Arguments about distributive justice

Arguments about distributive justice often take place around two ideas. One is that good should be distributed equally. The other is that how people fare in life should depend on what they are responsible for.

The author asks what draws us to these two ideas and examines recent attempts by egalitarian thinkers to bring them together in a single distributive ideal. Underlying this ideal is the egalitarian intuition - the intuition that it is objectionable for some to be worse off than others through no fault of their own.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Lake tests that intuition from a variety of perspectives and points to the gaps in our current thinking about quality and individual responsibility.