I critically examine a common liberal egalitarian view about the justification for, and proper content of, mandatory health insurance. This view holds that a mandate is justified because it is the best way to ensure that those in poor health gain health insurance on equitable terms. It also holds that a government should mandate what a representative prudent individual would purchase for themselves if they were placed in fair conditions of choice. I argue that this common justification for a mandate (...) is incomplete. A further reason for mandated insurance is that it helps secure social egalitarian public goods that would be underprovided if insurance were optional. I also argue that rather than mandating what a representative individual would choose for themselves, we should design the mandatory package by appealing to a pluralistic egalitarian view, which cares about improving people’s well-being, reducing unfair inequality, and maintaining egalitarian social relations. (shrink)

This article focuses on the challenge of determining the relative weight of domestic and global justice demands. This problem concerns a variety of views that differ on the metric, function, scope, grounds and fundamental interpretation of justice norms. I argue that domestic and global economic justice are irreducibly interdependent. In order to address their exact relation, I discuss and compare three theoretical models: (i) the bottom-up-approach, which prioritizes domestic justice; (ii) the top-down-approach, which prioritizes global justice; and (iii) the horizontal (...) framework, according to which both domestic and global principles pose equally stringent demands that are to be implemented horizontally, without attributing a simple priority to one over the other. I argue that the third model represents the best overall framework, although more complex normative criteria need to be elaborated on the basis of this approach, affecting issues such as justice in climate change mitigation and adaption, development cooperation, trade, finance, taxation and immigration. (shrink)

We set out longtermist political philosophy as a research field by exploring the case for, and the implications of, ‘institutional longtermism’: the view that, when evaluating institutions, we should give significant weight to their very long-term effects. We begin by arguing that the standard case for longtermism may be more robust when applied to institutions than to individual actions or policies, both because institutions have large, broad, and long-term effects, and because institutional longtermism can plausibly sidestep various objections to individual (...) longtermism. We then address points of contact between longtermism and some central values of mainstream political philosophy, focusing on justice, equality, freedom, legitimacy, and democracy. While each value initially seems to conflict with institutional longtermism, we find that these conflicts are less clear-cut upon closer inspection, and that some political values might even provide independent support for institutional longtermism. We end with a grab bag of related questions that we lack space to explore here. (shrink)

This dissertation identifies and responds to a problem for liberal relational egalitarians. There is a prima facie worry about the compatibility of liberalism and relational egalitarianism, concerning the requirements of equality in informal social life. Liberalism at least involves a commitment to leaving individuals substantial discretion to pursue their own conceptions of the good. Relational equality is best understood as a kind of deliberative practice about social institutions and practices. Patterns of otherwise innocuous social choices (e.g., where to live, whom (...) to befriend or marry) can create emergent, severe differentials in power, status, and influence, and when they do they can threaten relational equality. If relational equality required individuals to subordinate personal choices to egalitarian considerations, it would run into conflict with liberal commitments. In response, I defend the value of accepting an imperfect realization of relational equality. What I call fair relational equality demands that members of society treat some informal social norms and practices as part of the basic structure of society, in need of justification. Three practices are required to meet that demand. First, the relational-egalitarian society must develop institutional strategies to preempt or mitigate tendencies toward emergent inequality as they are identified. Second, members of society must engage in broad social deliberation about the norms and expectations of informal social interaction. Third, they must be willing to reform social practices where doing so does not impinge on important personal projects and values. (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)

This paper identifies a challenge for liberal relational egalitarians—namely, how to respond to the prospect of emergent inequalities of power, status, and influence arising unintentionally through the free exercise of fundamental individual liberties over time. I argue that these emergent social inequalities can be produced through patterns of nonmalicious choices, that they can in fact impede the full realization of relational equality, and that it is possible they cannot be eliminated entirely without abandoning fundamental liberal commitments to leave individuals substantial (...) discretion in their personal lives. In such cases, I argue that liberal egalitarians should accept fair relational equality—a demanding but nevertheless imperfect form of relational equality. (shrink)

This article claims that the protection of children’s capability for play is a central social-political goal. It provides the following three-premise argument in defense of this claim: we have strong and wide-ranging normative reasons to be concerned with clusters of social deficiency; particular fertile functionings play a key role for tackling clusters of social deficiency; and finally the capability for childhood play is a crucial, ontogenetic prerequisite for the development of those particular fertile functionings. Thus, in so far as we (...) consider it a central political goal to tackle social deficiency, we should be concerned with protection of childhood play capability. This conclusion raises new insights on the importance – for global development policy as well as for welfare states’ aim to secure social justice – of protecting children’s capability to engage in playful activities. (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...

This article brings together two debates in contemporary political philosophy: on the one hand, the dispute between the distributive and relational approaches to equality and, on the other hand, the field of intergenerational equality. I offer an original contribution to the second domain and by doing so, I inform the first. The aim of this article is thus twofold: (1) shedding some light on an under-researched and yet crucial question – ‘which inequalities between generations matter?’ and (2) contributing to a (...) far-reaching debate that touches upon the nature of egalitarianism. After showing that there are two key problems that fall within the scope of intergenerational equality – questions of justice between age groups and questions of equality between birth cohorts – I argue that, contrary to what the default distributive view (complete lives egalitarianism) states, some inequalities between age groups matter independently of their diachronic impact, and so partly for relational reasons. I argue that, even if we are distributive egalitarians, we must endorse the relational egalitarian conception to successfully make sense of some inequalities between age groups. I infer from this both that the putative view that the ‘relational’ conception of equality can be redescribed as distributive must be rejected and that the distributive view requires supplementation (but not necessarily displacement) by the relational view. (shrink)

Two recent collections of papers—Social Equality: On What It Means to Be Equals, edited by Carina Fourie, Fabian Schuppert, and Ivo Wallimann-Helmer and The Equal Society: Essays on Equality in Theory and Practice, edited by George Hull —demonstrate well the wide diversity of perspectives on egalitarianism within political theory today. But there are unifying themes amidst all this diversity. In particular, these collections make plain the extent to which contemporary egalitarianism in all forms is indebted to Rawls. This debt is (...) reflected, for example, in the luck egalitarianism/social egalitarian debate which plays a central role in both books. It is also reflected in the concern so many contemporary egalitarians have for respect and its social basis. But while egalitarianism today owes much to Rawls, this does not mean that Rawls has nothing left to contribute to the conversation. This essay will argue that a return to Rawls can help contemporary egalitarians avoid taking their debates in certain unproductive directions. (shrink)

The Equal Society: Essays on Equality in Theory and Practice. Edited By Hull George.

Why Does Inequality Matter?, by ScanlonT.M.. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 170.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The devotion of a full article in the Paris Agreement to loss and damage was a major breakthrough for the world’s most vulnerable nations seeing to gain support for climate impacts beyond what can be adapted to. But how will loss and damage be paid for, and who will pay it? Will ethics be part of this decision? Here we ask what are the possible means of raising predictable and adequate levels of funding to address loss and damage? Utilizing a (...) framework developed by Marco Grasso, we argue that making the ethical connections between addressing climate impacts and finance mechanisms could significantly enhance their likelihood of being adopted. We briefly review insurance mechanisms and catastrophe bonds, and then move on to six “innovative finance” approaches to funding loss and damage. We utilize six criteria in assessing them: adequacy, predictability, technical feasibility, fairness, and indirect effects, and whether each has a clear link to loss and damage. Several mechanisms for gathering funds emerged as most promising. Three of the six financial mechanisms we reviewed to raise funding involved airline transport: clearly, there is a huge opportunity to tax this sector in one form or another, in recognition of airline emissions’ role in creating losses and damages in vulnerable nations from sea level rise, droughts, floods or hurricanes. Funding loss and damage response is a contentious issue that will get only more unwieldy if Parties’ conceptions of loss and damage are at odds: a common definition of loss and damage needs to be agreed upon under the UNFCCC. Most immediately, to meet any equity criteria, wealthy countries should do more to support the premiums of those who cannot afford insurance. (shrink)

Public insurance is commonly assimilated with redistributive tools mobilized by the welfare state in the pursuit of an egalitarian ideal. This view contains some truth, since the result of insurance, at a given moment, is the redistribution of resources from the lucky to unlucky. However, Joseph Heath considers that the principle of efficiency provides a better normative explanation and justification of public insurance than the egalitarian account. According to this view, the fact that the state is involved in the provision (...) of specific insurance is explained and justified by the greater efficiency of the state, in comparison with markets, in addressing market failures such as moral hazard or adverse selection. Our argument is that while insurance, intrinsically and idealistically, may diverge from a redistributive scheme, it is nevertheless difficult to deny that insurance has nothing to do with equality. More precisely, we argue that insurance may be understood as an egalitarian tool if our understanding of equality is broadened to include relational equality. Our paper aims to briefly recap the debates surrounding public insurance as a redistributive tool, advancing the idea that public insurance may be a relational egalitarian tool. It then presents a number of relational arguments in favor of the involvement of the state in the provision of specific forms of insurance, arguments that have been overlooked given the domination of luck egalitarian approaches in these debates. (shrink)

This article carves out a new path between the two dominant wings of contemporary egalitarianism. The luck egalitarian emphasis on choice and personal responsibility is misplaced because individuals differ so deeply, and arbitrarily, in their choice-making capacities. Allowing inequalities to result from ‘choice’ is akin to allowing inequalities to stem from the possession of any other morally arbitrary factor – such as skin colour or gender. The move towards relational egalitarianism has been a case of two-steps forward, one-step back. While (...) the shift away from the focus on choice is salutary, the concurrent rejection of luck is problematic, given the prevalence and importance of luck-based discrepancies in opportunities to lead a good life. A new conceptual framework is presented: good life egalitarianism. The guiding idea is that given the unavoidable arbitrariness of human capacities, the foundation for a good life should be assured for people regardless of the actual choices that they make. The essential goods necessary for leading a good life – such as the opportunities to self-determine and to enjoy non-dominating social relationships – should be guaranteed to all. (shrink)

Este ensayo se interroga críticamente por la noción de excepción moral desde una cierta manera de entender la moral categórica de Kant, y en contraste con explicaciones consecuencialistas. No tiene propósitos exegéticos sino sistemáticos. El objetivo general es pensar conjuntamente las nociones de excepcionalidad y violencia morales, así como el papel que en ello juegan los conceptos de igualdad y de dignidad. El trabajo contiene una serie de propuestas entrelazadas: que la violencia moral conlleva una ruptura de la igualdad moral, (...) la cual forma parte de las condiciones de asentimiento de una acción, y que, en ausencia de condiciones de asentimiento, se desvanece, localmente, la vinculatoriedad de los deberes morales. Así, las excepciones pueden entenderse como producto de la ruptura local de las condiciones de asentimiento, sin por ello desacreditar la moralidad como un todo. Por el contrario, las excepciones, adecuadamente entendidas, se hacen con la moralidad y por la moralidad. El trabajo sugiere, asimismo, una noción de dignidad kantiana –como concepto límite, y no como el concepto de una propiedad intrínseca de los agentes—, la cual no sólo es compatible con la idea de igualdad moral propuesta, sino que la complementa; además, contribuye a entender la compleja noción de excepción moral dentro del marco de una moral categórica kantiana. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 1, Page 55-74, February 2022. Many find that the objectionable nature of paternalism has something to do with belief. However, since it is commonly held that beliefs are directly governed by epistemic as opposed to moral norms, how could it be objectionable to hold paternalistic beliefs about others if they are supported by the evidence? Drawing on central elements of relational egalitarianism, this paper attempts to bridge this gap. In a first step, it (...) argues that holding paternalistic beliefs about others implies a failure to regard them as equals in terms of their moral agency. In a second step, it shows that the fact that we should regard others as equals in this sense raises the threshold for sufficiency of evidence for paternalistic beliefs to be epistemically justified. That is, moral reasons of relational equality encroach on the epistemic. However, these reasons are not decisive. In cases where others are about to jeopardize critical goods such as their lives, mobility or future autonomy, relational equality sometimes calls for paternalistic action and, by extension, the formation of beliefs that render such action rational. The upshot is that in order to meet demands of relational equality we have a pro tanto reason to not hold paternalistic beliefs about others. (shrink)