Egalitarian Justice

On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice Author(s): G. A. Cohen Source: Ethics, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Jul., 1989), pp. 906-944 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381239 Accessed: 22/07/2010 09:53
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On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice G. A. Cohen*
I. INTRODUCTION In his Tanner Lecture of 1979called "Equality of What?" Amartya Sen asked what metric egalitarians should use to establish the extent to which their ideal is realized in a given society. What aspect(s) of a person's condition should count in a fundamental way for egalitarians, and not merely as cause of or evidence of or proxy for what they regard as fundamental? In this study I examine answers to that question, and discussionsbearing on that question, in recent philosophical literature. I take for granted that there is something which justice requires people to have equal amounts of, not no matter what, but to whatever extent is allowed by values which compete with distributive equality; and I study what a number of authors who share that egalitarian view have said about the dimensions) or respect(s) in which peopleshould be made more equal, when the price in other values of moving toward greater equality is not intolerable. I also advance an answer of my own to Sen's question. My answer is the product of an immanent critique of Ronald Dworkin, one, that is, which rejects Dworkin's declared position because it is not congruent with its own underlying motivation. My response to Dworkin has been influenced byRichard Arneson's work in advocacy of "equality of opportunity for welfare," but my answer to Sen's question is not that Arnesonian one, nor is my answer as well formulated as Arneson's is.' It needs much further refinement, but I nevertheless present it here, in a

* I thankJerry Barnes and Tim Scanlon for their generously extended and very incisive criticism of a draft of this article. And, fortheir many helpful comments, I also thank Richard Arneson, John Baker, Tim Besley, Ronald Dworkin, John Gardner, David Knott, Will Kymlicka, David Lloyd-Thomas, Grahame Lock, John McMurtry, Michael Otsuka, Derek Parfit, Joseph Raz, Amartya Sen, and Phillippe Van Parijs. 1. See Richard Arneson, "Equalityand Equality of Opportunity for Welfare,"Philosophical Studies, vol. 55 (1989). My criticisms ofDworkin were conceived without knowledge of Arneson's partly parallel ones, but it was reading Arneson which caused me to see what positive view my criticisms implied, even though that view is not the same as Arneson's. Ethics 99 (July 1989): 906-944 ? 1989 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704/89/9904-0005$01.00

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Currencyof Egalitarian Justice

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