Luck Egalitarianism Research Articles

Global Luck Egalitarianism and Border Control

AbstractThis paper discusses what implications global luck egalitarianism (GLE) has for border control. Some authors suggest that an open‐borders policy follows from GLE. The idea is that various unchosen inequalities inevitably follow from differences in birthplace, such that GLE will always have principled reason to condemn closed borders. Others are skeptical of the assumption that GLE will have liberal implications for border control, because open borders may have other, adverse effects that outweigh the reductions in unjust inequality. Against such skeptics, we argue that GLE will (typically) have quite liberal implications for border control. However, this connection is not a principled one: Whether (and to what extent) GLE favors opening or closing borders will depend upon empirical circumstances.

Personal Responsibility in Health and Health Care: Luck Egalitarianism as a Plausible and Flexible Approach to Health

Allocating health care resources based on personal responsibility is a prominent and controversial idea. This article assesses the plausibility of such measures through the lens of luck egalitarianism, a prominent responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice. This article presents a framework of luck egalitarianism in health, which integrates other concerns of justice than health, is pluralist, and is compatible with a wide range of measures for giving lower priority to those deemed responsible. Applying this framework to oral health, the allocation of livers among potential transplant recipients and travel insurance demonstrates that this version of luck egalitarianism is a much more attractive and flexible theory than much of the contemporary discussion allows. This also pertains to its ability to provide plausible answers to two prominent critiques of harshness and intrusiveness. The discussion also shows that the luck egalitarian commitment to eliminating the influence of luck on people’s lives is likely to require substantial redistribution.

Luck vs. Capability? Testing Egalitarian Theories

The issue of distributive justice receives substantial amount of attention in our society. On the one hand, we are sensitive to whether and the extent to which people are responsible for being worse off. On the other hand, we are mindful of society’s worst-off members. There has been a debate over luck egalitarianism, which relates to the former concern, and relational egalitarianism, which echoes the latter. By investigating the psychological processes of these two concerns, this paper examines the reliability of the argument that Elizabeth Anderson, a renowned relational egalitarian, presents against luck egalitarianism and for relational egalitarianism. It also considers whether it is possible to support luck egalitarianism and relational egalitarianism simultaneously, using an online experiment. The results of the experiment show that, first, for ordinary people, the luck consideration is as important as the basic capabilities consideration. Second, while real people consider the degree of compensation through the factors of causality (the degree of chosen results) and responsibility (the degree of responsibility for the consequences), the lack of basic capabilities directs them to determine how much victims of bad luck should be compensated. This suggests that pluralist egalitarianism is on the right track.

Brain-Injured Footballers, Voluntary Choice and Social Goods. A Reply to Corlett

ABSTRACT In this essay, we respond to Angelo Corlett’s criticism of our paper ‘Ethics, Brain Injuries, and Sports: Prohibition, Reform, and Prudence’. To do so, first, we revisit certain assumptions and arguments Corlett makes concerning intercollegiate football and brain injuries in his 2014 paper ‘Should intercollegiate football be eliminated?’. Second, we identify and criticize two key elements in his response regarding (a) ‘luck egalitarianism’, and (b) ‘public goods’. We conclude by reaffirming our critical reading of Corlett’s original 2014 paper and by identifying further elements (i) luck and the nature of individual responsibility; and (ii) the nature of sports as public rather than merely private goods, that he would have to address for his latter 2018 position to hold true.

Nationalism, Egalitarianism and Global Justice

Global distributive justice requires that universal standards and values be recognized and respected to avoid moral relativism. Egalitarianism in domestic context demands equal treatment of all persons, whereas in global context, egalitarianism means equal treatment of all nations or peoples. Nationalist appeal quite often neglects universal values and standards in dealing with global justice. Although Rawls rejected global egalitarianism in his late works, the main idea developed by his A Theory of Justice is still important for global justice. The reason why just arrangements should benefit the least advantaged domestically is parallel to that why they should benefit the poorest nations in global justice. Equality of opportunities in global context means that equal respect and treatment of all people, and nationality and religious beliefs should not obstruct anyone from getting a job or position. One of the moral arguments for benefiting the least advantaged is luck egalitarianism, and the luck/choice distinction is used for explaining personal responsibility in social and economic differences. It is bad when one person is worse off than another through no fault or choice of her own. But it is unjust when someone does better than others only because of her social class or family background. And social institutions that discriminate against persons based on arbitrary traits like nationality, gender, origin of country or region, religious beliefs, etc., are a bad example of unjust distribution. Rawls’ difference principle does not make a distinction between two reasons that cause disadvantage. Therefore, the requirement to benefit the least advantaged should embody the luck/choice distinction; people should be responsible for the cost of their choice and not for their natural assets. This principle may be extended to global justice. For those who live in poverty because of their lack of natural resources and gifts, compensation should be made to let them lead a decent life, and to those who voluntarily choose their lifestyle that causes their disadvantage, the efforts to benefit them should be to their minimal satisfaction, as a humanitarian appeal. And some nations voluntarily choose their institutions, ways of life, including working style, ways of doing business, educational efforts and political corruption, which cause lower economic development and efficiency. Social and economic equality in such circumstances is not unconditional, and international assistance should consider the choice factor.

Is it unjust that elderly people suffer from poorer health than young people? Distributive and relational egalitarianism on age-based health inequalities

In any normal population, health is unequally distributed across different age groups. Are such age-based health inequalities unjust? A divide has recently developed within egalitarian theories of justice between relational egalitarians focusing on the egalitarian nature of social relations and luck egalitarians focusing on the distribution of goods such as welfare or resources. I argue that the most plausible versions of these two theories – ‘whole lives’ luck egalitarianism and time-relative relational egalitarianism – imply conflicting answers to the opening question. Under realistic conditions, the former implies that, from the perspective of luck egalitarian justice, it is better that old people are disadvantaged by bad health than that they are not, whereas the latter theory implies that many age-based health inequalities involve unjust, non-egalitarian social relations and are therefore unjust. Hence, I contend that different egalitarian concerns must be balanced against one another, suggesting that the relational concern has greater weight in this particular case. Along the way, I propose a social model of old age analogous to the social model of disability and suggest that a whole lives version of relational egalitarianism might also be attractive.

Global Justice, Luck, and Human Needs: Reflections on Gu and Liu

In his paper “Nationalism, Egalitarianism and Global Justice”, Su Gu extends luck egalitarianism to the debate on global justice in an unconventional way. He invokes luck egalitarianism not to support global egalitarianism, as is commonly the case, but to push back against it. Qingping Liu’s paper, “Global Justice as the Bottom Line: Equal Needs or Equal Rights?”, is also unorthodox [both papers are published in this journal (forthcoming)]. Running against one current in global justice, Liu argues that there is no duty of global justice to meet basic needs and that, moreover, global redistributive policies for the purpose of satisfying needs are generally unjust. Although Liu and Gu provide different arguments for their conclusions, they both believe that global redistributive demands unfairly impose on those who are expected to contribute. My aim in this brief commentary is to try to situate these papers within the global justice literature and to raise some questions that they provoke.

What Is Unfair about Unequal Brute Luck? An Intergenerational Puzzle

According to Luck egalitarians, fairness requires us to bring it about that nobody is worse off than others where this results from brute bad luck, but not where they choose or deserve to be so. In this paper, I consider one type of brute bad luck that appears paradigmatic of what a Luck Egalitarian ought to be most concerned about, namely that suffered by people who are born to badly off parents and are less well off as a result. However, when we consider what is supposedly unfair about this kind of unequal brute luck, luck egalitarians face a dilemma. According to the standard account of luck egalitarianism, differential brute luck is unfair because of its effects on the distribution of goods. Yet, where some parents are worse off because they have chosen to be imprudent, it may be impossible to neutralize these effects without creating a distribution that seems at least as unfair. This, I argue, is problematic for luck egalitarianism. I, therefore, explore two alternative views that can avoid this problem. On the first of these, proposed by Shlomi Segall, the distributional effects of unequal brute luck are unfair only when they make a situation more unequal, but not when they make it more equal. On the second, it is the unequal brute luck itself, rather than its distributional effects, that is unfair. I conclude with some considerations in favour of this second view, while accepting that both are valid responses to the problem I describe.

Igualitarismo de la suerte. Análisis de la responsabilidad como criterio de distribución de recursos en la salud

En este trabajo me aproximo desde la perspectiva del igualitarismo de la suerte al problema de la justicia distributiva en el campo de la salud. Para ello, me basaré en algunos de los postulados de Ronald Dworkin y Shlomi Segall sobre los que descansa el origen del igualitarismo de la suerte. Si bien es cierto que Rawls al proponer el principio de la equitativa igualdad de oportunidades intentó mitigar las desigualdades sociales que son consecuencia del azar para algunos filósofos igualitaristas, como Ronald Dworkin, al no considerar el binomio libertadresponsabilidad el argumeto rawlsiano resultaba poco equitativo y decidieron desarrollar otra rama del igualitarismo que permitiera distinguir a la persona de sus circunstancias. Por ello la consideración de la responsabilidad como criterio de distribución para los recursos sanitarios será puesta a prueba y analizada en tres puntos. En primer lugar, expondré los aspectos generales del igualitarismo de la suerte y definiré la postura de Daniels y Segall respecto a la asistencia sanitaria. En segundo lugar, retomaré la distinción que hace Dworkin entre “suerte bruta” y “suerte opcional” y expondré su propuesta sobre la igualdad de recursos así como su modelo sanitario sustentado en el binomio libertad-responsabilidad. En tercer lugar, analizaré la relación entre libertad y responsabilidad en el cuidado de la salud. De este modo, pretendo demostrar las ventajas y desventajas que se pueden seguir de tomar la responsabilidad individual como criterio de distribución de recursos.

Can Desert Solve the Problem of Stakes? A Reply to Olsaretti

Serena Olsaretti argues that desert cannot serve as a plausible principle of stakes for luck egalitarianism. In this discussion note, we defend the claim that she is too pessimistic about this by introducing a simple, but plausible, desert-based account of stakes that is immune to her argument.

CATERING FOR RESPONSIBILITY: BRUTE LUCK, OPTION LUCK, AND THE NEUTRALITY OBJECTION TO LUCK EGALITARIANISM

Abstract:The distinction between brute luck and option luck is fundamental for luck egalitarianism. Many luck egalitarians write as if it could be used to specify which outcomes people should be held responsible for. In this paper, I argue that the distinction can’t be used this way. In fact, luck egalitarians tend to rely instead on rough intuitive judgements about individual responsibility. This makes their view vulnerable to what’s known as theneutrality objection. I show that attempts to avoid this objection are unsuccessful. I conclude that until it provides a better account of attributing responsibility, luck egalitarianism remains incomplete.

Luck Egalitarianism, written by K. Lippert-Rasmussen

Luck Egalitarianism, written by K. Lippert-Rasmussen

Why not be a desertist?

Many philosophers believe that luck egalitarianism captures “desert-like” intuitions about justice. Some even think that luck egalitariansm distributes goods in accordance with desert. In this paper, we argue that this is wrong. Desertism conflicts with luck egalitarianism in three important contexts, and, in these contexts, desertism renders the proper moral judgment. First, compared to desertism, luck egalitarianism is sometimes too stingy: it fails to justly compensate people for their socially valuable contributions—when those contributions arose from “option luck”. Second, luck egalitarianism is sometimes too restrictive: it fails to justly compensate people who make a social contribution when that contribution arose from “brute luck”. Third, luck egalitarianism is too limited in scope: it cannot diagnose economic injustice arising independently of comparative levels of justice. The lesson of this paper is that luck egalitarians should consider supplementing their theory with desert considerations. Or, even better, consider desertism as a superior alternative to their theory.

El igualitarismo de la suerte, Kant y la injusticia de tolerar la pobreza en el mundo

Este artículo pretende ofrecer una defensa plausible y renovada de los principios morales de la ya familiar corriente de filosofía política ‘igualitarismo de la suerte’, la cual, amparándose no solo en el programa moral kantiano sino también en una serie de intuiciones notablemente arraigadas en nuestros días, goza de una justificación suficientemente sólida como para constituirse en referente ético global, a partir del cual la erradicación de la pobreza sea considerada como un deber moral positivo y, en contraposición, su tolerancia como una clara injusticia. Las tesis presentadas parten de la idea ampliamente aceptada en filosofía moral de que “todas las personas somos iguales en valor moral fundamental”, argumentándose que los principios que rigen la doctrina del igualitarismo de la suerte satisfacen dicha máxima hasta sus últimas consecuencias y conforman una teoría sostenible de justicia que es capaz de superar de forma razonable las críticas más importantes que han mermado su mérito en tiempos recientes.

COMBINING DEMOCRATIC EQUALITY AND LUCK EGALITARIANISM

The concept of responsibility plays a crucial part in the debate between proponents of democratic equality, like Rawls, and defenders of luck egalitarianism, such as Dworkin. In this paper it is argued that the two theories can be combined, and that they should be combined to achieve a theory of justice that puts personal responsibility in its proper place. The concept of justice requires two different conceptions. The two theories can be combined because they deal with different problems of justice. They ought to be combined because, first, luck egalitarianism needs a theory of background justice, and second, a theory of justice must supply an answer to the question of just individual allocations, something that is not provided by democratic equality. Democratic equality and luck egalitarianism solve each other’s problems. The combined theory will lead to allocations of goods that respect both the difference principle and the envy test.

On Who matters: extending the scope of luck egalitarianism to groups

What is the scope of principles of egalitarian justice? This is the question that Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen addresses in Chapter 6 of his Luck Egalitarianism, where he comprehensively considers the different dimensions along which the issue of the scope can be articulated (e.g. with respect to time, to the boundaries of states, etc.). For all the dimensions taken into account he defends a broad understanding of the scope of equality, except for one. He thinks that the principle of luck egalitarianism can only apply to individuals and not to groups. In this paper, we show that Lippert-Rasmussen’s reasons for caring only about inequality between individuals are unsatisfactory, and we provide an argument that justifies extending the application of the luck egalitarian principle also to groups.

Doctrines and Dimensions of Justice: Their Historical Backgrounds and Ideological Underpinnings.

Justice can be approached from many angles in ethical and political debates, including those involving healthcare, biomedical research, and well-being. The main doctrines of justice are liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism, luck egalitarianism, socialism, utilitarianism, capability approach, communitarianism, and care ethics. These can be further elaborated in the light of traditional moral and social theories, values, ideals, and interests, and there are distinct dimensions of justice that are captured better by some tactics than by others. In this article, questions surrounding these matters are approached with the hermeneutic idea of a distinction between "American" and "European" ways of thinking.

Genetics and Justice: Must One Theory Fit All Contexts?

Appeals to social justice that argue medicine and healthcare should have certain priorities and not others are common. It is an obvious question to ask: What does social justice demand of the new genetic technologies? However, it is important to note that there are many theories and sub-theories of justice. There are utilitarian theories, libertarian theories, and egalitarian theories. There are so-called luck egalitarians, equality-as-fairness thinkers, and capability theorists, with each having his or her own distinctive approach to the distribution of medical goods and technologies, and to healthcare priorities. This article argues that the discussion surrounding this question is potentially hampered by an implicit assumption that if one theory of justice is applicable in one context, then it must also be applicable in others. Instead, it is proposed that one adopt the stance, influenced by Michael Waltzer, that different theories with their opposing principles may be applicable to different questions regarding justice and genetics. The specific view advanced is that to answer questions about what justice requires regarding the therapeutic and enhancement use of genetic techniques, a method of reflective equilibrium can show how intuitions, in context, may support different theories of justice. When particular pre-theoretic ethical judgments are balanced against the theories that might explain or justify them, and are in accord with what seems emotionally acceptable, then it can be seen how different general theories may be applicable in the different contexts in which questions of justice and genetics arise.

How generous should egalitarians be?

Lippert-Rasmussen has proposed a new version of luck egalitarianism: equality of concern. In this article, I argue that equality of concern is more generous than its two luck egalitarian rivals. That is, against equality of opportunity for welfare, it is more generous in that it recognises shortfalls in the satisfaction of one’s impersonal concerns as potentially inegalitarian. Against equality of resources, it is more generous in that it advocates more extensive compensation. I suggest that equality of concern’s generosity regarding impersonal concerns is justified but its generosity regarding compensation is not. Equality of resources, however, faces other problems, and so I argue that a hybrid of equality of concern and equality of resources would be the more attractive luck egalitarian view.

Unequally egalitarian? Defending the credentials of social egalitarianism

In his new book, Luck Egalitarianism, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen responds to challenges raised by social egalitarians against luck egalitarianism. Social egalitarianism is the view according to which a just society is one where people relate to each other as equals, while the basic premise of luck egalitarianism is that it is unfair if people are worse-off than others through no fault or choice of their own. Lippert-Rasmussen argues that the most important objections to luck egalitarianism made by social egalitarians can either be largely accommodated by luck egalitarians or lack the argumentative force that its proponents believe them to have. While Lippert-Rasmussen does offer a version of luck egalitarianism that seems to avoid some of the main lines of criticism, he mischaracterizes parts of both the form and the content of the disagreement, and thus ultimately misses the mark. In this paper, we provide a substantive, a methodological and a political defense of social egalitarianism by elaborating on this mischaracterization. More work must be done, we argue, if social egalitarianism is to be dismissed and its concerns genuinely incorporated in the luck egalitarian framework. Until this is done, the supposed theoretical superiority of luck egalitarianism remains contested.