Luck and Social Justice: A Critical Examination of Luck Egalitarianism
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Cheng, Pei-Lung
Abstract
This thesis examines the concepts of luck, equality and social justice, and their conceptual relationship, within the framework of contemporary liberal political philosophy. Luck is morally arbitrary, yet people’s lives can be influenced by it in substantive ways. Therefore a theory of justice must deal with luck and its effect; in particular, the deep inequalities that originated from luck must be treated in a proper manner. The liberal egalitarian theories of Rawls and Dworkin intend to mitigate the effects of luck without neutralizing it. But the basic idea of luck egalitarianism seems to require that luck be neutralized in order to obtain liberty, equality and justice simultaneously. The luck egalitarian conception of distributive justice is primarily based on a principle of desert, which is here defined and embodied in what is within a person’s choice or control: thus what one deserves is indeed defined in the exclusion of luck. In this thesis luck egalitarianism is rejected in spite of its intuitive attraction. It is argued that the principle of desert constitutes at best just one, albeit important, element of justice. In a just society, free actions and legitimate expectations cannot be based on a principle of desert, but have to rely on and to be determined by some existing rules. Luck egalitarianism fails to formulate a pattern of just distribution which is consistent with the principle of desert and a concept of rules at the same time, so it also fails to reconcile liberty and equality, the two fundamental values, in it’s conception of distributive justice.
Subjects
Social Justice
Luck Egalitarianism
John Rawls
Ronald Dworkin
Type
thesis
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