In a recent paper, Tsiakiri (2025) defends the use of luckegalitarianism (LE) in health-care priority setting againstthe charge of disrespect. She claims that a ”responsibilitysensitive healthcare system”, that is, a healthcare systemthat relies upon or is in accord with certain luck-egalitarianprinciples regarding priority setting decisions, can be compatible with respect for patients. She supports this claim byalluding to the Doctrine of Double Effect and Kant’s Formula of Humanity. The argument is further underpinned bythe idea that people have a perfect duty (towards themselvesand/or others) to promote their health in certain ways, whichincludes refraining from certain health-damaging activities

Luck egalitarianism about educational justice requires, roughly, that educational policy be arranged so as to minimize unchosen inequality in how well lives go. Luck egalitarianism famously faces the objection that it is an implausibly overdemanding theory of educational justice—especially when it is applied to educators in non-ideal conditions like our own, who are tasked with educating in social circumstances that are marred by the effects of pervasive background and historical injustices. I show that luck egalitarianism can be rescued from that overdemandingness objection. I effect that rescue by showing, first, the importance of distinguishing between the ideal-theoretic and non-ideal-theoretic parts of a normative principle like luck egalitarianism and showing then that, having made that distinction, there is a version of luck egalitarianism whose non-ideal-theoretic part does not entail implausibly overdemanding requirements for educators in non-ideal conditions. I also show that my discussion suggests useful directions and resources for further work in non-ideal theorizing about luck egalitarianism and other theories of educational justice.

The social support criterion is a significant factor used by US transplant centres to determine whether someone is eligible to be placed on the transplant list. Although intended to fairly allocate donor organs, it exacerbates inequities to transplant accessibility by unfairly excluding one-fifth of individuals seeking transplant listing. Ethical concerns regarding this criterion have been widely discussed, particularly due to bias in assessing the adequacy of support and inconclusive evidence that a strong social network improves transplant outcomes. However, luck egalitarianism-the view that injustices resulting from circumstances beyond one's control are unjust-has not been applied in this context. Inadequate social support is a circumstance shaped by uncontrollable factors such as mental health conditions, familial dynamics, geographic isolation and socioeconomic status. Thus, excluding candidates on this basis reinforces structural inequities.This paper begins by examining practices within the transplant system, particularly in the case of alcohol-related end stage liver disease, through luck egalitarian reasoning, and argues that this perspective helps to ethically evaluate the social support criterion. After establishing its relevance, the concept of luck egalitarianism is then applied to critique the use of the social support criterion, drawing on Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network guidelines and principles. Finally, this paper addresses the objection that removing this criterion would necessitate the elimination of all other non-voluntary criteria, specifically poor medical status and financial instability. Ultimately, the social support criterion is unjust as it penalises individuals for circumstances outside of their control without sufficient utilitarian justification for doing so.

Abstract Luck egalitarians believe that inequalities between people are unjust only to the extent that those inequalities arise as a result of brute bad luck, rather than free choice. Hard determinists believe that free choice is an illusion. This poses a problem for those of us who are both luck egalitarians and hard determinists, since the combination of both theses looks very unpalatable: we seem to be required to compensate every person for every disadvantage. In this article I argue that this outcome can be avoided, without undermining one's commitment to either the luck egalitarian or hard determinist theses. This is because a commitment to implementing de facto outcome egalitarianism is likely to be extremely psychologically demanding, and we are entitled (on the luck egalitarian view) to be compensated for the “misfortune” of our psychological commitments to free will.

This paper presents two arguments against the compensation thesis—the proposition that an agent who infringes on another’s moral claim right acquires a remedial duty to compensate the latter for any costs imposed by the infringement. First, it argues that rejecting the compensation thesis is the best way to resolve a trilemma that arises in cases where an agent blamelessly infringes on another’s claim. Second, the paper argues that the thesis is incompatible with (a plausible interpretation of) luck egalitarianism. Thus, those who accept the thesis will find their position yoked to the controversial rejection of (a plausible interpretation of) an influential theory of distributive justice. Finally, the paper considers and rejects six quick arguments in favor of accepting the compensation thesis.

The prevalence of non-communicable diseases, the related increased medical costs, and the recent public health emergency bring out more forcefully pre-existing dilemmas of distributive justice in the healthcare context. Under this reality, would it be justified to hold people responsible for their taken lifestyle decisions, or would it constitute an instance of unjustified disrespectful treatment? From a respect-based standpoint, one could argue that a responsibility-sensitive healthcare system morally disrespects the imprudent ones engaging in disadvantageous differential treatment to their detriment. In contrast, however, we might also have luck egalitarian reasons that explain why this differential treatment is not unjust. Luck egalitarianism is a responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice, which argues that it is bad if some people are worse off than others through no voluntary fault of their own. In this paper, I clarify the concerns about disrespect raised against the luck egalitarian viewpoint and offer possible respect-based reasons for why this might not be the case grounded in deontological concepts. First, I employ a revised Double-effect case to support responsibility-sensitive rationing. In the last part of the paper, these are further supported through the Kantian Formula of Humanity supplemented by the concept of duties.

Abstract This paper argues that recent debates on egalitarian objections to immigration restrictions overlook a crucial, powerful normative principle that underpins objections to inequalities: any inequalities between morally equal persons – whether in goods, resources, welfare but also in powers, statuses, rights, and freedoms – that arise from morally arbitrary factors are pro tanto unjust. This principle of moral arbitrariness is fundamental to both luck and relational egalitarianism yet is often missing from debates that apply such theories to migration ethics. The result of this omission is that certain arguments that purportedly reject luck egalitarian cases for open borders in fact fail since they fail to recognise the normative force of the principle of moral arbitrariness; yet, simultaneously, relational egalitarian cases for open borders are not fully successful since they fail to recognise that the principle of moral arbitrariness is required to distinguish immigration restrictions as unjust where other (relational) inequalities may not be. Hence, the overall argument of this paper is that the recognition of the principle of moral arbitrariness is essential for the success of both the luck and relational egalitarian cases, and thus a proper recognition of the full normative force and implications of this principle entails the egalitarian case for open borders indeed succeeds.

Abstract According to a prominent account, the central normative commitments of socialism are a luck egalitarian principle of equality and a principle of community or solidarity. The model has a number of attractions. However, it appears to be vulnerable to a series of objections that have been pressed against luck egalitarian accounts of the concept of exploitation. In this paper I argue that, despite some overlooked flexibility, the exploitation objection represents a serious challenge to this model and provides a good reason to explore alternative accounts of socialism’s normative grounds.

This paper offers a novel taxonomy of luck egalitarianism with reference to the specific kinds of distributive arbitrariness a luck egalitarian might object to, namely ‘arbitrary disadvantage’, ‘arbitrary advantage’, and ‘arbitrary equality’. In doing so, it provides an instance of ‘conceptual clearance’, i.e., an attempt to restructure and reduce the vast number of accounts now accumulated under the label ‘egalitarianism’. By scrutinizing the three sets of luck egalitarianism identified beforehand, i.e., ‘simple’, ‘asymmetrical’, and ‘symmetrical’, it develops a novel minimal condition for a theory to qualify as genuinely egalitarian. While ‘asymmetrical luck egalitarianism’ satisfies this condition, ‘symmetrical luck egalitarianism’ does not. Both accounts are, for that reason, affected very differently by the (in)famous levelling down objection to egalitarianism and thus face distinct argumentative challenges and justificatory burdens. Therefore, the paper identifies an important structural divide within luck egalitarian thinking. As a matter of conceptual clearance, it proposes to view symmetrical luck egalitarianism as a form of ‘responsibilitarianism’ instead.

According to relational egalitarians, a just society is one where the state considers and treats persons as equals, and persons stand in relations of equality with one another (Anderson, 1999; Lippert-Rasmussen, 2018; O'Neill, 2008; Scheffler, 2003; Schemmel, 2021; Wolff, 1998). Relational egalitarians, however, have so far been mainly concerned with how fully competent adults must be considered and treated as equals, whereas they have said much less about what a relational egalitarian society owes to those individuals whose agential capacities are impaired due to mental health issues, such as depression or drug and alcohol addiction.1 The aim of this article is to address this lacuna in the relational egalitarian literature. Exploring this issue is important for at least two reasons. First, impaired agents represent some of the most vulnerable members of society: they are often looked down upon by others and are deprived of the conditions necessary to exercise their political rights, take part in social cooperation, and establish meaningful social relationships. Therefore, it is crucial to develop an account of what is owed to impaired agents to enrich our understanding of what is required to achieve an inclusive society of equals. Second, this exploration will enable us to address a neglected tension between the demands of relational equality, and shed light on the role of its most fundamental background commitment: the principle of basic moral equality. This article is divided into two parts. In the first part, I propose a novel theory of respect for persons' agential capacities that defines what a relational egalitarian society owes to impaired agents as a matter of respect for their equal standing. In Section 2, I illustrate how the social condition of impaired agents generates a tension between two core demands of relational equality. On the one hand, relational egalitarians argue that the state should express appropriate respect for persons' equal standing by refraining from making demeaning judgments about their variable agential capacities, which would allow ranking them on a scale of moral personality. On the other hand, they maintain that the state should enable everyone to function as equal citizens. However, I argue that a duty to refrain from assessing individuals' agential endowments is sometimes incompatible with a duty to ensure that impaired agents have access to the assistance necessary to be able to function as equal citizens. To overcome this tension, in Section 3, I develop a dualist account of respect for persons' agential capacities. According to this account, respect does not only entail abstaining from assessing individuals' agential capacities, but it also requires a positive duty to offer help and support to address mental health issues that diminish moral personality. Call this kind of respect, positive respect. The principle of positive respect, I argue, offers a coherent and convincing account of how the state should express appropriate respect for impaired agents. In the second part of the article, I show that the dualist account of respect yields original and significant implications for the most fundamental background commitment of relational equality: the principle of basic moral equality. In Section 4, I introduce the moral inequality objection, according to which the theoretical price of accepting a duty of positive respect is moral inequality. This is because such a duty presupposes taking into account the unequal degree to which impaired agents hold their basic agential capacities, thus compromising their status as equals (Arneson, 2015; Christiano, 2015; Floris, 2019). Therefore, so the objection goes, relational egalitarians must reject the dualist account of respect because it undermines the very basis of impaired agents' claim to be considered and treated as equals. In response, in Section 5, I argue that fulfilling a duty of positive respect often does not presuppose a violation of persons' equal moral status. In Section 6, I contend that, when it does, it is still morally more important to fully respect impaired agents by providing them with help and support to (re-)acquire and maintain their ability to stand in relations of equality with others, rather than considering them as equals but failing to offer them the assistance that they need. Relational egalitarians have so far not paid enough attention to the obligations a just society has toward those individuals whose agential capacities are impaired due to mental health issues. This article fills this gap by developing a theory of what is owed to impaired agents as a matter of respect for their equal standing. Crucially, this theory reveals that relational egalitarians must rethink some of their most fundamental premises: respect for persons sometimes requires evaluating individuals' varying agential capacities. And, while this kind of respect often does not violate persons' status as equals, even when it does, this is not as morally problematic as they commonly believe. A central tenet of relational equality is that the state should express appropriate respect for persons' equal standing (Anderson, 1999; Hojlund, 2021; Schemmel, 2021; Voigt, 2018). "Persons" are typically defined in Rawlsian terms as individuals who hold the capacity to develop, revise, and pursue a conception of the good, along with the capacity for a sense of justice up to a sufficient minimum for moral personality (Rawls, 1971: 507).2 Accordingly, the state should express appropriate respect for persons' equal standing by avoiding ranking them on a scale of moral personality based on the degree to which they are capable of rationally advancing their own good and formulating reasonable value commitments. This is a fundamental demand of what basic "recognition respect"3 for persons qua moral persons requires. Many prominent relational egalitarians share this requirement of basic recognition respect for persons.4 Elizabeth Anderson, for example, accuses luck egalitarianism of being profoundly disrespectful, thus failing the "most important test that any egalitarian theory must meet," because "in attempting to ensure that people take responsibility for their choices, makes demeaning and intrusive judgments of people's capacities to exercise responsibility and effectively dictates to them the appropriate uses of their freedom" (Anderson, 1999: 289). In a similar vein, Samuel Scheffler observes that luck egalitarianism's redistributive policies are based on "judgments that are strongly 'inward looking'" (Scheffler, 2003: 21). Specifically, "the aim of neutralising the distributive effects of brute luck requires intrusive and conceptually problematic judgements about the inner sources of people's disadvantages" (Scheffler, 2003: 28). In his critique of distributive views of equality, Jonathan Wolff also points out that it is fundamentally disrespectful to single out individuals with internal endowment deficits—respect requires refraining from close scrutiny (Wolff, 1998). Finally, Christian Schemmel argues that "it would be fundamentally disrespectful for agents of social justice to undertake any assessments of moral qualities that would allow them to rank individuals on a scale of moral competence (degree of possession of moral powers, in our Rawlsian case)" (Schemmel, 2021: 108). In a relational egalitarian society, then, the state should express appropriate recognition respect for persons' equal standing by refraining from inquiring into, and acting on, differences among individuals in terms of agential endowments, which would allow placing them on a status hierarchy of moral personality and singling out some individuals as "less competent" moral agents. In other words, respect for persons requires abstaining from taking into account variations in degrees of agential capacities when reasoning about how they ought to be treated. Following Ian Carter, we can call this kind of respect, "opacity respect" (Carter, 2011). Imagine a society that intends to implement distributive policies aimed at making those individuals with lesser internal endowments better off, as long as these policies do not presuppose an assessment of persons' agential capacities. Suppose the state decides to provide its citizens with a universal and unconditional basic income. This will undoubtedly improve the conditions of the worse off. But now take the case of John: John holds the agential capacities up to the personhood threshold, but he suffers from an alcohol use disorder, which consists in "the use of heavy doses of alcohol with resulting repeated and significant distress or impaired functioning" (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 496). Finally, assume that the basic income is insufficient for John to access the medical and psychological treatment he needs. The case of alcoholic John generates a tension between the demands of relational equality. On one hand, relational egalitarians commonly share the intuition that persons, like John, should be offered the necessary help to address their health condition so as to (re-)acquire and maintain the ability to function as equals in society. As Anderson put it, "What citizens ultimately owe one another is the social conditions of the freedoms people need to function as equal citizens" (Anderson, 1999: 320). On the other hand, as we have seen, the commitment to a form of "opacity respect" makes relational egalitarians reluctant to allow the state to pass judgments over persons' agential capacities. Evaluating John's agential capacities would be disrespectful, for it would entail singling him out as disadvantaged in terms of agential endowments, thereby placing John on a scale of moral personality and therefore compromising his status as equal. Arguably, however, refraining from assessing the agential capacities of persons with mental health issues ensures their equal status in name only. This is because impairments to agential capacities constrain individuals' ability to function as equal citizens in several respects. Studies show that substance use and depressive disorders are key factors in reducing political participation (Ojeda, 2015) and significantly impact access to socio-economic opportunities (Henkel, 2011; Pfeifer & Strunk, 2016). In addition, substance use and depressive disorders undermine individuals' access to a range of relational resources, such as friendships and membership in associations, which are essential for maintaining and exercising the capacity for a conception of the good and the capacity for a sense of justice (Cordelli, 2015). More generally, impaired agential capacities diminish opportunities to establish meaningful social relationships, hindering persons' ability to be social contributors and to be recognized as such by others (Brownlee, 2020). The right of persons to the social conditions that enable them to function as equal citizens—that is, to have the effective ability to exercise their political rights and participate in the economy and the activities of civil society—is a fundamental requirement of the ideal of relational equality (Anderson, 1999; Schemmel, 2021; Wolff, 2015). However, relying on a form of "opacity respect" deprives relational egalitarians of the theoretical resources necessary to justify a positive duty to offer assistance and support to those persons whose agential capacities are impaired—insofar as it requires refusing to assess persons' agential endowments—thereby rendering them vulnerable to social exclusion and incapable of functioning as equals in society. It might be objected that the tension between these demands of relational equality is only apparent because addressing the specific vulnerability of impaired agents, like John, does not necessarily violate the state's duty to express opacity respect toward its members qua equals. Consider, for instance, the allocation of a compulsory insurance package. If such a scheme is in place, individuals with impaired agential capacities can voluntarily disclose this information to a doctor. The doctor, in turn, does not need to notify any state official about their patient's condition for them to be entitled to the necessary benefits to address their internal impairments. Therefore, the state does not need to violate its duty of opacity respect by considering individual disadvantages in terms of agential capacities when determining how persons should be treated.5 The main problem with this line of argument, however, is that it makes the positive duty to offer assistance conditional on the recipient asking for it. This, however, does not seem plausible: if A sees that B is in danger, A should offer B help without waiting for B to realize that they are in need of assistance and even if B does not ask for it—at least when we are entitled to assume that B would not be opposed to being offered help. This point is particularly significant for the cases at hand because mental health issues are often the cause of both epistemic and volitional limitations that prevent a person from actively seeking help (Warren, 2018: 213–218). For example, it is precisely because of his alcohol use disorder that John may not recognize that he has a problem—being alcoholic—that needs to be addressed or that, despite acknowledging his health condition, he may lack the strength of will sufficient to ask for assistance. For this reason, I argue that the ex-ante provision of public assistance, which relies on persons' ability and willingness to actively seek help, is insufficient to provide appropriate assistance to those individuals who are epistemically or volitionally incapable of asking for help due to internal impairments. Instead, society should also offer ex-post help and support by promoting outreach programs aimed at identifying those individuals who are out of reach of traditional health care services to improve access to service as well as service uptake.6 For instance, in Portugal, teams of social workers are deployed to reach out to the most marginalized drug addicts, who live in abandoned housing or on the streets, and encourage them to seek treatment (Hari, 2015: 244–245). Similarly, in recent years, the city and county of Los Angeles have set up teams of mental health, medical, and substance abuse professionals who operate in socially deprived areas, such as Skid Row, providing assistance to individuals who struggle with addiction and mental illness (Holland, 2015). These healthcare and social services are necessary to foster the active inclusion of those persons whose agential capacities are impaired due to mental health issues by providing them with assistance to (re-)acquire and maintain their ability to fully participate as equals in society. However, they are inconsistent with a commitment to opacity respect because they presuppose singling out individuals or social groups who are entitled to special measures of assistance in light of agential deficits (Carter, 2011: 504–506). Therefore, I conclude that unconditional and universal forms of assistance that are compatible with opacity respect are insufficient to ensure that impaired agents have access to what they need to function as equal citizens. Relational egalitarians argue that the state should express appropriate respect for persons by refraining from raking them on a scale of moral personality. Hence, it should abstain from evaluating the degree to which persons are capable of rationally developing and pursuing their own interests and formulating reasonable value commitments, as a matter of respect for their equal standing. In the previous section, I showed that this commitment is, however, in tension with another fundamental demand of relational equality, wherein the state should enable everyone to function as equal citizens. This is because refusing to assess individuals' agential endowments is sometimes incompatible with a positive duty to offer assistance to persons whose agential capacities are impaired, thereby making them vulnerable to social exclusion and incapable of standing in relations of equality with others. Accordingly, in this section, I argue that relational egalitarians should abandon the monist view of basic respect for persons' agential capacities and embrace a dualist account, which includes not only (i) a duty of opacity respect to refrain from inquiring into the level of persons' agential capacities, but also (ii) a duty of what I call "positive respect" to assess individuals' varying capacities when this is necessary to provide impaired agents with what they need to (re-)acquire and maintain the ability to function as equal citizens.7 In a relational egalitarian society, then, the state should express appropriate respect for all persons' equal standing by balancing these potentially conflicting requirements. In what follows, I address two objections that can be raised against the principle of positive respect. This will help us further clarify this notion and illustrate how it should be balanced against the other requirement of basic respect for persons' agential capacities. First, it might be objected that the tension between the demands of relational equality is not one between different requirements of respect for persons' agential capacities but rather one between what respect for persons' agency requires, on the one hand, and what concern for persons' welfare (or interests) entails, on the other.8 In reply, it should be noticed that our focus here is on what a relational egalitarian society owes to impaired agents qua persons, that is, individuals whose agential capacities are impaired but have not dropped below the minimum threshold of moral personality. What is at stake, then, is not primarily a concern for impaired agents' welfare, but what respect for their agency requires. This point is not merely terminological but has substantive implications for the content of the positive duty toward impaired agents. Since impaired agents are still agents and the positive duty is a response to their agency, the latter is not a paternalistic duty to bypass their agency for the sake of furthering their own good but one to offer assistance to address mental health issues that diminish their agential capacities.9 Thus, for example, a commitment to positive respect does not justify mandatory participation in therapy sessions or recovery groups. The dualist account of respect, therefore, shows that respect for persons' moral agency does not only entail a negative duty to refrain from assessing their agential capacities and let them exercise their agency as they see fit. Instead, it also implies a positive duty to ensure that persons have access to the social conditions necessary to (re-)acquire and maintain their unimpaired agential abilities. Moreover, it reveals that more liberal relational egalitarian views, which are reluctant to accept (coercive) paternalistic forms of intervention,10 also have the theoretical resources to justify a positive duty to offer assistance and support to those persons whose agential capacities are impaired due to mental health issues, as a matter of respect for their equal standing. A second objection consists in observing that a duty of positive respect presupposes a certain degree of intrusiveness to ensure that persons are offered help in maintaining an unimpaired moral personality. However, since everyone presumably would suffer from some kind of internal impairment at some point in their life, this positive duty seems to legitimize a kind of Orwellian society where citizens live under constant state surveillance aimed at "fixing" or "curing" their agential capacities. Not only is holding that respect entails such pervasive and deep intervention in persons' lives independently implausible, but it also makes a duty of opacity respect redundant. Call this the excessive intervention objection. To address the excessive intervention objection, it is necessary first to understand what kinds of internal impairments call for intervention based on a duty of positive respect. The World Health Organization defines impairment as "any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function" (WHO, 1980). Many have pointed out that this definition presupposes an arbitrary conception of "normality," which is unable to generate any normative prescriptions.11 For our purposes, however, it should be recalled that we are working within a theoretical framework, which assumes that "moral personality" is the value that defines what a person is. Hence, it is reasonable to understand the internal impairments in question here, as deficiencies in the functioning of a person's moral personality, which diminish their agential capacities, but not to a level lower than the minimum threshold for moral personality. The question, then, is: what kinds of deficiencies generate demands of positive respect? Although individual cases can pose difficult or insoluble diagnostic dilemmas, psychiatry has developed publicly accepted methods – currently embodied in DSM IV – by which agreed upon diagnoses can generally be established. Our very general concern to meet people's health care needs for treatment of disease and impairment can be precisely focused around reliably identifiable instances (Buchanan et al., 2000: 142–143). Since the of a duty of positive respect might entail a violation of opacity respect, we must be very in determining the that justify an of the latter for the of the in the of the between political and the Therefore, it seems appropriate to to medical to cases of internal impairments that a duty of positive respect. However, this does not that in medical psychiatry should be or On the one hand, such as those in the and of have significant for activities and as that must be addressed and et al., 2015). Therefore, it is that the of internal impairments as mental which diminish individuals' agential capacities and therefore intervention based on positive respect, is first and to those who are by it more generally, to society at On the other hand, is unable to all the of internal impairments to individuals' agential capacities. is crucial to identifying the and social that to the of these impairments. A commitment to positive respect, in not only the provision of healthcare but also entails that society has a duty to address the social of health that to impairments to persons' agential the range of internal impairments that generate a demand for positive respect to those mental disorders by medical psychiatry as to moral personality is not the only such a duty does not legitimize into persons' in the that this duty should be what is morally is to ensure not that persons have an unimpaired moral personality at any point in but rather that they unimpaired agential capacities their positive respect intervention not if a person alcohol a out with their but if they develop an alcohol use The excessive intervention objection, however, that a positive duty to help with mental health issues should be if it for even if intervention in persons' In response, then, it is important to that the duty of positive respect and the duty of opacity respect are two basic requirements of respect for persons' agential capacities, which need to be balanced against Hence, will be cases in which opacity respect has over positive respect and others in which the latter the Thus, opacity respect as a on the or of the that can be for the sake of positive respect. To the addiction individuals' agential capacities and thus intervention based on positive respect. a society where state are to on individuals to their agential capacities, and citizens are required to a similar in their This the state to individuals with drug addiction and provide them with the necessary assistance. A of the dualist account of respect has the theoretical resources to these on the that the demand of positive assistance to persons with drug not justify such a violation of opacity respect, the state can persons' level of all their agential capacities as well as into their To be more will have to be said about the specific in which opacity respect has over positive respect and However, the point here is that a dualist account of respect an to positive respect in such a as to the violation of opacity respect. Therefore, the does not entail or in persons' To in the previous section, I that a duty of opacity respect to refrain from evaluating persons' varying agential capacities is sometimes incompatible with that individuals with impaired agential capacities are with what they need to function as equal citizens. This, however, is inconsistent with what a relational egalitarian society owes to impaired agents as equals. To overcome this in this section, I developed a dualist account of respect for persons' agential capacities, wherein respect does not only entail refraining from inquiring into the level of individuals' agential endowments but also requires assessing persons' varying capacities when it is necessary to offer assistance and support to address mental health issues that diminish moral personality. The is that, in a relational egalitarian society, the state should express appropriate respect for all persons' equal standing by balancing these potentially conflicting thereby that everyone is capable of standing in relations of equality with In the second part of the article, I show that the dualist account of respect for persons' agential capacities has significant implications for one of the most fundamental background of the ideal of relational equality: the principle of basic moral equality. Relational egalitarians generally hold that the ideal of relational equality is ultimately in the principle of basic moral equality: persons are equals, and therefore they ought to be considered and treated as such (Anderson, 1999: Scheffler, 2003: Schemmel, 2021: However, recent to the on the basis of moral equality have that, despite its providing a for the principle of moral equality is by an The for this is that if persons ought to be considered and treated as equals, this must be because is about persons which makes them however, the basic agential capacities that persons' moral is, the capacity for a conception of the good and the capacity of a sense of to unequal people are more and reasonable than others. However, if persons are unequal in the possession of the that moral status upon how they should be considered and treated as how can the possession of some persons' equal moral (Arneson, 2015; Christiano, 2015). This is the variations objection 2019). Arguably, one of the most of the basis of persons' moral equality has been developed by According to Carter, the to the variations objection precisely in a commitment to opacity by us to refrain from evaluating persons' agential capacities, opacity respect an moral requirement that the variations the threshold for moral personality should be when assessing persons' moral status. More opacity respect a for what is morally is that persons the of the moral is, they hold the agential capacities for a conception of the good and a sense of justice within a certain of the different degrees to which they these the threshold for moral personality. therefore, are equal in the possession of the range as be on a scale of moral personality. Thus, not only is opacity respect a fundamental requirement of basic recognition respect for persons, but it is also the basis of persons' moral

The geographically inequitable distribution of physicians has long posed a serious social problem in Japan. The government tackled this problem by establishing and managing Jichi Medical University (JMU) and regional...

The liberal-egalitarian concept formulated by John Rawls in his book A Theory of Justice is still vehemently debated today. Critics of this concept include, among others, Rodion Belkovich and Sergei Vinogradov, according to whom Rawlsians inevitably face a dilemma: they need to reject either the difference principle or luck egalitarianism, and each of these solutions leads to the erosion of the basic foundations of Rawls’s theory. The article presents a detailed analysis of the arguments put forward by Belkovich and Vinogradov and demonstrates that the dilemma they identified is flawed for three reasons. First, it blurs the distinction between luck egalitarianism and “straight egalitarianism,” which assumes the complete equality of income and wealth in society. Luck egalitarians do not support the idea of absolute equality in distribution and consider inequality that reflects people’s responsibility for their own choices fair. Second, Rawlsian egalitarianism is essentially equated with luck egalitarianism, while they represent two clearly distinguishable approaches. Third, the kidnapper’s argument, which proves that the difference principle is incompatible with luck egalitarianism, does not provide solid reasoning against the difference principle. The argument is only applicable under limited conditions, when the difference principle is embedded as an assumption in the “argument from incentives”, which in turn is put forward by the potential beneficiaries of this incentive. According to the author’s conclusion, the above mentioned considerations clearly indicate that Rawlsians do not face any dilemma of choosing between luck egalitarianism and the difference principle, and the criticism of Rawls’s theory proposed by Belkovich and Vinogradov should be considered groundless.

One prominent criticism of luck egalitarianism is that it requires either shameful revelations or otherwise problematic declarations by the state toward those who have had bad brute luck. Relational egalitarianism, by contrast, is portrayed as an alternative that requires no such revelations or declarations. I argue that this is false. Relational equality requires the state to draft anti-discrimination laws for both state and private action. The ideal of relational egalitarianism requires these laws to be asymmetric, that is to allow affirmative action for disadvantaged groups while prohibiting affirmative action for advantaged groups. Hence, the state needs to make a public declaration on which groups are privileged and which are underprivileged; and individuals need to reveal whether they belong to groups officially declared underprivileged. These declarations are no more problematic in this case than in the case of luck egalitarianism.

Abstract This paper explores the economic disparities created and augmented by the Pandemic and implores the state to adopt redistribution schemes based on the philosophy of distributive justice. The pandemic created and augmented gaping class inequalities, by pushing some into unemployment and poverty, while catalysing others’ prosperity. This may or may not have involved a fault element on the part of those that profited from the pandemic, which is to say, while some may have actively exploited the situation to increase their profits at the cost of general interests, others may have simply gained profits while retaining ethical practices in their conduct of business. This Paper argues that, irrespective of the fault element, States must implement a special financial scheme that necessitates companies that gained enormous profits from the pandemic to contribute towards assisting those who were financially crushed by the pandemic. The paper will build this on the philosophy of distributive justice, examining the ‘difference principle’ as well as ‘luck and responsibility egalitarianism’. Simply put, this means that States must enforce a system that neutralizes the ‘luck’ element that the pandemic induced in the society, through a financial scheme best suited for its situation. This may be achieved through levying a special tax for a period of time on particular business entities and/or by requiring companies to include a special corporate social responsibility project in line with the quantum of additional profits owing to the pandemic. Arguably, corporate houses that exploited the pandemic must not be placed at par with those that merely happened to profit from it (say, for instance, a pharmaceutical company that may have manipulated the drug market to increase prices and limit supply of an important drug, as opposed to a food/essentials delivery chain that naturally saw an increase in the number of consumers ordering deliveries online). But the obligation to carve out a part of their profits for social redistribution is not founded on whether they are at fault or not. Any fault may, of course, be used as a basis for levying a higher penalty or other legal measure, apart and distinct from the obligation that this paper builds on. The scheme that is proposed by the Paper is not to penalize but is based on the philosophy of distributive justice and thus does not require that the company was ever in violation of laws, but merely that the pandemic that devastated most people happened to be a profitable enterprise for others in contrast. It is in the State’s interests to negate the widened gap of economic disparities thus created, and this justifies that the Government would require such corporate houses to carve out a fraction of their fortunes for those who suffered severely. The Paper builds primarily on the philosophical foundations of distributive justice, urging its practical implementation in post-pandemic the economy. States must adopt creative measures to restructure patterns of privileges created or amplified by such unprecedented (at least in recent history) circumstances, as the pandemic.

Educational disparities are one of the most essential issues surrounding education and equity. Previous research includes many empirical studies which have been conducted to eliminate educational disparities. However, the normative question “Why do educational disparities matter?” has not been carefully examined in empirical studies on educational disparities. This question can be answered based on the value of fairness. But what is fairness? Is it enough if a fair educational system is realized? Based on the above concerns, this paper examines the value of fairness, which is a normative assumption of studies on educational disparities. The paper confirms that the value of fairness behind the argument “educational disparities should be corrected” can be clarified and justified by luck egalitarianism, and clarifies the problems associated with pursuing fairness by examining Elizabeth Anderson’s critique of luck egalitarianism. Specifically, the paper focuses on the harshness objection and the humiliation objection. It shows that, even if fairness in education is achieved, it may not result in an ideal education for all, because it may leave some children in a harsh situation and humiliate them in the process of providing compensation through redistribution. The paper then discusses three values that should be added to fairness: fresh start, sufficiency, and respect. After that, it discusses why these values are important and what issues should be considered in future empirical research on educational disparities. The paper also presents suggestions toward examining the problems of meritocracy.

Since the publication of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, the egalitarian tradition, which associates fair institutional structure with reaching equality in one aspect or another, has started to play a central role in academic discussions of the social justice problem. The article is devoted to the analysis of the evolution of egalitarianism of luck, which by the end of the 20th century has become the main direction in the framework of this tradition. The proponents of this direction in their argument depart from Rawls’s idea about the lottery of birth, according to which a game played by a fortune, being arbitrary from the moral point of view and affecting the distribution of resources in society, is unfair, and therefore should be compensated. Rawls’s approach to minimizing the role of luck in a fair distribution did not guarantee sufficient compensation for natural inequalities, assuming at the same time excessive compensation for “expensive tastes”. Trying to solve this problem, Ronald Dworkin distinguished between brute and option luck, using the model of the “veil of ignorance”, behind which the amount of fair compensation is determined. Further development of egalitarianism of luck at the turn of the 1980—1990s is associated with the names of Richard Arneson, Gerald Cohen, John Roemer and some other authors who made a number of amendments and changes to the concept of undeserved luck and proposed their own ways to neutralize its consequences for society. The arguments of proponents of luck egalitarianism at the end of the 20th century aimed at strengthening the role of an individual’s freedom of choice and implantation of the ethics of responsibility into the theory of social justice. At the same time, the interpretation of luck as a true “currency of equality” made the question of fair distribution conditional upon the consensus on the limits of human capacity for systematic cultivation of virtues and the scope of individual responsibility for one’s own destiny.

To what extent can individuals be kept responsible for the disadvantages they experience? This is undoubtedly one of the most fundamental questions that have led to a historical cleavage between egalitarian perspectives that underline roles of structural inequalities leading to disadvantages and anti-egalitarian/libertarian perspectives that tend to keep individuals themselves responsible for their own living conditions. Taking a mediating position between these perspectives, a relatively new normative framework, viz. luck egalitarianism, has recently provided an analytical answer to this question. Building upon an authentic conceptual framework in which two distinct forms of luck are defined, it claims that individuals cannot be kept responsible for their disadvantaged conditions so long as these conditions have appeared as consequences of factors that are beyond their own control, such as luck, which inescapably brings forth a normative idea that individuals should take responsibility of disadvantages that are consequences of their own choices/decisions. This paper discusses that evaluative aspects of individuals’ choices/decisions within the given configuration of luck egalitarianism’s analytical framework are excessively ambiguous, which can easily lead it to turn into a perspective morally justifying quite a number of disadvantages. Drawing on various hypothetical cases and empirical findings, it suggests that luck egalitarianism should recognize sociological formation of individuals’ choices/decisions in modern stratified societies to overcome such jeopardy. Following this, it addresses two positive implications of such recognition as (1) saving luck egalitarianism from being a means of right-wing exclusionary political positions and (2) opening up a space to incorporate egalitarian social policies.

Luck egalitarianism is a responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice. Its application to health and healthcare is controversial. This article addresses a novel critique of luck egalitarianism, namely, that it wrongfully discriminates against those responsible for their health disadvantage when allocating scarce healthcare resources. The philosophical literature about discrimination offers two primary reasons for what makes discrimination wrong (when it is): harm and disrespect. These two approaches are employed to analyze whether luck egalitarian healthcare prioritization should be considered wrongful discrimination. Regarding harm, it is very plausible to consider the policies harmful but much less reasonable to consider those responsible for their health disadvantages a socially salient group. Drawing on the disrespect literature, where social salience is typically not required for something to be discrimination, the policies are a form of discrimination. They are, however, not disrespectful. The upshot of this first assessment of the discrimination objection to luck egalitarianism in health is, thus, that it fails.

Abstract This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co‐existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non‐overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert‐Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling‐down objection.

The head of South Korea’s COVID-19 policy committee has argued that it is unfair that individuals who choose not to be vaccinated against COVID-19 receive public funding for medical treatment related to COVID-19. Although these remarks were not connected to any change in the country’s COVID-19 policies, it is important, for both theoretical and practical reasons, to address the justifiability of a policy that would make unvaccinated individuals pay for their own COVID-19-related medical treatment. This article argues that it would be difficult to justify such a policy even from the standpoint of luck egalitarianism, which holds that it is fair for some to be worse off than others if the inequality in question is the result of choices those individuals made. Although it is often assumed that luck egalitarians would approve of policies that denied COVID-19-related medical treatment to individuals who choose not to vaccinate, this article shows that this assumption is not necessarily right. Additionally, this article also clarifies common misunderstandings of luck egalitarianism at the theoretical level.