Pluralist egalitarians think that luck and relational egalitarianism each articulates a component in a pluralist account of egalitarian justice. However, this ecumenical view appears problematic in the light of Elizabeth Anderson's claim that the divide arises because two incompatible views of justification are in play, which in turn generates derivative disagreements – e.g. about the proper currency of egalitarian justice. In support of pluralist egalitarianism I argue that two of Anderson's derivative disagreements are not rooted in the disagreement over justification (...) she identifies, and that the disagreement over justification cuts across standard disagreements between luck and relational egalitarian justice. (shrink)

In any normal population, health is unequally distributed across different age groups. Are such age-based health inequalities unjust? A divide has recently developed within egalitarian theories of...

On Jeff McMahan's influential ‘responsibility account’ of moral liability to defensive killing, one can forfeit one's right not be killed by engaging in an ordinary, morally permissible risk-imposing activity, such as driving a car. If, through no fault of hers, a driver's car veers out of control and toward a pedestrian, the account deems it no violation of the driver's right to save the pedestrian's life at the expense of the driver's life. Many critics reject the responsibility account on the (...) grounds that, first, it has draconian implications for threateners like the driver, and second, it contravenes the plausible principle that wronging one's victim is necessary for forfeiting one's rights. But I argue, drawing on the account's luck-egalitarian underpinnings, that the account lacks the draconian implications widely attributed to it, and contrary to what many assume, wrongdoing is unnecessary for rights-forfeiture. Via these arguments, I seek both to deepen our understanding of the responsibility account, and to reissue it in a more plausible and attractive form. (shrink)