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Distributive Justice Assignment Distributive justice is a central concept of politics. It involves how we approach questions of the common good and of human potential/capability. More specifically, distributive justice has to do with how a society chooses to distribute/allocate its resources. A corollary to this is what citizens are expected to contribute to the wellbeing of others. Your task is to pick a distributive justice issue (a list of suggestions will follow) and make an argument for the just distribution of a particular resource. As you do this, please follow the format below and limit your assignment to ONE PAGE, single spaced, 12 pitch fonts (3-4 pages for Honors Students). All sources must be cited, using footnotes at the bottom of the page. Distributive Justice Assignment Political Science 1001/1002 Name Distributive Justice Capability: Here you discuss the specific capability you have chosen. Why is it important? Use Nussbaum’s list! Pick One – Elaborate – Why a particular capability? Discuss the value of the capability you have chosen chosen! Resource Involved: Discuss the value of the resource you have chosen. How does the resource you have chosen create and maintain a capability? Are there conflicting values or capabilities? Allocation of the Resource: How would you distribute the resource in question? How is what you have chosen a fair allocation? What will be the cost of choosing it, either in terms of human obligations or human costs. Justify them. REFERESHER ON ARISTOTLE AND NUSSBAUM 1. Politics 1330b11. The things that we use most of and most frequently where our bodies are concerned, these have the biggest impact on health. Water and air are things of that sort. So good political planning should make some decision about these things. 2. Politics 1329b39. We must speak first about the distribution of land and about farming.… For we do not believe that ownership should all be common as some people have urged. We think, instead, that it should be made common by way of a use that is agreed upon in mutuality. At the same time, we believe that no citizen should be lacking in sustenance and support. As for the common meals, everyone agrees that they are a valuable institution in a well-ordered city.… And all citizens should participate in them, but it is not easy for poor people both to bring in the required contribution and to manage the rest of their household affairs.… Then we must divide the land into two portions—the one to be held in common, the other to belong to private owners. And we must divide each of these two portions in half again. Of the commonly held portion, one part will be used to support cost of religious festivals, the other part to subsidize the common meals. Of the privately held portion, the one part will be on the frontiers, the other part near the city. Each citizen will be given two lots, in such a way that all have a share in both sorts of land. That way is both equal and just. 3. Politics 1255b20. Political government is government of free and equal citizens. MARTHA NUSSBAUM: Ten Capabilities 1. LIFE 2. HEALTH 3. BODILY INTEGRITY 4. SENSES, IMAGINATION, AND THOUGHT 5. EMOTIONS 6. PRACTICAL REASON 7. AFFILIATION 8. OTHER SPECIES 9. PLAY 10. CONTROL OVER ONE’S ENVIRONMENT (Political & Material) Architectonic (Fundamental) Capabilities PRACTICAL REASON AFFILIATION In sum, Nussbaum sees three elements emerging from the examination of Aristotelian principles. First, there is a conception of good human functioning, at least in so far as good functioning of the body and good social interaction are important functions. Second, she argues that there is here a conception of politics or rule that involves full support for these functions. As Aristotle says, “no citizen should be lacking in sustenance.” Moreover, this support is to be given in such a manner as to treat citizens as free and equal. Third, we have the beginnings of an institutional arrangement sketched out for us in which there is some private ownership and some public ownership and there is an understanding of private ownership as provisional depending on human need. What Nussbaum maintains is that the connections between these three elements illustrate a better way to approach the matter of distributive justice. Namely, they begin with some view of good human functioning and then proceed to a political conception.