ABSTRACT
This chapter asks how the pie should be sliced, and reviews several philosophical approaches to this all-important issue. How the pie should be sliced is a fundamentally normative question. Positive economics describes how the economy works and is the scientific, objective part of economics. Redistribution refers to altering the distribution of income from what "the market" would have yielded to something more pleasing. As economists use the term, utility refers to a feeling of happiness, well-being, or satisfaction. The utilitarian philosophy is concerned with happiness, well-being, or satisfaction. An important element of the utilitarian philosophy is the law of diminishing marginal utility. Commodity equalitarianism is the idea that there are some goods and services that are so important that they ought to be distributed equally regardless of a person's ability to pay. Robert Nozick is the name frequently associated with the philosophical libertarian position, although there are many others who have splendidly made the libertarian case.
