Chapter 13 Flashcards
rate at which the value of future benefits and costs are reduced in comparison to present benefits and costs. Even a very low rate has the consequence that very great benefits and costs in the distant future are worth very little compared to small benefits and costs that occur at present.
Discount Rate:
method of group decision-making that is characterized by a kind of equality among the participants at an essential stage of the collective decision-making.
Democracy:
supreme authority within a given geographical territory.
Sovereignty:
declaration of citizens’ rights or human rights, normally incorporated in a constitution and sometimes used by courts to override legislation or executive action.
Bill of Rights:
in the civil law tradition, a full right to an object involves the right to enjoy its benefits, to consume its fruits and to sell or destroy it; includes only the former two prerogatives and usually does not extend beyond the beneficiary’s death. To illustrate, the holder of the full right to a house can live in the house and/or rent it and pocket the money. However, he or she is neither allowed to destroy the house, nor to sell it.
Usufruct:
literally, this means the separation of a group (or individuals) from other groups (or individuals). Racial segregation was enforced by the “Jim Crow” laws in the USA (1876-1965) and was a central feature of the apartheid regime in South Africa (1948-1994).
Segregation:
doctrine, of which there are many versions, that social institutions and practices should be organized so as to maximize general welfare or common good as the sole ultimate ethical value, and that individual actions ought also to aim at this end. Mill’s version holds that a code of justice and rights is more valuable for this purpose than any competing considerations.
Utilitarianism:
conception of justice that primarily focuses on the distribution of this x in a society. Imagine that this x is, for example, “opportunity for well-being.” This conception of justice will care about how the “pie” of opportunity for well-being is divided up, even if it means that we will end up with a smaller “pie.”
Distributive Justice:
principle of social justice advocated by Rawls that prohibits inequalities in income and wealth that are detrimental to the least advantaged.
Difference Principle:
an individual has liberty in a purely descriptive sense in relation to a give domain of acts and omissions if, and only if, he or she can do as he or she wishes within that domain. If the individual chooses whatever act or omission he or she likes, then it follows that other people are not preventing that individual from acting, or omitting to act, as he or she chooses. The domain of conduct in relation to which an individual has liberty may be extensive or narrow, depending on the context. As long as he or she can choose even a single act or omission, however, that individual is at liberty in relation ot that particular act or omission. It is a separate question whether the individual’s liberty has value in a given context.
Liberty:
when one devotes resources to a given option, one does not devote them to alternative options. The opportunity cost of going for a given option (e.g., studying philosophy rather than management) is the difference between the gains from one option and the gain for the best alternative option.
Opportunity Cost:
