JUST SAVINGS AND THE DIFFERENCE PRINCIPLE

The issue of just savings between generations presents an important, and for the most Part unappreciated, problem for Rawls’s theory of distributive justice. This chapter expresses that the just savings principle, as Rawls formulates it in his recent work, stands in tension with the difference principle. When thought through, the just savings principle - and more precisely the foundation on which it rests - give the reason to reject the difference principle in favor of a less egalitarian principle of distributive justice. The subject of just savings presents an important, and for the most Part unappreciated, problem for Rawls’s theory of distributive justice. On its face, Rawls’s commitment to the difference principle stands in tension with his commitment to a prioritarian savings principle. The tension can be overcome only if people interpret Rawls’s commitment to the difference principle to be a consequence, given certain facts, of his commitment to prioritarian justice.