Relational egalitarianism says that moral equals should relate as equals. We explore how moral unequals should relate.

Relational egalitarians claim that a situation is just only if everyone it involves relates to one another as equals. It implies that relational egalitarians believe the ideal of “living as equals” (for short) is desirable, and furthermore, necessary for justice. In this paper, I distinguish three accounts of the desirability of the ideal: the instrumental value account, the non‐instrumental value account, and the non‐consequentialist account. I argue that the former two accounts cannot provide satisfying reasons for being a relational egalitarian. (...) Instead, the ideal of “living as equals” ought to be understood as fundamentally a moral requirement in a non‐consequentialist sense. In addition, a pluralist (though fundamentally non‐consequentialist) approach is welcome. (shrink)

Political philosophers have become increasingly interested in questions of justice as applied to health. Much of this literature works from a distributive understanding of justice. In the recent debate, however, ‘relational’ egalitarians have proposed a different way of conceptualising equality, which focuses on the quality of social relations among citizens and/or how social institutions ‘treat’ citizens. This paper explores some implications of a relational approach to health, with particular focus on health care, health inequalities and health policy. While the relational (...) account can add interesting perspectives to current debates on justice and health, we also highlight some tensions and difficulties relational egalitarians might encounter and some discontinuities between the implications of a relational account and current discourse on health equity. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anderson argues for civic as against distributive egalitarianism. I agree with civic egalitarianism understood as a public ideal, and welcome her interest in the sociological conditions under which it may best flourish. But I argue that she is mistaken in opposing what she calls 'hierarchies of esteem' and proposing that where the egalitarian ideal has insufficient hold on civil society it should be implemented by an efficient bureaucracy. We should learn a different lesson from Max Weber. What the ideal (...) of equality needs is not more bureaucracy but more influential advocacy—and that requires healthy 'hierarchies of esteem'. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarians, equality is not primarily about the distribution of some good but about people relating to one another as equals. However, compared with other theorists in political philosophy – including other egalitarians – relational egalitarians have said relatively little on what role personal responsibility should play in their theories. For example, is equality compatible with responsibility? Should economic distributions be responsibility-sensitive? This article fills this gap. I develop a relational egalitarian framework for personal responsibility and show that (...) relational equality commits us to responsibility. I develop two sets of arguments. First, I draw on relational theories of moral responsibility – particularly Strawsonian views – to show that valuable egalitarian relationships require responsibility. Second, I show why relational equality sometimes requires that economic distributions be sensitive to responsibility and choice. I also defend a seemingly paradoxical result: being committed to responsibility, relational egalitarianism not only justifies some distributive inequalities but some relational inequalities too. Overall, relational egalitarianism gives a nuanced and coherent answer as to why and how responsibility matters from within egalitarianism. That it does should be an important argument in its favour. (shrink)

What, if anything, is wrong with high executive compensation? Is the common “lay reaction” of indignation and moral outrage justified? In this paper, my main goal is to articulate in a more systematic and philosophical manner the egalitarian responses to these questions. In order to do so, I suggest that we take some insights from recent debates on two versions of egalitarianism: a distributive one, according to which no one should be worse off than others because of unfair distributions of (...) goods and resources, especially ones based on matters of luck or arbitrary factors, and a relational one, which maintains that egalitarian justice requires members of a society to relate to one another as equals. Drawing on recent attempts to highlight the tricky nature of managerial authority, I argue that high inequalities in pay are not simply a distributional matter but should also be analyzed through a relational lens. I also attempt to show that relational egalitarians are well-equipped to question the now dominant “incentives” view of CEO compensation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: What kinds of markets, market regulations, and business organizations are compatible with contemporary egalitarian theories of justice? This article argues that any thoughtful answer to this question will have to draw on recent developments in political philosophy that are concerned not only with the equality of the distribution of core goods but also with the requirements for equality of status, voice, and so on, in the relations between individuals and within organizations. The dominance of theories of distributive justice in (...) egalitarian political philosophy since Rawls may have contributed, on the one hand, to the oft-recognized gulf between these theories and their theorists and, on the other, to discussions of corporate governance and business ethics. The main purpose of this article is to introduce business ethicists to some of the less-familiar features of recent relational theories of justice and equality, and to suggest that some of these notions may help bridge the gap between business ethics and political philosophy more generally. (shrink)

In the past few decades, there has been a growing literature on relational egalitarianism. Relational egalitarianism is a view on the nature and value of equality. In contrast to the dominant view in recent debates on equality—distributive egalitarianism, on which equality is about ensuring people have or fare the same in some respect—on the relational view, equality is a matter of the terms on which relationships are structured. But what exactly does it mean for people to relate as equals? And (...) why are relations of equality valuable? Relational egalitarians have offered quite different answers to each of these questions. In this article, I draw attention to some key issues that underlie these disagree- ments, and I offer a taxonomy of different viewpoints that have emerged in the recent literature on these matters. (shrink)

This paper examines whether, and if so when, luxury tax is justifiable. After a characterization of luxury tax, I critically examine several arguments that have been or can be made in defence of luxury tax, including Ng’s diamond good argument and a variation of Frank’s positional good argument. I put forward an alternative, expressive argument, according to which luxury tax can help to create and sustain social norms that discourage conspicuous luxury consumption and display of wealth. I explain several ways (...) in which luxury tax fails to achieve the expressive goal and brings about unintended consequences. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 34-47, March 2022.

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 34-47, March 2022.

In this essay I introduce Pierre Rosanvallon’s recent turn toward relational egalitarianism. Rosanvallon has come to find in relational equality the best remedy for liberal democracy’s crisis and thereby joins a number of egalitarian thinkers who prioritize social and political relations over material distribution in their accounts of equality. Rosanvallon stands out for his historic-genealogical engagement with equality. Unlike other egalitarians, Rosanvallon is also a theorist of democratic legitimacy and governance, which invites a broader contextualization of his egalitarianism. My aim (...) in this essay is to provide such contextualization and to further discuss how elements of earlier works prepared a turn to relational equality bound up with increasingly global political theorizing. Inspired by Tocqueville and Marx, Rosanvallon regards democratic socialism as the normatively preferable regime type for relational equality. As I try to show, his political ambitions for democratic socialism run into a number of problems, mainly due to a schizophrenic relationship to the notion of class and his remarks on the relationship between democracy and capitalism. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.