What Is the Purpose of Government?

1. What Is the Purpose of Government? • To distribute goods and services fairly, protecting everyone’s right to equal opportunity and bettering the lives of all members of society(liberalism: Rawls) • To protect the right to own that which one is entitled to (libertarianism: Nozick) • To foster a sense of community rather than individualism (communitarianism: Sandel)

2. John Rawls: Justice as Fairness • All citizens should share in a society’s wealth and be given equal economic opportunities • In a just society, rational individuals under a veil of ignorance about their original position in the society should endorse a theory that: • gives everyone as much liberty as possible • allows for the unequal distribution of wealth only when the existence of such inequalities benefits everyone and is accessible to everyone

3. Libertarianism (Entitlement/Minimal State Theory): Robert Nozick • We are entitled to use our property as we see fit. The State’s legitimate power is limited to preventing harm and protecting property rights • Taxation for anything other than protection (e.g., to impose a pattern redistributing wealth) is unjust because it ignores how goods are acquired fairly through trade, labor, gifts, etc.

4. Communitarianism:Michael Sandel • We do not form governments to promote our individual self-interests; such a view treats our sense of community only instrumentally (Hobbes) or sentimentally (Rawls) • The purpose of government is to encourage us to recognize how we are constituted in our communal relations to one another