Rawls, Risk, and the Maximin Principle

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls acknowledged that rational choice behind the veil of ignorance would generally yield average utilitarianism—John Harsanyi’s conclusion fifteen years earlier. The question is, why would it yield a different conclusion in the Original Position? If, as Rawls assumed, the representative person would be infinitely risk averse in those unique circumstances, utility functions would reflect that preference in the relative weights assigned to different outcomes, yielding Rawls’s maximin solution. In short, Rawls’s disagreement with utilitarians is an empirical dispute about individual preferences and nothing more. Rawls believed the disagreement was more fundamental, because of two erroneous assumptions about standard utility functions: that they reflect peoples’ psychological attitudes toward risk-taking rather than their preferences over a range of outcomes, that they would ignore the transitory disutility of uncertainty aversion in calculating expected utilities.

Stakeholder Fairness Under an Induced ‘Veil of Ignorance'

John Rawls introduced the ‘veil of ignorance' in social contract theory to bring about a common conception of justice, and hypothesized that it will enable rational individuals to choose distributive shares on basis of ‘maximin' principle. R. E. Freeman conceptualised stakeholder fairness using the Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance'. In contrast to Rawls' theory, John Harsanyi postulated that rational individuals behind the ‘veil of ignorance' will choose allocation to maximise expected utility. This article investigates how subjects choose allocations behind the ‘veil of ignorance,' in a laboratory experiment, and interprets the findings in light of stakeholder fairness. The ‘veil of ignorance' was induced on randomly paired and mutually anonymous subjects, who were asked to choose allocations in a simultaneous move discrete choice Nash demand game. Both ‘maximin' principle and expected utility maximisation was found to be used by the subjects. Choice of allocations where no one is worse off vis-à-vis status quo was salient. This is consistent with Freeman's Principle of Governance.

Toward an assessment of marginality in democratic systems: The Charlie Hebdo debate in the United Kingdom

This article offers a theoretical and empirical investigation of marginality of actors and ideas in democratic systems. We do so with respect to the extensive public debate that ensued from the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks of January 2015. Using content analytical data retrieved from The Guardian, we assess the degree and nature of marginality as indicated by the presence of different types of intervention in the public debate. Our findings show that women have very limited visibility; religious and minority groups—particularly Muslims—are sidestepped; and actors challenging the dominant securitisation narrative are systematically neglected by those holding dominant positions. We argue for greater attention to the problem of marginality and introduce the Maximin principle of marginality as a means to address this issue in analyses of democratic systems.

Solving Rectangular Fuzzy Games through

Fuzzy set theory has been applied in many fields such as operations research, control theory and decision sciences. In particular, an application of this theory in decision making problems has a remarkable significance. In this paper, we consider a solution of rectangular fuzzy game with pay-off as imprecise numbers instead of crisp numbers viz., interval and LR-type trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. The solution of such fuzzy games with pure strategies by minimax-maximin principle is discussed. The algebraic method to solve 2 × 2 fuzzy games without saddle point by using mixed strategies is also illustrated. Here m × n payoff matrix is reduced to 2 × 2 pay-off matrix by dominance method. This fact is illustrated by means of numerical example.

Equality and fairness

This chapter investigates the equity reasons behind regulations and public finance of healthcare. An inquiry into altruism and redistribution is followed by a discussion of equality and fairness as applied to the distribution of health and healthcare. Voluntary redistribution through cross-subsidized healthcare is explained by paternalistic altruism, that is, most people simply care for their fellow citizens’ access to needed healthcare. The concepts of equity, equality, and fairness in health are explained and defined. Three theories of distributive justice have particular relevance in the context of determining a fair allocation of healthcare: utilitarianism, egalitarianism, and Rawls’ maximin principle. These theories are formally analysed within the framework of a health possibility frontier. The figure illustrates a trade-off between efficiency as health maximization versus equality of health.

The Precautionary Principle

This chapter identifies two very different paradigm cases for the Precautionary Principle that define two separate versions of the principle: the deliberative and the epistemic. I argue that the deliberative version should not be identified with the maximin principle but rather be interpreted as an output filter that transforms the original description of a case into a new case in which all options that may lead to outcomes below a certain threshold are omitted. The epistemic version is a cluster of at least three different epistemic principles, which are introduced and defined by matching paradigm cases. By distinguishing between all these versions of the Precautionary Principle many of the objections that have been raised against it can be rebutted.