Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2025
This chapter develops and defends a novel framework for a theory of sufficientarian justice. The chapters argues that a multiple-threshold framework is the best candidate for a theory of sufficientarian justice, and that such a framework is most theoretically plausible when combining central elements from existing theories. This combined framework adopts the idea of “shift thresholds” from Liam Shields’ shift sufficientarianism, the idea of vertically organized thresholds from Robert Huseby’s multiple level sufficientarianism, and the idea of horizontally separate spheres of justice-relevant values from Axelsen and Nielsen’s spheric sufficientarianism. In conjunction, these elements lay the foundation for a new theory of sufficientarian justice, which the chapter calls, the umbel view. The umbel view requires that no one is left with insufficient in any sphere of justice relevant value, which implies absolute priority to securing basic needs, indeterminacy in the non-basic space of incommensurable value spheres, and complete indifference to inequalities when, but only when, no one is below any relevant threshold.
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