Geoffrey Cupit

University of Waikato

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Owen McLeod

Lafayette College

Martha C. Nussbaum

University of Chicago

Harry Brighouse

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Susan Moller Okin

Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

Michael Otsuka

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Joe Coleman

Auburn University

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Universidad de Murcia

Centro de Estudos de Cultura Contemporânea

John Wiley & Sons (United States)

Hudson Institute

John Brown University

University of Illinois Chicago

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Three Ways to Value Equality

Geoffrey Cupit

There is much inequality in the world — inequalities of wealth, political power, health care and life-span, educational and cultural opportunities, and so on. Some of these inequalities are shared around so that they tend to cancel out, but to a large degree this is not so, and some people are much better off overall than others. This is manifest on any plausible way of measuring how well off people are overall.

Value (mathematics)

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Book Review: Peter J. Steinberger, The Concept of Political Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. xii, 310.

Political Science (1994)

Geoffrey Cupit

"Book Review: Peter J. Steinberger, The Concept of Political Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. xii, 310.." Political Science, 46(1), pp. 135–136

10.1177/003231879404600116

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Institutional Justice

Oxford University Press eBooks (1999)

Geoffrey Cupit

This chapter examines the nature of institutional justice, that is, the requirement to respect entitlements which arise from qualification under an established rule or institution. It is generally supposed that where some particular rule is in operation those who are denied that to which they are entitled under those rules are treated unjustly. How this injustice is to be explained, and whether the explanation is consistent with understanding justice as a member of the fittingness family of concepts, is addressed in the present chapter. Ignoring entitlements often involves comparative injustice for it is only some whose entitlements are ignored. The case against justice as fittingness is as bad as it can be: that the injustice of ignoring entitlements is not (or not always) to be understood as only a comparative injustice. This chapter argues that the injustice of ignoring an entitlement is to be explained as a failure to treat in accordance with desert, and thus that there is no inconsistency with justice as fittingness.

Injustice

Entitlement (fair division)

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238621.003.0005

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Desert

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics (2013)

Geoffrey Cupit

Abstract Popular discussions of justice and fairness are often couched in the language of desert: those who commit crimes are said to deserve punishment; those who work hard are said to deserve success; those in need are often categorized as the deserving or undeserving poor. Justice, it may be said, is happiness according to virtue, with each getting his or her deserts ( see Justice). Given the frequency with which desert is invoked in popular discussions, it might be expected that philosophical debate about justice and fairness would also focus on desert. But in recent times, this has often not been so. Indeed, in the mid‐twentieth century, Brian Barry was able to write of a “revolt against desert,” and describe desert as “a concept which is already in decline and may eventually disappear” (Barry 1965: 112).

Desert (philosophy)

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Punishment (psychology)

10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee720

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Locating Justice

Oxford University Press eBooks (1999)

Geoffrey Cupit

Abstract Justice is a practical virtue concerned with how people should act. Those who avoid injustice in their dealings with others are esteemed, and are worthy of that esteem. A society which has just laws and a just division of benefits and burdens is superior to one which does not. But while justice is a virtue, it is not the only virtue. This chapter explores the nature of justice, what distinguishes justice from other virtues, and what makes justice distinctive. It explains where justice stands in relation to other concepts people employ when deciding how they should act. The main idea of justice as fittingness is discussed, along with status and value as two systems of practical reasoning, justice as a status system concept, injustice and other forms of unfitting treatment, and comparative justice and equality.

Injustice

Value (mathematics)

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238621.003.0001

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Desert and Responsibility

Oxford University Press eBooks (1999)

Geoffrey Cupit

Desert (philosophy)

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238621.003.0007

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Afterword

Oxford University Press eBooks (1999)

Geoffrey Cupit

This book has argued that justice is a member of the fittingness family of concepts. There is still work to be if this account of the concept of justice is to be used to develop a conception of justice, an account of what justice requires. To accept justice as fittingness is to accept that there are two main sources of disagreement over substantive issues of justice. First, disagreements as to what one's actions mean (that is, disagreements in interpretation), feed through into disagreements as to what must be avoided if he/she is not to act unjustly. A satisfactory defence of substantive principles of justice must include an account of what counts as treating as a member of a particular category. Second, disagreements as to what justice requires may reflect disagreements as to which attributes one has and which attributes are status-affecting. That one is free and rational is generally accepted, but to be reliable, caring, whole, and so on, is to have a superior status.

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238621.003.0008

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Fairness as Order: A Grammatical and Etymological Prolegomenon

The Journal of Value Inquiry (2011)

Geoffrey Cupit

Word order

Etymology

10.1007/s10790-011-9306-9

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Citations (1)

10. Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (pp. 820-823)

Susan Moller Okin Michael Otsuka Geoffrey Cupit Harry Brighouse Joe Coleman

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Desert and Responsibility

Canadian Journal of Philosophy (1996)

Geoffrey Cupit

It is often supposed that there is a relationship between desert and responsibility: that to be deserving we must be responsible for that which makes us deserving. Indeed, there seems little doubt that a supposed relationship between desert and responsibility, combined with a growing tendency to view less and less as the responsibility of the individual, contributed to the reluctance to appeal to desert which has been a feature of much recent moral and political philosophy. Certainly, if to be deserving we need to be responsible for that which makes us deserving ‘all the way down,’ it is not easy to see how anyone could ever be deserving of anything. I will argue that the claim that we can deserve only on the basis of that for which we are responsible — the desert-responsibility thesis — is false. There is no conceptual connection between desert and responsibility. Nevertheless, it is true that many claims to deserve are undermined if there is a lack of responsibility.

Desert (philosophy)

Collective responsibility

10.1080/00455091.1996.10717445

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