The Nature of Political Theory

116 The Nature of Political Theory

The first argument would proceed as follows: only human persons are intrinsically
valuable; objects are valuable insofar as they are given value or they contribute to
human personhood. Thus, only persons or agents are subjects of worth and respect.
To be a person requires a certain level of well-being. There are, in other words,
certain necessary conditions for being a person. If we respect persons, we are logically
committed to fulfil the necessary conditions for personhood. It follows that we are
committed to all persons having these necessary conditions fulfilled. Fulfilling these
necessary conditions may well require wide-scale social and economic distribution.
Distribution of goods would therefore be premised upon the equal moral worth of
individuals, each person being equally morally deserving of the distribution of goods
necessary for personhood to be realized. This use of moral worth could imply a
radically distributive conception of the state.
However, a second rendition of the argument starts from the same premise—
that only persons are of intrinsic value and only persons can be respected—but
produces very different policy outcomes. To be a person requires a certain level of
well-being. But what constitutes a person? One answer could be that a person is a
self-maintaining agency, having a will or capacity for self-determination. Yet, the
capacity for self-determination is dependent upon the purposes or aims adopted by
the agent. If someone has rounded or rich purposes, then this will be reflected in their
character, surroundings, and circumstances. In other words, one can ascertain, to a
certain degree, whether someone has capacities for personhood by observing their
circumstances, that is, their social, economic, and personal conditions of life. Con-
sequently, circumstances are created by human actions, all actions are structured by
will, which is dependent upon the richness and comprehensiveness of one’s purposes;
therefore, conditions and circumstances are often the product of human persons. To
change conditions means to change the purposes and aims of individuals. To change
conditions needs, however, an assessment of the nature of the person. To simply give,
say, financial resources to certain people, would not address their problems, the prob-
lem being psychological and moral. They might have very limited purposes or aims.
This whole argument may all sound rather abstract, but it formed one crucial plank
underpinning anti-statist voluntary charity claims in the late nineteenth century (and
in fact well into the twentieth century). Moral worth is premised on personhood, but
personhood is measured or determined by the nature of purpose.^13 Distribution
(social justice) would be determined by the capacity for self-determination. Thus,
certain persons are viewed as more ‘deserving’ than others. There are, in other words,
deserving and the undeserving persons. The deserving person requires assistance.
The deserving have simply been subject to unforseen circumstances and should be
assisted. The undeserving do not. This implies a very different form of social vision
of society (see Vincent 1984; Vincent and Plant 1984: ch. 6).
However, the larger bulk of twentieth-century justice theorizing has been premised
on anti-desert arguments. The formal claim of non-desert theories is that distribution
is justified through a wide-ranging agreement or consensus on a rational proced-
ure(s) (contract), empirical assumption(s) (need), or some plural combination of
these, which forms the basis for distributing burdens and benefits. As mentioned