People disagree about the causes of social inequality and how to most effectively intervene in them. These may seem like empirical questions for social scientists, not philosophers. However, causal explanation itself depends on broadly normative commitments. From this it follows that (moral) philosophers have an important role to play in determining those causal explanations. I examine the case of causal explanations of poverty to demonstrate these claims. In short, philosophers who work to reshape our moral expectations also work, on the (...) back end, to restructure acceptable causal explanations—and hence solutions—for social inequality. Empirical and normative inquiry, then, are a two-way street. (shrink)

This paper explores the role individual responsibility plays in contemporary political theory. It argues that the standard luck egalitarian view—the view according to which distributive justice is ensured by holding people accountable for their exercise of responsibility in the distribution of benefits and burdens—obscures the more fundamental value of being responsible. The paper, then, introduces an account of ‘self-creative responsibility’ as an alternative to the standard view and shows how central elements on which this account is founded has been prominently (...) defended in the history of Western political thought but are comparatively neglected in contemporary political theory. Relying on this account, the paper argues that society should hold persons responsible when, and only when, doing so enables them to lead responsible lives, and only on the condition that doing so does not infringe other persons’ equivalently valuable ability to lead responsible lives. The account of self-creative responsibility, the paper concludes, plausibly captures the intuitive attraction of holding responsible while respecting the value of being responsible. (shrink)

In recent literature, there has been much debate about whether and how luck egalitarianism, given its focus on personal responsibility, can justify universal health care. In this paper we argue that, whether or not this is so, and in fact whether or not egalitarianism should be sensitive to responsibility at all, the question of personal responsibilization for health is not settled. This is the case because whether or not individuals are responsible for their own health condition is not all that (...) is relevant when considering whether we should somehow hold them responsible for their own health condition, e.g. cost-wise. There may also be efficiency-based reasons to hold them responsible, and there may even be egalitarian reasons. Defining universal health care as an insurance system where everyone’s deductible and premium is 0, we will argue that efficiency-based reasons for cost-responsibilization are not convincing, but that there are egalitarian reasons for cost-responsibilization. Luck egalitarianism, therefore, cannot, at least not on its own term, justify universal health care. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the view that persons have a claim to deserved treatment, including many forms of punishment, against an objection resting on the principle that it is not possible to have a claim to harmful treatment. I do not challenge this principle, but argue, rather, that the harms wrongdoers typically deserve either (a) are not genuine harms at all (for reasons relevant to their being deserved) or (b) are not relevant to the content of these wrongdoers' claims.

Uno de los temas centrales de la teoría penal contemporánea es la discusión a favor y en contra de la punición igualada de tentativas y delitos consumados. Este problema es comúnmente analizado desde la perspectiva de la suerte. La meta de los defensores de la punición igualada es erradicar a la suerte de los juicios de responsabilidad penal. Para hacerlo, antes deben diferenciar entre la suerte que afecta los resultados de las acciones y otras clases de suerte involucradas. Rivera López (...) trató de justificar tal límite en el campo de la moral, y si sus ideas pudieran trasladarse al reino del derecho penal podrían ser de gran ayuda para los partidarios de la punición igualada. Aquí trato de plantear algunas observaciones críticas a sus tesis y mostrar que, en última instancia, ellas no pueden dar apoyo a la postulación subjetivista. (shrink)

This paper examines the concepts of desert and luck, familiar in political theory but neglected by sociologists. I argue that the idea of desert is composed of both personal performance and the degree of responsibility a person has over that performance. Distribution ought to be in accordance with the indebtedness created by the person's performance. This can be compromised by luck; that is, personal desert is undermined where lack of performance scuttles the applicability of the contributory model. This paper examines (...) recent work, focusing on establishing desert criteria for each person's ends and life‐plans, and a formula for distribution according to personal welfare. (shrink)

Abstract: In this brief article, I claim that the Contribution Principle invoked by Christian Barry as a key principle for determining who owes what to the global destitute is mistaken as a definitive principle and unjustified as a provisional principle for dealing with global poverty. This principle assumes that merely causing, or contributing to the cause of, a state of affairs may be sufficient to have a special responsibility to bear the costs that this state of affairs entails. I argue (...) that an agent will only have such a special responsibility if he or she has caused a state of affairs (for example, acute destitution) by violating a duty not to do so. Therefore, the Contribution Principle is mistaken. Finally, I tackle two possible responses to my argument. The first claims that states have a duty not to undertake actions that may cause, or contribute to the cause of, acute deprivations. The second claims that although the Contribution Principle may be mistaken as a definitive principle for dealing with global destitution, it is nonetheless correct as a provisional principle. (shrink)

In this contribution, the connection between redressing the past and doing justice in the present is explored by presenting the notion of 'paradox' as a response to 'binary thinking'. In this regard, 'paradox' denotes contradictory, yet interrelated aspects that exist simultaneously. 'Binary thinking' refers to either/or categorical aspects that cannot co-exist. Two paradoxes are explored as a response to increasing polarisation because of a struggle in redressing past injustices: the paradox of remembering and forgetting and the paradox of difference and (...) sameness. This is done by bringing the work of the South African practical theologian, Denise Ackermann, in conversation with the work of the Croatian systematic theologian, Miroslav Volf. From different origins and experiences, both offer a way forward, and a way to move on beyond the devastation that is caused by dealing with injustice, difference and memory in a polarising fashion. The contribution concludes with a reflection on the notion of 'ceding space' from a Trinitarian theological perspective. The ceding of space is proposed as act of transformation, as the outcome of the ideas proposed by Ackermann and Volf, and as a way to live together, 'after the locusts'. (shrink)

What does it take for an individual to be personally responsible for behaviors that lead to increased risk of disease? We examine three approaches to responsibility that cover the most important aspects of the discussion of responsibility and spell out what it takes, according to each of them, to be responsible for behaviors leading to increased risk of disease. We show that only what we call the causal approach can adequately accommodate widely shared intuitions to the effect that certain causal (...) influences—such as genetic make-up or certain social circumstances—diminish, or undermine personal responsibility. However, accepting the causal approach most likely makes personal responsibility impossible. We therefore need either to reject these widely shared intuitions about what counts as responsibility-softening or undermining or to accept that personal responsibility for behaviors leading to increased risk of disease rests on premises so shaky that personal responsibility is probably impossible. (shrink)

In ‘Justice and Nature’, Thomas Nagel claims that social institutions are not responsible for inequalities caused primarily by nature, as opposed to socially caused inequalities. I evaluate this claim. To do so, I distinguish causal responsibility from substantive responsibility. I argue that Nagel rightly identifies conditions in virtue of which social institutions are not substantively responsible for an inequality, but the causal responsibility of nature is irrelevant for that assessment. The natural/social distinction is, I hold, misleading, and I offer two (...) pragmatic reasons to stop using it. Besides, past criticisms to the natural/social distinction have questioned whether identifying the causal responsability of nature for an inequality is descriptively meaningful, epistemically possible, and morally relevant. My reconstruction of Nagel’s view avoids these criticisms, I explain, by depriving the causal responsibility of nature of any role to identify an inequality as naturally caused. Moreover, I show that my reconstruction of Nagel’s view, purged of the natural/social distinction, helps to justify the asymmetrical treatment of class-based inequalities and inequalities among people with different native endowments in the Rawlsian principle of fair equality of opportunity. (shrink)