This book develops a novel approach to distributive justice by building a theory based on a concept of desert. As a work of applied political theory, it presents a simple but powerful theoretical argument and a detailed proposal to eliminate unmerited inequality, poverty, and economic immobility, speaking to the underlying moral principles of both progressives who already support egalitarian measures and also conservatives who have previously rejected egalitarianism on the grounds of individual freedom, personal responsibility, hard work, or economic efficiency. (...) By using an agnostic, flexible, data-driven approach to isolate luck and ultimately measure desert, this proposal makes equal opportunity initiatives both more accurate and effective as it adapts to a changing economy. It grants to each individual the freedom to genuinely choose their place in the distribution. It provides two policy variations that are perfectly economically efficient, and two others that are conditionally so. It straightforwardly aligns outcomes with widely shared, fundamental moral intuitions. Lastly, it demonstrates much of the above by modeling four policy variations using 40 years of survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. (shrink)

In its most part, this article is a critique of three of the most common ways of defining egalitarianism: 1) egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy to which belong (all) philosophers who support a form of equality, whatever it may be, between all members of a community; 2) egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy which has as a ultimate or foundational value equality in the abstract sense of treating all people as equals; and 3) (...) egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy that defends equality in the distribution of certain goods or resources. In the last part of the article I defend the idea that egalitarianism is much better described as a trend of thought in political philosophy that defends a substantial equality between all members of a community as a ultimate principle of social justice. (shrink)

The moral consideration of nonhuman animals and the critique of speciesism have been defended by appeal to a variety of ethical theories. One of the main approaches in moral and political philosophy today from which to launch such a defense is egalitarianism, which is the view that we should aim at favoring the worse off by reducing inequality. This paper explains what egalitarianism is and shows the important practical consequences it has for nonhuman animals, both those that are exploited by (...) humans and those in need of aid in the wild. Egalitarianism implies rejecting speciesism, and in practice it prescribes ceasing to exploit nonhuman animals as well as assisting them. Moreover, because they are worse off in comparison to humans, egalitarianism prescribes giving priority to the interests nonhuman animals. Due to this, egalitarianism gives us extra reasons to defend them beyond those entailed by other nonspeciesist approaches. (shrink)

Equality is the central value for egalitarians. It is the value that distinguishes egalitarianism from other political theories. However, if equality is the central value for egalitarians, then why it is of value should be an obvious starting point for any discussion of egalitarianism. This article seeks to clarify the ways in which equality has been valued in philosophical discussion. I discuss the standard ways of valuing equality and argue that an understanding of equality as valuable because it is part (...) of other values offers an important new insight into how we value equality especially in relation to the traditional understanding of equality as either intrinsically or instrumentally valuable. (shrink)

Political egalitarians tend to defend equal distributions of voting power at specific times, as in ‘one election, one vote’. Appealing as it is, the principle seems incompatible with distributing power proportionally to the stakes voters have at different elections, as in ‘one stake, one vote’. This article argues that the tension above stems from the temporal scope ascribed to political equality, as at specific moments of democratic decision-making instead of over entire lives. More specifically, ascribing a lifetime view to political (...) equality renders equality compatible with proportionality at different elections. I first show that storable votes differ from standard votes in their distinctive commitment to lifetime political equality. I then argue that storable voting schemes are compatible with three key reasons to value political equality: equal consideration of interests, relational equality, and non-domination. Finally, storable votes are also consistent with proportionality at specific times. I conclude that the neglected idea of lifetime political equality can, through storable votes, deliver proportionality without inequality. (shrink)

Can outcome equality (say, in welfare) ever be unjust? Despite the extensive inquiry into the nature of luck egalitarianism in recent years, this question is curiously under-explored. Leading luck egalitarians pay little attention to the issue of unjust equalities, and when they do, they appear not to speak in one voice. To facilitate the inquiry into the potential injustice of equalities, the paper introduces two rival interpretations of egalitarianism: the responsibility view, which may condemn equalities as unjust (when they reflect (...) unequal levels of personal responsibility); and, the non-responsibility view, which does not. It then teases out the implications of these two views, in the hope of establishing that the latter is at least as plausible as the former. The paper thus establishes that the egalitarian ideal can be plausibly formulated in a way that condemns only (certain) inequalities but never equalities, and that this formulation is both coherent and attractive. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and explore an alternative to a standard prioritarian axiology. Equality-tempered prioritarianism holds that the value of welfare increases should be balanced against the value of equality. However, given that, under prioritarianism, the value of marginal welfare benefits decreases as the welfare of beneficiaries increases, equality-tempered prioritarianism holds that the intrinsic value of equality will be sufficient to alter a prioritarian verdict only in cases in which welfare benefits are granted to the very well-off. I argue (...) that this view, suitably refined, solves a persistent problem for prioritarianism, and is superior to alternatives. (shrink)

In health care priority setting different criteria are used to reflect the relevant values that should guide decision-making. During recent years there has been a development of value frameworks implying the use of multiple criteria, a development that has not been accompanied by a structured conceptual and normative analysis of how different criteria relate to each other and to underlying normative considerations. Examples of such criteria are unmet need and severity. In this article these crucial criteria are conceptually clarified and (...) analyzed in relation to each other. We argue that disease-severity and condition-severity should be distinguished and we find the latter concept better reflects underlying normative values. We further argue that unmet need does not fulfil an independent and relevant role in relation to condition-severity except for in some limited situations when having to distinguish between conditions of equal severity. (shrink)

Universal basic income proposes providing instalments of constant magnitude to all. One problem with a stable basic income across life is that it seems unfair to shorter-lived persons, who are worst-off due to premature death and receive less over their whole lives. Basic capital solves this problem by providing a one-off grant to the young, but I argue that it mistreats long-lived persons, as it does not guarantee their real freedom across life. There is a dilemma between these proposals regarding (...) their respective unfairness to the short- and long-lived. The solution I propose is a net basic income of decreasing magnitude until a specific age, after which the income is constant. This solution is compatible with constant income benefits across life, and it offers a fair answer to the problem of unequal longevity, a widely neglected but essential challenge in debates about basic income. (shrink)