Can Essentiality of Origin Save Meritocracy From The Luck Objection?
Rawls famously argued against meritocratic conceptions of distributive justice on the grounds that the accumulation of merit is an unavoidably lucky process, both because of differences in early environment, and innate talents. Thomas Mulligan (2018a) has recently provided a novel defense of meritoc...
| Publicado en: | Philosophia Vol. 51; no. 2; pp. 883 - 896 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Apr2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=164659325&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 164659325 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00483893 1VPF jtl: Philosophia issn: 00483893 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2023 vid: 51 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 164659325 10.1007/s11406-022-00577-x ppf: 883 ppct: 13 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 587KB tig: atl: Can Essentiality of Origin Save Meritocracy From The Luck Objection? aug: au: Napoletano, Toby affil: Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Rd., 95343, Merced, CA, USA su: Meritocracy Mulligan, Thomas Social classes Equality Social context sug: subj: Meritocracy Mulligan, Thomas Social classes Equality Social context keyword: Desert Distributive justice Essentiality of origin Luck Responsibility ab: Rawls famously argued against meritocratic conceptions of distributive justice on the grounds that the accumulation of merit is an unavoidably lucky process, both because of differences in early environment, and innate talents. Thomas Mulligan (2018a) has recently provided a novel defense of meritocracy against the "luck objection", arguing that both sources of luck would be mostly eliminated in a meritocracy. While a system of fair equality of opportunity ensures that differences in social class or early environment do not lead to differences in the accumulation of merit, Kripke's essentiality of origin thesis means that our genetic endowments, and thus our innate talents, could not have been any other way. But if we could not fail to have our innate talents, Mulligan argues, then it is not a matter of luck that we have them, and so the merits we accumulate on their basis are not so luck-dependent. This paper argues that Mulligan's appeal to the essentiality of origin thesis fails to rescue meritocratic conceptions of distributive justice from the luck objection for two reasons. First, even granting essentiality of origin and fair equality of opportunity, the contingencies of the market and the social environment mean that having some innate talents is far luckier than having others. And second, the appeal to essentiality of origin misses the underlying motivation for the luck objection, and ignores the intimate connection between desert and responsibility. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophia is a copyright of Springer, 2023. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophia holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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