Luck egalitarianism

Luck egalitarianism is a view about distributive justice espoused by a variety of egalitarian and other political philosophers. According to this view, justice demands that variations in how well off people are should be wholly determined by the responsible choices people make and not to differences in their unchosen circumstances. This expresses the intuition that it is a bad thing for some people to be worse off than others through no fault of their own.

Luck egalitarians therefore distinguish between outcomes that are the result of brute luck (e.g. misfortunes in genetic makeup, or being struck by a bolt of lightning) and those that are the consequence of conscious options (such as career choice or fair gambles). Luck egalitarianism is intended as a fundamental normative idea that might guide our thinking about justice rather than as an immediate policy prescription. The idea has its origin in John Rawls' thought that distributive shares should not be influenced by arbitrary factors. Luck egalitarians disagree among themselves about the proper way to measure how well off people are (for instance, whether we should measure material wealth, psychological happiness or some other factor) and the related issue of how to assess the value of their resources.

Many philosophers think that the term "luck egalitarianism" is a misnomer, because many so-called "luck egalitarians" (of the 'resourcist' strand at least) do not in fact want to equalize luck or eliminate uncertainty, but instead believe that individuals should be equal in the amount of resources they have when facing luck or uncertainty.

The position is controversial within some currents of egalitarian thought, and the philosopher Elizabeth S. Anderson has been a vocal critic of it — on the ground that, amongst other things, the fact that something is chosen does not necessarily make it acceptable. An example of this would be a robber offering someone the choice "Your money or your life," which choice some theorists, including Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan XIV: "Covenants Extorted by Feare are Valide") have regarded as presumptively binding. She also claims that luck egalitarianism expresses a demeaning pity towards the disadvantaged, basing their claims to compensation not on equality but inferiority, and excludes many individuals from the social conditions of their freedom simply on the basis that it is judged to be their fault for losing them. Further, it involves the state making highly moralistic and intrusive judgements about the choices that individuals make, and seems to lead to very counter-intuitive conclusions: those who voluntarily enter jobs with higher-than-average risks, or who 'choose' to live in geographical locations prone to natural disasters may make no claim on others if they suffer as a result of it.

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