David Vestergaard Axelsen

Capabilitarian Sufficiency: Capabilities and Social Justice

Abstract This paper suggests an account of sufficientarianism—that is, that justice is fulfilled when everyone has enough—laid out within a general framework of the capability approach. In doing so, it seeks to show that sufficiency is especially plausible as an ideal of social justice when constructed around key capabilitarian insights such as freedom, pluralism, and attention to empirical interconnections between central capabilities. Correspondingly, we elaborate on how a framework for evaluating social justice would look when constructed in this way and give reasons for why capabilitarians should embrace sufficientarianism. We do this by elaborating on how capabilitarian values underpin sufficiency. On this basis, we identify three categories of central capabilities; those related to biological and physical needs, those to fundamental interests of a human agent, and those to fundamental interests of a social being. In each category, we argue, achieving sufficiency requires different distributional patterns depending on how the capabilities themselves work and interrelate. This argument adds a new dimension to the way capabilitarians think about social justice and changes how we should target instances of social justice from social-political viewpoint.

Equality, responsibility, and justice

Abstract In this introduction, we underline the theoretical connection between responsibility, luck, and equality upon which luck egalitarianism rests, and we consider the social and political relevance of the approach. We then situate Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s version of the view as proposed in his book, Luck Egalitarianism, in the egalitarian landscape. Lastly, we introduce the six papers that make up this symposium: some are critiques from within or outside luck egalitarianism, while others engage with the theory by expanding the scope of luck egalitarianism.

Against institutional conservatism

Abstract In this article, I argue against institutional conservatism, and the reluctance to include radical changes to important institutions within normative principles for fear of losing practical significance. In making this argument, I will focus on the debate on global justice, in which the issue is especially clear due to the greater potential effects of radical institutional changes. My main target, then, is theorists who are institutionally conservative regarding the institutional system of nation states. Although, these theorists are institutionally conservative for (somewhat) different reasons, they all face significant and potentially debilitating problems in guiding action towards the fulfillment of their own moral commitments. Here, I focus on institutionally conservative arguments for (only) a low level of global redistribution. The problem arises because the continued existence of the current system of nation states and the lack of international institutions with significant coercive powers present a significant obstacle to realizing their principled commitment to alleviating the basic needs of foreigners. As I will phrase it here, institutionally conservative theorists end up in a dilemma, the escape from which involves significantly weakening either their institutional conservatism or their normative commitments.

Unequally egalitarian? Defending the credentials of social egalitarianism

Abstract In his new book, Luck Egalitarianism, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen responds to challenges raised by social egalitarians against luck egalitarianism. Social egalitarianism is the view according to which a just society is one where people relate to each other as equals, while the basic premise of luck egalitarianism is that it is unfair if people are worse-off than others through no fault or choice of their own. Lippert-Rasmussen argues that the most important objections to luck egalitarianism made by social egalitarians can either be largely accommodated by luck egalitarians or lack the argumentative force that its proponents believe them to have. While Lippert-Rasmussen does offer a version of luck egalitarianism that seems to avoid some of the main lines of criticism, he mischaracterizes parts of both the form and the content of the disagreement, and thus ultimately misses the mark. In this paper, we provide a substantive, a methodological and a political defense of social egalitarianism by elaborating on this mischaracterization. More work must be done, we argue, if social egalitarianism is to be dismissed and its concerns genuinely incorporated in the luck egalitarian framework. Until this is done, the supposed theoretical superiority of luck egalitarianism remains contested.