Fairness and Legitimacy in Justice, And: Does Option Luck Ever Preserve Justice?

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
Luck Egalitarians ◽  
Option Luck

This chapter defends the claim that what recommends an outcome that was achieved by just steps from a just starting point is not, in the general case, itself (unqualified) justice, but the different virtue of legitimacy, or, more precisely, the property that no one can legitimately complain about it. David Miller has claimed that luck egalitarianism is inconsistent with the principal distinction that Cohen tries to draw in the chapter, because luck egalitarianism says: distribute equally, compensating appropriately for luck-induced deficits, and then whatever arises from people's choices is just. However, this suggests that luck egalitarians should not call whatever arises “just,” but merely “legitimate” (in the technical sense of being something that no one can complain about).

scholarly journals Luck Egalitarianism: Two Lines of Critique

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-289
Author(s):  
Dmitry Sereda
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Her Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Luck Egalitarians ◽  
Option Luck

This article is devoted to the stream in political philosophy which came to be known as “luck egalitarianism”. Luck egalitarians are concerned with the questions of distributive justice; their main idea is that no person should be worse-off due to factors which they are unable to influence. Luck egalitarians express this idea via the dichotomy of brute and option luck. The goal of the article is to describe two main lines of critique which luck egalitarianism encounters, and to assess which one is the most dangerous for this movement. Some authors criticize luck egalitarianism from a moral standpoint. They believe that it is overly cruel towards those who suffer due to unfortunate but free choices, humiliating towards those whom it deems to be worthy of help, and that it contradicts our moral intuitions concerning the question of what do people who engage in socially necessary, yet risky professions, deserve. Another important problem for this trend of political thought has to do with metaphysical criticism. Luck egalitarians claim that a person is not responsible not only for the status of her family, her gender, ethnicity, etc., but also for her talents and abilities. The question arises; is there anything for what a person can be genuinely responsible for? Thus, luck egalitarianism encounters the problem of determinism and free will. This problem threatens the identity of luck egalitarianism: if free will does not exist or if it cannot be identified, then the key dichotomy of brute and option luck is meaningless. The article demonstrates that it is the criticism of the second kind which currently poses the greatest problem for luck egalitarianism.

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

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (02) ◽  
pp. 259-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Bognar
Keyword(s):  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Brute Luck ◽  
Luck Egalitarians ◽  
Option Luck ◽  
As If

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 the neutrality 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.

Justice, Luck, and Pairwise Comparisons

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-201
Author(s):  
Gerald Lang
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social System ◽  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Pairwise Comparisons ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Complex Theory ◽  
Income Gap ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Structural Aspects ◽  
Option Luck

This chapter extends the anti-anti-luckist programme to political philosophy, and to the doctrine of luck egalitarianism in particular. Luck egalitarianism affirms that unchosen relative inequalities between agents are unjust. It condemns inequalities that are due to ‘brute luck’, and upholds inequalities that are due to ‘option luck’. Though it can be easily enough stated, luck egalitarianism is actually a complex theory with two separate components: egalitarianism and anti-luckism. Standard luck egalitarianism’s commitment to pairwise comparisons makes it vulnerable to what Susan Hurley calls the ‘Boring Problem’. The Boring Problem points out that any two agents in a pairwise comparison are bound to lack control over the relevant income gap between them, because each of them controls, at best, only one side of that comparison. Though Hurley herself is relatively dismissive of the Boring Problem, it is contended here that, when it is properly appreciated, it inflicts huge damage on luck egalitarianism, which needs in turn to be re-organized as a ‘baseline-sensitive’ theory that dispenses with pairwise comparisons. Baseline-sensitive luck egalitarianism makes decent progress on a number of critical fronts, particularly Saul Smilansky’s ‘Paradox of the Baseline’. But even this form of luck egalitarianism is still open to a worry about how it understands the relationship between its egalitarian default and its case for permissible inequalities, and it has less to say than it should about the structural aspects of a social system that generate inequalities.

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.

Social Equality and the Global Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 535-561
Author(s):  
Pierre Cloarec
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Global Society ◽  
Luck Egalitarians

Are democratic egalitarians bound to endorse statism? It seems so, since they insist on democratic reciprocity, and no such relation exists in the global realm. Would it not, then, be inconsistent to endorse both cosmopolitanism and democratic egalitarianism? Democratic egalitarians seemingly face a dilemma: either they accept statism, or they must explain why not. Luck egalitarianism, by contrast, seemingly grounds more straightforwardly the claim that justice is global in scope. My thesis is twofold: first, I show that democratic egalitarians can escape the dilemma, to the effect that, as such, they need be committed neither to statism nor to cosmopolitanism, and that luck egalitarians are not as shielded from the dilemma as it might seem. Second, I defend the plausibility of global social egalitarianism against both statist variants of democratic egalitarianism and luck egalitarianism, and suggest a form of division of labor between domestic and global justice.

scholarly journals On the Usefulness of Luck Egalitarian Arguments for Global Justice

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Schemmel
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Global Inequality ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Egalitarian Principle ◽  
Luck Egalitarians ◽  
Luck Egalitarian

Much of the recent philosophical literature about distributive justice and equality in the domestic context has been dominated by a family of theories now often called ‘luck egalitarianism’, according to which it is unfair if some people are worse off than others through no choice or fault of their own. This principle has also found its way into the literature about global justice. This paper explores some difficulties that this principle faces: it is largely insensitive to the causes of global inequality, and it is so demanding that it can only give rise to weak moral claims. I go on to argue that a) understanding justice claims as merely weak claims rests on an implausible and impractical concept of justice, and b) using the global luck egalitarian argument in practical discourse is likely to lead to misunderstanding, and to be counterproductive if the aim is to tackle global inequality. While these considerations do not suffice to make a conclusive case against the luck egalitarian principle, they should be acknowledged by global luck egalitarians – as some similar problems have indeed been by domestic luck egalitarians – and need to be addressed.

Dworkin’s Hypothetical Underemployment Insurance

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-87
Author(s):  
Kristi A. Olson
Keyword(s):  
Hard Work ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Insurance Scheme ◽  
Income Inequalities ◽  
The Family ◽  
Luck Egalitarians ◽  
To Receive

Chapter 5 explains and then rejects Ronald Dworkin’s hypothetical underemployment insurance scheme and the family of views—commonly dubbed luck egalitarianism—it inspired. This chapter argues that Dworkin and his followers were motivated in large part by the idea that it is not unfair for those who work harder to receive more pay. Yet as the chapter shows, Dworkin’s insurance scheme cannot accommodate this intuition, and a similar problem infects the views of Dworkin’s followers. In order to accommodate the intuition, their accounts must be supplemented, and once so supplemented, choice no longer plays a justificatory role. Thus, luck egalitarians must choose: either choice justifies income inequalities but the hard-work intuition cannot be accommodated, or else the hard-work intuition can be accommodated but choice does not justify income inequalities.

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