Rethinking Compensation for Bad Luck
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Luck egalitarianism (LE, henceforth) is a fairly prominent theory of justice. While there are many versions of LE, they all agree that, at least to some extent, it is unjust for individuals to lose the opportunity for welfare at least when that loss occurs through no fault of the individual’s own. Many writers take LE to have direct political implications; they write as if the truth of LE entails that resources should be taken from some – perhaps those who enjoy lots of unearned welfare – and delivered to those who suffer through no fault of their own. I argue that luck egalitarians should refocus their thinking on what I call a “Systemic Model” of compensation. This model holds that (a) what matters most to offsetting bad brute luck is that individuals have opportunities to make up for losses of welfare and (b) political systems should be designed to prevent some individuals from capturing resources in a manner that frustrates the ability of others to offset their own losses due to unearned bad luck and (c) political systems should aim to maximize the opportunities individuals have to make up for their own bad luck.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
By submitting his/her work to the Editorial Board, the author accepts, upon having his/her text recommended for publication, that Diametros applies the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license to the works we publish. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees. Anyone may read, download, copy, print, distribute or reuse these articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. The author holds the copyright without any other restrictions. Full information about CC-BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
References
Ackerman B. and Alstott A. (1999), The Stakeholder Society, Yale University Press, New Haven (CT).
Anderson E. (1999), “What is the Point of Equality?,” Ethics 109: 287–337.
Arneson R.J. (1989), “Equal Opportunity for Welfare,” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 56 (1): 77–93.
Arneson R.J. (2000), “Luck Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism,” Ethics 110 (2): 339–349.
Arneson R.J. (2004), “Luck Egalitarianism Interpreted and Defended,” Philosophical Topics 32 (1): 1–20.
Arneson R.J. (2012), “Rethinking Luck Egalitarianism and Unacceptable Inequalities,” Philosophical Topics 40 (1): 153–169.
Arneson R.J. (2014), “What Do We Owe Poor Families?,” Law, Ethics, and Philosophy 2: 7–31.
Arneson R.J. (2016), “Extreme Cosmopolitanism Defended,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19 (5): 555–573.
Arneson R.J. (2018), “Guest Worker Programs and Reasonable, Feasible Cosmopolitanism,” The Journal of Legal Studies 47 (S1): 164–169.
Arneson R.J. (2020), “Against Patriotism and National Partiality,” [in:] Handbook of Patriotism, M. Sardoč (ed.), Springer, Switzerland.
Bell S. (2000), “Do Taxes and Bonds Finance Government Spending?,” Journal of Economic Issues 34 (3): 603–620.
Black H.C. (1968), Black’s Law Dictionary: Definition of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern, West Publishing, St. Paul (MN).
Carens J. (1986), “Rights and Duties in an Egalitarian Society,” Political Theory 14 (1): 31-49.
Casal P., Williams A. (2004), “Equality of Resources and Procreative Justice,” [in:] Dworkin and His Critics: With Replies by Dworkin, J. Burley (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, Malden (MA): 150–169.
Cohen G.A. (1995), Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, Oxford University Press, Cambridge (MA).
Couto A. (2015), “Luck Egalitarianism and What Valuing Responsibility Requires,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 21: 193–217.
Dworkin R. (1981), “What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 10 (4): 283–345.
Dworkin R. (2000), Sovereign Virtue, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA).
Fullwiler S.T. (2016), “The Debt Ratio and Sustainable Macroeconomic Policy,” World Economic Review 7: 12–42.
Gauthier D. (1986), Morals by Agreement, Oxford University Press, New York.
Lang G.R. (2015), “How Interesting is the ‘Boring Problem’ for Luck Egalitarianism?,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (3): 698–722.
Lippert-Rasmussen K. (2005), Deontology, Responsibility, and Equality, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Long R. (1999), “The Irrelevance of Responsibility,” Social Philosophy and Policy 16 (2): 118–145.
Long R. (2014), “Left Libertarianism, Market Anarchism, Class Conflict, and Historical Theories of Distributive Justice,” Griffith Law Review 21 (2): 413–431.
Mack E. (2002), “Self-Ownership, Marxism, and Egalitarianism: Part I: Challenges to Historical Entitlement,” Politics, Philosophy, & Economics 1 (1): 75–108.
Mankiw G. (2009), Principles of Microeconomics, Cengage Learning, Ohio.
Mason A. (2001), “Egalitarianism and the Levelling Down Objection,” Analysis 61 (3): 246–254.
Nagel T., Murphy L. (2002), The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, Oxford University Press, New York.
Nozick R. (1974), Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books, New York.
Pendlebury M., Hudson P., Moellendorf D. (2001), “Capitalist Exploitation, Self-Ownership and Equality,” The Philosophical Forum 32 (3): 207–220.
Rakowski E. (1992), Equal Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Rawls J. (1971), A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA).
Roemer J.E. (1988), Free to Lose: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Philosophy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA).
Shapiro D. (2002), “Egalitarianism and Welfare-State Redistribution,” Social Philosophy & Policy 19 (1): 1–35.
Voigt K. (2007), “The Harshness Objection: Is Luck Egalitarianism Too Harsh on the Victims of Option Luck?,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (4): 389–407.
Werner P.J. (2015), “Self-Ownership and Non-Culpable Proviso Violations,” Politics, Philosophy, & Economics 14 (1): 67–83.
Wolff J. (1998), “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 27 (2): 97–122.