Philosophy

Moral Luck

Moral luck occurs when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of moral judgment despite the fact that a significant aspect of what she is assessed for depends on factors beyond her control. Bernard Williams writes, “when I first introduced …

Justice and Bad Luck

Some people end up worse off than others partly because of their bad luck. For instance, some die young due to a genetic disease, whereas others live long lives. Are such differential luck induced inequalities unjust? Many are inclined to answer this …

Luck

Winning a lottery, being hit by a stray bullet, or surviving a plane crash, all are instances of a mundane phenomenon: luck. Mundane as it is, the concept of luck nonetheless plays a pivotal role in central areas of philosophy, either because it is …

Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy. An egalitarian favors equality of some sort: People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect. An alternative view expands on this …

Luck Egalitarianism - A Primer

This essay surveys varieties of the luck egalitarian project in an exploratory spirit, seeking to identify lines of thought that are worth developing further and that might ultimately prove morally acceptable. I do not attend directly to the critics …

Responsibility and Distributive Justice

Under what conditions are people responsible for their choices and the outcomes of those choices? How could such conditions be fostered by liberal societies? Should what people are due as a matter of justice depend on what they are responsible for? …

Luck Egalitarianism and Political Solidarity

Luck egalitarianism---the theory that makes individual responsibility central to distributive justice, so that bad luck underwrites a more compelling case for redistribution than do the bad choices of the disadvantaged---has recently come under a …

Two Objections to Luck Egalitarianism

The doctrine of ‘Luck Egalitarianism’ can be defined as follows: LUCK EGALITARIANISM A person should not be worse off than anyone else, in respect of some given metric or currency of goods, as a result of brute bad luck. Luck Egalitarianism is a …