Introductory Remarks

We have found that the problems that critics most identify with luck egalitarianism are more illusory than real. Both its egalitarian and responsibilitarian credentials appear to be quite solid. Furthermore, reasons have been given for doubting some writers' confidence that their favoured theories are unproblematically egalitarian (for example, Anderson's ‘democratic equality’) or responsibility sensitive (for example, right libertarianism). It has been maintained that, in normal circumstances, luck egalitarianism (or a view with identical implications in those circumstances) is the only truly responsibilitarian show in town. The field of egalitarian rivals has also been thinned; and although there is no reason for doubting that various outcome-egalitarian theories (for example, equality of welfare) are substantively egalitarian, such theories suffer once responsibility considerations are brought into the picture. In short, luck egalitarianism appears to be the best way of accommodating both equality and responsibility sensitivity in a theory of distributive justice.

Although this finding is significant, it cannot be the final word on the theory. There may be more to distributive justice than equality and responsibility sensitivity. In this final chapter I will take into account further demands of justice – principally, those concerning absolute (non-comparative) levels of advantage – which show luck egalitarianism to be deficient in certain significant and less significant respects.