this thesis’s aims, structure, and conclusions. This chapter beginsby clarifying the subject matter of my inquiry – work and its arrangement. Following this, I then draw attention to the political and philosophical significance of questions concerning the arrangement of work. In doing so, I illuminate the value of having an account of the political principles and social institutions that ought to guide society’s arrangement of work. Over the course of the subsequent three sections, Ithen issue three distinct sets of remarksrelating to the methodsused in this thesis: the first concerns the concepts of ‘justice’ and ‘legitimacy’ and the relationship between the two ideas; the secondexamines and specifies the distinctive requirements of political morality; and the third addresses the relationship between questions regarding society’s arrangement of work and questions regarding society’s distribution of benefits and burdens more generally.Finally, I conclude with a brief preview of the thesis. This preview affords me the opportunity both to clarify the more specific questions and literature that I engage with, as well as indicate some of the conclusions that I later establish.
1 Work
This thesis is concerned with work. But,what is work? This is simultaneously a very good and very bad question for a normative inquiry of this kind to begin with. It is a very good question to begin with as it prompts a clear delineation of the subject matter of the thesis. Presumably, an investigation into normative issues relating to work is in some way distinct from a normative investigation into global justice, the family, climate change, or bioethics, for example. Moreover, in the absence of any idea of what is meant by ‘work’, the questions this thesis is concerned with may simply be impossible to answer: if we have no idea what work is, then it will be impossible to answer questions about its appropriate arrangement.
However, it is also a very bad question to begin with in that it invites us to engage in a form of conceptual analysis that is inessential to our ends. Put in stark terms, we can theorise about what bankers, surfers, or parents are owed as a matter of justice without recourse to the conceptual matter of whether it is a misuse of a label to say that banking, surfing, or parenting are properly regarded as ‘work’.[1] Normative theory is primarily concerned with what we owe (to each other) and for what reasons; it is not concerned with semantics.
In order to circumvent this problem, I instead stipulatea definition of work. By work, I (stipulatively) mean paid employment. There are three advantages to proceeding on the basis of this definition. First, as will be explained in the next section, it enables us to engage with a set of politically and philosophically important questions. Second, it leaves open the possibility that closely related activities, such as volunteering orparenting, say, should be governed by similar or identical normative principles. In short, though this thesis is not concerned with these closely related activities, it is in principle consistent with my approach that we ought to think about them in precisely the same way that we think about paid employment. Third, this definition of work is sufficiently close to the definition utilised by other authors whose contributions bear upon this inquiry.[2] This ensures that my definition of work does not obscure this thesis’s contribution to the academic literature.
Two clarifications are called for at this stage. First, let me distinguish between those benefits and burdens that are internal to work, and those that are external to work. A benefit is internal to work when a worker’s possession of it results directly from her performance of the task(s) involved. This is the case with self-realisation at work, for example.By contrast, a benefit is external to work when a worker’s possession of it results from it being conferred upon her as a result of her performance of the task(s) involved. This is the case with a worker’s salary, for example.This thesis is concerned with the distribution of both the internal and external benefits and burdens of work. For this reason, it is perhaps more accurate to say that this thesis is concerned with normative questions concerning society’s arrangement of workand the benefits and burdens that attach to it. Given how cumbersome this phrase is, though, I shall simply continue to refer to ‘work’.
Second, it may help briefly to comment on the relationship between work and jobs. Jobs provide vehicles through which citizens are assigned work.[3] To assert that a citizen has a job as a professional darts player, say, is to claim nothing other than that she undertakes paid employment as aprofessional darts player. A corollary of this claim is that, for the purposes of this thesis, volunteering and parenting are not jobs. This is because they do not involve paid employment.[4]
2 Theorising about Work
Why bother to defend an account of the political principles and social institutions that ought to guidesociety’s arrangement of work? There are at least two compelling answers to this question. The first makes reference to the fact that work is a huge part of many citizens’ lives. The relationship between work and citizens’ interests is an extremely complicated one (which I investigate in further detail in Chapter 1). A central feature of the relationship is that the work that a citizen undertakes greatly affects the extent to which she is able to pursue what she regards as a flourishing life. Or, in slightly more technical terms, arrangements of work greatly affect the extent to which she is able to pursue her conception of the good.[5] An implication of this is that injustices in this aspect of citizens’ lives are likely to be particularly grievous and, as a result, especially politically urgent.
Second, aside from questions of wage inequality, normative questions relating to the arrangement of work have not received either the political or philosophical attention they warrant. The assumption that jobs ought to be arranged and distributed according to broadly laissez-faire market principles is one that has been largely unchallenged both politically and philosophically (at least outside of Marxist theory). There are signs of change, however. First, as Alex Gourevitch has noted, in addition to contesting wealth and income inequality, recent anti-capitalist protests have also focused on the benefits and burdens that are internal to work.[6] Protestors have called for a transformation in the kind of work that jobs typically involve.
Moreover, there has also been a resurgence from within academia in issues relating to work and its arrangement. Most significantly, this has come from liberal theorists, who have, with notable exceptions,[7] traditionally neglected the topic.[8]Even John Rawls fails to specify in any detail the implications for work of either justice as fairness or political liberalism.[9] Whilst there is a little discussion of how precisely we ought to respond, there is an emerging consensus that laissez-faire market arrangements and distributions of jobs remain unjust, even once certain wage inequalities have been corrected for. Together, these points highlight the political and philosophical timeliness of a normative investigation intothe political principles and social institutions that ought to guide society's arrangement of work.
3Justice and Legitimacy
My investigation into society's arrangement of work makes use of the ideas of ‘justice’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘legitimacy’. For this reason, it will help for me to specify how I use these terms, which is a task that requires a short detour.
Within normative theory, broadly understood, there are three types of question that are normally asked.[10] First, we can inquire into the moralpermissibility or impermissibility of actions. We could ask, for example, ought the government to raise the minimum wage? Let’s call these action-guidingquestions. Second, we can inquire into the blameworthiness or praiseworthiness of actions. We could ask, for example, ought I to blame the current government for failing to raise the minimum wage? Let’s call these ascriptive questions. Finally, we can inquire into the goodness or badness of outcomes. We could ask, for example, would the world be a better or worse place if the government were to raise the minimum wage? Let’s call these axiological questions.
Each of these types of questions can be applied to various aspects of society's arrangement of work. First, we could ask, which social institutions ought the government to set up to guide society's arrangement of work? Second, we could ask, ought I to blame the current government for failing to support these social institutions? Finally, we could ask, how good or bad is the state of affairs that these social institutions bring about?
This thesis is concerned with a specific set of action-guiding questions – that is, with a specific set of questions about morally permissible and impermissible action. It is tempting, therefore, to adopt a definition of justice that directly tracks moral permissibility. According to this view, an act is just if and only if it is morally permissible; and, by implication, an act is unjust if and only if it is morally impermissible. To say that an institution or set of public rules arejust is to say that the decisions that brought about that institution or set of public rules were morally permissible ones.
This position is too simplistic, however. This is because there are some actions that, though morally permissible, are not just. Let’s consider Rawls’s example of a democratically-mandated decision to set up legal institutions that seek to maximise overall well-being subject to a constraint guaranteeing an adequate minimum for everyone.[11] Though this decision is according to Rawls less just than establishing legal institutions that seek to maximise the position of the least advantaged subject to respecting certain rights, given that it is democratically mandated, such a decision might still bemorally permissible. In short, we have a decision that is morally permissible, though not strictly just.
It is tempting to bite this bullet: we could affirm that, according the definition of justice that has been stipulated, we should simply regard both decisions as just by virtue of their moral permissibility. An unfortunate implication of this response, though, is that it deprives us of the theoretical tools to determine which action of a set of morally permissible actions is the best one. This is unsatisfying both philosophically and politically. It is philosophically unsatisfying because it would result in many important normative questions being taken off of the table, and it is politically unsatisfying because citizens would lack a framework to help them determine which decision (of a set of morally permissible ones) they ought to support.
A more sophisticated and promising alternative is offered by Rawls, who distinguishes between justice and legitimacy.[12] Questions of justice concern the conditions the fulfillment of which ensures that everyone’s interests are given equal weight. It is axiomatic of a just society that political power is exercised in a way that respects the freedom and equality of all citizens, and that this is achieved by treating all citizens’ relevant interests as equally weighty.[13] By contrast, questions of legitimacy concern the conditions the fulfillment of which is sufficient for a decision to possess political authority, in the sense that it imposes of citizens a pro tanto moral duty to obey its commands. Decisions that fail to treat all citizens’ interests as equally weighty, and are hence unjust, may nonetheless command political authority, and hence remain legitimate. As Rawls notes:
A legitimate procedure gives rise to legitimate laws and policies made in accordance with it….Neither the procedures nor the laws need be just by a strict standard of justice, even if, what is also true, they cannot be too gravely unjust. At some point, the injustice of the outcomes of a legitimate democratic procedure corrupts its legitimacy, and so will the injustice of the political constitution itself. But before this point is reached, the outcomes of a legitimate procedure are legitimate whatever they are.[14]
Legitimacy is a doubly-permissive concept. It is not merely that shortfalls from strict justice can be legitimate when they result from a strictly just procedure; rather, shortfalls from strict justice can also be legitimate when they result from a procedure that is merely sufficiently just. It is consistent with this view that particularly unjust decisions can never command political authority, even if produced by a procedure that, absent the grave injustice, would be strictlyjust.
My main concern is with the requirements of justice with respect to society's arrangement of work. It is, therefore, consistent with the account that I defend that there are alternative political principles and social institutions that, though less just, may still command political authority providing that they result from a suitable procedure. I leave this as an open possibility.
4 Political Morality
One way in which to develop an account of justice in work is by reference to labour perfectionism.[15] Labour perfectionism consists of two claims: (1) meaningful work (however it is defined) is necessary for, or at least conducive to, living a flourishing life; and (2) political power ought to be exercised in a way that promotes and protects flourishing lives. Labour perfectionism has the familiar implication that social institutions ought to be arranged such that citizens’ jobs involve meaningful work.[16]
Labour perfectionism a powerful initial appeal. The fact that certain arrangements of work preclude, or act as an obstacle to, citizens leading flourishing lives seems clearly to be relevant to the development of an account of justice in work. Indeed, as Muirhead points out, to fail to pay attention to this idea is to fail to pay attention to ‘the source of the reasons that motivate us most vitally in politics and elsewhere’.[17]The appeal of the second premise of labour perfectionism is also stressed by a critic of the position, Jonathan Quong, who concedes that there is ‘enduring appeal’ to the idea that political power ought to be exercised in a way that promotes and protects flourishing lives. In particular, he notes that it chimes well with the ‘deeply attractive and intuitively compelling’ thought that ‘the aim of the state (or at least one of its major aims) should be to improve the lives of citizens’.[18]
Despite its initial intuitive appeal, however, labour perfectionism is not a plausible starting position for a normative investigation into the political principles and social institutions that ought to guide society's arrangement of work. This is because our reasons to exercise political power in a way that promotes and protects flourishing lives are reasons that are typically defeated by other reasons.[19]The argument for this conclusion draws upon the familiar arguments given by liberal anti-perfectionists, such as Rawls.
The response to labour perfectionism begins by noting that, at least within liberal societies, there will be irreducible disagreement about the relationship between meaningful work and human flourishing:[20] there will be disagreement about whether any kind of work is necessary for human flourishing in addition to disagreement, among those who think it is, about whether that work has to be ‘meaningful’.
The fact that the relationship between meaningful work and human flourishing is controversial is significant because it has the implication that when the exercise of political power is justified by reference to this relationship, some citizens will inevitably be subject to the exercise of political power that is justified by appeal to reasons whose validity they reject. Justifying the exercise of political power in this way is oppressive as it violates a basic liberal right to political autonomy.The right to political autonomy protects citizens’ interests in being able to identify freely ‘with the constraints that they face, in the sense that they understand the content and justificatory bases of the constraints, and freely accept them’.[21] The fact that justifying the exercise of political power by appeal to controversial reasons leads to the violation of citizens’ right to political autonomy is sufficient to demonstrate that the exercise of political power in this way is morally impermissible.[22]Ex hypothesi, this sanctions the rejection of labour perfectionism.[23]
Citizens’ right to political autonomy is violated when the exercise of political power is justified in this way even if the controversial reasons appealed to turned out to be correct. That is, even if meaningful work were necessary for flourishing life, it would remain morally impermissible to justify the exercise of political power on this basis. This is because, even if correct, some citizens will reject meaningful work’s importance and hence nonetheless have their right to political autonomy violated when the exercise of political power is justified in this way.