IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0038529.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dworkin’s Paradox

Author

Listed:
  • Seung Ki Baek
  • Jung-Kyoo Choi
  • Beom Jun Kim

Abstract

How to distribute welfare in a society is a key issue in the subject of distributional justice, which is deeply involved with notions of fairness. Following a thought experiment by Dworkin, this work considers a society of individuals with different preferences on the welfare distribution and an official to mediate the coordination among them. Based on a simple assumption that an individual’s welfare is proportional to how her preference is fulfilled by the actual distribution, we show that an egalitarian preference is a strict Nash equilibrium and can be favorable even in certain inhomogeneous situations. These suggest how communication can encourage and secure a notion of fairness.

Suggested Citation

  • Seung Ki Baek & Jung-Kyoo Choi & Beom Jun Kim, 2012. "Dworkin’s Paradox," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-6, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0038529
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0038529
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038529
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038529&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0038529?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John E. Roemer, 1986. "Equality of Resources Implies Equality of Welfare," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 751-784.
    2. Hausman,Daniel M. & McPherson,Michael S., 2006. "Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521608664, December.
    3. de Clippel, Geoffroy & Moulin, Herve & Tideman, Nicolaus, 2008. "Impartial division of a dollar," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 176-191, March.
    4. Hausman,Daniel M. & McPherson,Michael S., 2006. "Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521846295.
    5. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bogusław Czarny, 2011. "The Debate on the Nature of Welfare Economics in the Contemporary Methodology of Economics," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 27.
    2. Jonathan B. Wight, 2011. "Ethics and Critical Thinking," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 18, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Vitaliy Vasilievich Biryukov & Elena Vasilievna Romanenko, 2017. "Economic Behavior of Business Entities, Culture and Institutions: Specifics of their Interrelations in Conditions of Neo-Industrialization," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4A), pages 370-385.
    4. Dorian Jullien, 2018. "Under Risk, Over Time, Regarding Other People: Language and Rationality within Three Dimensions," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality, volume 36, pages 119-155, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Cyril Hédoin, 2017. "Normative economics and paternalism: the problem with the preference-satisfaction account of welfare," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 286-310, September.
    6. Frooman, Jeff, 2021. "Where MLM Intersects MFA: Morally Suspect Goods and the Grounds for Regulatory Action," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 138-161, January.
    7. Pivato, Marcus, 2009. "Social choice with approximate interpersonal comparisons of well-being," MPRA Paper 17060, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2012. "Are most people consequentialists?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 225-228.
    9. Daniel M. Hausman, 2010. "Valuing health: a new proposal," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 280-296, March.
    10. Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2014. "Personal Norms of Sustainability and Farm Management Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-28, August.
    11. Diana Dmitrievna Burkaltseva & Oleg Valerievich Boychenko & Olga Sergeevna Sivash & Nicholas Maksimovich Mazur & Snezhana Anatolyevna Zotova & Aleksey Valeryevich Novikov, 2017. "The Construction of the Digital Organizational, Social and Economic Production Mechanism in the Agro-industry," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4B), pages 350-365.
    12. Gough, Ian, 2014. "Climate change and sustainable welfare: an argument for the centrality of human needs," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58630, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Bert Van Wee & Sabine Roeser, 2013. "Ethical Theories and the Cost--Benefit Analysis-Based Ex Ante Evaluation of Transport Policies and Plans," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(6), pages 743-760, November.
    14. Nguyen, Quynh, 2015. "“Mind the Gap”: Inequality Aversion and Mass Support for Protectionism," Papers 838, World Trade Institute.
    15. Benedetta Giovanola, 2009. "Re-Thinking the Anthropological and Ethical Foundation of Economics and Business: Human Richness and Capabilities Enhancement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(3), pages 431-444, September.
    16. Dimitriou, Harry T. & Ward, E. John & Dean, Marco, 2016. "Presenting the case for the application of multi-criteria analysis to mega transport infrastructure project appraisal," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 7-20.
    17. Necati Aydin & Aljawhara Ibrahim Alquayid, 2019. "Market Reality Versus Religious Morality: Empirical Evidence from the Saudi Arabian Labor Market," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 679-698, May.
    18. Asad Zaman, 2019. "Launching a Revolution, based on Islamic Foundations إطلاق ثورة في الاقتصاد، تقوم على القيم الإسلامية," Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute., vol. 32(2), pages 77-88, January.
    19. Catherine Prentice & Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro & João Guerreiro, 2023. "Engaging with intelligent voice assistants for wellbeing and brand attachment," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 30(5), pages 449-460, September.
    20. Neal Hockley, 2014. "Cost–Benefit Analysis: A Decision-Support Tool or a Venue for Contesting Ecosystem Knowledge?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(2), pages 283-300, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0038529. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.