Filosofi C
Handledare: Lars Lindblom
Institutionen för idé- & samhällsstudier
Umeå Universitet
VT 15
The Structure of Socialist Equality of Opportunity
G. A. COHEN’S SOCIALISM: A DEFENCE
MÅNS PETTERSSON
2015
1
Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Scanlon on the Diversity of Objections to Inequality.............................................................................. 3
Delineating the Disagreements: What is the Point of Equality?.............................................................. 5
Social Relations Egalitarianism......................................................................................................... 12
Democratic Equality vs. Luck Egalitarianism: a Fundamental Objection ........................................ 14
Luck Egalitarianism: a Defense............................................................................................................. 18
Marxism and Materialism ................................................................................................................. 20
Socialism: Justice, Freedom and Exploitation................................................................................... 25
Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................................................. 32
References ............................................................................................................................................. 33
2
Introduction
Egalitarian thought divides broadly into two different accounts. The luck egalitarian conception
of distributive justice sets egalitarian theorizing the ultimate aim of eradicating the influence of
brute luck on the distribution of divisible goods. Equality on this view is the upshot of
distributive schemes that are sensitive to peoples’ readily available choices, in such a way that
they can reasonably be held responsible for the resulting outcomes, while results retraceable to
morally arbitrary factors are reprehensible. On the other hand, a strand of relational egalitarians
argues that the distributive conception of redressing the influences of brute luck misses its mark.
Egalitarianism properly construed aims 1) negatively to eradicate socially imposed oppression,
and 2) positively to create a society of equals free from social hierarchies of status, domination
and exploitation. G. A. Cohen have instantiated a luck egalitarian account that turns on the
claim that unequal distributions of assets are unjust, because they contain a propensity to induce
socially constrained relationships conditional upon how social arrangements are constructed to
cope with distributions of natural assets. Thus, on Cohen’s account initial distributions takes on
a causally fundamental role that carries a disposition to create circumstances of unfreedom and
thus inherits its injustice from the feature of normative fundamentality, that is, social relations
of constraint. I shall argue that the interplay between Cohen’s theory of freedom and the
conception of injustice outlined above inspires a substantially relational interpretation of his
position. Thus, the task of this essay is to defend the substantial content of the luck egalitarian
principle of socialist equality of opportunity. My aim is to meet three constraints a relational
theory of justice must meet outlined by Elizabeth Anderson. These Constraints runs as follows:
1) some agent must suffer an injury, 2) Claims of injustice must be directed at agents, and 3) an
agent’s claim against injustice must be legitimate in virtue of a claim against actual
disadvantage. I shall argue that Cohen’s account of justice satisfies all three of the above
constraints. The paper opens with a review of the reasons for objecting to inequality argued for
prominently by Thomas Scanlon. After follows an outlining of the two competing positions,
and an interwoven exposure of the main points of disagreement. A major objection surfaces in
Anderson’s scheme and I then turn to my attempted defense of the luck egalitarian paradigm.
The main claim of the essay runs as follows: the luck egalitarian principle of socialist equality
of opportunity can, if properly fleshed out, accommodate a substantially relational account of
equality. Socialist luck egalitarians oppose the initiating force of prying nature into a socialized
framework of unfreedom; creating relations of domination and subjugation that induces
stigmatizing differences of social status.
3
Scanlon on the Diversity of Objections to Inequality
In the essay ‘The Diversity of Objections to Inequality’ Thomas Scanlon proposes the view that
inequality does not in and of itself constitute a case that deserves egalitarian attention; but does
so in virtue of prompting distinct but interconnected considerations that have bearing on how
people perceive of themselves and of others in relation to the social environment within which
they engage. (Scanlon, 1996, p. 1).1 The underlining notion of a society of equals here is reactive
to Scanlon’s remark that “[o]pponents of equality seem most convincing when they can portray
equality as a peculiarly abstract goal – conformity to a certain pattern – to which special moral
value is attached.” (Scanlon, 1996, pp. 1-2). By appealing, instead, to a set of values that
themselves find wide support and together is constitutive of conscientious relations we can
discern a conception of equality that displays larger conformity to our intuitions. The idea that
people ought to be equal in some relevant respect carries weight, then, insofar as this is
conducive to the abolishment of features that: a) creates stigmatizing differences of social
status, were some people are treated, or perceived (by themselves and/or others) as inferior on
account of the life’s they lead that extends into patterns of deference and privilege; undermining
freedom and self-respect.2 A second reason b) for objecting to inequality is that as a
consequence, some will be in a position of power over others. Economic advantage e.g. gives
some the power of control over major parts of civil and political life. Through productioncontrol they gain power both in terms of what gets produced and the means to determine the
relations of production. In the political arena the rich can lobby for their own interests and have
thus an effective influence on policy-decisions unparalleled by those of less wealth. Inequality
can also c) undermine procedural fairness, since particular equalities serves as preconditions
for preserving fair terms by which individuals then engage. Although strongly connected, the
This suggest that Scanlon have indeed generated the conception that Martin O’Neill have termed ‘non-intrinsic
egalitarianism’, which characterize the foundations of a strongly egalitarian account through a set of reasons that
strikes a balance between Telic (i.e. the intrinsic worth of state of affairs) and Deontic (i.e. justice or fairness based)
considerations drawing on variants of both in a context of what we owe to each other as equals, building on
relations that themselves assert the intrinsic worth of equality. Scanlon himself never drew any definitive
conclusions of how, in the present polemic dividing egalitarians, we should understand his own position, since his
work is mainly exegetical. What can be said is that relational views such as those of Scheffler, Anderson and
Fourie et al. display resemblance with that of Scanlon and O’Neill, in that they all consider ‘social relations
significant for the application of egalitarian considerations’ and the fact that the reasons to be rehearsed below
seem misplaced unless attached to actual relations. See: (O’Neill, 2008, esp. pp. 128-30, 137-38). For an interesting
response to O’Neill’s non-intrinsic egalitarianism, introducing further non-intrinsic-telic reasons for objecting to
inequality, much of which will be discussed in this paper, comprises a) theft of property or coercive threats, b)
failure to keep promises or honor contracts, c) brute luck, d) unfair discrimination, e) exploitation and f) failure to
discharge a duty to promote equality see: (Brown, 2014, 455-56). This suggest that the bare fact that Scanlon’s
view is ‘non-intrinsic’ is not conclusive regarding the location in which his conception resides.
2
Scanlon also lists an inequality-induced reason for alleviating suffering, however he regards this, not as a
primarily egalitarian, but rather a humanitarian concern.
1
4
last two objections ought to be kept separate, since the unfairness of certain processes must not
result in power relations. Instead this third reason highlights the importance of equality of
opportunity.3 Procedural fairness can be undermined e.g. when different regions are unable to
provide the same standard of education and consequently leave people on different terms to
take advantage of their civil- and political liberties in competition or in the political forum etc.
even if the two arenas are otherwise free from problematic forms of power-asymmetries.
(Scanlon, 1996, pp. 2-4). The last and fourth objection d) to inequality is perhaps, given present
purposes, the most controversial. This is so because it underlines the core notion of luckegalitarianism that distributions ought to be sensitive to peoples’ choices but not their unchosen
circumstances.4 In a later paper Scanlon explicates the objection as such:
If each member of a group has the same claim that some individual or institutional
agent, provide it with a certain benefit, and if that agent is obligated to respond to
all of these claims, then that agent must, absent special justification, provide each
member of the group with the same level of benefit. (Scanlon, 2013, p. 13).
This reason is, as Jonathan Wolff have noted, broadly stated and given how the first clause of
the cited paragraph is formulated and what type of justification for departure from equality is
opted for, various distributive principles can be subsumed under it. (Wolff, 2013, p. 411). So
there needn’t be tension between the reasons for objecting to inequality as developed by
Scanlon, but this depends on how they are construed for a more determinate scheme. If, as on
3
In their canonical formulations Scanlon and John Rawls (establishing the account of fair equality of opportunity,
that much of what is considered by relational egalitarians in terms of opportunity bears upon) appeals to the
opportunity to achieve offices and positions open to all under fair competition. However, if this is to be considered
beyond mere formal opportunity they must invoke, to some degree, considerations of a fourth type i.e. benefits
that accrue to agents in virtue of similar claims to advantage. This is indeed what Rawls means when he claims
that all should have a fair chance to attain the offices and positions in question. One obvious such benefit that
readily assert itself is that of education. This leads us, then, to a second, more broadly construed account of
opportunity to be understood as a median between two extreme forms of equality of opportunity: libertarian
equality of opportunity i.e. an account that erases socially conditioned barriers of status, based on e.g. race or
gender, and socialist equality of opportunity that aims in addition to the libertarian account to eradicate barriers of
both natural (endowment) and social contingencies leaving (some) tastes and choices as the only indicators of
acceptable differences in outcome. The liberal equality of opportunity amounts to a position that aims to erase
social contingencies from affecting peoples starting-points in social cooperation; and mitigate differences of
natural endowment by conditioning market-seeking with a qualification that agents train and use their endowments
in such a way that it benefits those that lag behind. And, so Scanlon adds, in congruence with Rawls’s inclusion
of ‘the social bases of self-respect’ into his favored metric of well-being, to avoid stigmatizing differences in status.
I return to the concept of equality of opportunity through the discussion of procedural fairness, and the tension
between relational views and liberal understandings of fairness below. For relevant discussion see: (Cohen, 2009,
pp. 14-18), (Rawls, 2001, pp. 42-44), (Scanlon, 1996, pp. 4-9, 2013, pp. 20-28).
4
See footnote 3 above for the divergence of relational and socialist (≈ luck-egalitarian) equality of opportunity
and according to the latter: equality of outcome. If there is present a justified claim to eliminate the differential
results of both types of contingencies there seems to be an at least prima facie obligation for an equalizing
distribution that is sensitive to choice only.
5
the relational view, benefits accrue to persons in virtue of their equal standing within their civil,
political and cooperative arrangements, agents have an obligation to respond to claimants’
interests, not against the influence of brute luck, but rather on pain of creating unfair
disadvantage that undermines equal relations between people. The conceptual tilt, for Scanlon,
towards a more relational-oriented approach turns on a view of the recipients as participants in
a cooperative endeavor rather than as passive beneficiaries in a distributive scheme. (Scanlon,
1996, pp. 5-6). This parts with the luck-egalitarians (explicit) accounts of how benefits accrue
to persons. Here production and distribution are somewhat divorced, principled vindications of
distributive patterns turns on whether or not luck is brute, where this is so, there is a decisive
case for compensation. However, one should be careful to draw conclusions about the value of
the luck-egalitarian conception on this account for two reasons: 1) luck-egalitarians ought not
to be considered as outlining a united scheme, but rather as participants in an intricate debate
about distributive justice. (Wolff, 2010, p. 346). Accordingly, and 2) the nature of the discussion
is by some conducted on the assumption that it is only part of a more comprehensive conception
of both political and economic equality. (Dworkin, 1981, p. 283).5 Nevertheless, much of the
polemic between relational egalitarians and luck egalitarians rests on the tension considered
above. And in any case, a tentative distinction can rightly be made since the willingness to
delimit the scope in such a way signals a differential perception of the subject matter.
Delineating the Disagreements: What is the Point of Equality?
The conceptual framework provided by Scanlon serves as a clarifying template within which
much egalitarian debate have been conducted. A strand of relational egalitarians have emerged
here as a response to the luck egalitarian claim embodied by the fourth reason above. The
position as argued for, prominently by Ronald Dworkin and G. A. Cohen identify the central
point of interest in egalitarian thought with a distributive paradigm that seeks to be sensitive to
peoples’ choices6 and the circumstances such choices produce, but insensitive to morally
arbitrary factors for which people cannot properly be held responsible. (Dworkin, 1981, p. 311).
The choice/circumstance distinction draws on a second explanatory distinction: that of brute
and option luck. (Bad) option luck is the result of deliberate gambles, the sufferers of which
5
Cohen is the most apparent contrast to the participant-approach on distributive matters since he rejects the desertbased conception of allocation, on his view distribution ought to be conducted out of need, not contribution. This
is seen from e.g. his rejection of David Millers approach to socialist justice. See: (Cohen, 1995, pp. 258-59). It
follows from this that Scanlon seems to part with Cohen’s luck egalitarianism on this score since implicit in the
conceptualization of participatory distribution is an appeal to contribution and merit.
6
Dworkin did not, at first, invoke the distinction between choice and circumstance but instead denoted features
belonging to the person and not his circumstances. However, Samuel Scheffler clarifies that he accepted the new
distinction prompted by Cohen. See: (Cohen, 1989, pp. 927-31) (Scheffler, 2005, p. 6).
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have no claim for compensation in the name of justice since “the possibility of loss was part of
the life they chose – it […] was the fair price of the possibility of gain.”7 (Dworkin, 1981, p.
294). Cohen’s disavowal of compensation due to bad option luck focuses rather on actual need
stating that “when other people pay for [others’] readily avoidable wastefulness, there is, pro
tanto, an exploitative distribution of burden which egalitarians should condemn.” (Cohen, 1989,
p. 911). Brute luck, on the other hand, is the result of pure accident. Here choice plays no
pertinent role, and hence, the sufferers of bad brute luck cannot reasonably be held responsible
for the loss induced. (Dworkin, 1981, p. 296). We can say, then, that an individual or
institutional agent have an obligation to respond equally to brute-luck-sufferers’ legitimate
claims for benefit and thus neutralize the effects of brute luck on distributions and in turn, that
these claims are vindicated by the fact that they cannot reasonably be held responsible for the
pure accidents they’ve suffered. The same does not, however, hold for the option-luck-sufferers.
Cohen thus characterize the position accordingly: “I take for granted that there is something
which justice requires people to have equal amounts of”. (Cohen, 1989, p. 906). The egalitarian
impulse, he claims, is to eliminate the effects of brute luck and exploitation from affecting
distributive outcomes and, thus, he further claims that “[b]rute luck is an enemy of just equality,
and, since effects of genuine choice contrast with brute luck, genuine choice excuses otherwise
unacceptable inequalities.” (Cohen, 1989, p. 931). As we can now see, both Cohen and Dworkin
appeals to the fourth reason for objecting to inequality. However, a different strand of
egalitarians have forcefully argued that this conception is faulty for three prime reasons.
According to the relational egalitarians luck egalitarianism runs astray because 1) it places too
much and ultimately misguided confidence in what it is theoretically possible to achieve with
an enlightened distributive formulae. Equality is a notoriously complex notion and a distributive
principle, even if resting on valid premises, will do poorly on its own to explain what we take
to be the essence of equality. (Scheffler, 2015, p.22). It tends to portray equality, as we saw
Scanlon discourage above and here enforced by Martin O’Neill, as an abstract goal that “floats
free of any specific connection with the experiential character of interpersonal relationships of
interaction, mutual justification, or reason-giving” except, O’Neill continues, in a trivial sense
that experiences in general connects to deficits in terms of whatever metric one professes to use
for absolute measures of well-being. “Moreover, [on the luck-egalitarian view] there is
something morally objectionable about inequalities, even when they obtain between individuals
7
This is somewhat assuming that agents act merely or primarily for rational reasons with some sort of goal that
implies gain, which is often true, but the underlining intuition here is that people should pay the prices for the lives
they choose, whether wise or unwise.
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who are physically or temporally inaccessible to one another.” (O’Neill, 2013, p. 433). If this
framing of the luck-egalitarian position is correct, it takes on a certain consequentialist character
as it conceptualizes equality as a painstakingly valuable state of affairs, which we are then
assigned the common aim of realizing in policy. It manifests itself in a third-person perspective
where claimants and responding agents alike are anonymous in the pending justification. A
plausible conception of equality, on the contrary, so says the relational egalitarian, turns on the
claim “that inequality is unjust when it disadvantages people: when it reflects, embodies, or
causes inequality of authority, status, or standing.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 2). As opposed to the
putative luck egalitarian idea of justification the relational standpoint embodies a second-person
route to justification where claims are set in an interpersonal context and expressed as demands
and responding obligations to uphold principles of justice free and equal persons would contract
for to regulate policy. (Anderson, 2013, pp. 2-3).
The second point of disagreement is that 2) by asserting the choice/circumstance distinction the
luck egalitarian presses an inapt conception of responsibility and thus demonstrates a
misconceived ambition to justify the egalitarian position against right-wing objections. In order
to defend an equalizing distribution they incorporate a version of the principle of responsibility
that takes voluntary choice as its basis for justifying distributive consequences. This principle,
that people should bear the costs of their chosen, but not unchosen circumstances does not,
however, have the justificatory force that luck egalitarians assign to it. To be sure, relational
egalitarians affirm the notion in that, a reasonable conception of distributive justice ought to
generate space for responsibility where justification for the conception of justice lies in the
status of relationships and does not flow from the notion as such. This does not, however, tie
them to the general claim that all things considered people should be held responsible for the
upshot of all their voluntary choices. Poor financial planning resulting in a difficulty to provide
health insurance for oneself or close ones should be considered problematic on grounds of
egalitarian justice no matter what the choices conducive to the circumstance. A conception that
discourages compensation here tend towards a rigid individualistic and unforgiving account of
how benefits and burdens should be distributed. Luck egalitarians, it is thought, thus wrongly
take themselves to derive a conception of equality that finds widespread support across different
political and moral doctrines. To wit, by appealing to a progressive role for the principle of
responsibility as the defining indication of just- and unjust distributions they commit to a
principle that lacks justificatory appeal because of its tendencies to make sweeping
8
generalizations of peoples circumstances and in their crude form, risks the abandonment of
sufferers of bad choices. (Scheffler, 2005, pp. 8-10, 16-17).
Here it is important to note two things: firstly, we should be clear on the differences between
various luck egalitarian accounts, and thus how particular arguments strike across variations of
these. It might not be the case that an objection against excessive use of responsibility impugns
luck egalitarianism as such but that, “at most, it demonstrates that we should reject variants of
egalitarianism specifying what it is for people’s relative positions to reflect their relative
exercise of responsibility in such a way as to imply that harsh outcomes […] are just.” (LippertRasmussen, 2012, p. 124). Secondly, as I shall argue throughout this paper in favor of Cohen’s
luck egalitarian principle of socialist equality of opportunity, it is possible for luck egalitarian
accounts to take on a substantially relational role. The relational project, according to one of its
most prodigious advocates; Elizabeth Anderson, is 1) to disintegrate the socially constructed
oppression of social relationships “by which some people dominate, exploit, marginalize,
demean, and inflict violence upon others.” (Anderson, 1999, p. 313). And 2) to establish
relationships on a footing of equality whereby agents share and seek to uphold a democratic
community. Democracy thus understood is conceived as the collective deliberation of
autonomous agents’ that, in virtue of their equal standing, pursues open discussions on terms
of reciprocal acceptance. (Anderson, 1999, p. 313). The positive account of her favored
conception of equality as Democratic equality is thus an ideal where people enjoy equal
standing with each other. The means supporting equal agency is to be secured by an ample
threshold of capabilities (i.e. the freedoms attained through the accommodation of social and
material conditions whereby people can properly function which is the actualization of practice)
to institute their civil and political agency on terms of reciprocity and respect. (Anderson, 1999,
pp. 316-17). “Democratic equality guarantees all law-abiding citizens effective access to the
social conditions of their freedom at all times. It justifies the distributions required to secure
this guarantee by appealing to the obligations of citizens in a democratic state.” (Anderson,
1999, p. 289). However, democratic equality does not aspire to provide comprehensive equality
in the sphere of functioning. Firstly and primarily explanatory, innate capabilities are not
transferable, accommodation through social and material reconstruction have limited reach,
particularly in the sphere of creating social advantage; everyone have an interest in the
distribution of talent into positions which confer benefits throughout society. Instead equality
demands that social orders are construed in a way that does not confer superior status on such
an arbitrary basis. (Anderson, 1999, p. 317). Secondly, functionings does not accrue
9
unconditionally to agents but is adaptable to the way people choose to apply their guaranteed
freedoms
Democratic equality can make access to certain functionings—those requiring an
income—conditional upon working for them, provided that citizens have effective
access to those conditions—they are physically capable of performing the work,
doing so is consistent with their other duties, they can find a job, and so forth.
Effective access to a level of functioning means that people can achieve that
functioning by deploying means already at their disposal, not that the functioning
is unconditionally guaranteed without any effort on their own part. (Anderson,
1999, p. 318).
Conditional benefits as one finds them in the quoted passage serves two purposes: first, it
creates material incentives for active involvement in cooperative endeavors, everyone is
guaranteed threshold-access to functionings as human beings, as participants in social
cooperation, and in virtue of their democratic citizenship. That a social order, however, is open
to talent secure access to means for agents to conduct their mutual affairs as democratic citizens
in social cooperation, it makes sure that positions are being filled according to merit and
appropriateness, and rewards in accordance to contribution ensures the effective use of
endowment necessary to sustain a modern economy. The inequalities that inevitably ensues in
such a system of production is thus necessary to accommodate the guaranteed fundamental
capabilities that are needed for access to basic functionings. (Anderson, 1999, pp. 317-19).
Insofar the access to basic functionings are in force, inequalities beyond that point are
acceptable provided the social order is amply secured against stratification of social status.
(Anderson, 1999, p. 327). Second, conditional benefits within the democratic egalitarian
conception effectively incorporates responsibility without, as is feared on at least some luck
egalitarian conceptions, resorting to harsh judgments of justice that risks abandoning
imprudent, risky or lazy people to their fate. (Anderson, 1999, pp. 327-29).8
8
There is arguably a difference in outlook between Anderson and luck egalitarians, however, Kasper LippertRasmussen is not completely contempt with the distinction between the two accounts in light of responsibility.
Paraphrasing Anderson’s claim on the conditionality of benefits he argues that one can readily assimilate the
views in question: “there is no injustice in a person not enjoying the relevant level of functioning when this
reflects the person’s refusal to make any effort to do so.” (Lippert-Rasmussen, 2012, p. 130). This, he claims
underwrites the luck egalitarian position. Moreover, he claims even if an idea of a guaranteed threshold have
failed to surface clearly on the luck egalitarian reading this does not seem to be a problem inherent in the
account. (Lippert-Rasmussen, 2012, p. 130). It is, however, not clear that this is straightforwardly so. It seems
that perhaps luck egalitarians have to rely on external mitigations to remedy the distributive implications of their
own favored principles. See: (Anderson, 2007, pp. 258-59). This does not necessarily make the account
10
Now, the claim forthcoming in this essay – that Cohen’s luck egalitarian principle of socialist
equality of opportunity mirrors the core relational points rehearsed above is unarguably
controversial. This is so for two interconnected reasons. 1) His adherence to the luck egalitarian
distinction between choice and circumstance suggest a possible complication in that the account
implies harsh judgments of justice. (Cohen, 2009, pp. 24-26). One could legitimately say that
Cohen affirms the view that an agent that actively chooses to forfeit a benefit or risks it on a
“reasonable” gamble cannot be said, straightforwardly, to have a pro tanto9 genuine need to be
compensated for the loss of advantage she chose to forgo. As we saw above, the feature
scrutinized on his account is the exploitative relationship between people that arises with idle
workers or gamblers: when social costs could have been readily avoided by entertaining a
different choice, claimants of compensation cannot be said to have a genuine need that grounds
a demand of justice. The second reason for doubting whether Cohen can be interpreted as a
relational egalitarian turns on the case of expensive tastes, and in particular what the case
confers in terms of an individualistic view of peoples circumstances. The case of expensive
tastes is supposed to elucidate two forms of disadvantage. The claims are supposed to shed light
on the fact that some requires more costly services or goods to achieve the same level of welfare
as that of others; a vindication of such high-cost accommodation rests on whether or not those
subject to expensive tastes “can reasonably be held responsible for the fact that their tastes are
expensive.” (Cohen, 2004, p. 8). Some tastes are such that the agents “could not have helped
forming and/or could not now unform without violating their own judgment”. (Cohen, 2004, p.
8). The first case of involuntary expensive taste is the one where market-pricing are such that
some valued good X is more expensive than Y, an agent that values X does not regret that she
values X but the brute fact that market mechanisms arranges prices so that X is expensive.
Hence, an agent who lacks equal levels of welfare with others who enjoy their tastes for the
cheaper Y due to the fact that her taste is for something that happens to be expensive should be
compensated. (Cohen, 2004, p. 11). The second case is illustrated in the concept of disability.
People with disabilities on this view lacks the internal resources to achieve the same level of
attractive, but rather, possibly incoherent. In any case, I think, with Anderson, that the luck egalitarian
conception suffers on account that they have been remarkably inexplicit about how they conceive of the form
and consistency between distributions and the values they propound to secure in their proposals. For a discussion
on the topic see: (Anderson, 2007, esp. pp. 260-61). See also (Markovits, 2007) for an account that seeks to
derive luck egalitarian distributive principles from a conception of political solidarity. I shall not pursue these
questions further, since my project is that of interpreting Cohen’s socialism as a substantially relational account.
9
I say pro tanto here because Cohen admits that idle workers and gamblers have claims for compensation on
grounds of equality, although in the exogenous sense criticized by Anderson in the above footnote. Too much
inequality will inevitably compromise community, to ensure that the luck egalitarian distributive implications,
sensitive to idleness and gambling, does not contradict community they need to be counterbalanced by an
external principle. (Cohen, 2009, pp. 35-38).
11
welfare as others without the use of a more ample set of external resources to compensate for
their inherent lacking.
I shall not say much about these two issues at this juncture, but two comments are in order.
Firstly, the way in which Cohen uses ‘compensation’ is seriously misleading. This is apparent
in the first case (although not as apparent in the second). Cohen does not place much faith in
the prospects of taming the market by compensating in its aftermath, rather he considers it “at
best a brute luck machine” (Cohen, 2004, p. 17) and furthermore, that markets would only be
able to secure just distributions “in the Pickwickian sense that they do so when in some
unattainable possible world they are so comprehensively rigged that they induce a distribution
that qualifies as just for reasons that have nothing to do with how market prices form.” (Cohen,
2004, p. 18). This strongly suggest that ‘compensation’ is no viable option for a just social
order, but rather, such an order would require a comprehensive rearrangement of social and
institutional structures. Secondly, and admittedly more troubling, is the case of disability on the
view outlined above. The concept of disability is somewhat under-analyzed by Cohen, and
where the issue surfaces in the debate on expensive tastes it comes with a connotation he seems
that compensation for the inherent lack in peoples’ internal resources is the proper way of
conceptualizing and redressing for disability. However, throughout this paper my aim is to
outline an interpretation that manifestly contradict this contention, in light of his comprehensive
account we will see that Cohen passionately disapproved of the individualistic conception
embodied in what have been termed the medical model for making crude, demeaning and
invasive judgments of peoples’ predicaments. (Cohen, 2004, p. 17).
A third point of doubt about the luck egalitarian position, stemming from the second is that, 3)
the account yields counter-intuitive suggestions for how and on what grounds people should be
afforded compensation when a distribution turns out unjust. There is a sense that compensating
solely on the basis of brute luck implies a certain inferiority imposed upon the compensated
agent, luck egalitarians redress out of pity rather than equal standing. (Anderson, 1999, pp. 28789, 303-7).10 Consider also the phenomena Jonathan Wolff have termed “shameful revelations”.
Incorporating a responsibility-catering qualification for welfare-benefit-applicants to pass, in
trying for compensation they are required to specify the sources of their loss in well-being. This
may prove, in many cases, demeaning since they will (to prove the legitimacy of their claim)
10
As it turns out it is not clear that the pity-objection sticks when applied to socialist luck egalitarianism, this
depends on how on frames the idea of ‘compensation’. When fully spelled out, I believe this objection to be
rebutted.
12
have to reveal that they are lacking in some relevant respect that have made them e.g.
unattractive on a labor-market. Revealing this to a welfare-officer may induce further feelings
of inferiority and consequent loss of self-respect compounding on those already experienced by
being aware of the apparent lack in talent or trait. (Wolff, 2010, pp. 343). It is thus clear that
fairness and (self-) respect can in some circumstances stand opposed, and that it is indeed
possible that this contradiction in values is fueled within the luck-egalitarian conception since
it seems that advocates of the account place fairness and responsibility in the foreground of the
analysis.
Social Relations Egalitarianism
However these objections strike across different egalitarianisms, the relational egalitarian
contention is that choice is not always constitutive of just inequalities, we sometimes feel that
disadvantage ought to be compensated regardless of the role played by choice. Whether or not
choice plays some role in the relational egalitarian scheme, it is clear that it is not the make or
break justificatory foundation as they find it within the luck egalitarian conception. If
inequalities turn out just or unjust is here viewed as external to distribution as such and has its
foundations rather in how they affect relations between people. Hence, choice cannot as it
seems, always characterize unjust inequalities, limited inequalities in wealth is often regarded
acceptable as long as equal standing between people remains unaffected. To overlook the
complexities of the demands of equality disregards the nuances of peoples’ circumstances and
the disadvantages they face. A proper egalitarian account is responsive to peoples’
disadvantages as such and seeks remedies based on a conception of peoples’ equal standing
against a background of an institutional structure securing equality of opportunity and liberty,
rather than focusing narrowly on the singular causal mechanisms that lead to disadvantage for
particular agents. (Anderson, 2013, p. 2). It seems then that voluntary choice amounting to
responsibility cannot be the pivotal norm anchoring our distributive concerns and it
consequently does not exhaust our conception of social equality. The egalitarian norm should
instead be based on a broader social ideal that encompasses a set of different relational values
that have bearing on how individuals ultimately relate to each other. Endemic to this account
of equality is that we ought not to strive actively at a particular distributive outcome (apart, that
is, from a limited range of benefits required for e.g. equal opportunity), rather by adjusting
relationships according to a social ideal we can expect a strongly egalitarian distribution as a
result. In revising agents dispositions towards others interests this is likely to drive outcomes in
the direction of a more egalitarian distribution of benefits. That is, “If, in deciding how to
13
allocate their resources, the participants treat the comparably important interests of each of them
as having comparable significance, then a natural default assumption is that they will end up
devoting roughly equal resources to satisfying the comparably important interests of each.”
(Scheffler, 2015, p. 34). Comparative judgments between individuals’ relative positions, as far
as they are interesting, is then conducted, not by a singular paradigm such as material holdings,
but more importantly via non-material features of social life drawing upon the diversity of
reasons outlined in Scanlon’s framework. This have thus led Samuel Scheffler to explicate the
tentative idea accordingly
Insofar as equality is understood as a substantive social value, which is distinct, for
example, from the formal principle that one should treat like cases alike and from
the axiological judgment that all people are of equal worth, the basic reason it
matters to us is because we believe that there is something valuable about human
relationships that are, in certain crucial respects at least, unstructured by differences
of rank, power, or status. (Scheffler, 2005, p. 17).
Given that the prospects of eradicating all forms of differentiations are thin, the chief task is to
distinguish those forms of rankings, authority and status inequalities that are acceptable from
an egalitarian point of view as opposed to those that are damaging to the very conception of a
society of equals. But how are we to arrive at such a distinction? Anderson holds the view that
justice-concerns ought to be fundamentally couched in second-person perspective: a claim for
advantage or a charge against disadvantage takes the form of an appraisal directed at the conduct
of another agent (institutional or otherwise). It follows on this account “that a judgment of
justice is essentially expressible as a claim or demand, made by or on behalf of someone, on
another agent's conduct, directing that agent to serve, or not injure or neglect, the interests of
the person on whose behalf the claim is made.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 4). So a charge against
injustice is legitimate only insofar as the conduct of an agent have had a negative impact on
another agents interests, the terms of which is reached in deliberation by free and equal agents
in relation to one another as participants of a cooperative endeavor. It follows on this reading
that “[t]here is no other route to defining a just state of affairs except through the concept of
agents' compliance with reasonable claims people may make on each other.” (Anderson, 2013,
p. 5). The core feature of the relational account is then that agents are viewed as genuine sources
of claims, conditioned so as to be able to make demands on others conduct to pay adequate
respect to their comparably important interests. Insofar as this is actualized, the relational
criterion for equality have been met.
14
Democratic Equality vs. Luck Egalitarianism: a Fundamental Objection
A recent argument launched from within this conception of justice have been delivered by
Anderson in her ‘The Fundamental Disagreement between Luck Egalitarians and Relational
Egalitarians’. The objection turns on the claim outlined above that luck egalitarianism presents
a free-floating distributive formula foreign to any substantive connection with social
relationships. Anderson attributes to G. A. Cohen, the view that accidental inequalities are ipso
facto unjust. A conception of justice serves the purpose of tracking inequalities due to morally
arbitrary factors such as birth or endowment and that the ultimate goal is to nullify these
differential distributions – even if everyone are readily advantaged by current rules of regulation
harnessing benefits from these factors. Luck egalitarian justice is presented as the proper
arithmetic distribution of goods that are sensitive to choice but not to any forms of social or
natural contingencies. (Anderson, 2013, pp. 2-3, 7). She claims that the normative force of the
conception of justice embraced by Cohen is fundamentally couched in a third-person
perspective and can therefore not be justified as a claim of justice since it lacks an interpersonal
rationale. It fails to incorporate a second-person perspective because it cannot fulfill three core
constraints a conception of justice must match. (Anderson, 2013, p. 3). These constraints runs
as follows: for there to be injustice there must 1) be an injury to someone’s interests 2) such a
complaint must take some other agent (institutional or otherwise) as addressee. And 3) the
complaint must be legitimate i.e. it must have its source in an agent entitled to make a complaint
against disadvantage. (Anderson, 2013, p. 5). By failing to embody these three constraints the
luck egalitarian eo ipso encroach in its charge against a fourth constraint pursued by relational
egalitarians that 4) justice is served insofar as “all agents continuously and successfully comply
with all the demands that everyone can reasonably make of them.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 5).
Cohen’s charge that a system of rewards that incorporates inequalities based on arbitrary factors
is unduly discriminating towards fortunate people does not find ground once viewed through
the lens of the three constraints, his objections does not qualify as interpersonally legitimate.
Cohen’s project begins by probing the suggestion that a system of rewards that allows incentive
payments towards those of already fortunate position in the endowment distribution is
necessary for a modern economy, it is required to make the worst off group in society as well
of as possible. Call this the factual premise. (Cohen, 2008, pp. 29-34). Now, depending on what
it is that makes this premise true determines, on Cohen’s account, whether or not a policy
issuing a certain distribution of goods and benefits is legitimate. Is it the case that inequalities
are “necessary tout court, that is, independently of human will, so that, with all the will in the
15
world, removal of inequality would make everyone worst off?” Or is it the case that inequality
is necessary “only insofar as the talented would decide to produce less […] or to not take up
posts where they are in special demand, if inequality were removed”? (Cohen, 2008, p. 122
emphasis in original). The argument, riding on the quoted passages, against incentive-derived
inequalities propounded by Cohen contains two horns. 1) Inequalities within a system of
cooperation that reflects, in the relevant sense,11 peoples choices to work hard provided they
get un-equalizing pay, represents a policy of unequal distributions that nourishes, rather than
condemn, the choices made by fortunate positioned people who exploit their initial advantage
and is therefore unjust. It tracks causes for inequality to factors arbitrary from a moral point of
view, and readily discriminate towards those who already enjoy advantage. (Cohen, 2008, pp.
154-55). The second horn of the argument is concerned with the relation between inequalityinducing choices and community. The vindication of a policy requires that arguments presented
in its favor passes a test of interpersonal justification. If, when voicing the argument, an agent
displays an intentional unwillingness, rather than inability as to why the factual premise is true,
she cannot vindicate, consistent with being a member of a shared community, the imposition of
inequalities for correcting the motivational deficit that the inequality is supposed to achieve.
(Cohen, 2008, pp. 42, 46-47,
The talented rich cannot justify the fact that the minor [i.e. factual] premise of the
(naked)12 incentives argument is true. If they cannot justify the truth of its minor
premise, then they cannot use the argument as a justification of inequality. If they
cannot use it as a justification of inequality, then it cannot be used as a justification
within community. If it cannot be used as a justification within community, then
anyone who uses it (in effect) represents society as at variance with community
when he does so. (Cohen, 2008, pp. 47-48).
The incentives argument for inequality represents the fortunately positioned as if they were
alienated from community, the worst off group is dependent on the advantages that the talented
brings and thus, when this is held against them, those who voices the arguments display a lack
of fraternity that threatens to damage the self-respect of less talented individuals. (Cohen, 2008,
pp. 62, 64-67).
I say in the ‘relevant sense’ here because one must acknowledge the force of structural influences on peoples
choices, which is not to say, however, that one should not scrutinized those choices. (Cohen, 2008, pp. 141-42)
12
‘Naked’ as in mooted without reference to entitlement or desert. (Cohen, 1991, p. 286 my note).
11
16
The bare claim that there is injustice inherent in the distributions of native talents is, according
to Anderson, a false one. It sets itself against a supposed ‘cosmic’ injustice and thus misses the
mark that egalitarians should be concerned with. Rather than pressing an inapt objection against
brute luck the proper aim of egalitarianism is to ‘end oppression’. (Anderson, 1999, pp. 28889). Moreover, Anderson treats Cohen’s appeal to community as a case of immanent objection,
that is, the argument finds its premises solely within the conception that he sets himself
against.13 However, in so doing, Cohen presupposes that his luck egalitarian principle contains
an interpersonal rationale. This presupposition is what the following arguments rehearsed here
are supposed to debunk. Charges against accidental deprivation due to birth or endowment,
then, does not qualify as interpersonally justified claims and hence, do not find their locus
within the site of justice since a claim to redress such ailments would be to mitigate effects of
the natural order rather than socially constructed disadvantage. Thus, Anderson objects that
“the bare fact of accidental relative deprivation is no injury.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 11). In
considering relative lack of endowment as an injury, agents resort to envy and “[e]nvy is
malicious, for the envious stake their sense of well-being on another's deprivation.” (Anderson,
2013, p. 8). Such a claim thus fails the first constraint; no one have a standing complaint since
envy does not fall within the purview of justice. The claim against accidental deprivation also
fails the second constraint, because how is one to find the culprit of such a harm? Anderson
rhetorically airs the suggestion that one might hold god accountable for the distribution of talent
and circumstances of birth; but if god does not exist, the luck egalitarian must concede to nature
and thus lose ground since nature cannot produce injustice. Nor can they wield claims of
unfairness – in the sense that socially sustained arrangements are unjust – since fairness regards
only the agential design of procedures. Where the proper aim to account for each other’s
legitimate interests have been established and unless rules have been unfairly rigged or where
they have been broken, fair procedures are conducive to just outcomes, there are thus no
grievance of injustice
Claims of unfairness therefore apply only to the practices of agents. In the absence
of an implied reference to God, who is imagined to rig the game of life unfairly by
For a discussion on Cohen’s affirmation of community see: (Vrousalis, 2012, esp. pp.152-55). Cohen was
notoriously ambiguous about the status between justice and community, and states that he does not know if the
two presupposes, or, contradict one another. (Cohen, 2009, p. 37). Nicholas Vrousalis is skeptical towards the
consistency between the two accounts of luck egalitarian justice and community and claims that it is question
begging that Cohen’s own account of justice can withstand the scrutiny he amounts on the Rawlsian theory of
justice. (Vrousalis, 2012, p. 154) It seems that there is a risk that inequalities due to choices can be equally
problematic as when they stem from incentives. However, when fully spelled out I hope to show, at least
tentatively, that Cohen’s egalitarianism can reconcile the two accounts.
13
17
supplying competitors with unequal equipment from the start, to charge unfairness
in the unequal distribution of natural endowments is to make a category mistake.
Luck egalitarians who complain of unfairness or injustice in the bare fact of brute
luck inequality appeal to intuitions that make no sense once the background
theological context is stripped away. (Anderson, 2013, p. 10).
A system where agents effectively use their assets to produce goods and advantages for
themselves and others and are consequently rewarded thereafter yields no legitimate complaint
of injustice. (Anderson, 2013, pp. 11-12, 16). She concedes to the claim that “to award more
goods to people for having "good genes,"” contrary to award their effective cooperation “is to
set an unfair barrier against those who, despite "bad genes," work as productively as the
genetically lucky.” (Anderson, 2013, p.11). But the luck egalitarian objection collapses when it
surpasses objurgating such ‘naked brute luck inequalities’ and claim that a distribution is unjust
whenever it permits brute luck to influence the allocation of benefits. To press for the unfairness
of a social order that awards positions according to talent, and thus design the system of rewards
to match contribution, the luck egalitarian claim invites the objection that we ought, in the name
of justice, to distribute careers and positions solely by means of affirmative action. The idea
that we should afford jobs independently of skill, merit or appropriateness is implausible, no
one can legitimately claim to be disadvantaged where the most appropriate candidates are
awarded with jobs, quite the contrary, benefits would be lost in the adverse scheme. However,
under any such system, accidental inequalities will inevitably determine which positions that
are to be filled by whom. “To lodge a valid complaint of injustice against this, the less talented
must claim that it is more reasonable to ask those who, say, undergo heart surgery at their hands,
to bear the risk of a botched job, than it is to ask them to accept a system in which they don't
get to be surgeons.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 11). A policy commanding a scheme that effectively
levels everyone down in this fashion can surely not be considered legitimate.
The luck egalitarian conception of justice thus fails to fulfil the third constraint and, in effect,
the fourth constraint is salvaged for the relational egalitarian. When all agents share a
disposition to arrange their conduct by rules acceptable to all, there are no grievances of
injustice. Justice falls within the scope of the morally right, the right, in turn directs our moral
obligations towards what we owe to each other. (Anderson, 2013, p. 19). But to be able to serve
in accordance with the right, agents must be enabled to know what the right is and principles of
justice must be construed so as to enable agents to achieve them, thus
18
[c]ontractualism imposes distinctive constraints on principles of justice. It adheres
to the maxim that “ought” implies “can”: principles of justice must be feasible such
that agents are able to follow them. It requires that principles be publicly articulable
such that people can share an understanding of what they demand and whether they
are generally followed. It seeks principles that are stable such that people can be
motivated by their sense of justice to follow these principles over time. It requires
that principles satisfy a Pareto improvement condition: that they not forbid actions
or block events that advance some people's interests to no one else's disadvantage.
(Anderson, 2013, p. 17).
Hence, relational egalitarians such as Anderson can indeed accommodate a robust conception
of social obligations. However, insofar as talented agents are allowed to pursue their own
interests (supposing that these are interests of ‘selfishness’) it will be to everyone’s advantage,
and thus mutually acceptable, to reward them with more pay than the average wage-earner.
(Anderson, 2013, p. 16).
Luck Egalitarianism: a Defense
Anderson’s rebuttal of the luck egalitarian paradigm rests, I claim, on an equivocation between
what Cohen considers to be the causally- and normatively fundamental features of (in)justice.
Nature-induced injustices are conspicuously unfair because of their standing propensity to
subsume people according to hierarchical positions conducive to socially constrained practices,
where some are forced to choose to accept and to enter into different forms of social relations.
They enter them, not at will or by preference, but for the wrong reasons (i.e. socially induced
coercion). (Cohen, 1995, 199). My aim here is to flesh out the grounds for considering these
features, in interplay with Cohen’s theory of objective and subjective freedom, to provide a
template for viewing his luck egalitarian position as substantially relational.
A relational account of justice such as Anderson’s, considers functional variations to be
fundamentally dependent on how, and at what range society caters to the full set of agents
commanding space within the social structure. What people have the unmanipulated ability to
do and who they can be is therefore fundamentally conditioned on the totality of the social and
material arrangements that constitutes the personal, public, productive, reproductive and social
life. How we arrange these structures is therefore the overarching determinant of how we will
function and, importantly, how we conceive of our “innate” functions, in a comprehensive
sense. This affects a multitude of values and features essential to life: love, care, social relations,
19
family relations, distant relations, productive relations, reproductive relations, attitudes and
dispositions etc. An overwhelming part of our social and material world is a direct product of
human accommodation and construction, it “is an artifact of ideas about inclusion.” (Nussbaum,
2006, p. 117). The idea is that agents are, in the pertinent sense, essentially impaired by nature,
in that, we are fundamentally conditioned on the structuring of our social and material world.
Hence, the feature that determine how we ultimately function, is the way in which we ‘rig the
game’, i.e. how we arrange civil and political life and the material conditions we depend on for
an adequate standard of living. (Nussbaum, 2006, pp. 116-17). Moreover, and relatedly, our
conception of ourselves depends on how we procure advantage and design our system of
rewards, and thus, how and on what basis we determine what kinds of functionings is socially
useful, and thus esteemed. On this view there is no need for god as a reference point because
even if she doesn’t exist and we would have to concede that nature is the causal mechanism that
produces impairments (on all of us), nature is only partly to blame. (Cohen, 2008, p. 317). This
is because all nature does is to present us with choices by which we can choose to react to and
act upon in different ways and if we choose to enable some agents by arranging our social
architectonic “by supplying [those agents] with unequal equipment from the start” (Anderson,
2013, p. 10) and reward them on this peculiar basis, this is certainly a partial fault in the
practices of agents.
By way of illustration consider disability theory. The concept of disability divides broadly into
two different strands. On a medical view disability is something inherent in the person, there is
a lack of endowment induced by nature. Conceptualization and redress on this account is done
by way of discerning and mitigating the effects of this lack on the person as such, rather than
viewing more comprehensively the multiple effects that social and material structures have on
people and on the way they function. (Wasserman, et. al, 2013). This is the objection of the
social model, current social arrangement is the discriminatory manifest of regarding some
people as normal and others as deviations from the average form of functionings. (Nussbaum,
2006, 113-14). Now, many adherents of the social model that views disability as socially
constructed disadvantage – as a phenomenon not that signifies a lack of something, but rather
as something that situates people differently, conditioned by the social order of things –
concedes to the fact that the feasibility of implementing policy based on the ontological
premises of the model is impossible. This is, according to the relational model, unfair. The
concession speaks to the medical view, not because of its desirability – to implement the
medical model is deeply intrusive in its essence since it signifies lack of normal functioning
20
and labels people socially and medically; thus the implementation of a policy to redress
disability in such a way can itself be seen to express pity rather than inclusion. This view of
conceiving of nature is not the view of a society of equals.
Marxism and Materialism
One initial feature underwrites the socialist luck-egalitarian position. It emanates from the claim
of Marxist materialism stating that “[t]he mode of production of material life conditions the
process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that
determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
(Marx, 1994, p. 211). 14 This statement carries with it a certain phenomenological rigidness that
stifles normative thought. Because residing within it one finds what should now be considered
a somewhat dogmatic belief in the dialectical development of history; whereby social
formations withers away through its own progress and fulfillment, as if by way of natural
tendency, and induces the transformation into new social and productive relations and thus the
consequent downfall of itself. (Cohen, 2000, p. 46, 75-6). It is, however, an observation that
have exercised, particularly Marxian socialists, nonetheless. And rightly so, I believe. Socialists
of all stripes must rid themselves of the dogmatic chains of materialism, but incorporate the
critique of the perhaps equally problematic tenets of liberalism to cling onto the limits of current
states of the world to guide normative thought. Now, the materialist observation rehearsed
above can be understood to contain two prongs that can, for explanatory purposes be held
distinct. One charges the intellectual endeavor pursued by academics. It states that in analyzing
social orders, we resort to an adaptive perspective constrained by present sociological facts.
This can be interpreted in a somewhat methodologically neutral manner stating that, we become
overly cautious in establishing principles of justice that ultimately betrays the truth of ideal
social existence, confiding in current state of affairs to embark, not on the realization of a wideranging vision, but on the legitimization of given inequalities. (Baker, 2015, p. 66).
There is a tendency among liberally minded egalitarians to encapsulate features of institutions
and practices remnant from (that is, remnant from the point of view of a utopian socialist
perspective) pre-egalitarian social conditions. Samuel Scheffler argues that agents of an
egalitarian community will oppose “being subject to comprehensive regulatory scrutiny from
the perspective of an anonymous collectivity that lacks individualized knowledge of its
members’ needs, preferences, circumstances and values.” And thus gives special salience to
Marx speaks of ‘men’ throughout the cited passages in an outmoded sense while referring, as I take it, to
collectives.
14
21
“strategies of externalizing decisions – treating them as falling outside the context of a given
relationship” (Scheffler, 2015, p. 37). Anderson considers the fact that people should be
accorded space from making choices in contradiction to their own inner preferences to be
tantamount to disequalizing incentives, or at any rate, she reaches, in a rather straightforward
way, the decisive conclusion that insofar as the talented are considered “morally and legally
free to give some weight to their actual preferences, everyone will find it advantageous to pay
them more for their work.” (Anderson, 2013, p. 10) But an unwillingness to adapt more
comprehensively to the interests of an anonymous collectivity is, I believe, tainted by
circumstances that are possible of change. A possible feature of social transformation that in
turn would render incentive payments to be considered less given in a modern social order.
There is something inherently troublesome in restraining theory in such a way since “unless we
can be free to imagine the desirable independently of its apparent feasibility, we are likely to
err on the side of caution and to be hidebound by what currently passes as common sense.”
(Baker, 2015, p. 75).
Giving special salience to either incentives or unregulated conduct of agents (or both) dismisses,
as either unduly intrusive or unfeasible (or both), the account of ‘voluntary equality’ pursued
by socialists; whereby people with the motivational structure inherent in a belief in egalitarian
justice are prone to resolve conflicts of interests, as they arise, in favor of equality. (Cohen,
1995, pp. 127-28). Socialists embrace, as just, the notion of a justificatory community where
‘there prevails a norm’ of voluntary comprehensive justification, wherein which people share a
willingness to vindicate their everyday choices to others. (Cohen, 2008, p. 43).15 Consequently,
15
To be sure, one must not inaugurate, on the basis of justificatory community, the slavery of the talented.
However, there is not necessarily a contradiction of values within the conception of comprehensive justification.
An ethos of egalitarianism applied universally to all agents regardless of talent can e.g. incorporate a prerogative
in terms of freedom of occupation, people should not be coerced, either by social structures, expectations or their
own sense of duty to apply for an occupation that deprives them of a secure sense of self-worth, a conception of
the good or other social and relational values. Since the ethos is applied to everyone, there should be a united
consensus regarding the status and importance of these values. What justificatory community could imply is
rather that, in choosing among occupations within a reasonable reach, suitable to the needs of an agent X, then X
ought to choose an occupation with an eye towards the choice that would be conducive to the highest social
benefit. For great discussion on the matter see: (Casal, 2013, esp. 10-15). As we will be clear below, Casal’s
objection to a comprehensive ethos of justice is reminiscent of a claim against unfreedom found in Cohen’s own
philosophy; if presented only by choices of good and evil, her argument goes, there is not much of a choice in
the first place. (Casal, 2013, pp. 10). Limiting the scope of the ethos, however, to include only those choices
where genuine alternatives are available seems reasonable to me. We must keep in mind that what is required by
justificatory community is that agents are able to voice an argument for their choices without embarrassing
fraternity, that agent X nevertheless chooses an occupation, suboptimal from a social point of view, while having
genuinely contemplated the most socially useful choice, qualify, I believe, as an argument from within
community. The proposal, however, is likely to fall either under the category of vague claims, or, as is objected
by Casal that expanding a prerogative to allow a wider set of choices will only induce inefficiency, and
furthermore, it does not ensure that a wide range of occupations actually applies. (Casal, 2013, p. 12). I lean
towards vague, because what I believe it to express is a shared willingness and preference among agents to
22
socialists suggests a promulgation of an egalitarian ethos to guide and inform our everyday
choices, the absence of which would result in the preservation of inequalities detrimental to the
position of the worst off group in society. (Cohen, 2008, p. 123). The ethos manifest itself as a
“structure of response lodged in the motivations that regulate everyday life” such a motivational
structure is needed “not only because it is impossible to design rules of egalitarian economic
choice conformity with which can always be checked, but also because it would severely
compromise liberty if people were required forever to consult such rules” (Cohen, 2008, p. 123)
assuming, then, that such rules can even be successfully implemented. The contrasting view, as
pursued by Anderson and Scheffler, invites the objection that restraining theory according to
present social formations and claims of feasibility, does not aspire to actualize peoples’ full
agency, but rather, it asserts the confinements of such realizations. “It lets every man find in
other men not the realization but rather the limitation of his own freedom.” (Marx, 1994, pp.
16-17).
The second prong is, in its form, more true to the orthodox Marxist contention and engages
more directly with social life as such and the structural implications of different material
relations. This states that the general consciousness of a community is conditioned by the level
of development that pertains in the productive relations. One cannot, prior to a transformation
of material relations, judge ones putatively just conduct and evaluate the demands of others as
one finds them in the world, because our self-awareness is intimately connected to the social
environment in which we currently engage. Our very conception of the claims and obligations
before us will be fundamentally biased in favor of the constrained social and material relations
prescribed in liberal schemes. “Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks of
himself, so one cannot judge […] a period of transformation by its consciousness”. (Marx, 1994,
p. 211). Accordingly, the idea that we can extract justice from our conceptions of demands and
obligations as we evaluate them in relation to ourselves is flawed, such an endeavor will be
restrained by a natural tendency towards static conclusions, because not only are we ‘likely to
err on the side of caution’ but we are, in all relevant respects, determined to do so if we are
readily influenced by occurring social structures.
Moreover, and relatedly, to assume that we can end socially constructed oppression within a
social order that (typically) harness efficiency of the fear and greed inherent in marketcontribute to the needs of others as best as they can, and thus a willingness to justify their conduct to others.
Agents in a socialist community strives mutually to resolve their shared arrangements in favor of equality, it is
not a comprehensive account of scorekeeping, but rather, an account of comprehensive willingness, suited for
occasions when choice actually do apply.
23
structured relations of production and transfer is a category mistake. Rather, equal social
relations are prejudiced by such a system of production and reward. Economically because it
differentiates between winners and losers, and communally since exchange is not conducted on
a footing of reciprocal need, but rather, on maximizing the cash-reward practicably feasible.
(Cohen, 2009, pp. 39-40, 69). A concoction of these features, regularly present on the market
does not derive and nourish attitudes and dispositions of an anti-oppression type.
On either interpretation a major implication of this observation is the socialist insistence on a
theoretical priority to modes of production and distribution, and the corresponding significance
of unmanipulated choice (as will be clearer below: freedom). Choice, or more correctly, patterns
of choice, is foregrounded here because just as the profoundness of individual choices affects
our social and material circumstances, 16 so too does it seem to affect our conscious existence.
As consciousness is conditioned by present social formations and thus also by the
transformation between different modes of production it seems that to fully comprehend the
process itself we must be routinely involved in the active development of new productive
relations. This surpasses the process of mere analysis and deliberation in the outset of
cooperation and focuses on the conduct of agents in congruence with the transformation itself,
because our reflections and conceptions is the product of, or ‘language of, actual life’;; deeply
intertwined with our productive and social activity. “Men are the producers of their conceptions,
ideas etc., but these are real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of
the productive forces and the relationships corresponding to these up to their highest forms.
Consciousness can never be anything else except conscious existence, and the existence of men
is their actual life-process.” (Marx, 1994, p. 111). So it seems, on this reading, that actual
conduct is the vehicle of our conceptions of ourselves and social life in general. We can as it
seems, or at any rate, it is not fully excluded by neither account that we can understand social
processes through analysis, the adverse claim would be misguided. Rather than pressing a
strictly deterministic conception, we can extract a claim that elucidates the idea that to fully
develop our reasoning, dispositions and emotions we must adapt the ways in which we engage
with the material world. This flows from the idea that, “[a]s individuals express their life, so
they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with what they produce, with what they produce
and how they produce.” (Marx, 1994, p. 107-108).
16
I refer here, somewhat loosely, to the charge against the claim that social institutions should have special salience
in our conceptions of justice, since they have such profound effects on our overall situations. See: (Cohen, 2008,
pp. 136-38) (Rawls, 2001, pp. 55-57).
24
What is said about choice in the above paragraph can be divided into two horns that signify
how choice and the lack of it affects social life. One is the ethos-affecting virtues choices have
to refine and alter social behavior. Individual choices can enable changes of social behavior
through the expectations people gain and maintain, given that a sufficient amount of individuals
pursue similar routes. However, it is important to keep in mind the relation between social
behavior and the profound effect of social and institutional structures. This pairs with the idea
that our choices are conditioned by present social formations and that we must appreciate the
fact that people are, to a certain degree, under the influence of such formations. Hence, Cohen
claims “it is essential to apply principles of justice to dominant patterns in social behavior –
that, as it were, is where the action is” (Cohen, 2008, p. 142) but, he continues, one must not
resort to either claim 1) that people ought to be held fully accountable for their unjust behavior,
nor 2) should one accept practices of injustice “since people do have choices: it is, indeed, only
their choices that reproduce social practices” (Cohen, 2008, 141). Cohen thus says that a
comprehensive conception of social justice must look at four features of social life: the legal
and coercive structures, social and material structures, the pertaining ethos, and individual
choices. Evaluation of prevailing choices, then, have to include the significant influences of the
other features. (Cohen, 2008, pp. 141-42). The second horn is the lack of genuine choice
particularly17 of those on the downside of the distributions of natural assets (in endowment or
resources alike). This signifies the profound unfreedom of expressing one’s life in a way
inconsistent with one’s own genuine preferences and agency. The latter of the two is what will
mainly occupy me in the remainder of this essay.
The upcoming section is devoted to the exegetical claim that the core of Cohen’s conception of
justice, and indeed his entire normative political philosophy, depends on and urges for a
comprehensive rearrangement of current social and material structures to relinquish the
alienating features of social life that are conducive to the manipulation of preferences through
socially constrained relationships. The significance placed on this preferentialist outlook is
elicited, I take it, out of the imperative that our agency and indeed who we are, should coincide
with what we willingly choose to do, not what we are, by circumstance and brute luck, forced
to choose to accept. The theoretical salience on choice (and equivalently: freedom), looms large
in the critique of the way we cope with differential distributions in natural assets (endowment
‘Particularly’ because there seems to be a case for saying that well-off people in market-structured societies
have their preferences manipulated as well, to be sure not in the downgrading and demeaning way as for the least
well off, but through the currently socially accepted practice of luring people into making choices based on
material incentives rather than genuine interest. (Cohen, 2008, p. 210).
17
25
and resources) and the commodification of labor within market structured societies. I will try
to show that through the lens of Cohen’s theory of freedom we can discern, or so I claim, that
the brute luck socialist luck egalitarians condemn is the product of an arrangement unable to
harness advantages for people in a way congruent with peoples’ unmanipulated preferences and
agency. This enable us to resolve and emphasize how Cohen incorporates the intimate
connection that Marxian socialists projects on the relations of production and modes of
distribution into his conception of justice and equality. (Wolff, 2010, p. 339).
Socialism: Justice, Freedom and Exploitation
The Socialist exclamation of justice and equality gets off the ground by observing two
interconnected forms of freedom that falls within the immediate scope of this essay.18 A first
one, which contains features similar to the familiar forms of negative and positive freedoms
found within a liberal outlook, says that people are (negatively) free absent liability to
intervention and (positively) free when they have access to capability for action. Pivotal on the
socialist conception is that the (un)freedom of an agent reflects his or her objective
circumstances, institutionally, socially or materially imposed. The idea is that I am unfree to X
whenever someone or something interferes with my X-ing whether or not I am within my rights
to X. That is, the interveners might be (lawfully or morally) right to restrict my freedom to X,
but when that is so, that does not somehow make me not unfree, my freedom is still restricted
in the pertinent sense. So, for example, if I aim to board a train without any money a guard will
stop me and so effectively restrict my freedom to board the train. Importantly this signifies the
socialist divorce with the liberal understanding of positive and negative freedom. Because
money (or the lack of it) is, on the socialist view, seen as a form of (un)freedom that ties the
two conceptions together. I am unfree in the positive sense to board the train only because the
unfreedom is executed by a negative intervention due to my lack of money to buy a ticket.
(Cohen, 1995, pp. 57-59). The left-wing slogan that the poor are free only to starve is, then, out
of place since the poor are not free-with-lack-of-means for action, they are simply unfree since
lack of money converts inevitably into interventions with freedom. “To have money is to have
freedom, and the assimilation of money to mental and bodily resources is a piece of unthinking
18
Collective freedom constitutes a third form which I will only mention here in passing since it seems to fall
beyond the scope of this paper. The (very) rough idea is that people within a collective can be individually free in
terms of opportunity for freedom, but the realization of effective access to freedom is so fractional that only a
minor part of the collective can attain it, and if some do it will severely damage the opportunity for others to do
the same.
26
fetishism, in the good old Marxist sense that it misrepresents social relations of constraint as
things that people lack. In a word: money is no object.” (Cohen, 1995, 58-59).
A second form of freedom is subjective freedom. On this score I am free when I am able to do
something for acceptable reasons, and on the contrary, I am unfree when I am forced to do
something for reasons that are reasonable to reject. Important to note is that the subjective
freedoms enjoyed by agents readily supervenes on their contextual circumstances i.e. their
objective freedoms. If my contextual circumstances are severely restrained, I am in the relevant
sense forced to choose to act on what is then the wrong reasons because any alternatives
(available) are not worth considering. (Cohen, 1983, p. 4). So for example if a robber
approaches me on the street and tells me at gunpoint that she will shoot me unless I hand over
my belongings, I am then forced in the pertinent sense to enter into what is a forced
unreciprocated transaction i.e. I am coerced into giving my belongings to the robber, because
the alternative (getting shot) is simply not a reasonable one.
This captures an additional feature of Cohen’s conception, one that explains the relation
between social and material conditions and the experience of desirable states. (Cohen, 1990,
368-69, 380-81). If agents are afflicted by socially imposed constraints, which induces in them,
lack of self-confidence or feelings of subjugation this is indeed conducive to subjective
unfreedom in terms of what can be conceived as lack of desirable states. (Cohen, 1983, pp. 5,
26-7). The wrong-making feature of a coerced unreciprocated transaction or procedure is not
the mere fact that choices, as it were, are manipulated; that people are forced to choose to do,
or agree to something for what they perceive to be the wrong reasons compound on the bare
fact that it was forced. Furthermore, being “handled”, even in cases where it is to one’s
advantage, is problematic since this carries a certain liability to severe feelings of regret of one’s
situation, a view focused primarily on advantage might readily fail to account for the legitimate
claims on genuine agency. It would thus be an instance of subjective unfreedom to be forced to
choose to comply with rules of regulation by which you feel discriminated against, even though
you on that score lack advantage in terms of feelings of inferiority or subjugation and lacking
self-confidence, rather than any deficit, and indeed despite gained, affirmative capability.
Equality underpinned by the conception of freedom as outlined in the above paragraphs accords
well with the relational egalitarian outlook. Consider Anderson’s promulgation of equality as
substantial freedom in view of democratic equality:
[T]he social condition of living a free life is that one stand in relations of equality
with others. Equals are not subject to arbitrary violence or physical coercion by
27
others. Choice unconstrained by arbitrary physical coercion is one of the
fundamental conditions of freedom. Equals are not marginalized by others. They
are therefore free to participate in politics and the major institutions of civil society.
Equals are not dominated by others;; they do not live at the mercy of others’ wills.
This means that they govern their lives by their own wills, which is freedom.
(Anderson, 1999, p. 315).
The penultimate clause takes, as we have begun to see, centre stage in Cohen’s charge against
social inequalities, contextually constrained relationships that renders peoples genuine
preferences unattainable forces people to choose to submit to the wills of others, on pain of
losing out on the advantage that such relations brings. This conception of equality as
substantially interpreted through the concept of freedom follows through an intermediate
rehearsal of the Marxist conception of exploitation that illuminate the content of the socialist
critique of injustice, to which I now turn.
Capitalist exploitation follows, on the Marxist account, a three step sequence. 1) Workers under
capitalism suffers from an unequal distribution of means of production, 2) they are forced to
labor at the hands of others, meaning; others tell them what, with what and how to produce, and
3) those others (the capitalists) retain surplus-value of that which was produced. Although the
complete set of features carries with them ‘a redolence of injustice’, the normatively significant
instance of capitalistic injustice is that of coercive transfers of surplus-value. (Cohen, 1995,
195-6). As in the case of robbers who strong-arm people into giving them their money, the
injustice of a coercive transaction between worker and capitalist is inherent in the socially
constrained relation between the parties and not some other circumstance. A forced
unreciprocated transaction of surplus is wrong independently of any contextual circumstances,
it is wrong because made for the wrong reason. However, that does not mean that it is the only
explanation of how and why unjust transfers occur unjustly. The underlining causal explanation
of how capitalist acts becomes unjust lies in the fact that they are readily enabled by a
differential distribution of means of production. Although unjust, an initial distribution of assets
is not of fundamental normative importance because, in contrast to the unjust transfers, it
inherits the injustice from what it enables i.e. the coercive transfers of surplus which is, in itself,
of fundamental normative importance
A transfer of product is unjust if and only if it occurs for the wrong reason. If an
unreciprocated product transfer reflects nothing but different (unmanipulated)
preferences in a straightforward way, the transfer is not unjust. But it is unjust when
28
and because it is caused by an unequal asset endowment, an unequal asset
endowment which is unjust because it induces a wrongful, because forced, and not,
for example, preference-based, flow. (Cohen, 1995, p. 199).
So there is a sharp distinction between those features of capitalist exploitation that are
normatively fundamental and correspond to a primary injustice, which is forced unreciprocated
flow of surplus-value, and on the other hand, those causally fundamental features corresponding
to a secondary injustice, that is, unequal distributions of means of production. Importantly,
despite its derivative nature the unequal asset distribution nevertheless have intrinsic (negative)
value. This is so because it have the intrinsic property of a standing propensity to produce forced
unreciprocated flow, regardless of “what it has caused, is causing or will cause” (Cohen, 1995,
p. 202). However, the intrinsic properties are not unconditional. They have the properties of
intrinsic wrongness dependently on “how other things stand, and, in particular, on whether other
things so stand that the means of production distribution enables an unjust appropriation of
surplus product.” (Cohen, 1995, p. 203). A batch of TNT has the intrinsic property of exploding,
whether or not it actually explodes, but this property cannot be inaugurated while placed on a
planet that lacks oxygen, even though it still do contain the property of a propensity to explode.
(Cohen, 1995, p. 202).
Similarly to the conditionality case above, disability does not contain an unconditional intrinsic
injustice, because people with disabilities does not perceive disability as a lack of something. It
is an injustice ‘because of how things stand’ and ‘things do so stand’ so as to “enable” the
injustice they are situated in. The fact that the injustice is conditional in this way seems to rebut
the objection that brute luck on Cohens view generates redress out of pity rather than dignity or
equal standing. Because the brute luck is not naturally induced per se if it is fundamentally
dependent on how things stand. Brute luck is, in the pertinent sense, socially imposed. It is e.g.
not the case then, as Anderson contends, that on the luck egalitarian view we have to
conceptualize disability as internal defects. (Anderson, 1999, p. 302, 334-35). The normatively
relevant kind of brute luck in play is perforce induced by social relations of constraint. This
strongly suggest that we are indeed able to interpret the socialist luck egalitarian account of
Cohen as aspiring to establish a full bloodied capability approach to justice, and not a mere
“mixed bag of internal capabilities, opportunities for welfare, and resources”. (Anderson, 1999,
p. 293).
Cohen discerns that a case structurally analogous to the exploitation case rehearsed above is the
unequal distributions in natural assets, which enables some to produce more efficiently, achieve
29
desirable positions and careers, and to influence their income/leisure ratios to a higher extent
than others. Those of fortunate endowment have thus the ability and the privilege to be in a
position to e.g. bargain more effectively regarding the ultimate distribution of benefits that
accrue to agents in virtue of their shared cooperation. They are, as it were, in a position to
determine whether or not to “produce more than they otherwise would if, and only if, they are
paid more than an ordinary wage” (Cohen, 2008, p. 119) this is indeed a “choice enjoyed by
well-placed people who command a high salary in a market economy: they can choose to work
more or less hard, and also to work at this occupation rather than that one, and for this employer
rather than that one, in accordance with how well they are remunerated”. (Cohen, 2008, pp.
119-20). It is important to notice that for Cohen the core feature is not the fact that they are
talented that might induce a problematic form of relationship, but rather “all that needs to be
true of them [the well-placed people] is that they are so positioned that, happily, for them, they
do command a high salary and they can vary their productivity according to exactly how high
it is.” (Cohen, 2008, p. 120). This strongly indicate that what Cohen perceives of as the
normatively fundamental feature is that some people are in a position of power over others, to
decide with a weightier vote, how benefits and burdens will be distributed throughout society.
Importantly, if X is in a fortunate position relative to Y in determining the surplus-flow of their
shared cooperative experience and X aims to maximize his own bundle of benefits, but, we
assume, on the condition that he also furthers Y’s position as far as possible, this does not mean
that X is exploiting Y in any straightforward sense. This is so because the Marxist contention
is fleshed out accordingly: “since labour produces the product and private owners of capital
appropriate part of it, private capital is illegitimate and workers are exploited”. (Cohen, 1995,
p. 206). It would be misguided to say that Y is forced to work for X and that Y thus yields
surplus to X for what Y has produced. Rather, it seems that X and Y have generated surplus
mutually (indifferent) through a system of cooperation. Nevertheless, it seems that Y is
somewhat constrained by his objective circumstances, because dependent – given his position
as things stand in the endowment distribution – on the fear and greed instigated to harness
advantage on any form of market-structured society. (Cohen, 2009, 39-40). So, one can discern
a strikingly similar feature of Y:s position in relation to that of the worker under capitalist
exploitation without reference to the work for/yield surplus clause, but rather to the attainment
(and the lack) of freedom. So the overarching claim is that differential “flow is unjust because
it reflects an unjust division of resources which is unjust because it tends to produce precisely
such a flow.” (Cohen, 1995, p. 199, emphasis in original) Much rides here on how we interpret
30
‘flow’ in the circumstance of a non-exploitation case. One crucial truth, on the socialist reading,
is that a policy embodying the account driving X and Y reflects a distributive principle that
manifestly urges the “giving to those who have” (Cohen, 2008, p. 86). A wider conception
suggest that flow can be interpreted as a state of affairs – with the pivotal normative premise
that a state of affairs such as this is constitutive of socially constrained relations, since the
principle cannot be said straightforwardly to bare upon unmanipulated preferences, rather, it
inherits the vices (and merits) of markets
The market […] is a casino from which it is difficult to escape, and the inequalities
that it produces are tainted with injustice for that reason. Whatever else is true, it is
certainly safe to say that the yawning gulf between rich and poor in capitalist
countries is not largely due to luck and the lack of it in optional gambling, but is
rather a result of unavoidable gambling and straightforward brute luck. (Cohen
2009, p. 33-34)
The cited passage is riddled with references to the objective and oppressive circumstances of
market structured societies and it is precisely the unavoidableness of exiting relations which
lead some into positions where they are not enabled to enter into relations by sheer will or
preference, but instead by the fact that they are subject to an unequal distribution of assets;
socially imposed brute luck. The causally significant feature of injustice is therefore unequal
distributions of (natural) assets, but it is unjust only because it contain the property of a standing
disposition as things stand to generate circumstances which forces people to choose to accept
the rules of regulations; they depend on the advantage that those rules brings. Markets contain
the questionable feature of manipulating peoples’ wills to enhance the product derived through
the productive forces in play, although it conveys nothing of the manner, as such, in which
people treat others “the market does require people to handle people, to manage them, in a
particular sense.” (Cohen, 2000, p. 181).
A significant feature of the market, inherent in this observation is the way in which markets
handle those permanently outside its sway. Because it is, arguably, one of the biggest
denominators of who we conceive ourselves to be, in the socially pertinent sense, since it tells
us what we should produce, with what we should produce and how we should produce; it
determines our social use-value. Thus it also determines the use-value of those that cannot or
to the extent that others do – produce. While some have to be advantaged by sheer need, since
they do not fit in as things do stand, others are advantaged for their contribution i.e. their social
use-value; of which e.g. (some) disabled people have none as far as markets are concerned. The
31
luck egalitarian socialist avoids this stigmatization by effectively divorcing contribution from
reward, in the good old Marxist sense, of supplying goods according the needs of everyone as
a unit, to the extent that are enabled to submit ones labor. Markets thus have a rather problematic
tendency to restrict our conceptions of what it is important to value in social life by driving the
hard bargain for efficiency and growth.19 The normatively fundamental feature of a socialist
critique of market-structured societies will always press its locus on the dubiously reciprocal
relations that pertains within them. The divide between the normatively fundamental and
causally fundamental conceptions of justice recurs in Cohen’s treatment of the Rawlsian
liberalism that concerned him for the later part of his life. His concern lies with the upshot of
the ways in which we cope with the causally fundamental features of social life, these upshots
are a function of the social and material structures of society in interplay with individual choices
My own fundamental concern is neither the basic structure of society, in any sense,
nor people’s individual choices, but the pattern of benefits and burdens in society:
that is neither a structure in which choice occurs nor a set of choices, but the upshot
of structure and choices alike. […] My root belief is that there is injustice in
distribution when inequality of goods reflects not such things as differences in the
arduousness of different people’s labors, or people’s different preferences and
choices with respect to income and leisure, but myriad forms of lucky and unlucky
circumstance. Such differences of advantage are a function of the structure and of
people’s choices within it, so I am concerned, secondarily, with both of those.
(Cohen, 2008, p. 126).
My claim is that ‘advantage’ here falls and is analyzable within the intersection of objective
and subjective freedom – it embodies the contextual circumstances that ensure freedom from
acting on and complying with rules and circumstances that constrain reasonable interests.
Access to advantage is manifested in a state of affairs where agents are enabled to guide and be
guided by their unmanipulated preferences, they do not live at the mercy of others wills. Now
consider the ‘patterns of benefits and burdens’-clause: on this interpretation we are free to move
beyond ‘patterns’ in a mere distributional sense (needless to say, ‘distributions’ in the ordinary
sense is not abandoned, they simply do not exhaust ‘patterns’) our reading includes patterns of
domination and subjugation, of superiority and inferiority, of privilege and marginalization etc.
19
Needless to say, these are important values, to dismiss them would be both overly zealous and parochial, but a
social transformation to accommodate these values in a way consistent with an anti-hierarchical social order
ought not to be left aside.
32
The focal point of the analysis are the social bases of freedom and the upshot of those bases.
Again, it seems that we can appeal to the example of disability. Disability is not in and of itself
unjust – because on the social model we do not view disability as a lack of something inherent
in the person, but rather, disability situates people in different types of positions depending on
the social arrangements. The injustice is induced when we arrange and maintain a social order
that single out disabled people as deviants from the average, and serve their interests in a way
inconsistent with their equal standing in society. This, I think it fair to claim, is the socialist
luck egalitarian charge against injustice embodied in Cohen’s account. It opposes the initiating
force of converting nature into a socialized framework of unfreedom; a framework that
effectively induces relations of domination and subjugation and creates stigmatizing differences
of social status. The point of equality is to redress this initial misconstruction; to tailor social
arrangements suitable to the unmanipulated needs of all and not solely on the basis of a
privileged ‘elite’ that, as things do stand, has it going for them. The point of equality is to realize
access to advantage.
Concluding Remarks
My aim in this essay have been to outline the two competing accounts of egalitarian justice and
equality. I have tried to meet the three relational constraints outlined by Elizabeth Anderson
from a socialist luck egalitarian outlook, arguing that the core opposition from within this
conception of equality is the socially imposed framework of unfreedom that results when initial
distributions of assets are accommodated in a way inconsistent with the free agency of all. This
meets the second constraint, that a claim of injustice must be directed at the conduct of agents.
The propensity of unequal distributions to generate injustice is a function instantiated by social
forces, when nature is converted into social and material structures in opposition to the free
agency of some, relations of constraint is, on this reading, by necessity socially imposed. People
who are deprived of their agency because social structures and relations are regulated in
opposition to their needs thus have a standing claim of injustice, their genuine interests are
compromised on account of their dependency on the mercy of others wills. The socialist luck
egalitarian conception can accommodate this view. Thus, the first constraint that someone must
have a standing complaint of disadvantage is met. The third constraint: that claims of justice
must be legitimate, turns on the fact that it is thought that luck egalitarians must consider a
division of labor inconsistent with their conception of justice. Justice cannot be served insofar
as some enjoy positions others can’t, since this reflect accidents that are morally arbitrary. As
we can now see this is not the focal point of socialist luck egalitarianism. Social relations of
33
constraint are inaugurated when some hold their talents against others, not when they use their
talents to serve them. When there prevails a norm of voluntary equality, when people’s
motivational structures are willfully guided by the egalitarian ethos to justify their conduct to
others, they will take on occupations (partly) for that very reason. Hence, in her charge to
disavow the socialist luck egalitarianism of Cohen Anderson wrongly attributes to him, the
unthinking fetishism of ‘misrepresenting social relations of constraint as things that people
lack’.
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