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To use Scanlon’s terminology, egalitarian skeptics maintain that the only sound reasons for objecting to the difference between what some have and what others have are reasons in the broader, but not the narrower, sense.
Scanlon, p. 2.
Scanlon does not reject non-relational egalitarianism. He asserts only that “it is not clear that [non-relational inequality] is objectionable.” Ibid., p. 9.
Ibid.
This is the idea that “everyone counts morally, regardless of differences such as race, their gender, and where they live.” Ibid., p. 4.
I am assuming that if equality is a necessary contributory component of an intrinsically valuable relationship, then it is itself intrinsically valuable.
For a statement of the general thesis see S. Scheffler, “What is Egalitarianism?,” Philosophy and Public Affairs Winter 2003 .
Scanlon, p. 8.
Ibid., p. 85.
Ibid., p. 80.
To clarify: by proper functioning I mean that the process responds well to the relevant reasons that apply to the institutions in question. To make the present point, however, the relevant reasons must be taken to exclude any purported reasons that follow from acceptance of some rival opportunity principle.
Scanlon, p. 32.
Mill proposed a variety of different mechanisms, from proportional representation to special commissions on legislation, to ensure that, as he put it, “the instructed few” had a greater say in politics. These mechanisms, or ones like them, could be employed without also adopting his infamous plural voting proposal. See J. S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government. See also P. Van Parijs, “Disenfranchising the Elderly and other Attempts to Secure Intergenerational Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs June 2006.
J. Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Harvard University Press 2001, p. 49.
Scanlon, p. 139.
Ibid., p. 117.
Henceforth, I will only have comparative desert in mind. Economic desert claims, in my view, are always comparative. For discussion of this point—from which I have benefited – see T. Hurka, “Desert: Individualistic and Holistic” in Desert and Justice, ed. S. Olsaretti (Oxford University Press 2007) .
See Scanlon’s example on p. 128.
Ibid.
Hurka, “Desert: Individualistic and Holistic,” p. 67.
This holds true, even if a subjectivist view of welfare is assumed. For people’s actual preferences can diverge from the preferences they would have if adequately informed or were in more favorable circumstances.
Scanlon, p. 129n16 (citing A. Sen, “Just Deserts,” New York Review of Books, March 4, 1982).
Might one say instead that the presumption of equality remains in place, but, if I am right, productive contribution is just another factor, like the need for incentives to elicit productive efforts, that can be appealed to in order to overcome it? One advantage of putting the matter the way I have put it is that it avoids the objection that appeal to factors of this kind betray the initial equality that reciprocity required. (See on this G. A. Cohen’s charge that the justification of incentive-based inequalities in the Rawlsian framework is merely factual and does not cohere with the normative principles that inform it.) By contrast, if the contribution principle informs the underlying account of reciprocity, no such charge of betrayal would be apt.
For example, I have not said anything about his important discussion of equal concern.
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Wall, S. Equality, political fairness and desert. Philos Stud 176, 3375–3385 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01348-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01348-3