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Let them Eat Chances: Probability and Distributive Justice

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  • Wasserman, David

Abstract

Jon Elster reports that in 1940, and again in 1970, the U.S. draft lottery was challenged for falling short of the legally mandated ‘random selection’ (1989, pp. 45–6). On both occasions, the physical mixing of the lots appeared to be incomplete, since the birth dates were clustered in a way that would have been extremely unlikely if the lots were fully mixed. There appears to have been no suspicion on either occasion that the deficiency in the mixing was intended, known, or believed to favor or disfavor any identifiable group. If the selection was non-random in the way charged, Elster asks, was it unfair?

Suggested Citation

  • Wasserman, David, 1996. "Let them Eat Chances: Probability and Distributive Justice," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 29-49, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:12:y:1996:i:01:p:29-49_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Ho, Lok Sang, 1997. "Institutional foundations for a just society," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 627-643.
    2. Gil Hersch, 2023. "Procedural Fairness in Exchange Matching Systems," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 188(2), pages 367-377, November.
    3. Peter Stone, 2009. "Lotteries, Justice and Probability," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 21(3), pages 395-409, July.
    4. Stefan Wintein & Conrad Heilmann, 2018. "Dividing the indivisible," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 17(1), pages 51-74, February.

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