Social Contract and Economic Justice Social Contract and Economic Justice 1. from Hypothetical to Empirical Contracts

This paper seeks to construct a social contract theory of economic justice using Barry's (1989: 347-8) empirical method of contractual reasoning. Barry described this method in a passage worth quoting at length: 'The empirical method starts from observation rather than pure thought. It is animated by the consideration that actual societies approximate more or less closely the conditions .... that I shall refer to for convenience as " the circumstances of impartiality ". Thus, a society in which each section of the population has its own organizations and organs of communication to articulate its interests and aspirations is closer to the circumstances of impartiality than one in which, say, business is well organized but labor is not, and in which almost all the organs of mass communication are owned and controlled by the rich. Similarly, a political system in which parties represent the distinctive interests and aspirations of different groups is closer to the circumstances of impartiality than one in which all successful candidates have either to have money or to be acceptable to those who have it. Again, a society in which there is a good deal of fellow feeling for other citizens will be closer to the circumstances of impartiality than one in which many people are unmoved by the lot of sections of the population with which they do not identify. And, finally, a culture in which politics is widely regarded as a matter of debate rather than as a game-where arguments are thought of as more than the window-dressing for self-interest-will obviously be closer to the circumstances of impartiality. The circumstances of impartiality are therefore those conditions that resemble, so far as the world allows, the conditions of a hypothetical impartial social contract. The same idea is picked up by Barry in a more extended discussion in section 16 of Justice as Impartiality where he develops the notion of the circumstances of impartiality as an empirical counterpart to the Scanlonian original position (Barry, 1995: 104) and where the guiding idea is 'that just 3 laws and policies are more likely to arise in actual societies the closer they come to instantiating these hypothetical conditions' (Barry, 1995: 100). What then characterises a political culture of impartiality and reasonableness? For Barry policy making in societies where the circumstances of impartiality obtain needs to be transparent and open so that measures are consulted on openly and with a real …