EFFORT AS RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

John Roemer has created a model by which the luck egalitariandistinction between choice and luck can be used to motivate real policy decisions.By dividing society into ‘types’, Roemer suggests we are able to limit comparisonsmade between different people to that which they are able to control. In so doing,responsible individual action becomes the sole means by which inequalities can bejustified and far more transformative redistributive legislation can be motivated.However, the model relies on two types of comparison – both within and betweentypes – that ultimately flaw Roemer’s claims to be measuring responsible action.The model assumes that it is unproblematic to compare effort across individualswho are situated in radically unequal circumstances; it also assumes that the typecan control for circumstances in a way that ignores the enormous contingency thatconstitutes human life. As a consequence, Roemer’s ambitious proposal fails topractically apply the choice-luck distinction