A note on conditional egalitarianism

Economics and Philosophy 23 (1):45-63 (2007)
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Abstract

Roughly, according to conditional egalitarianism, equality is non-instrumentally valuable, but only if it benefits at least one individual. Some political theorists have argued that conditional egalitarianism has the important virtue that it allows egalitarians to avoid the so-called objection. However, in the present article I argue that conditional egalitarianism does not offer the egalitarian a plausible escape route from this objection. First, I explain the levelling down objection and suggest some particular concerns from which it derives its force. Then I provide a more precise definition of conditional egalitarianism. Finally, I give two arguments against this principle. According to the first, it violates the transitivity of the betterness relation (or more specifically, ). According to the second, there is no plausible explanation of why equality must benefit at least one individual in order to be non-instrumentally valuable

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Nils Holtug
University of Copenhagen

Citations of this work

The Persistence of the Leveling Down Objection.Michael Weber - 2019 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 12 (1):1-25.
Second-Order Equality and Levelling Down.Re'em Segev - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (3):425 – 443.
Hierarchical consequentialism.Re'em Segev - 2010 - Utilitas 22 (3):309-330.
Egalitarianismul.Eugen Huzum - 2013 - In Teorii si ideologii politice. Iasi: Institutul European. pp. 49-88.
Teorii si ideologii politice.Eugen Huzum (ed.) - 2013 - Iasi: Institutul European.

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References found in this work

Intransitivity and the mere addition paradox.Larry S. Temkin - 1987 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (2):138-187.
A Continuum Argument for Intransitivity.Larry S. Temkin - 1996 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 25 (3):175-210.
Inequality.Larry Temkin - 1995 - Ethics 105 (3):663-665.
Equality, Priority, and the Levelling-Down Objection.Larry Temkin - 2000 - In Matthew Clayton & Andrew Williams (eds.), The Ideal of Equality. Macmillan. pp. 126-61.
The value of equality.Bertil Tungodden - 2003 - Economics and Philosophy 19 (1):1-44.

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