Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T16:23:00.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Justice without Constitutive Luck*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

S. L. Hurley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

What fundamental aim should be seen as animating egalitarian views of distributive justice? I want to challenge a certain answer to this question: namely, that the basic aim of egalitarianism is to neutralize the effects of luck on the distribution of goods in society. I shall also sketch part of a different answer, which I think does a better job of supporting egalitarianism.

My arguments here are not presented in a way that is intended to win over those who have no sympathy with egalitarianism to begin with; they move within the compass of egalitarian concern. Moreover, it is difficult, for familiar reasons, to separate the question of what the basic aim of egalitarianism is from the question of what it should be. If one aim does a better job of supporting egalitarian results than another, then, even if few egalitarians recognize this, it may be regarded as a stronger candidate for what the basic aim of egalitarianism is. As with other essentially contested concepts, a new conception does not change the subject.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 35 , September 1993 , pp. 179 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Cohen, 1989, 906–944; cf. Cohen ‘The Pareto Argument for Inequality’ (Oxford, typescript, 1992); see Roemer, 1985, 151–187; 1986, 751–784; 1987, 215–244; see Barry on Rawls on moral arbitrariness (Barry, 1989, 217–234, 393–400); cf. Scanlon (1988, 156) on moral arbitrariness; Nozick, 1974, 225.

2 I say more about the relationship between luck and responsibility in Justice Without Luck, a book in progress that continues the themes of this lecture.

3 See Nagel, 1979; also ‘Moral Luck’, in Williams, 1981.

4 Compare the claim of Roemer, 1987, 216.

5 See and compare, for example, Cohen's treatment (1989) of the relationship between choice and luck.

6 See and compare Klein, 1990, ch. 4. On our conflicting intuitions about responsibility and the regression principle, see Strawson, 1986, 88, 96, 101, 106. Compare Nussbaum, 1986, 282–289; Honore, 1988.

7 See, for example, Scanlon, 1988.

8 See and compare Strawson, 1986, 26–30, 49–50, 56.

9 See and compare Scanlon, 1988, 152—153.

10 As I understand the position Cohen would take in response to my arguments, it would fall in this category.

11 While I am certain he would not agree with what I say in this paragraph, I am indebted to G. A. Cohen for discussion of these matters.

12 See Hurley, 1989, part IV.

13 See Ellsberg, 1961, 643–669. See also Howard Raiffa's comments on Ellsberg's paper (Raiffa, 1961, 690—694) (the example in the text comes from Raiffa), and my discussion of Raiffa's argument (Hurley, 1989).

14 For discussion of and references to the controversy, see Hurley (1989, especially chs. 4 and 15). See also Bacharach and Hurley, 1991, Introduction, sections 2 and 3.

15 These large claims are not argued for here. They are in another piece of work in progress, The Reappearing Self.

16 See especially Rawls, 1971, sections 12, 24, 28 and 40. For a relevant and interesting discussion, see Barry, 1989, 217–234. Cf. also Parfit, Equality (Oxford, typescript).

17 See Sen, 1982, for compelling examples.

18 The claim that radical ignorance renders unavailable the basis for trade-offs that leads to a softening of maximin, is implied by Ellsberg (1961,662–664).

19 Gerald Cohen, ‘The Pareto Argument for Inequality’ (Oxford, 1992, typescript) argues that anyone who believes that, because the possible sources of inequality are morally arbitrary, an initial equality is prima facie just, has no reason to believe that justice is preserved by inequalityadmitting Pareto improvements that cause everyone to be better off, including those who end up worst off (section 1).

20 In the full-length treatment of justice without luck, I discuss arguments of Gerald Cohen's about incentive seeking that are relevant at this point. But there is not space to address them here. See Cohen, 1992, 263–329.