Luck, Hypothetical Insurance, and the Costs of Children

Abstract

ABSTRACTA widely accepted answer to the question of who should bear the costs of children is that non‐parents have an obligation to help share some of these costs with parents. This poses a challenge to mainstream luck egalitarian theories, as they seem unable to account for this widespread parental justice view. I argue that the challenge is serious enough to turn parental justice into a test case for the plausibility of luck egalitarianism. I discuss a very promising approach that could help meet the challenge, namely the hypothetical insurance argument for parental subsidies. I argue that, despite its promise, the argument only establishes a permission to socialise the costs of children but fails to establish a distinctive requirement of justice. Finally, I show why establishing a permission is not sufficient to meet the challenge that parental justice poses to luck egalitarians.