Put simply, global luck egalitarianism is what you end up with when you apply the principles of luck egalitarianism beyond the borders of the state. In this blog post, I want to put three questions to you:
- Conceptually speaking, is global luck egalitarianism entailed by luck egalitarianism in general? That is to say, if one accepts the principles of luck egalitarianism, is one then bound to apply these principles globally, rather than confining them to a particular state.
- Should we accept luck egalitarianism in the first place?
- If we accept global luck egalitarianism, what consequences might this have in terms of how we shape international institutions in order to meet the demands of justice entailed by global luck egalitarianism?
So, just to refresh your memory, luck egalitarianism is essentially the view that it is unjust for some people to be worse off than others in virtue of nothing more than sheer bad luck. What we have is basically a contrast between brute luck and responsibility designed to pull out the sorts of intuitions which would make us likely to pity the man who is struck by lightning, but not the man who sticks the fork in the toaster.
It’s not difficult to imagine the sorts of ways endorsing this idea might apply in practice. We see that some people are born with medical conditions for which they are not responsible, so we decide to provide them with the medical resources necessary to overcome or minimise the disadvantage. Similarly, we can provide scholarships to children born into families who might otherwise not be able to afford the same standard of education open to their more well-off co-citizens, and so on.
The move from the national to international level works something like this: I should not bear burdens for circumstances for which I am not responsible. I am not responsible for having been born in the country in which I have been born. Because I have been born in this country, rather than that country, I face significant burdens as to my quality of life. Therefore some sort of redistribution of resources (which might be material resources from you to me, or your country to mine, or you could offer me citizenship perhaps) is necessary in order to meet the demands of justice.
There is of course an important empirical step in the above argument, whereby we need to show that the person really is worse off because of their bad luck in being born in country X rather than country Y. I don’t think it would be very difficult to demonstrate in most cases, however, since we have plenty of data which shows the enormous inequalities in terms of living standards (including everything from basic food and water rights to availability of education, healthcare and access to political institutions) between much of the developed and the developing world.
So, to repeat the three questions, given the above:
- Conceptually speaking, is global luck egalitarianism entailed by luck egalitarianism in general? That is to say, if one accepts the principles of luck egalitarianism, is one then bound to apply these principles globally, rather than confining them to a particular state.
- Should we accept luck egalitarianism in the first place?
- If we accept global luck egalitarianism, what consequences might this have in terms of how we shape international institutions in order to meet the demands of justice entailed by global luck egalitarianism?
5 comments:
One issue the idea of global luck egalitarianism might pertain to is immigration and open borders. Again, as stated, the birthplace of an individual is a function of brute luck and as such is morally arbitrary and can often mean a life of poverty. One could call for aid to be sent to poverty struck regions, but as we see in the case of Africa, that aid might simply be swallowed up by corrupt elites. Shouldn’t, therefore, a global luck egalitarian support measures to aid ones movement across borders in search of better jobs, welfare, etc?
I think this issue again highlights the issue that the assumptions one starts from in an argument will affect your conclusions. If you start from an unjust world assumption, where aid is useless in equalising brute luck due to birthplace, due to corrupt elites and illiberal regimes, then global luck egalitarianism should advocate aid to transfer individuals across borders. However we then run into the problem of luck egalitarian states collapse due to bankruptcy. In a 100% just world there may be no borders and a global luck egalitarianism system; however many will view that as unrealistic. Depending on your starting assumptions one either ends up with a theory that glosses over gross wrongs or with some sort of utopian dream.
I wouldn’t be quite so pessimistic, for the simple fact that you have pointed out the dangers on both sides (that we end up ignoring problems like illiberal regimes and the effectiveness of aid, or that we end up with an unworkable, utopian idea), which means that we can feed this problem back into the theory in order to hopefully come up with something a bit more nuanced which takes into account the problems you’ve pointed out.
We can start with the assumption that sending aid outside the state is going to run into the kinds of difficulties you mention, and also with the assumption that one state can only give so much before it may put itself at risk from economic collapse. This would by no means present us with a clear solution at this point, but at least we would have a better idea of the full extent of the problem.
Luck egalitarianism is a contentious topic. I don't buy into the idea that brute luck is the only type of misfortune worth acting upon as I believe that bad luck can also result from deliberate and accidental actions as well as occurring out of our control. Although luck egalitarianism specifies that it is unjust for people to be badly off due to reasons that occur outside the realm of control, for example being born into a violent family or a corrupt, war-torn country, it must also be acknowledged that misfortune can occur in other ways too and that care and responsibility also needs to be extended to these individuals as well.
The same applies to global luck egalitarianism, just because something happens outside of domestic jurisdiction does not mean that we do not have a responsibility to assist those who reside in other worse off parts of the world. This is especially evident in the hyper-globalisation that exists in today's world. Everything now is inextricably interlinked which reiterates the need for increased responsibility by richer nations to ensure that corruption, etc is kept at bay and to ensure that attempts at accountability are recognised.
Although I do agree with Kevin's argument in terms of an open border policy, I don't think that it is the best solution in the event of aid being misused by a corrupt elite. Rather than allowing citizens to leave their homelands in search of better prospects, it is far more important that corruption is tackled and international pressure placed on regimes that continue to misuse aid and mistreat citizens. Grass roots change is what is required rather than attempting to improve matters through the transportation of individuals across borders which will only contribute to further corruption and political despotism.
I believe it was a great and wise man who said “In my experience there is no such thing as Luck”. Discussions of the relativity of responsibility aside, I would concur that there are arbitrary circumstances which generate inequality among individuals and Luck Egalitarianism offers an interesting normative approach. In the case of a global application of these principles, I believe it has been Carens in an interpretation of the Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance when making the case for Open Borders, one of the first to take this approach, considering geographical circumstances of birth to be a matter of chance and hence morally arbitraty. Shachar also takes these very elements into consideration, and advocates against the legitimacy of assigning citizenship on the basis of birthplace and lineage. The redistribution of resources could even be dealt by a calculation of responsibilities, for many former colonies bear the same traits of social inequality, as well as economic dependency from the developed world. But to answer the questions at hand:
1.Yes, I believe any theory of justice that is meant to be applied in the context of a National State ought to be applicable universally as well, otherwise there is a double standard on equality, which would be morally unjustifiable. Moreover, from a cosmopolitan perspective there is a sense of responsibility for global distributive justice on the basis that all individuals ought to have access to the same opportunities regardless of arbitrary circumstances.
2.The moral arguments presented by Luck Egalitarianism are sound and widely employed, albeit with minor semantic variations, by many egalitarians. Nonetheless, we ought not lose sight of the empirical implications of this approach, and thus the debate on the determination of responsibilities enters. We would have to agree on a very minimal and quintessential interpretation of what is completely beyond the shade of deserts.
3.Beats me, I believe the principles set forth work better as supplementary material for a larger and more encompassing global theory of justice. In my case as a moderate cosmopolitan, I would be in favour of a global governance agreement that would enable open borders and morally legitimate access to membership for any polity.
@ Marian
While I agree that brute luck should not necessarily be ‘the only type of misfortune worth acting upon’, I think there is still something important to be had in the distinction between brute and option luck. The distinction is important enough, I think, to warrant different principles for dealing with each type.
Suppose we have Adam and Ben, who each find themselves homeless. In Adam’s case, a meteor has landed on his house and obliterated it (while Adam was elsewhere of course!). Ben, on the other hand chose to gamble his house on a bet that Brazil would win the 2010 World Cup and now also finds himself without a home. Assuming that Ben’s actions were not affected by a gambling addiction and was simply the result of a reckless choice, we might feel it appropriate to compensate Adam fully for his loss, but we might feel that we don’t need to fully compensate Ben in the same way. So we might decide to employ some sort of principle of sufficiency to apply in cases like Ben’s, while being more generous in cases like Adam’s. (This all assumes of course that this distinction could hold up in the real world and that we would be able to untangle and correctly assess the roles played by different kinds of luck in particular instances of misfortune.)
If this isn’t intuitively appealing enough, we might also consider whether a system which treated Adam and Ben would lead to a system whereby people like Ben lack any incentive to behave less recklessly in future. While there was nothing Adam could have done to avoid the situation he finds himself in, if Ben knew that he would not be fully compensated for his house if he loses his bet, he would have a good incentive to behave more sensibly which would mean that society wouldn’t be paying for his recklessness and would have more resources to spend on people like Adam.
@Oscar
If I understand you correctly, you seem broadly sympathetic to the general ‘gist’ of luck egalitarianism applied globally, but you think it needs to be encompassed within a larger comprehensive theory of global justice. When writing this blog I was mainly wondering whether the practical limitations would be such that global luck egalitarianism would not have a reasonably prospect of finding its way into the real world in the near future. I’m curious though, since I know you’re working on theories of citizenship in general, as to what sorts of things you would add at the theoretical level to the larger picture, in assembling the kind of comprehensive theory you allude to?
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