Luck Egalitarianism: Equality, Responsibility, and Justice

Carl Knight

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0748638695 ISBN 13: 9780748638697

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2009

How should we decide which inequalities between people are justified, and which are unjustified? One answer is that such inequalities are only justified where there is a corresponding variation in responsible action or choice on the part of the persons concerned. This view, which has become known as 'luck egalitarianism', has come to occupy a central place in recent debates about distributive justice. This book is the first full length treatment of this significant development in contemporary political philosophy. Each of its three parts addresses a key question concerning the theory. Which version of luck egalitarian comes closest to realizing luck egalitarian objectives? Does luck egalitarianism succeed as a view of egalitarian justice? And is it sound as an account of distributive justice in general? The book provides a distinctive answer to each of these questions, along the way engaging with the leading theorists identified in the literature as luck egalitarians, such as Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, and Ronald Dworkin, as well as the most influential critics, including Elizabeth Anderson, Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, Samuel Scheffler, and Jonathan Wolff.Key Features *Presents a critical survey of already classic debates about responsibility, equality and justice *Provides a sustained engagement with luck egalitarianism's critics *Stakes a distinctive position on the key questions regarding luck egalitarianism

Review:

How far does our responsibility for one another's well-being extend? At what point, if ever, is each person responsible for success or failure in running her own life? Carl Knight develops promising answers to these vexed questions and brings a judicious philosophical intelligence, strong common sense, and a knack for conceptual clarity to what is an unruly terrain. He surveys alternatives, takes the measure of the critics, and points the way forward with an original synthesis.
--Professor Richard J. Arneson, University of California, San Diego

About the Author:

Carl Knight is a Research Fellow at the Adam Smith Research Foundation and the Department of Politics, University of Glasgow. He is co-editor, with Zofia Stemplowska, of Distributive Justice and Responsibility (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).