Relocating the responsibility cut: should more responsibility imply less redistribution?

Abstract

Liberal egalitarian theories of justice argue that inequalities arising from non-responsibility factors should be eliminated, but that inequalities arising from responsibility factors should be accepted. The paper discusses how the fairness argument for redistribution within a liberal egalitarian framework is a¤ected by a relocation of the cut between responsibility and non-responsibility factors. The paper also discusses the claim that equalization of some non-responsibility factors will reduce the ideal level of redistribution.

Preferences for redistribution—A country comparison of fairness judgements

“…Perceived prospects of future upward mobility and risks of future downward mobility may imply that a poor 5 Cappelen and Tungodden (2006) add some nuance to this general claim, showing that if there are negative correlations between different non-responsibility (what we refer to as arbitrary) factors, one cannot expect a monotonic relationship between the responsibility assigned to people and the ideal level of redistribution. However, the general formulation put forward here should still hold.…”

“…Since status concerns is not our focus we choose not to do this. 14 Some authors make a clear distinction between arbitrary and responsible inputs (see for example Cappelen and Tungodden 2006, who refer to a strict 'responsibility cut'). We believe that speaking in terms of different degrees of responsibility over inputs, where completely arbitrary and entirely responsible are the two extremes, better reflect popular opinions in this context.…”

Measuring unfair (in)equality

“…To introduce responsibility for the choice of sector in 1986 implies, on average, an increase in the fair income of females, and consequently, an increase in unfair inequality. This illustrates the general point that deviation from the fair distribution may increase as we hold people responsible for more factors, and it may even be the case that a responsibility-sensitive framework reports more unfairness than the standard approach of no responsibility (even though this is not the case in our analysis; see Cappelen and Tungodden (2006)). …”

Genomics and equal opportunity ethics

“…Modern genetics may affect where the responsibility cut is drawn in two distinct ways 39. Firstly, developments in genetics may relocate the responsibility cut in an epistemic way by affecting which factors we view as being within or beyond the control of individuals.…”