Two Concepts of Social Equality: What Luck Has Got To Do With It?

Abstract

A conventional distinction – that between an “individualized” and a “collective” concept of social equality – is misleading and unhelpful. This can be best shown by reflecting upon one, particularly interesting, and these days influential, theory of social equality – usually, but misleadingly, considered to be an epitome of an individualistic approach, namely socalled “luck egalitarianism”. Luck-egalitarianism is often (and with good reason) characterized also as responsibility-based egalitarianism – and therefore the relationship between “luck” and “responsibility” in this general conception of social equality is considered in this paper. Then, continuing this exploration of the problématique of luck egalitarianism, the paper discusses, and largely rejects, the fundamental equality-based objection to luck egalitarianism: that it is unfaithful to some of our widespread, equalitysensitive intuitions. The essence of this objection (which is reject in the paper) is that luckegalitarianism is not really egalitarian in a morally attractive way.