Abstract
Luck egalitarians claim that disadvantage is worse when it emerges from an unchosen risk than when it emerges from a chosen risk. I argue that disadvantage is also worse when it emerges from an unchosen risk that the disadvantaged agent would have declined to take, had he or she been able to do so, than when it emerges from an unchosen risk that the disadvantaged agent would not have declined to take. Such a view is significant because it allows both luck egalitarians and prioritarians to respond to Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey's charge that they fail to accommodate intuitions about the moral relevance of interpersonal boundaries – the so-called separateness of persons objection. I argue that the view is plausible independently of its ability to answer the separateness of persons objection, and is a natural extension of the luck egalitarian concern with the impact of unchosen circumstance.
Highlights
The separateness of persons objection claims that certain ethical views disregard intuitions about the moral relevance of interpersonal boundaries
Luck egalitarians claim that disadvantage is worse when it emerges from an unchosen risk than when it emerges from a chosen risk
I argue that disadvantage is worse when it emerges from an unchosen risk that the disadvantaged agent would have declined to take, had he or she been able to do so, than when it emerges from an unchosen risk that the disadvantaged agent would not have declined to take
Summary
The separateness of persons objection claims that certain ethical views disregard intuitions about the moral relevance of interpersonal boundaries. Otsuka and Voorhoeve have charged that prioritarians, those who think that, in Parfit’s words, ‘benefiting people matters more the worse off these people are’, are vulnerable to the objection.[1] In yet a further deployment of the objection, Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey charge that a third view is guilty of failing to accommodate intuitions about the moral relevance of interpersonal boundaries.[2] That view is brute luck egalitarianism, the recently popular view that disadvantage – by which is meant comparative disadvantage – that is the result of unchosen circumstance, is worse than disadvantage that is not the result of unchosen circumstance.[3]. The article begins by setting out Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey’s charge that brute luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate intuitions about the separateness of persons, and by discussing some possible egalitarian responses to the charge. I show how the stated view is able to answer the separateness of persons objection, and I discuss whether the view might need to be modified to accommodate cases involving children
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