Abstract Following Temkin's Inequality I take my point of departure in an individualistic approach according to which a situation is bad in respect of inequality to the extent individuals in it have egalitarian complaints. After having criticised some of Temkin's notions of inequality, I argue that there are two proper egalitarian conceptions, the Equal Share Conception and the Place Conception. The first concerns how much welfare an individual can claim to have in order to have what she should have in (...) virtue of equality. The second concerns an individual's egalitarian complaint in so far as it depends on her place in a situation's distribution of welfare. I argue that the first conception can be employed in a defence of Telic Egalitarianism against Derek Parfit's Levelling Down Objection and that the second one can explain why this objection may seem so convincing. I also argue that Telic Egalitarianism, understood according to the first conception, in one respect is preferable to Parfit's Priority View. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the question of the scope of justice, in a not unusual distributive, egalitarian, and universalistic framework. Part I outlines some central features of the egalitarian theory of justice I am proposing. According to such a conception, justice is – at least prima facie – immediately universal, and therefore global. It does not morally recognize any judicial boundaries or limits. Part II examines whether, even from a universalistic perspective, there are moral or pragmatic grounds for rejecting (...) or limiting the global scope of justice. In particular, I scrutinize five universalistic objections: (1) the principle of “moral division of labor”; (2) the connection between cooperation and distributive justice; (3) the primacy of democracy; (4) the dangers of a world state; and (5) political‐pragmatic reasons. I intend to show that these objections cannot undermine the strong normative claims of global justice. At the most, political‐pragmatic reasons speak in favor of initially striving for somewhat less, in order to receive more general backing. (shrink)

This article asks about the justification for the principle of political equality in the sense of equal entitlement to basic rights. A preliminary portion criticizes standard justifications that refer to a property or properties all human beings share; these fail because they are untrue, irrelevant, or question-begging. The more substantial and constructive portion of the article then argues for a different, indirect mode of justification, based on rebuttals of historical presumptions of inequality and the actual evolution of the idea of (...) equality through partial steps and specific precedents. The justification of political equality is thus connected to the explanation of its emergence. (shrink)