Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-04T12:59:57.869Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Luck egalitarians versus relational egalitarians: on the prospects of a pluralist account of egalitarian justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Århus, Denmark and Department of Philosophy, University of Tromsø, Norway
*

Abstract

Pluralist egalitarians think that luck and relational egalitarianism each articulates a component in a pluralist account of egalitarian justice. However, this ecumenical view appears problematic in the light of Elizabeth Anderson’s claim that the divide arises because two incompatible views of justification are in play, which in turn generates derivative disagreements – e.g. about the proper currency of egalitarian justice. In support of pluralist egalitarianism I argue that two of Anderson’s derivative disagreements are not rooted in the disagreement over justification she identifies, and that the disagreement over justification cuts across standard disagreements between luck and relational egalitarian justice.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Elizabeth. 1999. “What Is the Point of Equality?”; Ethics 109 (2): 287337. doi:10.1086/233897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2010. “The Fundamental Disagreement between Luck Egalitarians and Relational Egalitarians.”; Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36: 123.Google Scholar
Arneson, R. J.. 1989. “Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare.”; Philosophical Studies 56 (1): 7793. doi:10.1007/BF00646210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, R. J.. 1999. “Egalitarianism and Responsibility.”; The Journal of Ethics 3 (3): 225247. doi:10.1023/A:1009874016786.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, R. J.. 2000. “Luck Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism.”; Ethics 110 (2): 339349. doi:10.1086/233272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, A. 2005. “Luck Egalitarianism and Democratic Equality.”; Ethical Perspectives 12 (3): 293340. doi:10.2143/EP.12.3.2004485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. 2008. Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. 2009. Why Not Socialism? Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Cohen, G. A. 2011. On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice: And Other Essays in Political Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Darwall, Stephen. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Alexander. 2004. “Choice, Responsibility and Equality.”; Political Studies 52 (4): 819836. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00510.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. 2004. “Are Some Inequalities More Unequal Than Others? Nature, Nurture, and Equality.”; Utilitas 16 (2): 193219. doi:10.1017/S0953820804000536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. 2011. “Luck-Egalitarianism: Faults and Collective Choice.”; Economics and Philosophy 27 (2): 151173. doi:10.1017/S0266267111000046.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippert-Rasmussen, K., Minar, Edward, and Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. 2012. “Democratic Equality vs. Luck Egalitarianism: What Is at Stake.”; Philosophical Topics 40 (1): 117134. doi:10.5840/philtopics20124018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper. 2015. Luck Egalitarianism. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 1998. “Equality and Justice.”; In Ideals of Equality, edited by Mason, Andrew, 2136. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1979. Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1991. Equality and Partiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pikkety, Thomas. 2013. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 2000. A Theory of Justice. revised edition Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Roemer, John E. 1993. “A Pragmatic Theory of Responsibility for the Egalitarian Planner.”; Philosophy & Public Affairs 22 (2): 146166.Google Scholar
Roemer, John E. 1996. Theories of Distributive Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas M. 2003. The Difficulty of Tolerance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel. 2003. “What is Egalitarianism?.”; Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (1): 539. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2003.00005.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel. 2005. “Choice, Circumstance, and the Value of Equality.”; Politics, Philosophy & Economics 4 (1): 528. doi:10.1177/1470594X05049434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Kok-Chor. 2012. Justice, Institutions, and Luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin, Larry. 1993. Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Temkin, Larry. 1995. “Justice and Equality.”; In The Just Society, edited by Paul, E., Miller, F. D., and Paul, J., 72104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Temkin, Larry. 2003. “Exploring the Roots of Egalitarian Concerns.”; Theoria 69 (1–2): 125151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallentyne, Peter. 2015. “Justice, Interpersonal Morality, and Luck Egalitarianism.”; In Distributive Justice and Access to Advantage: G. A. Cohen’s Egalitarianism, edited by Kaufman, Alex, 4049. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wolff, Jonathan. 1998. “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos.”; Philosophy & Public Affairs 27 (2): 97122. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.1998.tb00063.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, Jonathan. 2010. “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos Revisited.”; Journal of Ethics 14 (3–4): 335350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar