Abstract
In his article, ‘What Should Egalitarians Believe?’, Martin O’Neill argues, amongst other things, that egalitarians should reject both Telic and Deontic Egalitarianism and that they should adopt in their place a version of Non-Intrinsic Egalitarianism, specifically, the Pluralist Non-Intrinsic Egalitarian View. The central purpose of my article is to challenge O’Neill’s assumption that he can defend each of the various propositions that make up his position simultaneously. I do this with two arguments. First, I argue that in order to justify why egalitarians should adopt a version of Non-Intrinsic Egalitarianism, O’Neill is bound to rely on forms of egalitarianism that are either Telic or Deontic, and so he is no longer able to affirm that egalitarians should reject both Telic and Deontic Egalitarianism. Second, I argue that by allowing the inclusion of non-egalitarian reasons into the Pluralist Non-Intrinsic Egalitarian View, O’Neill opens the floodgates to an indefinite number of other non-egalitarian reasons, such that it is scarcely credible that the Pluralist Non-Intrinsic Egalitarian View really is an egalitarian view after all.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 453-469 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | European Journal of Political Theory |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 4 |
Early online date | 16 Oct 2013 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2014 |
Keywords
- Egalitarianism
- justice
- O'Neill
- Parfit
- pluralism
Profiles
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Alexander Brown
- School of Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies - Reader
- Policy & Politics - Member
- Politics & International Relations - Member
Person: Research Group Member, Academic, Teaching & Research