Abstract

What are society's distributive obligations to its members? The central contribution of this book lies in its novel response to this question. The response is hard to classify. In featuring a largely hands-off government and allowing for significant material inequality, Sher's vision of a just society has a distinctively (right-)libertarian flavour. However, he does not give an historical account of legitimate holdings. Indeed, he embraces a commitment that suggests an allegiance with liberal egalitarians: namely, that a society owes to its members equal shares of whichever good corresponds to their deepest interests. But his take on which good a just society must distribute equally fits uneasily with liberal egalitarianism. He rejects the standard candidates, including resources, welfare, opportunities, and capabilities. Instead, he maintains, the demands of distributive justice call for (and, indeed, are exhausted by) the equal distribution of ‘the ability to live one's life effectively’ [8].