“Cosmopolitan Overflow”
Pablo Gilabert
I. Introduction
According to global distributive egalitarianism, we should aim at equalizing the life-prospects of
everyone across the world. A common argument for this view is that restricting egalitarian
distribution within the boundaries of certain associations (such as nation-states) unduly allows the
scope of distributive justice to be fixed by the unchosen, morally arbitrary circumstance that
people are born in different countries. Sagiovanni’s paper “Global Justice and the Moral
Arbitrariness of Birth”1 presents a bracing challenge to such an argument. Sangiovanni contends
that the argument relies on an ambiguous premise whose clarification renders the argument either
trivial or invalid. The challenge is important because it shows that the scope of distributive
principles cannot be simply read off their content, and requires an explicit treatment. But I argue
that the challenge can be responded to by scrutinizing more fully the cosmopolitan idea of moral
equality that the paper issuing the challenge appears to accept. The force of this idea (according
to which all individual persons are ultimate units of equal moral respect and concern for
everyone) overflows narrow applications of many distributive considerations (including the one
tracking the choice / circumstance distinction) to domestic settings. A humanist rather than an
associativist approach is the moral default in the debate about the scope of at least some demands
of egalitarian distributive justice.
II. Currency, pattern, and scope of distribution
Many are committed to a form of distributive egalitarianism based on the pro tanto principle that
we should, to the extent that we reasonably can, neutralize (or at least mitigate) inequalities in
life-prospects that result from unchosen features of people’s circumstances. Sangiovanni asks
whether endorsement of this “left-liberal” egalitarian principle (hereafter LEP)2 “commits one to
global egalitarianism, … the thesis that the egalitarian demand to neutralize or mitigate unchosen
inequalities in prospects extends across all persons” (hereafter GLEP) (pp. 1-2). He considers a
common argument purporting to show this connection. According to the “argument from the
moral arbitrariness of birth” (hereafter AMAB), since being born in a country is an unchosen
circumstance and great inequalities in life-prospects result from people’s being born in different
countries, if we are committed to LEP we should also aim at reducing such inequalities. More
formally:
(1) We ought to neutralize (or mitigate) differences in prospects due to unchosen
circumstances.
(2) Country of birth is an unchosen aspect of our circumstances.
(3) Therefore, we ought to neturalize [or mitigate] differences in prospects that are due to
country of birth.
1
Monist, this issue. Page numbers refer to this paper.
LEP is just one possible form of distributive egalitarianism. It differs both from equality of outcome forms of
egalitarianism (as it focuses on distribution prospects, not end-states) and from luck-egalitarianism (as it does not say
that only inequalities resulting from unchosen features of circumstances merit mitigation or neutralization), although
it is logically compatible with both. Like Sangiovanni, I put these complexities aside, and stick to LEP and its
globalized version GLEP. Like Sangvioanni, I also put aside the issue whether the metric or currency of these
principles should be determined by reference to welfare, opportunities, capabilities, or resources.
2
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(4) Therefore, we ought to aim for global equality in prospects. (p. 4)3
Premise (1) states LEP.4 Premise (2) is an uncontroversial factual claim. Claim (3) follows from
(1) and (2), and (4), which states GLEP, results from (3). On the view expressed in this argument,
we should treat inequalities resulting from birth (when, for example, some are born in poorer
countries than others) as morally arbitrary, just as we do with inequalities due to class of origin,
gender, or race.
Sangiovanni’s challenge claims that AMAB fails to show (i) that LEP has global scope,
and (ii) that the scope of LEP is independent from facts of social interaction.
(i) The first critical point emerges once we consider more closely the first premise of the
argument. Sangiovanni starts by adapting a criticism by Hurley against the claim that the aim of
neutralizing the effects of brute luck provides a basis for distributive egalitarianism.5 Hurley’s
point is that the former has no necessary connection with the latter. The former concerns the issue
of the “currency” of distributive justice (of what ought to be distributed) while the latter concerns
the issue of the “pattern” of distributive justice (of how distribution ought to proceed). In the case
of AMAB, if we read (1) as construing “differences in prospects” as “inequalities in prospects”
then we already assume that an egalitarian distribution is the goal. Hurley does not deny that we
can take egalitarian distribution of life-prospects as a default against which departures should be
justified (e.g. when inequalities result from choice, or option luck, rather than brute luck), but she
argues that this cannot be justified by merely appealing to the aim of neutralizing the effects of
brute luck. Such an aim could be combined with any number of distributive functions. For
example, it could be combined with sufficientarian principles rather than egalitarian ones (aiming
for patterns in which no one ends up with less than enough due to brute luck, rather than patterns
in which no one has less than others due to brute luck).
Sangiovanni presents a parallel critical argument targeting the issue of “scope” (of who
ought to be included in the range of persons to which a distribution applies). Premise (1) can be
construed as referring to global or domestic differences in prospects. Either way AMAB turns out
to be flawed. If (1) refers to global differences then AMAB is trivial, as the global scope of LEP
is already assumed in its statement. Alternatively, if (1) refers to domestic differences, then
AMAB is invalid. For (4) to follow from (3), the differences mentioned in (3) must be global. But
since (1) now ranges over only domestic differences, a global version of (3) fails to follow from
the conjunction of (1) and (2). Given a domestic version of (1), (2) does not warrant a global
version of (3). Thus, while Hurley showed that distributive currency does not determine
distributive pattern; Sangiovanni adds that distributive currency does not determine distributive
scope:
If the choice-circumstance distinction only tells us which aspects of a person’s prospects are
legitimately his [i.e. the ones resulting from the person’s choices], and it does not tell us
anything about the pattern (including the scope)6 that ought to be realized with the resources
that are not properly his [i.e. the ones resulting from the person’s unchosen circumstances],
then … [AMAB] cannot succeed. We would need some independent argument for extending
This is the “Comparative” version of the argument. Sangiovanni also presents another, “Counterfactual” version
that, given space constraints, I will not be able to discuss.
4
Assuming that “differences” mean “inequalities” (see next paragraph).
5
Susan Hurley, Justice, Luck and Knowledge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), ch.6.
6
The text seems to imply here that the issue of scope is part of the issue of pattern. But clearly the range of agents
over whom a distribution holds is independent from how the distribution proceeds. Global and domestic scope can be
conceived for egalitarian, sufficientarian, and other patterns. Acknowledging this point does not affect Sangiovanni’s
main argument, and I will assume it in what follows.
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the scope of justice. This explains, and further confirms, why [AMAB] cannot ground global
or nonrelational egalitarianism. (p. 8)
(ii) The second critical point concerns the last clause in the passage just quoted. Sangiovanni
distinguishes between “relational” and “non-relational” accounts of the scope of egalitarian
distributive principles. The former says that egalitarian distribution properly holds among those
who “stand in some social relationship”, while the latter says that egalitarian distribution
properly ranges over “persons as such” (p. 3). According to Sangiovanni, AMAB does not only
fail to ground GLEP. It also fails to undermine a relational rationale for fixing the scope of LEP.
We cannot simply assume that LEP is a non-relational principle. We need an independent
argument against views according to which LEP only gets triggered in relational settings.7
III. Cosmopolitanism, global egalitarianism, and humanism
The two critical points against AMAB are strong. But on a more appropriate understanding of
AMAB they fail. It is not true that “nonrelational or global equality cannot be simply used as a
moral default or baseline from which to assess the current international system” (p. 14). The
challenge to AMAB unravels as soon as we consider the force of an idea the challenge itself
appears to accept. This is the cosmopolitan idea of moral equality. I will first (i) discuss this idea,
and then show how its recognition (ii) supports a case for taking a global scope for LEP as the
moral default and (iii) undermines relational abridgments of distributive egalitarianism.
(i) The cosmopolitan idea of moral equality (hereafter CIME) says that all individual persons are
ultimate units of equal moral respect and concern for everyone. Sangiovanni appears to accept
this idea. He says, however, (a) that “there is no reason to think that moral equality entails, by
itself, any kind of distributive equality,” and (b) that it “at most … provides further grounds for a
principle of formal nondiscrimination … that says that any principle should be justifiable to all
concerned parties in terms they could not reasonably reject, where the notion of reasonable
rejection is taken in a formal way (rather than the more substantive way proposed by Scanlon in
What We Owe to Each Other” (p. 13n.20). I agree with (a), but disagree with (b).
It is true that CIME does not by itself imply distributive equality. CIME is not a
distributive principle, but a meta-principle that frames the appraisal of any first-order distributive
principle. Such framing can naturally be seen as involving a reasonable justifiability test. But
such a test would not be formal as (b) claims. A merely formal construal of justifiability confuses
moral equality with formal equality. Formal equality is the idea that we should treat like cases
alike. To illustrate, consider this principle-schema:
Access to advantage F should be distributed among all and only those who have characteristic
X.
Formal equality is honored whenever those who are X have access to F, and flouted whenever
those who are X are denied access to F or those who are not X are given access to F. But formal
equality can be honored in ways that intuitively strike us a violation of moral equality. Consider
two specific principles, P1 and P2. In both F is interpreted as ranging over voting and holding
public office. In P1 X ranges over all male adults bound by the political system under
7
It would not do, for example, to say that a (currently) non-globalist view of the scope of LEP is mistaken by saying
that it unduly grounds the scope of LEP on the morally arbitrary circumstance of where people happen to be born.
Defenders of relational, non-globalist applications of LEP appeal to certain relevant features of social interaction
(such as sharing coercive institutions like a state, or being systematically intertwined in economic cooperation),
which only contingently coincide with the current boundaries of countries. If such social interactions were global,
they would endorse GLEP. Thus, to counter relational non-globalist views, their relational arguments for scope must
themselves be addressed rather than ignored.
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examination, and in P2 X ranges over all adults bound by the system. Formal equality is both
served when P1 is applied in such a way that no female adult in the system is allowed to vote or
hold public office and when P2 is applied in such a way that all female adults in the system are
allowed to vote or hold public office. The two cases are indistinguishable from the point of view
of formal equality. But they are different from the point of view of moral equality. P2 is better
than P1 at recognizing the equal moral worth of all. Women, just as men, have the morally
relevant features grounding political rights (such as the ability to develop and pursue a
conception of the good and to think impartially about what is right).
Moral equality is a substantive idea. It goes beyond “formal justice”. 8 Thus, contra (b), it
imposes a substantive besides a formal constraint on justifiability. This constraint applies to
economic distribution just as much as to any other kind of entitlement. To be reasonable,
distributions must apply distributive principles uniformly or consistently (formal constraint), but
the principles themselves must express equal concern and respect for those to whom they apply
(substantive constraint). Of course, as (a) has it, we cannot simply assume that moral equality
translates into distributive equality. An argument is needed for that. But such an argument will be
severely constrained by the idea of moral equality. This constraint proceeds by demanding from
us that we produce a morally reasonable understanding of what persons, as ultimate units of equal
moral concern and respect, are owed when it comes to the design of distributive schemes.
Furthermore, since this is a cosmopolitan idea, we must design such schemes so that they track
the equal moral worth of all persons. Doing this, as I proceed to argue, shapes the debate of
global justice in a particularly sharp way.
(ii) The first upshot of taking CIME seriously is that it is not unreasonable to see a global scope
for LEP as the moral default. Sangiovanni is right that we cannot simply derive such a view from
the statement of LEP. As stated, premise (1) in AMAB is neutral with respect to scope. But
consider what might give us reason to accept LEP in the first place. Most defenders of it think
that LEP tracks considerations of fairness. The (reasonable) thought is that it is unfair for
some to face harsher life-prospects than others through no choice or fault of their own. It is
wrong for some to see themselves as entitled to better initial life-prospects than others.
What is the scope of this concern about fairness? Well, if we are committed to CIME, then
we must assume that it is in principle universal. Isn’t the wellbeing of all persons morally
important, and equally so? It is natural to elaborate CIME so that the answer is Yes. Is it
consistent to apply LEP to domestic contexts but not to global contexts when we could? It
would if only formal equality is at stake and we already hold that LEP has domestic scope.
But the crucial issue is whether domestic scope is consistent with a substantive cosmopolitan
concern with the equal moral worth of all. The issue is not whether we can regularly apply a
principle with narrow domestic scope. The issue is whether we should accept that
narrowing in the first place.
To understand the force of AMAB we need to consider its dialectical context.
Premise (2) has the pragmatic significance of expressing the complaint of foreigners from
poorer countries who are, as a matter of customary default, left outside the scope of narrow
domestic construals of LEP. They say: “Are you entitled to better life-chances than me?
Have you and your fellow country-people done anything to deserve your better chances?
Have I done anything to deserve less? The difference between our starting points results
from an unchosen circumstance, namely the country in which we were born. That is not
Stuart White, Equality (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 16-8. On the limits of “formal justice” see John Rawls, A Theory
of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 50-2, 206-7.
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fair, and our inequality is to that extent morally arbitrary.” The complaint is powerful
precisely because it partly draws on CIME. Premise (2) of AMAB has the role of reminding
those who would not apply LEP globally that there is a morally significant disadvantage that
would not, but should, be attended to. It thus relies on a reasonable moral default according to
which everyone has equal claim to the best initial life-prospects that can be given to all. Given
the force of CIME, the burden of proof lies more heavily on the side of the non-global construal
of LEP than on the global one. Cosmopolitan concern has a tendency to overflow any narrow
construal of the scope of entitlements that protect interests that all humans have. 9 This has been
typical in the history of the sufficientarian claims involved in human rights. A similar dialectic is
now under way in debates of distributive equality.
(iii) Understood in its proper dialectical context, AMAB is not only valid, but far from trivial. It
addresses those who are ready to use LEP to reject the exclusion of compatriots from access to
equal life-prospects due to class of origin but exclude foreigners. AMAB tells them: country of
birth is just like class origin, an unchosen circumstance that should not penalize anyone’s lifeprospects. Sangiovanni is however right that not every appeal to country membership (or more
generally membership in associative frameworks) to short-circuit globalist scope for egalitarian
demands is so crude. Some associativist (“relational” in Sangiovanni’s terminology) approaches
appeal to moral reasons triggered in those associations. One example is to appeal to reciprocity
when justifying why A may owe egalitarian distributive concern to B, who is involved with A in
a system of cooperation in the production of the preconditions of a good life, and not to C, who is
not.10 An argument against global egalitarianism can then be built:
(5) Given the ideal of reciprocity, someone has duties of egalitarian distributive justice
toward someone else if and only if they are co-members in a system of cooperation.
(6) There currently is no global system of cooperation.
(7) Therefore, there currently is no duty to aim for global equality.
This argument can be challenged by showing that current facts of globalization are sufficiently
deep to make (6) false. Many have done this. I will challenge (5) instead.
This associativist rejection of globalism is not crude in the sense discussed above because
it does not only say that some are not owed egalitarian distributive concern when they are
outsiders. It also explains why they are excluded. But even this reasoning is subverted by CIME,
which imposes the constraint that the reasons for exclusion be compatible with equal concern and
respect for the excluded.
To begin with, an appeal to reciprocity is insufficient to claim that egalitarian justice is
owed only to those with whom one is already cooperating. The ideal of reciprocity tells us
something about how to relate to others in cooperative systems, but does not settle the question of
whom we should cooperate with. It tells us how to realize justice, not its scope. Surely if we
cooperate, we should do it in a reciprocal way. We should not take advantage of the cooperative
efforts of others without doing our fair share when we can. But this does not show that we have
no duties to pursue (reciprocal) cooperation with those with whom we are not cooperating.
Consider the alternative of a humanist (“non-relational,” in Sangiovanni’s terminology)
egalitarianism according to which we have pro tanto reason to secure equal initial life-prospects
for all persons. If we recognize that all human beings are equally ultimate units of moral concern,
then why would we not recognize that those born outside the boundaries of our cooperative
9
I focus on egalitarian principles that track advantages all persons have reason to value. I acknowledge that there are
other egalitarian principles whose metric is more localized (and are thus not good candidates for global scope).
10
Sangiovanni, “Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 35 (2007), 2-39.
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scheme have a legitimate complaint against our excluding them from a cooperative scheme that
could improve their life prospects? Don’t we have a natural duty of justice to offer them a chance
to partake in reciprocal cooperation with us? Associativist approaches routinely beg rather than
answer these questions. But their force cannot be denied if one accepts CIME. Here again
cosmopolitanism overflows associative restrictions on the scope of egalitarian distributions that
cater for goods all have reason to value. For the scope of these distributions, humanist
egalitarianism is the moral default.
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