Luck Egalitarianism and Disability Elimination

Abstract

AbstractLuck egalitarianism’s commitment to neutralizing brute luck inequalities is thought to imply that the elimination of disabilities is an appropriate way to eliminate the unchosen disadvantage that often accompanies disabilities. This implication is not only intuitively objectionable to some, especially those concerned with disability justice, but is subject to objections from relational egalitarians that should be taken seriously. This article defends the claim that disability elimination is not a natural implication of luck egalitarian theories of justice and that luck egalitarians can avoid the related relational egalitarian objections. I take this to be the case because luck egalitarians can consistently endorse three commitments that, together, take disability elimination off the menu of possible ways to redress the disadvantage of persons with disabilities. These three commitments are: (a) the rejection of the view that disability intrinsically makes a person worse off; (b) the endorsement of the fundamental equality of all persons; and (c) the view that luck egalitarianism advances a theory about the arrangement of social institutions.