Limitarianism holds that there is an upper limit to how many resources, such as wealth and income, people can permissibly have. In this article, I examine the conceptual structure of limitarianism. I focus on the upper limit and the idea that resources above the limit are ‘excess resources’. I distinguish two possible limitarian views about such resources: (i) that excess resources have zero moral value for the holder; and (ii) that excess resources do have moral value for the holder but (...) that their claim to such resources is outweighed by other normative concerns. Moreover, I argue that, depending on the values limitarianism seeks to promote, limitarians should care about the number of people with excess resources or the total amount of excess resources (or both), that they can adopt redistributive measures and/or predistributive measures, and that some versions of limitarianism should take into account the distribution of risk among those above the riches line. (shrink)

This paper discusses limitarianism in light of three popular objections to the redistribution of extreme wealth: (i) that such redistribution legitimizes envy, which is a morally objectionable attitude; (ii) that it disincentivizes the wealthy to invest and work, leading to a diminished social product, and, thereby, making everyone worse-off; and (iii) that it undercuts the pursuit and achievement of human excellence by depriving successful people of resources through which they may otherwise excel. We argue that these objections fail to undermine (...) limitarianism. An elaborated defence against them, rather, reveals how the Standard Defence of limitarianism may be expanded and strengthened by relying explicitly on the importance of preventing a society of envy, avoiding harm to non-rich citizens, and ensuring that humans are given the opportunities to excel in ways that go beyond those that allow for the amassment of wealth. (shrink)

This paper outlines a conceptual framework for a sufficiency economy, defining sufficiency as the space between a generalizable notion of human wellbeing and ungeneralisable excess. It assumes an objective and universal concept of human needs to define a ‘floor’ and the concept of planetary boundaries to define a ‘ceiling’. This is set up as an alternative to the dominant preference satisfaction theory of value. It begins with a brief survey of the potential contributions of sufficientarianism and limitarianism to this endeavor (...) before outlining a theory of objective, universal human need. This recognizes the contextual variable nature of need satisfiers and the distinct methodology required to adjudicate necessities. It then turns to the planetary boundaries literature and utilizes a sequence of causal and normative reasoning to derive an operational ceiling and the concept of ungeneralisable luxuries. The final section addresses how the concepts of floors and ceilings might be operationalized via forms of dialogic democracy but noting the absence of any such institutions at the global level. Its policy conclusion is that a safe climate cannot be achieved through supply-side mitigation alone, and that fair demand-side mitigation necessarily requires a clear distinction between necessities and unnecessary luxuries, between which (hopefully) lies a space of sufficiency. (shrink)

Some theorists of normative explanation argue that we can make sense of debates between first-order moral theories such as consequentialism and its rivals only if we understand their explanations of why the right acts are right and the wrong acts are wrong as generative (e.g. grounding) explanations. Others argue that the standard form of normative explanation is, instead, some kind of unification. Neither sort of explanatory monism can account for all the explanations of particular moral facts that moral theorists seek (...) to state and defend. This paper argues that we can do better if we accept normative explanatory pluralism, the view that at least some particular explananda in normative inquiry have more than one type of correct complete explanation. Such pluralism is supported by what goes on in actual moral inquiry, parallels an independently plausible form of pluralism about scientific explanation, and can offer principled responses to central objections. (shrink)

In earlier work on limitarianism, I argued that setting an upper limit to the amount of wealth that people can permissibly have is justified when decision-makers are unaware of or disagree about the appropriate distributive criterion or if they are unaware of people’s relevant features (or both). Robert Huseby has raised several powerful objections to this presumptive argument for limitarianism. Some of these objections call for a revision of my defence of presumptive limitarianism while others call for clarification, both of (...) which I aim to do in this chapter. I will argue that unless decision-makers have substantive reasons to suggest otherwise, they must act as if there is an upper limit to the amount of wealth that people can permissibly have. (shrink)

The fast pace of technological change necessitates new evaluative and deliberative tools. This article develops a general, functional approach to evaluating technological change, inspired by Nissenbaum’s theory of contextual integrity. Nissenbaum introduced the concept of contextual integrity to help analyze how technological changes can produce privacy problems. Reinterpreted, the concept of contextual integrity can aid our thinking about how technological changes affect the full range of human concerns and values—not only privacy. I propose a generalized concept of contextual integrity that (...) is applicable to a broader variety of circumstances, and I outline a new, general procedure for technological evaluation. Among the attractive features of the proposed approach to evaluating technological change are its context-sensitivity, adaptability, and principled presumptive conservatism, enabled by the mechanism the approach supplies for reevaluating existing practices, norms, and values. (shrink)

According to limitarianism, it is morally impermissible to be too rich. We consider three main challenges to limitarianism: the redundancy objection, the inconclusiveness objection, and the commitment objection. As a distributive principle, we find that limitarianism fails to overcome the three objections—even taking recent theoretical innovations into account. Instead, we suggest that the core commitment of limitarianism can be drawn from the excess intuition. It entails that at some point, people's claims to retain wealth become qualitatively different: they become preposterous (...) from the point of view of interpersonal morality and justification. Extreme wealth, we argue, adds a distinctive expressive reason to worry about inequality and insufficiency, compounding these other distributive injustices. In retaining or wasting excess wealth while others have too little, the wealthy send a message of complete disregard for the interests of their co-citizens. They express that their disadvantaged compatriots have a diminished moral standing. (shrink)

A uniform carbon tax with equal per capita dividends is usually advocated as a cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without increasing, and in many cases even reducing, economic inequality, in particular because of the positive balance between the carbon taxes paid by the worse off and the carbon dividends they receive back. In this article, I argue that a uniform carbon tax reform is unjust regardless of how the revenue is used, because it does not discourage the (...) rich from indulging in wasteful emissions. This is at odds with a normative account of the distribution of the GHG budget that I define as emissions limitarianism, which is a climate derivative of economic limitarianism. Emissions limitarianism holds that, under low GHG budget conditions, emissions permits should not be used to achieve functionings that over-consume the GHG budget without producing significant welfare gains relative to the achievement of alternative functionings. Accordingly, I argue that a uniform carbon tax should be complemented by a limitarian carbon tax, which restricts the capabilities of the rich to achieve wasteful emission-generating functionings. The article adopts a methodological multi-level perspective on capabilities as a measure of welfare, distinguishing between basic, secondary and tertiary capabilities. (shrink)

The growing concentration of wealth has acquired a new urgency in recent years. One particular view in this context is developed by Ingrid Robeyns in her ground-breaking work on limitarianism. According to this view, no one should have more than a certain amount of valuable goods, such as income and wealth. The contributors to this symposium, Brian Berkey, David Axelsen and Lasse Nielsen, Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman, and Lena Halldenius, critically examine various aspects of limitarianism. In particular, they examine (...) how limitarianism should be interpreted and developed as a principle of justice, on what reasons speak in favour and against limitarianism, and on how limitarianism relates to other principles of distributive justice. Our hope is that this symposium will contribute to the ongoing debate in political philosophy about the concentration of wealth and economic justice. (shrink)

This article is a critical analysis of Ingrid Robeyns’ “economic limitarianism” (2017, 2019, 2022), the suggestion that there is a moral case against allowing people to be richer than they need to be in order to achieve full flourishing. Wealth above a certain “riches line” lacks value and should be capped at that level. Robeyns claims that limitarianism is justified as a partial theory of economic justice, since vast wealth is a threat to political equality and the revenue raised from (...) taxing wealth can be used to meet urgent needs. She also claims that limitarianism is problem-driven philosophy and should be judged by its capacity to address problems in the world as it is. The argument in this article is that limitarianism fails on its own premises, both as partial theory of justice and as guide to decision-making. The arguments invoked in its favour as theory does not provide reasons to support it over other redistributive schemes. As guide to practical action, it runs counter to what empirical research reveals about how attitudes to economic inequality works in that people’s acceptance of inequality adjusts: the more unequal a society is, the more inequality is accepted as fair. By disregarding inequalities below the riches-line as well as the economic system that produces them, limitarianism has no tools for countering this adjustment and risks legitimating a politics of inequality. Anyone who shares Robeyns’ concerns about economic inequality have reason to be wary of limitarianism. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Wer Politikwissenschaft studiert, lernt, was gute empirische Arbeiten ausmacht. Wie sieht es aber in der Politischen Theorie aus? Wie kann man systematisch ergründen, was gerecht ist oder welche Entscheidungen Politiker:innen treffen sollten? Wie erweitert die Positive Politische Theorie den Horizont empirischer Erklärungen? Was macht eine überzeugende Interpretation historischer Texte aus – und was können Studierende in einer Hausarbeit zu den großen Klassikern noch sagen? Dieses Lehrbuch vermittelt das Handwerkszeug, um Probleme in der Positiven wie Normativen Politischen Theorie und Ideengeschichte eigenständig (...) anzugehen – anwendungsorientiert und leicht verständlich, verknüpft mit Argumentationstheorie und Grundlagen des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 230-248, June 2022.

The article outlines the distributive demands of relational equality in the form of a dynamic corridor of legitimate distributive inequality. It does so by complementing the already widely accepted sufficientarian floor with a limitarian ceiling, leading, in a first step, to a "corridor" of limited distributive inequality as a necessary condition for relational equality. This corridor alone, however, only provides necessary distributive conditions for relational equality and still allows for degrees of distributive inequality that would risk undermining egalitarian relations. Thus, (...) in a second step, intra-corridor distributive inequalities must be regulated by two further constraints: a (context- dependent) ratio between the best- and worst-off, and a demand for equality of opportunity so that inequalities result from people’s responsible choices. This set of demands spells out the distributive conditions that are not only necessary, but sufficient to provide a sound distributive basis for relational equality. After presenting this view, the article defends it against several objections. (shrink)