Luck, Responsibility And Reality

Luck egalitarianism insists that the social redistribution should be responsibilitysensitive and thus put the concept of responsibility into the focus of distributivejustice. It suggests that we should respect the inequalities caused by personal choiceand compensate those induced by nature luck. But critics would not accept this, forthere always exists a disputation around the problem of free will behind the concept ofresponsibility. Luck egalitarianism intends to count the responsibility in people’schoosing actions but says nothing about this metaphysical problem. Meanwhile, akind of distributive mode sensitive to responsibility might conflict with our moralintuitions and infringe the disadvantages’ dignity and freedom. This would make ithard to win universal support in practical conditions.Against these critiques G. A. Cohen has proposed a theory on justice that names“the fact-insensitive theory” and tries to save the situation by reconstructing themeaning of justice. Unlike Cohen, Susan Hurley pointed that we should emphasis the“bias-neutralizing aim” instead of “luck-neutralizing aim” thus the concept ofresponsibility would not be the central consideration any more in distributive justicewhich in fact is the source of trouble. Although Hurley’s strategy could help luckegalitarianism avoiding such critiques, her therapy is based on the wrong diagnosis.Cohen’s positive defense also won’t work well for the meaning of “fact-insensitive”in his understanding does not accord with the other three comprehensions which couldhelp to achieve the goal of justification. Still there is another possible resolutionwhich requests that the conditions under which the principle of responsibility makessense should be constrained. It asks that luck egalitarianism should take account ofpractical factors when its principle is applied.