FROM MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY
ENCOURAGEMENT AND PRINCIPLE OF DIFFERENCE – ROLLS-COHEN TRILEMA
Abstract
The principle of difference, understood in its narrow variant, requires fraternity as a special relationship of friendship and solidarity that exists in society. According to the principle of brotherhood, the gifted in society will not require special incentives in order to be more productive, but will be empathetic towards those in the worst position, and for that reason they will equally contribute to society even without incentives. In a just society, there is a special ethos or culture of justice that will guide all members of such a society. Central to Cohen’s question is Rawls’s principle of difference, which states that there are people in society who are able to produce more than others because of natural genetics or ordinary happiness, and that these people have the right to be richer than others if their productivity and the social wealth caused by it influences them to improve their initial status in the worst position. Cohen believes that talented people do not need special motivation to produce more, but he also believes that Rawls did not demand that it is necessary to give special incentives to talented people in order for them to contribute more. The principle of difference is a sense of solidarity between those who are better positioned and those who are less positioned, but it is also a means of measuring how to use the success and usefulness of the product that is richest for themselves, so that even the poorer are helpful.
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