Dworkin and Luck Egalitarianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Arneson
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Brute Luck

Ronald Dworkin is a founding father of what has come to be called “luck egalitarianism,” a family of distributive justice doctrines that hold that the inequalities in people’s condition that are brought about by sheer brute luck falling on them in ways that are beyond their power to control should be reduced or eliminated, but that inequalities that arise through people’s own fault or choice, such that they can reasonably be deemed responsible for their condition, need not be reduced or eliminated. Dworkin himself has come to embrace an alternative view, “justice as fair insurance.” This chapter characterizes Dworkin’s view, compares it to luck egalitarianism, and criticizes both doctrines.

Consequentialism, Deontology, Contractualism, and Equality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Quong
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism

This chapter advances two main claims. First, that the distinction between consequentialism and deontology, although widely adopted, is illusory and only serves to obscure some of the genuine disputes underlying central debates in distributive justice. Second, that although luck egalitarianism and democratic egalitarianism are often presented as rival conceptions of justice—in particular, as offering competing accounts of the grounds of distributive justice—this may be a mistake, since this construal makes each view less plausible than it otherwise might be. Instead, the chapter proposes an alternative view where luck egalitarianism and democratic egalitarianism can be understood as complementary answers to different questions. Luck egalitarianism identifies one of the fundamental grounds of justice and injustice, whereas democratic egalitarianism is better conceptualized as offering a contractualist account of what it is for something to be just or unjust.

scholarly journals The Luck Egalitarianism of G.A. Cohen - A Reply to David Miller

SATS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Albertsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Luck Egalitarian

AbstractThe late G.A. Cohen is routinely considered a founding father of luck egalitarianism, a prominent responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice. David Miller argues that Cohen’s considered beliefs on distributive justice are not best understood as luck egalitarian. While the relationship between distributive justice and personal responsibility plays an important part in Cohen’s work, Miller maintains that it should be considered an isolated theme confined to Cohen’s exchange with Dworkin. We should not understand the view Cohen defends in this exchange as Cohen’s considered view. Accepting this thesis would change both our understanding of Cohen’s political philosophy and many recent luck egalitarian contributions. Miller’s argument offers an opportunity to reassess Cohen’s writings as a whole. Ultimately, however, the textual evidence against Miller’s argument is overwhelming. Cohen clearly considers the exchange with Dworkin to be about egalitarianism as such rather than about the best responsibility-sensitive version of egalitarianism. Furthermore, Cohen often offers luck egalitarian formulations of his own view outside of the exchange with Dworkin and uses luck egalitarianism as an independent yardstick for evaluating principles and distributions.

The Market, Preferences, and Equality

1994 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Equitable Distribution ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
Mutual Advantage ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Egalitarian Justice

The perfectly competitive market of economic theory often enters political philosophy because it can be represented as illuminating important values. Theorists who are enthusiastic about the heuristic potential of the market claim that we can learn much about individual liberty, the promotion of mutual advantage and efficiency in the distribution of goods by studying it. However, a principal limitation of the market for many theorists is its supposed insensitivity to the demands of egalitarian justice. According to the standard charge, markets—even idealised ones—are hostile to the achievement and maintenance of an equitable distribution of resources. It is striking, then, that a leading exponent of egalitarian justice like Ronald Dworkin should argue that there are very deep and systematic links between equality and the market. He contends that, contrary to the received view, “the best theory of equality supposes some actual or hypothetical market in justifying a particular distribution of goods and opportunities.” Moreover, the articulation of Dworkin’s influential egalitarian account of liberal political morality depends on acceptance of the market as an ally of equality. Thus Dworkin claims not only that the market plays a crucial role in the elaboration of a doctrine of distributive justice but also that it illuminates the distinctively liberal commitments to the protection of extensive individual liberty and to the requirement that the state must be neutral between different conceptions of the good. The aim of this paper is to raise some doubts about the soundness of one of the fundamental onnections Dworkin draws between the market and distributive justice.

Welfare Luck Egalitarianism and Expensive Tastes

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Holtug
Keyword(s):  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Egalitarian Justice ◽  
Classic Paper ◽  
Resource Welfare

AbstractIn his classic paper “Equality of What? Part 1: Equality of Welfare”, Ronald Dworkin argued that we should reject the notion that welfare is the currency of egalitarian justice. One reason is that this notion implies we should compensate individuals for expensive tastes they have deliberately cultivated. However, several egalitarians have objected that Dworkin conflates the resource/welfare and the luck/choice distinction. In particular, welfare luck egalitarianism implies that expensive tastes that are deliberately cultivated may not be compensable. In response to this criticism, Dworkin has more recently argued that welfare luck egalitarianism in fact collapses into ordinary welfare egalitarianism, or relies on an account of luck that is either incoherent or at least cannot provide a basis for egalitarian redistribution. Therefore, according to Dworkin, welfare luck egalitarianism does not solve the problem of expensive tastes. In the current article, I critically assess these recent arguments of Dworkin’s about the inadequacy of welfare luck egalitarianism. I argue that Dworkin has not shown that this notion collapses into ordinary welfare egalitarianism, or that it harbours a problematic account of luck.

LUCK-EGALITARIANISM: FAULTS AND COLLECTIVE CHOICE

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Collective Choice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Standard Formulation ◽  
Luck Egalitarian

A standard formulation of luck-egalitarianism says that ‘it is [in itself] bad – unjust and unfair – for some to be worse off than others [through no fault or choice of their own]’, where ‘fault or choice’ means substantive responsibility-generating fault or choice. This formulation is ambiguous: one ambiguity concerns the possible existence of a gap between what is true of each worse-off individual and what is true of the group of worse-off individuals, fault or choice-wise, the other concerns the notion of fault. I show that certain ways of resolving these ambiguities lead to counterintuitive results; and that the most plausible way of resolving them leads to a theory of distributive justice in which responsibility plays a role significantly different from that in standard luck-egalitarian thinking. My main conclusion here is that luck-egalitarianism is best formulated as the view that it is [in itself] bad – unjust and unfair – for an individual to be worse off than others if, and only if, her being worse off does not fit the degree to which she is at fault in a not purely prudential sense.

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Albertsen
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Oral Health ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Transplant Recipients ◽  
Flexible Approach ◽  
Lower Priority ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Luck Egalitarian

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.

scholarly journals Luck Egalitarianism, Responsibility, and Political Liberalism

Dialogue ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
RYAN LONG
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Novel Reading ◽  
Luck Egalitarians

Luck egalitarians argue that distributive justice should be understood in terms of our capacity to be responsible for our choices. Both proponents and critics assume that the theory must rely on a comprehensive conception of responsibility. I respond to luck egalitarianism’s critics by developing a political conception of responsibility that remains agnostic on the metaphysics of free choice. I construct this political conception by developing a novel reading of John Rawls’ distinction between the political and the comprehensive. A surprising consequence is that many responsibility-based objections to luck egalitarianism turn out to be objections to Rawls’ political liberalism as well.

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