Choice, Responsibility and Equality

Alexander Kaufman

Political Studies, 2004, vol. 52, issue 4, 819-836

Abstract: Should responsibility for disadvantage constitute a matter of fundamental concern for egalitarians? An important strand of contemporary egalitarian thought – a strand that Elizabeth Anderson calls ‘luck equality’– argues that responsibility for disadvantage should constitute a decisive concern for any acceptable egalitarian theory. Luck equality therefore requires a defensible account of responsibility; and disagreements regarding the nature and extent of responsibility for disadvantage have become central in the egalitarian literature. Anderson argues that luck equality's focus on responsibility reflects a misunderstanding of the point of equality. If persuasive, her argument would establish that egalitarian thought may do without a defensible account of responsibility. Although she fails to establish this claim, she does argue persuasively that luck equality employs the notion of responsibility overly strenuously. Her critique suggests that egalitarians must qualify their acceptance of the precept that ‘genuine choice excuses otherwise unacceptable inequalities’.

Date: 2004
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