Luck egalitarianism without moral tyranny

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 sustained attack from critics who are deeply committed to the broader struggle for equality. These egalitarian critics object, first, that luck egalit...

Egalitarianism, option luck and insurance markets

It is argued here that individuals should never be held responsible for being lucky or unlucky, so that the notion of option luck is prima facie unacceptable. But applying the Conditional Equality and Egalitarian Equivalence criteria to problems of allocation under risk provides a rationale for policies which are sometimes similar to policies based on the notion of option luck. Dworkin’s concep...

Moral Luck

The good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself And, regarded for itself, it is to be esteemed incomparably higher than anything which could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination or even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it sho...

The Moral of Moral Luck

A problem for moral luck

The present paper poses a new problem for moral luck. Defenders of moral luck uncritically rely on a broader theory of luck known as the control theory or the lack of control theory. However, there are are two other analyses of luck in the literature that dominate discussion in epistemology, namely the probability and modal theories. However, moral luck is nonexistent under the probability and ...