Chapter 6 Social design, ethics and the amount of value

According to Kolm (1998, p. 3) , social ethics addresses the question ‘what should be done in society?’ The topic of justice constitutes a very large part of social ethics although other virtues are also important. Kolm distinguishes between macro-justice and micro-justice. For the former, Kolm proposes ‘a combination of the three rationales of rights and duties about capacities: process-freedom, partial income equalisation by efficient means, and the satisfaction of basic needs and the alleviation of deep suffering’. Sen (1992, pp. ix, 21–22, 150) argues that ‘a common characteristic of virtually all the approaches to the ethics of social arrangements that have stood the test of time is to want equality of something – something that has an important place in the particular theory’. For example, even libertarian thinkers such as Nozick who are perceived as being anti-egalitarian place importance on people having liberty and hence that equality of liberties is important. Sen's own capability approach ‘has something to offer both to the evaluation of well-being and to the assessment of freedom’.