Justice, Federations and Solidarity

FATAUROS, CRISTIAN AUGUSTO

Louvain-la-Neuve

Encuentro; MICH - Les mardis intimes de la Chaire Hoover; 2017

Hoover Chair of Economics and Social Ethics - Catholic University of Louvain

Advocates of federalism claim that economic inequalities should be regarded as morally justified as long as they are the outcome of the legitimate exercise of the self-government of the federal sub-units. This paper discusses that claim and examines the philosophical grounds of federal economic decentralization in order to lay the basis for a federal theory of distributive justice. It draws upon a distinction between legitimacy and justice requirements that economic inequalities in federal orders should satisfy. It also suggests a conception of federal solidarity suitable for territorial federations. This conception seems less problematic and fragile than it could appear in multinational federations. The aim of this paper is then to show how solidarity provides significantly strong reasons to reduce economic inequality between citizens in territorial federal states regardless of their sub-unit membership.