Luck, Leverage, and Equality:
A Bargaining Problem
for Luck Egalitarians
Roger Ford has a seasonal job in Caro, Michigan, stacking 100-pound bags of sugar. He
makes $8 an hour with no benefits. The winter mornings are bright and harsh in the small
town north of Detroit near the shores of Lake Huron, and he often wakes before dawn
with back spasms from the previous day’s lifting. He does not have health insurance to
pay for prescription medication, and cannot afford to miss a day of work. Ford is 52 years
old, and worked for Lear Corporation for over two decades until he was laid off last year,
a casualty of the recent economic downturn. “I’m going in reverse and I don’t understand
why,” he told a reporter for the United Auto Workers. He took the part-time job at a
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loading dock after months of searching for a better one. “I had no choice,” said Ford. “I
had bills, obligations. I went from having a life and feeling like a human being, to feeling
like some kind of uneducated slave working my fanny off for peanuts.”1
The notion of choice is essential for luck egalitarians. It plays a crucial role in
their conception of the justice of distributional inequalities. The distribution that grants
Roger Ford so little is just only if his disadvantage is the result of his choices. Whether he
had no choice in taking the job at the loading dock, as he claimed, thus determines
whether he is entitled to compensation or assistance from the state. Compassion demands
that we help him. It is not obvious, however, whether Ford really made a choice. There is
a political and social sense in which he was denied choice. But in the raw metaphysical
sense, it seems that he still chose to take the job rather than remain unemployed. While
the distinction between choice and chance is stark in theory, the complexities inherent in
actual cases render it obscure. The intuitive appeal of the distinction serving as the luck
egalitarian criterion of justice consequently fades in light of the dynamics of real
economies. In this paper I will discuss a problem with the luck egalitarian position that
only becomes apparent when distributions are considered in light of economic
interactions occurring over time. Roger Ford trades his labor for $8 an hour, because his
other options are even less bearable than this job. I aim to show that he is treated unfairly,
and that the luck egalitarian is unable to account for the injustice of his situation.
1
Adapted from the December 2003 issue of “Struggling to Survive,” available at the
UAW website, www.uaw.org.
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Section I. Luck Egalitarianism
The luck egalitarian provides a set of criteria for distributions based on the idea
that inequalities are unjust if they derive from mere luck. This class of theories was
inspired by, but is importantly different from, the scheme developed by John Rawls in A
Theory of Justice.2 Luck egalitarian theories follow Rawls’ basic liberal framework. The
goods of society are not initially tied to particular individuals, and so can be redistributed
however the ideal distribution demands through taxation or other means. This framework
is in opposition to conservative theories like Nozick’s that give primacy to individual
property rights.3 Rawls, in his informal argument for the principles of justice, introduces
the further idea that some factors are “arbitrary from a moral point of view”, and
therefore cannot justify inequalities.4 The Difference Principle, however, maximizes the
position of the worst-off without regard to the source of inequalities. The question of
whether Rawls is committed to luck egalitarianism but did not realize it is beyond the
scope of this paper; what is beyond dispute is that the luck egalitarian tradition took
Rawls as its starting point.
The central principle of luck egalitarianism is that people should be treated as
equals, and as such they ought to be insulated from certain kinds of misfortune.5 People
deserve the results of their decisions and actions, but do not deserve the results of factors
external to them. Thus, one role of the basic institutions of society like the state is to
2
Rawls, A Theory of Justice.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
4
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pg. 72.
5
Arneson, Rakowski, Cohen, and Dworkin are among the most prominent luck
egalitarians. I consider a paradigmatic luck egalitarian view that may not be attributable
to any one luck egalitarian in particular. Rakowski, in conversation, has stressed that the
luck egalitarian principle is only one in a plurality of principles of distributive and overall
justice. For an opposing view, see Anderson (1999) and Scheffler (2003).
3
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redistribute resources from those who are advantaged by chance to those who are
disadvantaged by chance until the effects of luck are extinguished. The inequalities that
survive this redistribution are the result of choices, and are therefore just. Under this
scheme, a farmer who is poor due to a local drought is due compensation because the
drought is a matter of chance. If, on the other hand, the farmer made risky crop decisions
that did not turn out as he had hoped, he is not due any compensation because the
resulting inequalities are the result of choices he made. Ronald Dworkin introduced
hypothetical insurance markets using this distinction between “option luck” and “brute
luck” to justify certain levels of state compensation.6 G. A. Cohen then argued that the
luck distinction is itself underwritten by the distinction between “choice” and “chance.”7
All luck egalitarian theories rest on the notion that some factors are not deeply
attributable to individuals, and that inequalities deriving from such factors are not just.
This fundamental notion has intuitive force. A primary concern of justice is
fairness, and it seems unfair that the material wealth of individuals should depend on
brute luck or chance. It is not the farmer’s fault that a drought ruined his harvest, so he
should not have to bear the burden alone. It was entirely out of his control, and in a sense
could have happened to any of us. Natural disasters are the paradigm example of a
morally arbitrary factor. Since it could have happened to any of us, fairness dictates that
we bear the burden together. Advantages that arise from pure chance are similarly
arbitrary, and thus should be enjoyed by us all equally. This communitarian impulse
ceases when we consider the effects of choices that people make. If the farmer had
decided to sit on his couch all day instead of harvesting his crops, we would be less
6
7
Dworkin, “Equality of Resources,” reprinted as Chapter Two of Sovereign Virtue.
G. A. Cohen, “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,” Ethics 99 (1989): 906-44.
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inclined to compensate him when they rot in the field. It would have been his choice to sit
on his couch, and since he would have no one to blame but himself for his disadvantage,
he would have no claim on the resources of others. Since the farmer’s misfortune would
be entirely the result of his decision, what he reaps is what he sows.
The debate among luck egalitarians has centered on two issues.8 First, it is not
clear what ought to be equalized in order to treat people like equals. The two main
positions on this issue are equality of resources and equality of welfare.9 Dworkin and
others argue that everyone’s share of resources should be equalized, up to the inequalities
deriving from choice. The problem of expensive tastes is a prominent argument in favor
of this position.10 Cohen and others argue that instead everyone’s welfare should be
equalized, again up to the inequalities deriving from choice. They point to the symmetry
between expensive tastes and handicaps, and to the fact that welfare rather than resources
is what we care about in the first place. Resources have only instrumental value insofar as
8
Anderson (1999), Scheffler (2003), and Wolff (1998) have criticized the luck egalitarian
project. They argue that the role of the state is to ensure political and social equality, and
the state ought only be concerned with the distribution of resources insofar as these
distributions influence these other values. This leads Anderson, for example, to adopt a
‘sufficientarian’ position.
9
There are other permutations as well: equality of access to advantage, equality of
opportunity, equality of advantage, and so on. Most proposals fall roughly under one or
the other of the main headings.
10
Dworkin, “Equality of Welfare,” reprinted as Chapter One in Sovereign Virtue.
Dworkin’s main argument depends on the action of hypothetical insurance markets.
Others, for example Cohen, have dropped this argument from the subsequent
restatements of the position. Dworkin in turn has adopted Cohen’s formulation of the
choice-chance distinction. His position on the role of hypothetical insurance markets in
relation to the distinction is thus unclear. Dworkin’s position in “Equality of Welfare” is
luck egalitarian insofar as he thinks people would insure in the hypothetical market only
against chance factors. If he abandons this claim, then he is free of the problems that
accompany the choice-chance distinction but owes a different account of the hypothetical
insurance markets. See Section III.
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they affect people’s well-being.11 The debate about this first issue and its outcome is
irrelevant for the purposes of this paper. The second debate focuses on the distinction
between choice and chance, and is of central importance to my argument. It is not clear
what is to count as choice and what is not. Most can agree that the wealth and social
position of one’s parents is in no way a matter of choice since they were determined prior
to birth, and therefore count as elements of chance. Other factors are not so obvious.
Character traits like laziness, determination, and persistence can have a profound effect
on economic distributions and are not chosen in any straightforward sense. Nonetheless,
many believe that these traits are deeply attributable to individuals and thus justify
inequalities. The situation is further complicated by worries about determinism. If
people’s choices are themselves caused by antecedent factors – like education,
upbringing, and genetics – then we may be tempted to doubt that there are any choices at
all of the required kind. As Cohen remarks, using the distinction between choice and
chance as the criterion for just inequalities renders luck egalitarians “up to [their] necks in
the free will problem.”12 In order for the distinction to bear the great weight they place on
it, luck egalitarians must provide a coherent account of what counts as choice rather than
chance, and specify what it is about those choices that justifies inequalities.
I wish to discuss a difficulty for luck egalitarianism that does not depend on the
metaphysics of the will. In the next section I will present a bargaining problem. This
bargaining problem is meant to bring out features of the choice-chance distinction that
are deeply problematic prior to any concerns about free will. I will argue that it shows
11
See, for example Arneson, “Equality and Equal Opportunity of Welfare,”
Philosophical Studies 56 (1989): 77-93.
12
G. A. Cohen, “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,” Ethics 99 (1989), pg. 934.
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how natural economic interaction generates intuitively unjust distributions. These sorts of
interactions are ubiquitous in complex societies, and therefore the problem pertains to
contemporary public policy. For the sake of simplicity, however, I will relocate the
bargaining problem to a small desert island. The problem straightforwardly generalizes to
more complex societies, and inequalities swell as economic interactions compound. But
the basic structure of the problem, we shall see, is evident in the simplest of economies.
Section II. The Bargaining Problem
Imagine that a raft of 10 shipwreck survivors lands on a small and uninhabited
desert island. Since it is a desert island, the only source of food is fish. After landfall, the
survivors decide to set up a society. They divide all the resources of the island equally,
such as land and fishing rights. Assume that survivors all have comparable native talents
and dispositions, so that there are no inequalities whatsoever.13 Assign each survivor’s
resource bundle a value of 5. We suppose then that this initial distribution of resources is
just according to the luck egalitarian. After the initial distribution, there is no cooperation
as each tries to make it on his own. Nine of the survivors try to subsist by catching small
fish near the shore. One of the survivors, Gates, tries a riskier fishing strategy. His risky
decision pays off when he hauls in a medium-sized whale. The other survivors, however,
have not fared as well. There simply are not enough small fish to feed them, and are
going hungry. Gates’ resource bundle has grown to 20 due to his whale catch, while the
rest of the survivors still have only 5. Since this inequality derives solely from the choices
13
As I have described the situation, there are no inequalities in resources. Alternatively,
we can set up the case using a welfare metric. See Note 15 for the translation. Henceforth
in the text I will speak in terms of resource, with the understanding that the same problem
applies to a welfare theory.
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of Gates and the other survivors, it is considered just on the luck egalitarian theory.
Gates’ whale catch is a paradigm example of option luck. He decided to take a risk that
might have resulted in an empty haul or in drowning, but actually netted him a windfall.
Once Gates returns from his whaling trip, the other survivors (henceforth just “the
survivors”) want to trade with him for some of the whale meat. At the bargaining table,
Gates and the survivors are in importantly different positions. Gates is willing to walk
away without a deal, but the survivors cannot. Since they are faced with the prospect of
starving, the survivors are willing to agree to deals that they would not otherwise have
made. Knowing this, Gates is only willing to agree to deals that are heavily in his favor,
and to which the others would not agree under normal circumstances.14 Say, for example,
that Gates gets half of all future resources produced by the survivors in exchange for a
unit each of whale meat. From Gates’ perspective, if the survivors turn down his proposal
he misses out on the advantages of the potential deal, but he will live. From the survivors’
perspective, if Gates turns down their proposal they will starve. As a result, Gates doesn’t
have to compromise because he knows they will eventually agree to his proposal. And
since their only other option is to starve, they eventually choose to do so.15 Once the deal
is made, the survivors do not starve but must give Gates half of the resources they
14
We can assume that neither party threatens or attempts to coerce the other. Specifically,
Gates does not coerce the survivors or threaten them with starvation. He is not
responsible for the fact that if they refuse his offer they will starve; he merely alters his
offer in light of this.
15
The case in welfare terms is as follows: due to option luck, Gates has more welfare
than others. If no deal is struck, both parties will have lower welfare than they would
have if a deal were made. Gates’ welfare will be just high rather than very high. The
others’ welfare will be zero rather than very low. Gates’ can live with just high welfare,
but the others cannot live with zero welfare. Thus Gates’ bargaining position is better,
and he can hold out for an advantageous deal.
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produce. So some time later, Gates has 121 resource units, while the survivors have only
16 each.16 Is this distribution just?
Intuitively, the answer is no. Moreover, the distribution is unjust on egalitarian
grounds. The survivors have not been treated fully as equals in their dealings with Gates.
The problem is that he had bargaining leverage over the survivors. One party has
leverage over another when they have a positional advantage. Due to this advantage, they
are able to influence interactions with the other party in ways that would be impossible if
their positions were equal. The leverage in this bargaining problem derives from the fact
that people are willing to make different deals depending on the context and
circumstances of the decision. Gates’ decision is made in the context of wealth, whereas
the survivors’ decision is made in the context of potential starvation. The final
distribution is a direct result of Gates’ leverage over the survivors. If they had not been
faced with the prospect of starvation, they would have held out for a much better deal.
Perhaps they would have paid only 1 resource each for the whale meat, a deal Gates
would have made if he knew he could not get any more. The final distribution would then
have Gates with 40 resource units, and the survivors with 25 each. They are not
leveraged, and this inequality might have been just since it derives solely from Gates’
good option luck. The further inequality, which derives solely from the leverage Gates
exercised over the others, is unjust.
16
To arrive at this distribution, suppose after the bargain everyone produces 20 units each.
Gates would then have 20 units from prior to the bargain, minus the 9 units of whale meat
he gave the others, plus 20 he produced post-bargain plus 10 each from his half of the
nine others’ production, for a total of 121. The other survivors would each have 5 from
prior to the bargain, plus one of whale meat, plus 10 from their half of their own
production, for a total of 16.
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The bargaining problem is a prima facie counterexample to luck egalitarianism.
The inequalities in the post-bargain distribution derive solely from the choices of Gates
and the survivors. Gates chose his risky fishing strategy, and the survivors chose to
accept Gates’ proposed deal. Since inequalities deriving from choices are just according
to the luck egalitarian, it is unclear on what grounds he could count the final distribution
of the bargaining problem as unjust. One strategy is to deny the intuition that the final
distribution is unjust. If the luck egalitarian can provide a compelling argument that our
intuitions on this case are mistaken, then the putative counterexample is disarmed. A
second strategy is to show how the luck egalitarian theory in fact agrees with the intuition
that the final distribution is unjust. If the luck egalitarian can show that the inequalities
are the result of chance, then the bargaining problem is deflected. In the next section I
will consider these two strategies for the luck egalitarian in response to the bargaining
problem.
Section III. Responses
There is a strong intuition that the post-bargaining distribution is unjust on
egalitarian grounds, rooted in the observation that the survivors end up with less than
they would have if Gates had not leveraged them at the bargaining table.17 As a first
strategy the luck egalitarian might nonetheless claim that the post-bargain distribution is
entirely just. On the luck egalitarian theory, it must then be that the inequalities in that
distribution arise from option luck or choice. In one sense, this is clearly the case. The
survivors were not compelled or coerced when they agreed to Gates’ proposal. The final
17
Henceforth, ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ are abbreviations for ‘just on egalitarian grounds’ and
‘unjust on egalitarian grounds,’ unless otherwise noted.
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distribution was a result of their choice to enter into the deal. The luck egalitarian might
thereby conclude that the inequalities in this distribution are just. However, the survivors
were in a particular bargaining position when they chose to enter into the deal with Gates,
and the final distribution is a result both of their antecedent position and their choice once
in that position. If a gambler is forced to play a game he cannot win, the game is still
unfair despite the fact that he chooses the particular outcome. If the survivors’ bargaining
position is a matter of brute luck, then the fact that they chose to enter into a deal from
that bargaining position does not alone render the final distribution just.
Thus, in order to maintain against intuition that the final distribution is just, the
luck egalitarian must show how the survivors’ bargaining position itself resulted from
choice. The bargaining problem arose because of Gates’ good option luck, and so his
leverage over the others derives from his choice. The eventual inequalities were in turn
the result of this leverage, and so derive from his good option luck. Thus, the luck
egalitarian might claim, the inequalities in the final distribution are just. This answer is
not satisfying because Gates’ good option luck is, from the perspective of the survivors, a
matter of brute luck.18 No choice of theirs gave rise to his windfall or his decision to
leverage them. So if they find themselves in a weak bargaining position due to his good
option luck, then the eventual inequalities are not the result of their choices. It is not
consistent for the luck-egalitarian to hold that the post-bargaining distribution is just if
the survivors are victims of brute luck in the form of someone else’s good option luck.19
18
There is a sense in which Gates’ good option luck is good brute luck for the survivors;
if he hadn’t caught the whale, he would have no food to trade them and they would all
die. So the bad brute luck they suffered is when Gates’ decided to leverage them.
19
This alone may be reason enough to reject luck egalitarianism. There are two sides to
every inequality; rewarding the good option luck of one party may constitute bad brute
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He must further claim that they landed in a weak bargaining position as a result of their
own choices.
There is a sense in which the survivors’ bargaining position is a direct result of
their own choices. They chose their fishing strategy, and thus their poor catch is a matter
of option luck. Their level of resources at the bargaining table is the root of their poor
bargaining position, and since the former is the result of option luck, then so is the latter.
They are vulnerable to Gates’ leverage because of their bad option luck, and thus the
inequalities that result are just. But this isn’t the whole story. Their weak bargaining
position is not solely the result of their bad option luck; it is also the result of Gates’ good
option luck. If he had not done so well, then he would not have had leverage over them.
Leverage is a relational property between two positions, and is therefore defined in terms
of both positions. Thus their bargaining position is a function both of their resource level
and of Gates’ resource level. Since the latter is not the result of any choice of theirs, their
bargaining position is at least in part a matter of brute luck.
These considerations render the denial of the intuition implausible, but suggest a
solution for the luck egalitarian. The second strategy for the luck egalitarian is to accept
the intuition that the post-bargaining distribution is unjust, and explain this injustice by
showing that the survivors’ bargaining position was a result of brute luck. This is a
promising line of thought because it seems to capture the spirit behind the intuition about
luck for another party. The luck egalitarian seeks to evaluate distributions separately with
respect to each individual. But distributions are the result of everyone’s choices and
everyone’s luck taken together. So when we say a distribution is said to be the result of
choice or chance, we must further ask: whose choice and whose chance? Because
individual fortunes are not separable in the way the luck egalitarian seems to assume, it
may not be coherent to say that a distribution is due to either choice or chance. Michael
Titelbaum clarified this point to me.
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the bargaining problem; the survivors were subject to circumstances outside of their
control that led to great inequality, and thus the final distribution is unjust. This response
is structurally similar to G. A. Cohen’s observation that it is a matter of bad brute luck for
the champagne connoisseur that his tastes happen to be expensive.20 Only due to factors
outside of their control is their decision to trade with Gates – or not to trade with him – so
costly. Gates’ leverage renders each of their options at the bargaining table more
expensive than otherwise they would have been. Thus the outcome of the survivors’
decision at the bargaining table is a hybrid result arising from the joint action of choice
and chance. One way to see this is to notice that their decision is more like a multiplechoice question than it is like a fill-in-the-blank. Circumstance has presented them with a
limited number of options, and they are forced to make their choice from those options.
The option set is in large part the result of external factors, and thus the inequalities that
arise from choice from this option set are unjust. The luck egalitarian seems to have
answered the challenge posed by the bargaining problem by showing how the intuition
that the post-bargain distribution is unjust can be explained solely by reference to the
distinction between choice and chance.
But if the survivors’ bargaining position is a matter of brute luck then so is Gates’,
and moreover any other bargainer with any level of resources. Gates is no more in control
of the option sets presented to him by circumstance than are the survivors. Thus if the
luck egalitarian grants that the survivors’ bargaining position count as the sort of chance
that renders inequalities unjust, then he must admit that all bargaining positions do. Since
all bargaining positions are a matter of chance, then every trade is tainted with an element
20
Cohen, “Expensive Taste Rides Again.” A connoisseur may be responsible for a
preference for champagne, but not for the fact that champagne is so expensive.
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of brute luck. The upshot is that all inequalities arising from economic interaction are
unjust. More broadly, no one is ever the sole author of their option sets, so no decision
counts as the robust sort of choice that justifies inequalities. Even the paradigm example
of option luck, a risky gamble, counts as chance. For the gambler’s option set, consisting
of the probabilities and the payoffs and even the option of walking away from the table,
are collectively determined by circumstances outside his control. The category of option
luck is thus rendered empty, and even incoherent.
This result is problematic in at least two ways. First, since there are no instances
of option luck, there are no justifiable inequalities deriving from bargains. Since most
inequalities in a complex society pass through bargains at some point, very few if any
inequalities would survive. While some philosophers, like Cohen, might embrace this
result, most would not accept it. The reason is that the original intuition behind the
primacy of the distinction between choice and chance was that it would sometimes be
reasonable to hold people responsible for their decisions, and allow inequalities that
result. While the great inequalities that exist today are no doubt unjustifiable, the luck
egalitarian is apt to think that some relatively minor inequalities are acceptable due to the
action of some kind of choice. Second, grounding a moral distinction in this analysis of
choice is dubious. It is implausible to excuse a murderer simply because his option set
was fixed externally. It is important to note that the luck egalitarian response at this point
is not the standard incompatibilist position. The problem is not that the murderer’s
decision is externally determined, but that his option set is. The position is ecumenical
with respect to the free will debate; even if the will is radically free and determinism is
false, the problem remains. The luck egalitarian must deny that some decisions are deeply
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attributable to agents even though their option sets are largely a matter of chance. He then
ignores the important moral difference between a murderer whose only other option was
to die himself, and a murderer who had other less odious options. To say that the options
open to an agent are to a certain extent defined by chance does not wholly eliminate the
hand the agent has in producing the outcome. In the case of bargaining positions, there
are still instances where choice leads to justifiable inequality. Suppose two bargainers
have equal bargaining positions, so neither has leverage over the other. For whatever
reason, a whim or a fancy, they agree on a deal that is more advantageous to one party.
While the final distribution may be regrettable for the losing party, it does not seem
unjust. More precisely, if it is unjust, it is not so because the option set was externally
determined. If in response to the bargaining problem the luck egalitarian expands the
category of brute luck to include option sets and so all inequalities are rendered unjust,
then forgotten is the important difference between agents who choose wisely, those who
choose poorly, and those who do not choose at all. The luck egalitarian is left with an
implausible conception of choice and chance, and a distinction that cannot count as the
primary criterion for just distributions.
As a final strategy, the luck egalitarian may reply that there is another sense in
which some option sets render a putative choice insufficiently robust to justify
inequalities. It is not their external determination, a feature that is shared by all option
sets, that is relevant to the justice of distributions. Rather, the content of some option sets
constrains agents in such a way that their putative choices no longer count as robust
choices that can justify inequalities. Some option sets are internally structured such that
they do not constrain agents in this way, and thus inequalities that arise from those sorts
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of option sets are just. The problem with the survivors’ bargaining position was not that
the option set was externally determined, but that the options open to them were
systematically unattractive. Moreover, the option set was negatively and deliberately
influenced by the manipulation of another agent. The distinction between choice and
chance thus rests not on the mere fact that an option set is externally determined, but on
the content of the option set and the particular factors that brought it about. The luck
egalitarian hopes to sort option sets into two categories: the kind that allows the
possibility of legitimate choice, and the kind that does not. What counts as a choice and
what counts as a chance is thus determined in part by the moral character of the option set
from which the putative choice was made.
While this answer saves the luck egalitarian from the pathological position on the
nature of choice and chance we saw above, it does so at the cost of sacrificing the
primacy of the distinction. The distinction between choice and chance was meant as the
fundamental criterion for the egalitarian justice of distributions. This requires that the
distinction have independent validity, which can in turn support the moral judgments the
luck egalitarian draws from it. We must then have a prior understanding of what counts
as a choice and what counts as chance. This prior understanding will be grounded in the
nature and structure of the will. But we saw that since the survivors’ putative choice is
legitimate on this understanding, the luck egalitarian erroneously counts the post-bargain
distribution as just. As a result, he must expand the category of chance to include the
survivors’ situation. The only ground for doing so is the content of their option set. This
strategy thus takes our judgments about the moral character of option sets as
fundamental, and these judgments then inform what counts as choice and chance. We
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have no independent reason to think that the character of option sets is intimately
connected with the metaphysical status of a putative choice. We know only that certain
sorts of option sets allow for just inequalities arising from putative choice and others do
not, and that the luck egalitarian theory takes the distinction between choice and chance
as the criterion for egalitarian justice. The luck egalitarian could define choice and chance
in terms of the moral character of option sets. But whether this criterion was valid is
precisely the question we aim to answer. Without independent reason to take inequalityjustifying option sets as giving rise to choice, and all others as giving rise to chance, we
have no reason to accept the luck egalitarian criterion in the first place.
Our primary intuition is that in cases of putative choice some types of option sets
render downstream inequalities unjust. The character of these option sets does not alter or
constitute the metaphysical status of the putative choice; they only affect the justice of
resulting inequalities. The survivors did in fact make a choice; the outcome is unjust not
because this choice failed to be “real” or “robust” but because it was made in the context
of unfair circumstances. The fact that these circumstances were unfair cannot be
explained in terms of whether they gave rise to robust choice. Instead, it must be
explained in terms of autonomous political, social, and economic ideals. Certain forms of
political equality are necessary preconditions for the evolution of just distributions, but
the absence of such equality does not undermine the metaphysical status of putative
choices. Consider, for example, a racially segregated society. Because it lacks political
equality, this society generates unjust distributions that systematically favor the members
of one race. The option sets presented to the members of the disadvantaged race are
categorically different than those presented to the members of the advantaged race. This
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constitutes a deep violation of basic political fairness, but it does not necessarily change
the metaphysical status of putative choices made by those in the worst positions of
society. It is a paternalistic insult to the disadvantaged to suppose that they are incapable
of legitimate choice merely in virtue of their position. The sort of freedom that is lacking
is political freedom, not metaphysical freedom. There are undoubtedly extreme political
and social conditions that would undermine the metaphysical status of the putative
choices made by some members of society, but this cannot be explained so simply as
pointing to the fact that these conditions are unchosen. This is, as Cohen points out, a
question of the metaphysics of the will. However, there are some distributional
inequalities that cannot be traced to such extreme, freedom-destroying conditions but are
nonetheless unjust. The inequalities in a moderately racially segregated society are one
example. In a well-ordered society, most objectionable inequalities will be unjust in
virtue of political and social ideals rather than the absence of metaphysical choice. Pricegouging, unfair labor practices, disproportionate tax relief to the wealthy, and
monopolistic trade practices all lead to unjust, inegalitarian distributions but do not
wholly undercut the agency of the disadvantaged. The luck egalitarian theory, insofar as
it is committed to the primacy of the distinction between choice and chance, is unable to
explain the injustice of these inequalities.
The case of the bargaining problem accentuates this shortcoming of the luck
egalitarian theory. By hypothesis, the survivors’ choice to enter into the deal was free and
uncoerced. While it is possible that conditions would be so extreme as to undermine the
metaphysical status of their putative choices, the bargaining problem concerns the case in
which conditions made for a painful but still legitimate choice. Nonetheless, the final
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distribution that results from their choice is unjust. This injustice is explainable only in
terms of autonomous political and social ideals. The conditions that preceded their choice
were unfair from this standpoint, and that failure alone renders the final distribution
unjust. Their situation is objectionable because Gates took advantage of the survivors. He
did not force or coerce them, so the prior assignment of basic rights and liberties
traditionally accepted by luck egalitarians does not forbid his action. In order to explain
the intuition that Gates’ bargaining practice was unfair, and to justify its prohibition, we
must accept the principle that bargains are fair and can therefore justify inequalities only
if the parties have substantially equal bargaining positions. This principle cannot itself be
explained in terms of the choice-chance distinction. Consider, for example, the minimum
wage. The minimum wage forbids certain deals between employers and workers, even if
the workers would agree to them. One justification for this is that some deals would be
unfair and lead to unjust distributions, even if both parties freely chose to enter them. The
regulation of bargaining, both through the prohibition of certain deals and through
taxation, compensates those who would have less because of their weak bargaining
position. This amounts to accepting the principle of equal bargaining positions as an
autonomous social and political ideal. Part of what it means to treat citizens as equals,
then, is to ensure that the final distribution reflects the deals that would have been made if
all parties had substantially equal bargaining positions.
In contrast to Anderson’s and Scheffler’s recent critiques of luck egalitarianism,
which show that a fair distribution is a precondition of political equality, the bargaining
problem shows that a degree of political and social equality is a precondition for fair
distributions. The upshot of these two angles of critique is that distributive justice cannot
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be considered in isolation from political and social equality. If the distinction between
choice and chance is expanded to account for our intuitions about the final distribution in
the bargaining problem, then the distinction no longer tracks independent and intuitive
notions of choice and chance and thereby loses its explanatory priority. If the luck
egalitarian retains a more philosophically responsible conception of the distinction, his
theory of justice must incorporate autonomous social and political ideals in order to
explain why the survivors are not treated fairly as equals. Either way, the bargaining
problem shows that the paradigmatic luck egalitarian position lacks the conceptual
apparatus to account for a basic and important type of distributional inequality.
Section IV. Conclusion – The Limits of the Market
Luck egalitarianism expresses faith in the justice of the market. It is founded on
the idea that market agents generate just distributions via free transactions. Luck
egalitarianism interferes with the action of the market only by neutralizing the effects of
unchosen circumstance – by leveling the initial playing field and by counteracting
instances of brute luck as time passes. It thereby hopes to purify trade conditions so we
might more closely approximate the natural justice of the market by tracking only the
effects of choice. But the bargaining problem shows that we cannot rely on the market,
even in its purified form, to produce justice. Injustice enters the market at the outset and
operates through the actions of individual market agents, and so becomes inseparable
from the legitimate effects of trade if all we observe are the choices of market agents.
This is simply because, in the face of injustice, people still try to do the best they can.
Leverage is a pervasive problem in contemporary society. The emergence of the
corporate form and speculation on borrowed capital in particular has generated enormous
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gaps between the bargaining positions of the wealthy and the poor. Some of this
phenomenon can be traced to inequalities of unchosen features like talent and social
class, but a significant portion derives from leveraged bargains. The resulting distribution
of wealth is unjust, despite the fact that it can be traced to the legitimate choices of the
disadvantaged. Roger Ford’s choice to work at the loading dock in Caro, Michigan, while
legitimately a choice, does not amount to an endorsement of his poverty, any more than
the survivors’ deal with Gates amounts to an endorsement of the post-bargain
distribution. That Ford had to make that choice in order to survive itself reflects the
hardship of his position. Inequalities evolve through the choices of the disadvantaged like
Ford, but this does not make those inequalities just. A reasonable social and political
ideal will compensate him because of the moral character of his option set. It is not until
we examine the array of options that were available to the disadvantaged that we can
begin to understand their situation. The injustice that faces Roger Ford each morning as
he loads the idling trucks at dawn is undeniably real, because his choice to work was
desperate, and made from a set of options that denied him political and social equality.