scholarly journals Rawls’s Original Position and Algorithmic Fairness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrik Franke
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Boundary Problem ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Risk Attitudes ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractModern society makes extensive use of automated algorithmic decisions, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence. However, since these systems are not perfect, questions about fairness are increasingly investigated in the literature. In particular, many authors take a Rawlsian approach to algorithmic fairness. This article aims to identify some complications with this approach: Under which circumstances can Rawls’s original position reasonably be applied to algorithmic fairness decisions? First, it is argued that there are important differences between Rawls’s original position and a parallel algorithmic fairness original position with respect to risk attitudes. Second, it is argued that the application of Rawls’s original position to algorithmic fairness faces a boundary problem in defining relevant stakeholders. Third, it is observed that the definition of the least advantaged, necessary for applying the difference principle, requires some attention in the context of algorithmic fairness. Finally, it is argued that appropriate deliberation in algorithmic fairness contexts often require more knowledge about probabilities than the Rawlsian original position allows. Provided that these complications are duly considered, the thought-experiment of the Rawlsian original position can be useful in algorithmic fairness decisions.

Justice in a Market Economy

2006 ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
Robert A. Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
The Social ◽  
Principle Of Justice ◽  
Fair Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Principles Of Justice

As we saw from the last two chapters, the ethical IT professional is embedded in contexts of management, organization, and society. Ethical behavior for the IT professional is, therefore, impacted by the ethics of people and institutions in his or her environment. The primary term for ethical institutions is justice.1 In the next three chapters, we will examine the justice of institutions impacting the IT professional. The framework used will be that provided by the works of John Rawls (1999, 2001). Rawls’ work is based on the idea of a social contract, that a justly ordered society is one to which individuals can freely decide to obligate themselves. But our decision will very likely be biased if we base it on our current situation. So Rawls’ major addition is to say that the decision must be made prior to being in society, without knowledge of what our position will be in society, and it will be a decision we will be obligated to stick to and expect others to make and stick to as well. The basic principles for society chosen in this position (which Rawls calls the original position) will be the Principles of Justice. According to Rawls (1999, 2001), there will be two: 1. The First Principle of Justice or Greatest Equal Liberty: Society is to be arranged so that all members have the greatest equal liberty possible for all, including fair equality of opportunity. Each individual has basic liberties which are not to be compromised or traded off for other benefits. Besides the basic freedoms such as freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and so on, it includes equality of opportunity. Thus society’s rules are not biased against anyone in it and allow all to pursue their interests and realize their abilities. 2. The Second Principle of Justice or the Difference Principle: Economic inequalities in society are justified insofar as they make members of the least advantaged social class, better off than if there were no inequality. The social contract basis for this principle is straightforward: If you are entering a society with no knowledge of your specific place in that society, the Difference Principle guarantees that you will be no worse off than you need to be to keep the society functioning.

The Theory of Marxian Liberalism

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Reiman
Keyword(s):  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theory Of Value

AbstractMarxian Liberalism is a theory of justice that results from combining the liberal belief that people have a natural right to be free from unwanted coercion, with the Marxian belief that property is coercive. This combination implies that property must be consented to by all people who do or will exist-and thus such consent must be theoretical. Theoretical consent occurs in a Marxian-liberal original position among parties whose knowledge includes Marxian and liberal beliefs. The parties find it rational to consent to a state that protects liberty, and to a system of property governed by the difference principle interpreted according to a moral version of the labor theory of value.

Freedom, money and justice as fairness

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blain Neufeld
Keyword(s):  
Basic Needs ◽  
Original Position ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Discretionary Time ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
The Difference

The first principle of Rawls’s conception of justice secures a set of ‘basic liberties’ equally for all citizens within the constitutional structure of society. The ‘worth’ of citizens’ liberties, however, may vary depending upon their wealth. Against Rawls, Cohen contends that an absence of money often can directly constrain citizens’ freedom and not simply its worth. This is because money often can remove legally enforced constraints on what citizens can do. Cohen’s argument – if modified to apply to citizens’ ‘moral powers’ rather than ‘negative liberty’ – threatens a core feature of Rawls’s conception of justice, as it is unclear why the parties within the ‘original position’ would endorse the lexical priority of the first principle over the ‘difference principle’ (which concerns the distribution of wealth) if both principles similarly shape citizens’ freedom. I concede Cohen’s point regarding the relation between freedom and money but argue that it is not fatal to Rawls’s conception of justice if the ‘basic needs principle’ is understood to enjoy lexical priority over the first principle and is modified to include a right to adequate discretionary time. Nonetheless, Cohen’s argument helpfully highlights the infelicitous nature of Rawls’s terminology with respect to liberty: the basic needs principle, the first principle and the difference principle all should be understood as shaping citizens’ freedom to exercise their moral powers.

Principles of Collective Choice and Constraints of Fairness

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (12) ◽  
pp. 678-690
Author(s):  
Alexander Motchoulski ◽  
Phil Smolenski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Basic Structure ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Collective Choice ◽  
Individual Rationality ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil

In “The Difference Principle Would Not Be Chosen behind the Veil of Ignorance,” Johan E. Gustafsson argues that the parties in the Original Position (OP) would not choose the Difference Principle to regulate their society’s basic structure. In reply to this internal critique, we provide two arguments. First, his choice models do not serve as a counterexample to the choice of the difference principle, as the models must assume that individual rationality scales to collective contexts in a way that begs the question in favor of utilitarianism. Second, the choice models he develops are incompatible with the constraints of fairness that apply in the OP, which by design subordinates claims of rationality to claims of impartiality. When the OP is modeled correctly the difference principle is indeed entailed by the conditions of the OP.

Rawls's Original Position and the Difference Principle

1976 ◽  
Vol 73 (21) ◽  
pp. 845-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan H. Goldman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
The Difference

scholarly journals Uncertain Distribution-Based Similarity Measure of Concepts

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Shuai Li ◽  
Jie Yang ◽  
Zhipeng Qi ◽  
Juanli Zeng
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Similarity Measure ◽  
Cloud Model ◽  
Similarity Measures ◽  
First Order ◽  
Complete Uncertainty ◽  
Basic Task ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Uncertain Distribution

The similarity of concepts is a basic task in the field of artificial intelligence, e.g., image retrieval, collaborative filtering, and public opinion guidance. As a powerful tool to express the uncertain concepts, similarity measure based on cloud model (SMCM) is always utilized to measure the similarity between two concepts. However, current studies on SMCM have two main limitations: (1) the similarity measures based on conceptual intension lack interpretability for merging the numerical characteristics and cannot discriminate some different concepts. (2) The similarity measures based on conceptual extension are always instable and inefficient. To address the above problems, an uncertain distribution-based similarity measure of cloud model (UDCM) is proposed in this paper. By analyzing the definition of the CM, we propose a new complete uncertainty including first-order and second-order uncertainty to calculate the uncertainty more accurately. Then, based on the difference between the complete uncertainty of two concepts, the computing process of UDCM and its some properties are introduced. Finally, we exhibit its advantages by comparing with other methods and verify its validity by experiments.

On Choosing the Difference Principle Behind the Veil of Ignorance

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (8) ◽  
pp. 450-463
Author(s):  
Hun Chung ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Published Paper ◽  
Main Strategy

In a recently published paper entitled, “The Difference Principle Would Not Be Chosen behind the Veil of Ignorance”, Johan E. Gustafsson attempts to demonstrate that the parties in Rawls’s original position would not choose the difference principle. Gustafsson’s main strategy was to show that Rawls’s difference principle in both of its ex post and ex ante versions imply counterintuitive distributional prescriptions in a few contrived examples. The purpose of this paper is to precisely demonstrate exactly how Gustafsson’s arguments have failed to show that the difference principle would not be chosen behind the veil of ignorance.

A SATISFACTORY MINIMUM CONCEPTION OF JUSTICE: RECONSIDERING RAWLS'S MAXIMIN ARGUMENT

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Minimum Level ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Marginal Value ◽  
Primary Goods ◽  
Maximin Rule ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Principles Of Justice

John Rawls argues that it is possible to describe a suitably defined initial situation from which to form reliable judgements about justice. In this initial situation, rational persons are deprived of information that is ‘irrelevant from the standpoint of justice’. It is rational, Rawls argues, for persons choosing principles of justice from this standpoint to be guided by the maximin rule. Critics, however, argue that (i) the maximin rule is not the appropriate decision rule for Rawls's choice position; (ii) the maximin argument relies upon an imprecise account of the satisfactory minimum to be secured under the maximin rule; or that (iii) Rawls relies upon unrealistic assumptions about diminishing marginal value. These critics, I will suggest, argue from a number of assumptions that are confused or false. The satisfactory minimum that choosers in the original position – employing the maximin rule – seek to achieve is not a minimum level of primary goods, nor is the satisfactory minimum sought under the maximin rule supplied by the difference principle. I will argue that the maximin argument is more robust than has generally been recognized and that this argument performs a number of important functions in clarifying the nature and implications of Rawls's argument for justice as fairness.

Laboratory Results on Rawls's Distributive Justice

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Frohlich ◽  
Joe A. Oppenheimer ◽  
Cheryl L. Eavey
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Average Income ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Expected Gain ◽  
Laboratory Results ◽  
The Difference ◽  
General Concern

The behavioural underpinnings of Rawls's notion of distributive justice as outlined in A Theory of Justice are tested in experimental contexts. Under conditions approximating Rawls's ‘original position’ (including the appropriate agenda, a ‘veil of ignorance’ and a choice rule designed to capture his main theoretical constraints), we test his ‘predictions’ that individuals would reach a unanimous consensus on a principle of distributive justice and would select the difference principle: a principle that maximizes the welfare of the worst-off individual in the society. This view is contrasted with our belief, that any general concern for fairness (or distributive justice) will take a different form: one that both attempts to take into account several values and pays attention to cardinal rather than ordinal measures of utility. Our results strongly indicate that individuals are capable of reaching consensus but that they choose what Rawls has called an ‘intuitionistic’ principle which attempts to take into account not only the position of the worst-off individual but the potential expected gain for the rest of society. The overwhelmingly preferred principle is maximizing the average income with a floor constraint.

scholarly journals Comprender la pobreza: debate entre John Rawls y Amartya Sen

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eguzki Urteaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil

RESUMENReconstrucción teórica de nuestras intuiciones a propósito de la justicia social, la Teoría de la justicia de John Rawls debía tomar en consideración a los más desfavorecidos a través del principio de diferencia que reparte los bienes de manera equitativa. Para Rawls, la objetividad moral está garantizada por la experiencia del posicionamiento original, caracterizada por el velo de ignorancia. Amartya Sen cuestiona ese planteamiento criticando el índice de los bienes básicos. Este artículo explicita lo que está en juego en este debate y desarrolla las aportaciones de la teoría de las capacidades a la reflexión contemporánea sobre las desigualdades socioeconómicas.PALABRAS CLAVERawls – Sen – teoría – pobreza – capacidadABSTRACTIn his theoretical reconstruction of our intuitions about social justice, John Rawls’s Theory of justice intended to take into consideration the worst-off due to the difference principle that distributes the goods in an equal way. For Rawls, the moral objectivity is guaranteed by the experience of the original position, characterized by the veil of ignorance that conceals particular interests. But, Amartya Sen has criticized this theory and specially the index of basic goods. This article states explicitly what is at stake in this debate and develops the contributions of the theory of capabilities to the contemporary reflection on the economic and social inequalities.KEYWORDSRawls - Sen - theory - poverty - capability

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