The Correct Cut

Abstract

In this chapter, I begin with the Rawlsian intuition that we eliminate as decisive those factors that influence the distribution of social goods, and that affect one’s life chances, but that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. I also take seriously the intuition that our egalitarian duty is to hold constant those factors that affect life chances, but that are out of the control of the individual, and yet hold people morally responsible for inequalities that result from instances of genuine choice. Of course, a position that relies on identifying instances of genuine choice must take some position on the free will problem, and so I describe a contextualist view of responsibility, which side-steps the free problem, and allows us to describe responsibility along some reasonable continuum. In this way, I defend Cohen’s position against objections that either it is stuck in the free will problem with no solution, or that the solution requires us to hold people responsible for which it is either impractical or inappropriate.