Abstract
The family of theories dubbed ‘luck egalitarianism’ represent an attempt to infuse egalitarian thinking with a concern for personal responsibility, arguing that inequalities are just when they result from, or the extent to which they result from, choice, but are unjust when they result from, or the extent to which they result from, luck. In this essay I argue that luck egalitarians should sometimes seek to limit inequalities, even when they have a fully choice-based pedigree (i.e., result only from the choices of agents). I grant that the broad approach is correct but argue that the temporal standpoint from which we judge whether the person can be held responsible, or the extent to which they can be held responsible, should be radically altered. Instead of asking, as Standard (or Static) Luck Egalitarianism seems to, whether or not, or to what extent, a person was responsible for the choice at the time of choosing, and asking the question of responsibility only once, we should ask whether, or to what extent, they are responsible for the choice at the point at which we are seeking to discover whether, or to what extent, the inequality is just, and so the question of responsibility is not settled but constantly under review. Such an approach will differ from Standard Luck Egalitarianism only if responsibility for a choice is not set in stone—if responsibility can weaken then we should not see the boundary between luck and responsibility within a particular action as static. Drawing on Derek Parfit’s illuminating discussions of personal identity, and contemporary literature on moral responsibility, I suggest there are good reasons to think that responsibility can weaken—that we are not necessarily fully responsible for a choice for ever, even if we were fully responsible at the time of choosing. I call the variant of luck egalitarianism that recognises this shift in temporal standpoint and that responsibility can weaken Dynamic Luck Egalitarianism (DLE). In conclusion I offer a preliminary discussion of what kind of policies DLE would support.
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Notes
Seligman’s formulation makes the cut between choice and luck, whereas I have talked about responsibility and luck. The argument advanced in this paper can be seen as an argument for the latter cut over the former. When this argument has been advanced in the past (e.g. Dworkin 2000, pp. 287–291), it has usually been advanced on the basis that responsibility is wider than choice—i.e., there are some things, namely our ends, that we must be held responsible for, even if we didn’t choose them. Whatever the merits of that particular argument, my argument here attempts to demonstrate that, in some ways, responsibility is narrower than choice. Even if it is true to say that I chose something, I may no longer be (fully) responsible for that choice, even if I was fully responsible at the time.
Luck egalitarian G.A. Cohen (2008) seems to use the terms equality, fairness and distributive justice interchangeably (although Michael Otsuka (2010) suggests that Cohen should be seen as viewing it as a theory of fairness not equality). Larry S. Temkin (1993, p. 13) labels unchosen or undeserved inequality as bad, unjust and unfair. For Adam Swift (2008, p. 363), luck egalitarianism is about ‘the kind of comparative justice I would call fairness’. Zofia Stemplowska (2009, p. 238) discusses luck egalitarianism as a theory of ‘egalitarian justice’, which is distinguished from ‘all-things-considered justice’.
Hereafter I will simply talk of it as a theory of ‘justice’, although that term must be understood in the qualified sense outlined above.
In some ways this is similar to an example presented by Clare Chambers 2009, pp. 375–376. In that case, two students of equal merit try to get into Oxford University. Only one succeeds. This initial difference quickly snowballs into large differences. Chambers’ example is importantly different from mine, in that the initial inequality can be described as one of good fortune (getting into Oxford over an equally-qualified candidate), whereas the initial inequality here is choice-based. Chambers is concerned with the way that small instances of luck snowball (pp. 393–394). I am concerned with how choices snowball.
See, for example, Voigt 2007.
Additionally, I don’t think that intuitions regarding absolute poverty and regarding inequality are fully separable: I think that what strikes us as problematic about people being poor is at least in part inequality. Poverty is far more troubling when there are those around with plenty, and what we judge to be poverty shifts with average position.
I am grateful to Barbara Fried for useful discussion here.
I am grateful to an ETMP referee for putting this way of thinking about the cases to me.
We can also formulate a Revised Investment case such that the total impact on Alan’s life is equal in Investment and Revised Investment, but in Revised Investment the effects of Alan’s poor choice are only felt in a short time period following the choice.
It is worth noting that this is but one way that this type of argument can be made. The main point is that Parfit challenges the notion that responsibility is transferred through identity by thinking about what identity consists in. He then sees that what underlies identity is variable, and therefore we should place moral weight on that variable concept, rather than the binary concept of identity. This same strategy could be used for different underlying concepts. For example, physicalists could make a similar challenge, based on numbers of identical cells.
Parfit does not, in Reasons and Persons, unpack Relation R much beyond the description given here. Later, I will consider some different ways that Relation R might need to change in order for responsibility to diminish, although those remarks will be necessarily brief and suggestive. If the broad idea of DLE is accepted (my aim here) then what kinds of connections and continuities are to count as responsibility-generating will be a matter for discussion.
This view has an ancestor in Anthony Quinton’s (1962) ‘soul phases’.
Sarah Hannan has asked the following difficult question of this version of DLE—how should DLE regard two people who make identical choices, but whose Relation R deteriorates at different speeds as a matter of luck? In addition, we can ask whether DLE should treat deteriorations in Relation R which are a matter of choice and those that are a matter of luck differently. I don’t have space here to fully develop the arguments, but, in short, my position is that in determining responsibility DLE should only look to what extent someone is R-Related to the person who made a responsibility-generating choice. It should not investigate whether, or to what extent, the strength of that relationship is a matter of luck or choice, nor whether others have deteriorated at different rates. Relation R defines whether and to what extent we are responsible for some past action, it doesn’t matter how or why we are so related.
The comments in this section also tie up with the former section in that they (begin to) answer the crucial question that, if we accept the fully Parfitian version of DLE, Parfit does not answer: in what way must Relation R change for responsibility to diminish?
I do not think that the opposite slide can take place—responsibility cannot increase as Relation R diminishes. Nevertheless, changes in Relation R might change what kind of luck we view something as. Imagine something happens to me that is initially regarded as bad brute luck, and thus something that I am eligible for compensation for. As Relation R changes (perhaps in adapting to the incident) I may come to regard my position as fortuitous, and one that I would have chosen. This may then be a matter of good luck (depending on the incident in question and the understanding of wellbeing, or metric, used), and I may have to compensate others less delighted with their lot. I am grateful to an audience member at the University of Sheffield for prompting me to think about this.
I am grateful to an ETMP referee for encouraging me to address this issue.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful for questions and comments from Christian Barry, Yitzhak Benbaji, Dan Butt, Ian Carroll, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Barbara Fried, Bob Goodin, Sarah Hannan, Hugh Lazenby, Meena Krishnamurthy, Dan McDermott, David Miller, Jonathan Pickering, Jahel Queralt Lange, Nic Southwood, anonymous referees and audiences at the University of Oxford, the Australian National University, and the University of Sheffield. I am especially grateful to Rob Jubb, Zofia Stemplowska and Laura Valentini for discussion, comments and encouragement. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the AHRC.
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Tomlin, P. Choices Chance and Change: Luck Egalitarianism Over Time. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 16, 393–407 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-012-9340-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-012-9340-0