Reassessing egalitarianism / Jeremy Moss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moss, Jeremy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Equality.

Justice.

Physical Description:

vii, 180 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Summary:

Achieving social equality has been an important aim of modern democratic societies. Yet the process has engendered debate about the nature of equality and the consequences of its application. Why is equality valuable? What kind of equality should be aimed for? When is inequality justified? Should a principle of equally apply globally? The book assesses and links the different dimensions of equality and asks whether recent writing on the topic has the philosophical substance and political force traditionally associated with egalitarian thought. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Value of Equality 17

1.1 Introduction 17

The importance of equality 19

1.2 Equality as intrinsically valuable 24

1.3 Equality and sufficiency 26

Scarcity 27

Thresholds 28

1.4 Prioritarianism 29

Leveling down 30

1.5 Egalitarian responses 33

Pluralism 33

Fairness 34

1.6 Valuing equality 38

1.7 Conclusion 39

2 Equality of What? 41

2.1 Introduction 41

2.2 Equality of welfare 45

Actual preferences 47

Success theories 49

Responses 51

2.3 Equality of resources 54

Rawls and primary goods 55

Criticisms of Rawls's account of primary goods 56

2.4 Dworkin: auctioning resources 58

Insurance and endowment insensitivity: luck and handicaps 60

Dworkin's equality of resources: preferences and the market 62

Dworkin on the market and the role of preferences 63

2.5 Capabilities 65

Sen and capabilities 65

Nussbaum and capabilities 69

2.6 Assessment of the capability approach 71

Freedom 71

Selection and weighting 74

Hard cases, heterogeneity, and disrespect 77

2.7 Conclusion 79

3 Egalitarianism and Responsibility 85

3.1 Introduction 85

Different kinds of responsibilities 88

Two roles for equality: Rawls and the luck egalitarians 90

3.2 Motivating luck egalitarianism 91

The harshness objection and lack of respect 92

Limiting the role of chance and choice 93

3.3 Relational egalitarianism 96

Equality as equal standing 96

3.4 Luck egalitarian responses 98

3.5 Conclusion: assessing the debate 103

4 Global Egalitarianism 108

4.1 Introduction 108

4.2 Justice as association: the basic structure 111

4.3 Assessing the cooperation/reciprocity argument 113

Reciprocity 113

Pervasive impact 115

Coercion 115

4.4 Moral personality 118

Moral persons 119

4.5 Equality of natural resources 123

4.6 Equality and the carbon budget 129

The atmosphere and equal shares 132

Assessing the equal per capita approach 134

4.7 Conclusion 136.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 165-173) and index.

ISBN:

9781137385970

1137385979

OCLC:

870285591