This volume presents new essays investigating a difficult theoretical and practical problem: how do we find a place for individual responsibility in a theory of distributive justice? Does what we choose affect what we deserve? Would making justice sensitive to responsibility give people what they deserve? Would it advance or hinder equality?

Key contemporary discussions of distributive justice have formulated egalitarian approaches in terms of responsibility. But this approach, Hurley contends, has ignored the way our understanding of responsibility constrains the roles it can actually play within distributive justice.

The utlitiarian economist and Nobel Laureate John Harsanyi and the liberal egalitarian philosopher John Rawls were two of the most eminent scholars writing on problems of social justice in the last century. The contributions to this volume, addressed to an interdisciplinary audience, pay tribute to them by investigating themes that figure prominently in their work. In some cases, the contributors explore issues considered by Harsanyi and Rawls in more depth and from novel perspectives. In others, the contributors use the work of Harsanyi and Rawls as points of departure for pursuing the construction of new theories for the evaluation of social justice.

Samuel Freeman is a leading political philosopher and one of the foremost authorities on the works of John Rawls. Liberalism and Distributive Justice offers a series of Freeman's essays in contemporary political philosophy on three different forms of liberalism-classical liberalism, libertarianism, and the high liberal tradition--and their relation to capitalism, the welfare state, and economic justice.

Examines responsibility and luck as these issues arise in tort law, criminal law, and distributive justice.

In this lively and accessible book, Matt Matravers considers the role of responsibility in politics, morality and the law. In recent years, responsibility has taken a central place in our lives. In politics, both Tony Blair and George W. Bush have claimed that individual responsibility is at the centre of their policy agendas. In morality and the law, it seems just that people should be rewarded or punished only for things for which they are responsible. Yet responsibility is a hotly contested concept. Some philosophers claim that it is impossible, while others insist on both its possibility and importance. This debate has become increasingly technical in the philosophical literature, but it is seldom connected to our practices of politics and the law. Matravers asks, What are we doing when we hold people responsible in deciding questions of distributive justice or of punishment?. By addressing this question, he not only shows how philosophy can help in thinking about current political and legal controversies, but also how we can keep hold of the idea of responsibility in an age in which we are increasingly impressed by the roles of genetics and environment in shaping us and our characters.

Distributive justice has come to the fore in political philosophy: how should we arrange our social and economic institutions so as to distribute benefits and burdens fairly? Thirty-eight leading figures from philosophy and political theory present specially written critical assessments of the key issues in this flourishing area of research.