Justice, federations and solidarity

FATAUROS, CRISTIAN AUGUSTO

Lovaina

Seminario; Justice Seminar; 2017

Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

In federal organizations, economic inequalities should be regarded as morally justified as long as they are the outcome of the legitimate exercise of sovereignty. 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 applies 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 non-multinational 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 non-multinational federal states regardless of their sub-unit membership.