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Notes
See Cohen (2008: 310–311) (footnote 51) who attributes this view to “Luck Egalitarians such as Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, and John Roemer.”
Lippert-Rasmussen (2015: 1).
Arneson says that this view is a “close cousin” or an “outlier member” of LE. See Arneson (2000: 341); Arneson (2018: 168), but notice that this view is not luck egalitarian in the above sense (of adopting the formula that inequality is unjust if the worse off person is not responsible for her position).
Arneson (1999: 239).
A possible response to the first horn of the dilemma may be that even if LE is reducible to familiar considerations such as comparative desert, it is still not theoretically redundant because it identifies a distinct part of morality, namely, "distributive justice". However, as we note in the next paragraph, luck egalitarians do not usually adopt a view that is completely reductionist.
Cohen (2008: 71–72).
Cohen (2006: 443).
For a similar distinction, see Arneson (2011: 35), Anderson (2008: 244–245). This formulation is unclear with regard to the relation between choice and fault: the formulation “choice or fault” suggests a disjunction, but this is incompatible with the assumption that “fault” refers to a choice that involves fault, since then the “fault” part would be redundant. It is also clear that the idea is not that both choice and fault (in the above sense) are required, since then the “choice” part would be redundant (assuming that fault requires choice).
Notice that this conception of desert – which refers to the degree to which people are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy – is different from conceptions of desert that focus on other variables. For example, Brouwer and Mulligan (2019: 2276) suggest, as an alternative to LE, that what a person deserves depends on her “social contribution”, even if it is a matter of luck. To the extent to which this is an account of moral desert, it seems to us implausible.
Relatedly, the exposition of the desert conception of LE in terms of luck is misleading. For the basic question according to this interpretation of LE is not if a person is worse off as a result of luck, but rather if she should be blamed for the action due to which she is worse off. In the pond case, for example, Anna should be compensated because she does not deserve to be worse off – and not because she suffered bad luck. Compare Eyal (2007: 4).
Moreover, even if the implication of desert that Anna should get more than compensation for the harm that she suffered is beyond what is required by distributive justice, this is compatible with a reductionist view that includes also other familiar values such as autonomy and liberty. We discuss this option in section 4.
Moreover, if both of these options are compatible with justice, it seems reasonable to assume that justice is compatible with every allocation between these two options, namely, every allocation that is not strictly equal but less unequal than the unequal allocation that accurately reflects the differences in desert.
And indeed every distribution between these options (namely, 1:9 and 5:5).
Kagan (1998: 312).
Temkin (2017: 55) confesses that the title of his first book ("inequality") misdescribes his "comparative fairness" view.
Lippert-Rasmussen (2015: 53).
Furthermore, it seems that the surfer should not always suffer all of the consequences of her imprudent choice, for example, if she is very badly off due to the weakness of her will, such that she does not have enough resources to support herself at old age. This compromise may be explained by the fact that some considerations, such as priority for the worse off and desert, may support compensation, while other considerations, such as autonomy and liberty, oppose it. Thus, it seems that a position that is based on familiar considerations such as desert, priority, utility, autonomy and liberty may deliver plausible results in this case. To be sure, some may insist that the akratic surfer is never entitled to any compensation. This view may not be explained by a reductionist position, but we believe that it is too harsh.
A similar, and more general, counterexample is every contract that includes an allocation of risks.
See Eyal (2007: 14).
Compare Burri (2020: 402).
Those that accept moral luck hold that consequences may affect the degree to which a person is blameworthy or praiseworthy. But even this view is different than the choice conception since the latter view considers only the consequences of choices and not also their moral value.
Common versions of the choice conception condemn inequalities that are due to “brute luck” while accepting inequalities that are due to “option luck”, as only the latter is the result of choices. See Dworkin (1981: 293). The distinction between brute luck and option luck also does not strictly follow from the previous elements, inter alia, since this distinction itself is vague. See Dworkin (1981: 293), Cohen (1989: 934). For example, Dworkin suggests that people should bear the consequences of their “ambition”, namely, preferences that the agent identifies with, as opposed to their “endowment”, that is, other circumstances. Thus, if one person earns less than another since there is less demand for her talents, she should be compensated because her predicament is due to her endowment rather than her ambition. In contrast, if she earns less because of her decision to work less she is not entitled to compensation. See Dworkin (2000: 89). This appears to be a qualified version of the choice conception (although Dworkin himself refused to identify his view as luck egalitarian), since it entails that some choices – those that are related to ambition in some sense – matter for distributive justice. Of course, as we note below, some deny the significance of this distinction.
Recall, for example, Cohen's formulation: “justice endorses deviations from equality if and only if the unequally placed parties are relevantly responsible for that deviation" (Cohen 2008: 310–311).
The sense of responsibility that refers to choices is closer to responsibility in the sense of “attributability” as opposed to “accountability”, although there are different accounts of “attributability” and some of which at least require more than a choice to perform the action. For this distinction, see, for example, Watson (1996), Brink (2019: 350).
Compare Lippert-Rasmussen (2015: 199). Indeed, the view that choices justify in themselves a different treatment is dismissed out of hand in other contexts. For example, the view that discrimination is wrong only when the relevant property, such as race or sex, is not a matter of choice is unpopular. Discrimination based on sex, for example, is wrong even if it is possible to choose one's sex. Discrimination is wrong regardless of such a choice because the decision not to change one’s sex is not morally blameworthy. (This is the case even if the choice to change one's sex does not involve a cost. See, for example, Lippert-Rasmussen (2014: 108).)
For discussion, see Arneson (2011: 35).
While we believe that most plausible account of LE must consider the moral value of the choice, and that the best explanation for this observation is a view that includes an element of desert, it does not follow that desert is the only pertinent factor. We consider alternative options in section 3 and argue that they are less plausible.
See Olsaretti (2009).
This example is based on Chambers (2009: 375–376).
This appears to be true even assuming, for the sake of the argument, that Olsaretti (2009: 185) is right that a desert account of LE is incomplete since "what exactly" people deserve is not determined by desert itself but only settled given a certain institutional context.
See, for example, Lippert-Rasmussen (2015: 18).
For discussion, see Olsaretti (2009: 175).
Compare, for example, Segall (2012: 150–151).
Of course, some luck egalitarians may reject our intuitions regarding the relevant cases. Our point here is just that our view does not beg the question against LE by assuming a standard that they reject.
In addition, as noted above, it is doubtful if the intuitive verdict indeed supports the view that choices matter in themselves when they are morally neutral.
See Temkin (2017: 57–58). Temkin also mentions the decision to have children, but the intuitive appeal of this example may be misguided. If (as Temkin seems to assume) a parent is at least equally deserving but worse off, this does seem unfair. However, parents are presumably often not worse off due to their decision to have children. Indeed, people often decide to have children because they think that this will make them better off overall.
Eyal (2007: 6).
This problem exists even if this view incorporates the above qualifications that limit the scope of the consequences that a person who made a culpable choice should bear – as long as the limitation does not reflect the degree of culpability, such as it is reducible to desert.
It may be objected that this view is plausible if one accepts moral luck, namely, if one is more blameworthy when the consequences of her action are bad even if this is due to luck. (If this is the case, the above view should not be classified as a hybrid view but rather as an interpretation of the unqualified idea of desert.) However, beyond the general doubts concerning consequential moral luck, this interpretation does not seem to be in line with versions of LE whose focus in on consequences that affect the agent, as the idea of moral luck focuses on consequences that are other-regarding.
Hyams (2019).
Thaysen and Albertsen (2017: 94).
Id.
This is Knight's term (Knight 2021: 2).
Id.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the participants in the conference on “The Legacy of G. A. Cohen: Ten Years On” that took place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on December 2019, and especially to Shlomi Segall, for helpful comments and discussions.
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Malcai, O., Segev, R. A Dilemma for Luck Egalitarians. J Value Inquiry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09949-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09949-2