Meaningful Work & the Moral Powers
A Consistent Political Liberal Position
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.9.1.6699Keywords:
Meaningful work, workplace justice, political liberalism, anti-perfectionism, Rawls, TomasiAbstract
This paper develops a consistent, political liberal position to securing the opportunity for meaningful work. It overviews the array of distinctive conceptions of meaningful work and the need for a political liberal account, contrasts rival accounts of meaningful work from John Rawls and John Tomasi, to illustrate their own deficiencies from a political liberal perspective, as even they both employ perfectionist assumptions and provide an unacceptable justification for political acts. The consistent anti-perfectionist position is to recognise that meaningful work relates to the moral powers, particularly the ability to pursue one’s conception of the good, not primarily self-respect, both via securing conditions and because it often is a part of one’s life plan. This gives a stronger justification to ensure a range of different work and ownership models, as well as provide a coherent definition of meaningful work, without appealing to perfectionist concepts nor abandon defining meaningful work entirely.
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