The tale of the flute was introduced by a philosopher Amartya Sen in his book The Idea of Justice, in order to exemplify that there are no institutional arrangements that would solve the dispute in universally accepted way.
While these are all generalizations, it seems that libertarianism, utilitarianism, and egalitarianism would all give the flute to a different person. A libertarian (and Marxists) might want to give it to Nozick (he is a hard-core libertarian/minimal-statist), who applied his labour to a ‘’dead’’ piece of wood, making it a “productive” piece of wood. A utilitarian might want to give it to Bentham (one of the first well-know utilitarians), who can play the flute the best, and maximizes the utility for all that have to listen to him playing the flute. Finally, an egalitarian will give it to Dworkin (a proponent of egalitarian social philosophy), who is the poorest and needs it most.
While the actual distribution of the flute according to different schools within moral philosophy is not as straightforward as exemplified above, the point to be made is that different people would get the flute under different institutional arrangements. And who actually gets the flute? In the capitalist society, the owners of the means of production have the rights over the flute. The game is rigged in favour of the “Trumps-of-world”.
Vsebinsko uredil: Tej Gonza
Riše: Timi Gonza
While these are all generalizations, it seems that libertarianism, utilitarianism, and egalitarianism would all give the flute to a different person. A libertarian (and Marxists) might want to give it to Nozick (he is a hard-core libertarian/minimal-statist), who applied his labour to a ‘’dead’’ piece of wood, making it a “productive” piece of wood. A utilitarian might want to give it to Bentham (one of the first well-know utilitarians), who can play the flute the best, and maximizes the utility for all that have to listen to him playing the flute. Finally, an egalitarian will give it to Dworkin (a proponent of egalitarian social philosophy), who is the poorest and needs it most.
While the actual distribution of the flute according to different schools within moral philosophy is not as straightforward as exemplified above, the point to be made is that different people would get the flute under different institutional arrangements. And who actually gets the flute? In the capitalist society, the owners of the means of production have the rights over the flute. The game is rigged in favour of the “Trumps-of-world”.
Vsebinsko uredil: Tej Gonza
Riše: Timi Gonza
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