QuestionsWhat is a just society?The natural lottery: no one deserves their talents or their starting point
What is a just society?Equality

The natural lottery: no one deserves their talents or their starting point

The difference principle; moral arbitrariness of talents; the natural lottery

John Rawls 1921 · 2002A society is just if its rules would be chosen by people who did not know what place they would hold in it.
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What it claims

Inequalities are just only if they improve the situation of the worst off (the difference principle): talents are, in some respects, a common asset.

Why

No one deserves their talents or their background; so an inequality is just only if it also benefits the worst off.

In short

"The natural lottery: no one deserves their talents or their starting point" is an argument by John Rawls (Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971, §12, 13 and 17) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: equality). Its claim: Inequalities are just only if they improve the situation of the worst off (the difference principle): talents are, in some respects, a common asset. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971, §12, 13 and 17
Valid with an implicit premise

A person born with great talent, in a loving and wealthy family, has a good chance of succeeding. Do they deserve their success? Rawls thinks not, or not entirely. We did not choose our talents, our family or the country where we were born: it is a lottery. Even the willingness to make an effort depends partly on upbringing. These factors are therefore "arbitrary from a moral point of view". Yet differences should not be abolished. Rawls proposes to arrange them so that they also serve the worst off: this is the difference principle. Talents are then treated, to some extent, as a common asset. This argument is distinct from the veil of ignorance, which is a method for choosing the rules.

P1When shares of wealth depend on the natural distribution of talents and backgrounds, they are decided by the outcome of the natural lottery, and this outcome is arbitrary from a moral perspective. There is no more reason to let talents decide than to let social fortune decide.
P2No one deserves their greater natural capacity nor a more favourable starting place in society; even the willingness to make an effort depends on a happy family and social background.
P3 · implicit premiseWhat is morally arbitrary and undeserved cannot, by itself, justify differences in wealth: an inequality is just only if it also benefits everyone, and first the worst off.
P4The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust: these are simply natural facts. What is just or unjust is the way institutions deal with them, and they can be arranged so that these contingencies serve the good of the least fortunate.
Therefore inequalities are just only if they improve the situation of the worst off (the difference principle): talents are, in some respects, a common asset.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where talents are undeserved but gaps in wealth are still just: for instance if one is entitled to one's talents and what flows from them without having to deserve them.
The argument is valid with the hidden premise P3. P1 and P2 say that talents and backgrounds are arbitrary and undeserved. P3 draws a rule from this: an inequality is just only if it benefits the worst off. P4 explains that this does not require abolishing differences. Objections target P2 (merit, effort) and P3 (the right to one's own talents).
Analogy. Four friends share the bonus for a joint project. One of them got the best position by drawing a lucky number. It would be strange, Rawls would say, for him to keep the whole bonus; but it would also be absurd to take away his position if the project works better with him. Hence the idea of sharing the gains so as to help everyone, starting with the least lucky.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Robert Nozick (the right to one's talents) 1974 · attacks premise 3

Even if natural assets are arbitrary from a moral point of view, people are entitled to them and to what flows from them. For Nozick, desert is not needed to have a right: it is enough that the assets were acquired without violating anyone's rights.

a defender replies
see the argument
John Rawls (revised edition) defender of the argument · 1999
In the revised edition, Rawls grants that the more advantaged have a right to their natural assets, as everyone does, under the liberty of the person. But desert in the sense of legitimate expectations presupposes a cooperative scheme already in place, and says nothing on how that scheme should be designed.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Nozick and Rawls agree on a right to the person, not on what flows from it. For Nozick, the right over one's talents extends to their fruits; for Rawls, the basic structure is chosen before knowing who gets the fruits. The debate is still open.
An objection Rawls raises himself (the merit of the better placed) 1971 · attacks premise 2

One may object that those better situated deserve the greater advantages they could acquire for themselves under other schemes of cooperation, whether or not these advantages benefit others.

a defender replies
John Rawls defender of the argument · 1971
Rawls replies that the merit of the better placed is a matter of legitimate expectations set by a system of rules. It presupposes a cooperative scheme already in place and does not say whether that scheme should follow the difference principle or another criterion.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: the reply separates two senses of "desert": a legitimate claim within a given system, and the desert that would be used to choose the system. Critics say this separation is what remains to be justified.
M
Michael Sandel (the person and their talents) 1982 · attacks premise 3

Treating talents as a common asset: is that not using some for the benefit of others? Rawls can avoid this, Sandel says, only by separating the person from their talents: it is "their" attributes that are used, not them. But a self detached from all its traits, intelligence and effort included, is a notion of the person so thin that it barely holds together (Nozick had already said so in 1974).

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Rawls in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Rawls would later reply that his theory is political and not metaphysical, and does not depend on a conception of the self ("Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical", 1985). This point is not treated in this argument.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: the debate is about the conception of the person behind justice. Open.