How Equality Matters to Justice: Relational Egalitarianism, Distributive Justice, and the Concept of Equality

• Main Author: Sommers, Timothy William
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Law; Philosophy; Political science
• ISBN: 9798368482521

In “How Equality Matters to Justice: Relational Egalitarianism, Distributive Justice, and the Concept of Equality.” I explore the debate in contemporary political philosophy between those who believe that, as moral equals, we are owed a certain distribution of something, and those who believe that our being equals is a matter of standing in certain social relations to one another. I use the concept of equality to adjudicate between distributive justice and relational egalitarianism. My main conclusions are deflationary. I argue that there are two (and not the standard three) kinds of equality relevant to justice, that the distributive/relational distinction is not fundamental, and that equality does surprisingly little work in late modern and contemporary theories of justice. In Chapter I, I reject the standard, “three-equalities” view (from Aristotle to Rawls to Larry Temkin), that there are three kinds of equality relevant to justice, (i) formal equality (treat like cases alike), (ii) moral equality (we are all equals), and (iii) substantive equality (we are all owed relatively equal shares of something). Instead, I argue that formal equality should not be counted as normatively relevant in this way and, so, in favor of a “two-equalities” view. Many philosophers have thought that justice just is a certain sort of equality. I argue that what they have meant is that justice is a certain kind of substantive equality, not formal. I argue what we value is always concrete, particular equalities, and not “equality” in the abstract, and I share my initial doubts about the fundamentality of the distributive/relational distinction. In Chapter II, I offer a model for a sophisticated kind of distributivism I call “complex distributivism.” Distributivists need not be committed to the equality of only one thing, nor to strictly equal distributions thereof. A more sophisticated distributivism can better answer the arguments deployed by relational egalitarians, I will argue. Finally, I offer an original distributive principle I call “range egalitarianism,” based on the claim that sometimes what is normatively relevant is that no one falls below, nor exceeds, a certain egalitarian range—that we can be egalitarians while denying that every increase in equality is a normative improvement. I suggest that in surveys, Americans’ attitude about wealth and income suggest that many people are already range egalitarians about money. In Chapter III, I address in detail, Iris Marion Young’s arguments against, what she calls, the “distributive paradigm.” I conclude that none of these are fatal to the view. In Chapter IV, I argue contra-Young, every theory is, or can be translated into, a distributive theory—or “distributivized.” On the other hand, it is even easier to convert distributive theories into relational ones. My point is not that distributizing—or vice versa—show not that all theories are “really” distributive (or relational), but that the distinction is not of fundamental importance. In Chapter V and VI, I argue that neither Samuel Scheffler’s “egalitarian distributive constraint” nor Elizabet Anderson’s hierarchal view succeed in displacing distributivism entirely. Both try to give equality more work to do than it can handle. Scheffler thinks you can derive substantive equality from analyzing the structure egalitarian relations. Anderson treats all injustice, or oppression, as essentially hierarchical, but does not get us to a full-blown theory of justice. As soon as Anderson acknowledges that not all hierarchies are bad, the focus moves away from equality to other more substantive moral notions, like justice. In Chapter VII, I argue that in the contexts of health care, wealth, and dependency care, distributive reasoning is indispensable since people care about more than just valuable relationships. Relational egalitarianism can reframe distributive reasoning, but it cannot do away altogether with the need for reasoning about what distributions are best in certain circumstances.