Gränsdragningsproblemet i luck egalitarianism

Abstract

The purpose of my study is to investigate whether luck egalitarianism can be saved from its inability to draw a line between risks which can reasonably be expected to be avoided, and risk which can not. Such a demarcation is of particular importance for this influential theory of distributive justice, since it serves to judge whether a person is entitled to compensation for a bad outcome of a taken risk, or not. Testing the intuitiveness and coherence of various contending principles for how to separate avoidable risks from unavoidable ones, I conclude that luck egalitarianism seems unable to draw a clear line between the two kinds of risks. Instead the theory appears to be dependent on conceptions of a 'normal life', making it remarkably vague. Furthermore, I argue that luck egalitarianism seems unable to manage without taking sufficientarian and utilitarian concerns into account, for the purpose of deciding which risks are avoidable, and which are not.