Luck egalitarians hold that inequalities between individuals are unjust when they are the result of differences in unchosen circumstances but not when they reflect differences in the choices made by those individuals. A just distribution is one that is both luck insensitive and choice sensitive. In this paper I argue that the idea of choice sensitivity is ambiguous between two different interpretations, both of which are problematic. The first interpretation renders luck egalitarianism intuitively implausible. The second interpretation threatens to undercut the fundamental moral significance of choice on which the luck-egalitarian project turns. I then suggest a reinterpretation of the significance of choice, one that both renders luck egalitarianism intuitively attractive and preserves choice as a fundamental justificatory consideration.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 10 Oct 2013
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Micha Glaeser, Harvard University
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker:

Micha Glaeser is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Harvard University. As an undergraduate he studied at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are in moral, political, and legal philosophy. In his dissertation he defends an account of the relation between law and morality that transcends the positivist-natural law dichotomy. He currently resides in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for reasons of love.