Citizens in appropriate numbers: evaluating five claims about justice and population size

Abstract

While different worries about population size are present in public debates, political philosophers often take population size as given. This paper is an attempt to formulate a Rawlsian liberal egalitarian approach to population size: does it make sense to speak of ‘too few’ or ‘too many’ people from the point of view of justice? It argues that, drawing on key features of liberal egalitarian theory, several clear constraints on demographic developments – to the extent that they are under our control – can be formulated. Based on these claims, we can clarify both the grounds and content of our obligations to future generations.

Keywords:

• Demographic change
• Rawls
• just savings principle
• intergenerational justice
• liberal egalitarianism

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to T. Scanlon and M. Rawls for their permission to cite passages from Rawls’ unpublished letters. I want to extend a special thanks to Axel Gosseries for commenting on several drafts of this paper, for his continuous support and for tracing down Rawls’ unpublished letters in the Harvard Archives. This paper has benefitted greatly from comments by and discussion with Bruno Verbeek, David Axelsen, David dela Croix, Diana Popescu, Emanuele Murra, Juliana Bidadanure, Lukas Meyer, Marita Flikkema, Maxime Lambrecht, Nicholas Vrousalis, Nir Eyal, Serena Olsaretti, Siba Harb, Serena Olsaretti, Simon Caney, Thierry Ngosso, Thomas Ferretti and Thomas Mertens. Stephany Donze deserves a special thanks. I am grateful to audiences at the University of Minho, KULeuven and at the University of Louvain (UCL) for their comments. I acknowledge the support of the Fonds pour la Recherche en Sciences Humaines (F.R.S.-FNRS), the ARC-project on ‘sustainability’ (French community of Belgium).

Notes

1. The number of people is not the only variable that matters for the total impact of humanity on the environment. Levels of consumption, availability of green technology, etc. play important roles as well. Nothing I say hear should be read as implying that these other variables do not matter.

2. These developments give rise to question of justice between age groups and generations. See Daniels (1984) or McKerlie (2013). Both take demographic change as given developments that have to be dealt with in a fair way.

3. For different analysis see Goerres and Vanhuysse (2012), Parijs (1998) for several policy proposals.

4. The rapid economic development of countries like South Korea is sometimes explained in terms of rapid declines in fertility levels, which allowed for high per capita investment in the next generation. See May (2012, 49–52).

5. There are some exceptions, like Heyward (2012), Heyd (1994), Casal (1997), Miller (2005). The question how rank different population sizes in terms of goodness is left to population ethics, the link with justice is seldom made. See e.g. Parfit (1984, part IV), Broome (2004), Arrhenius (forthcoming). Another notable debate is that in parental justice, which is concerned with who should pay for children once they exist. See Casal and Williams (1995) or Olsaretti (2013).

6. Philosophers assuming population size as given or constant often acknowledge that this is problematic, e.g. Caney (2013, 299n), acknowledges that his discussion is incomplete without a further discussion of the population question.

7. This is certainly true for people that are currently alive, but the non-identity problem renders such claims problematic for future generations (Parfit 1984, chap. 16). Her I claim that population impacts the kinds of lives people have (now as well as in the future). This is not a comparative claim.

8. Due to anthropogenic Climate Change many of the things called ‘natural disasters’ are at least partially caused by human actions. Here I have non-human created disasters in mind.

9. This is not always true, e.g. in the developing world where having many children is often not a freely taken decisions. See (Meijers 2016a).

10. If we do not assume a ‘closed society’, migration is another factor, except when talking about the population of the planet). To avoid important topic, I will briefly mention migration but mostly focus on what is demanded in a closed society, like Rawls (1993, 11). For cosmopolitan egalitarians, given that from/to the world there is no migration, this is unproblematic.

11. Many cosmopolitan egalitarians, myself included, will fail to see the force of this counter-example and accept that redistribution is required, which may be an easy bullet to bite (e.g. Holtug 2011, 158).

12. E.g. Tan argues that ‘citizens of disadvantaged countries are collectively held accountable for their country’s unsound policies, even when a majority of them had no part in the making of these policies and that this is clearly inconsistent with Rawls’ own moral individualism’ (2004, 73).

13. This assumes that current generations care about their offspring or about the national project. If this is false, the instrumental justification for national responsibility does not hold.

14. Much more needs to be said about migration and sustainability. Barry (1992), Miller (2005) and Rawls (1999) reject the idea of open borders (partially) because it undermines national responsibility, which undermines incentives for sustainable choices.

15. Following Sen (1999, chap. 8–9) Rawls argues that: ‘Respecting human rights could also relieve population pressure within a burdened society, relative to what the economy of the society can decently sustain. A decisive factor here appears to be the status of women. Some societies – China is a familiar example – have imposed harsh restrictions on the size of families and have adopted others draconic measures. But there is no need to be so harsh. The simplest most effect, most acceptable policy is to establish the elements of equal justice for women’ (Rawls 1999, 109–110).

16. John Rawls in a 1974 unpublished letter to Edmund Phelps (02 July 1974). Harvard Rawls Archives, Hum 48 Box 13 Folder 8. I thank M. Rawls and T. Scanlon for their permission to use this quote.

17. One may doubt that Procreatia can actually be internally just given the position of its’ women. Would women really freely accept position in which they flourish less in the economic and political world? This is an important worry, but let us assume for the sake of the argument, that this could be the case.

18. Rawls, unpublished letter to Phelps (02/07/1974). Harvard Rawls Archives, Hum 48 Box 13 Folder 8. In a similar passage he writes:

For one thing, I have considerable unease in applying the conception of justice to the problem of population size. I discussed this question only in connection with the contrast between classical and average utilitarianism, and not in connection with the two principles of justice. (I would like to think that they give a better conclusion than either form of the utility principle; but I am afraid that so much more enters in that the answer is still uncomfortably artificial. Yet the whole question is so difficult that perhaps even a simple scheme is of some help. Though one wouldn’t want to rely on it alone).

John Rawls in a letter to Partha Dasgupta (26/06/1972), Harvard Rawls Archives, Hum 48 Box 18 Folder 7. I thank M. Rawls and T. Scanlon for their permission to cite these passages.

19. Many doubt whether Rawls’ argument involving different number cases behind the veil is coherent (e.g. Barry 1977). I think there are ways to construct the original position that avoid the absurdities Barry (and many others) argue follow from having the contracting parties decide on different number cases – for example by emphasizing the condition of universality explored in Attas (2009, 202–204) or Reiman’s (2007) proposal that the particulars of future people do not matter.

20. This draws on Casal: ‘Few deny that the elimination of certain types of deprivation, such as hunger, disease, and ignorance, are very weighty political requirements. Many accept Rawls’s view that a just society will guarantee a social minimum and may even agree that any reasonable conception of justice will favor ‘measures ensuring for all citizens adequate all –purpose means to make effective use of their freedoms’ (2007, 299).

21. Ehrlich’s I-PAT formula is useful here: the total impact of humanity is a function the number of people (population), their affluence (resource consumption) and the level of technology (Ehrlich and Holdren 1971).

22. An additional complication is that, although this may be true on a global scale, a country may also make up for its’ population growth through international trade. On the framework offered here it is unproblematic to depend on international trade for sustenance, as long as one can continue to do so in the future.

23. See for several examples Diamond (2005).

24. Although, in a globalized world, this services and goods can of course imported to address the needs of small communities (say, islands in the pacific with small populations).

25. Setting such a threshold blocks anything like the repugnant conclusion (Parfit 1984, chap. 17). Any demographic compatible with just institutions is not, at least not for reasons of intergenerational justice, to be regretted. Because of its’ indifference to aggregation, the entire tendency towards increasing a population while lowering the per capita share is not present.

26. What justice requires with regard to the costs of parenthood and procreation within state is another question, see Casal and Williams (1995) and Olsaretti (2013) for opposing views.

27. Gardiner (2011), argues that different strategies that are open to Rawlsians, some pursued here, fail to pass his ‘global test’.

28. As Casal (2007, 325) points out as well: ‘Why Sufficiency is not Enough’.

29. Responsibility for keeping future people above the threshold runs into the non-identity problem. Several promising strategies – like Kumar’s (2009) or Roser and Meyer’s (2009) – to defend a person-affecting view of intergenerational obligations are compatible with the just savings principle. Alternatively, one could think justice institutions have impersonal value (e.g. Heyd 2009). The success of the approach Rawlsian approaches set forth here depends on one of these strategies succeeding. If not, this is not a problem specific to Rawlsian theories but one for all closely related views.

30. In the steady stage a generations does its fair share when it transfers sustainable institutions (i.e. responding to or adjusting demographic change) to the next generation. In the accumulation face (earlier generations, or generations after a period non-compliance) doing a fair share of saving is more demanding: accumulate for the sake of future generations living under just institutions. For a possible justification of why it is fair to burden already badly off generations, see Gaspart and Gosseries (2007, 197). For Rawls’ discussion of the limit placed by the savings principle on the difference principle, see: Rawls (1971, 292).

31. See e.g. Heyward (2012, 719–725). She argues that in such cases there is a collective obligation to (try) to accommodate population growth.

32. See e.g. Meijers (2013). Rawls (1993, 110) explicitly rejects coercive population policies.

33. Rawls (1971, 292).

34. Rawls (1971, 292).

35. Gaspart and Gosseries (2007) criticize the permissibility of intergenerational savings at the cost of the least well-off, and argue that savings are unjust if (and in so far as) these transfers could be used to benefit the least well-off.

36. I want to thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this issue.

37. E.g. It is supposed that they have adjusted their likes and dislikes, whatever they are, over the course of their lives to the income and wealth and station in life they could reasonably expect (Rawls, 2005, 186).

38. Most explicitly committed to equality across time are: Gaspart and Gosseries (2007).