Global Egalitarianism

© 2009 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Philosophy Compass 4/1 (2009): 155–171, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00189.x

Global Egalitarianism

Chris Armstrong*University of Southampton

AbstractTo whom is egalitarian justice owed? Our fellow citizens, or all of humankind?If the latter, what form might a global brand of egalitarianism take? This paperexamines some recent debates about the justification, and content, of globalegalitarian justice. It provides an account of some keenly argued controversiesabout the scope of egalitarian justice, between those who would restrict it to thelevel of the state and those who would extend it more widely. It also notes thecross-cutting distinction between relationists (whose views on scope are derivedfrom a belief about which relations, practices or institutions give rise to thedemands of equality) and non-relationists (who place no such importance onempirical facts about the relations between individuals). Beyond this, it sets outsome of the different principles that might flow from a commitment to globalegalitarianism. One of the key goals is to highlight the increasing diversity withindebates on global justice, so that even those with a shared commitment to globalequality may espouse different views about the justifications for equality, as wellas the nature of, and proper sites for, egalitarian principles.

This paper will not provide a truly comprehensive overview of the rapidlyburgeoning literature on global distributive justice, or of the place ofegalitarian principles within it (on which see Brock; de Vita; D. Miller,‘Against Global Egalitarianism’; Moellendorf, ‘Equal Respect’; Zanetti).Nor will it provide a thoroughgoing account of egalitarian theory in general;neither goal would be possible in the space available. Rather, in the firstsection I will assess some of the more prominent opposing argumentsabout why, assuming egalitarian justice is attractive at all, it might be owedat the global level. In the second section I examine suggestions for whatthe content of global egalitarian justice might be. As the literature developsin complexity and sophistication, the varieties of, and arguments for,global equality are becoming more numerous and more varied. As a partof this project, I also aim to reveal some of the (increasing) diversity ofglobal egalitarian positions and principles.

1. The Subjects of Egalitarian Justice

Three of the most prominent approaches to issues of distributive justice canbe described as prioritarian, sufficientarian and egalitarian. Prioritarians

156 Global Egalitarianism

© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/1 (2009): 155–171, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00189.xJournal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

will claim that a distribution moves in the direction of justice when theposition of the worst off improves (and that benefiting the worse offmatters more the less well-off they are), whilst sufficientarians hold justiceto require that each has enough in some absolute sense (e.g., enoughresources in order to live a decent life). Neither of these two positions,strictly understood, places any intrinsic value upon equality; achievingequality may be desirable if it brings about an improvement in the positionof the worst-off, or if it means that the basic needs of all are met, butequality is not valuable as an end in itself (see Parfit; Frankfurt). Bycontrast egalitarians believe that inequality is bad or unjust for non-instrumental reasons (Mason 113; see also Beitz, ‘Does Global InequalityMatter?’; Temkin).

Egalitarians, then, will view the fact that one distribution is more equalthan another as supplying a reason to prefer it (even if, for example, allhave ‘enough’ in each case). This leaves open two important questions.The first asks what we want to see equality of: are the inequalities thatconcern us inequalities of welfare, resources or something else? The secondquestion asks which individuals we want to include as subjects of ouregalitarian concern: individuals? Neighbours? Co-citizens? Notably, whilstcontemporary egalitarian theory has seen much attention cast on thecorrect currency or stuff which should be distributed equally betweenindividuals (Sen, ‘Equality of What?’; Cohen), it is only quite recentlythat a comparable degree of attention has been focused on specifying whothose individuals are. In the past prominent egalitarian theorists haveassumed without extensive argument that equality is owed to citizens bytheir state (see e.g. Rawls, Theory of Justice; Dworkin), and perhaps by theirfellow citizens too. But recently this assumption has been subjected toconsiderable criticism, and arguments which grant a broader scope toegalitarian justice have proliferated. Shachar and Hirschl have argued thatcitizenship is simply an inherited privilege which as such should be of fargreater concern to egalitarians than the inheritance of material wealth;indeed as a system of ‘birthright’ it conditions our lives so systematicallythat it resembles the feudal system of medieval England (Shachar andHirschl 269). Far from determining to whom equality is owed, our placeof birth ‘is just one further deep contingency (like genetic endowment,race, gender, and social class)’ which egalitarians should seek to mitigatethe effects of (Pogge, Realizing Rawls 247). Does this mean that anyplausible egalitarianism must be a global egalitarianism?

relational versus non-relational approaches

Quite how, then, might the subjects of egalitarian justice be delineated?Broadly speaking, it is possible to distinguish between ‘relational’ and‘non-relational’ accounts of the subjects of egalitarian justice (Risse, ‘Groundsof Justice’; Sangiovanni, ‘Global Justice’). Relational arguments will argue


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that the subjects of egalitarian justice are defined by the special kind ofrelation in which certain individuals find themselves. It is because givenindividuals share certain goods between themselves, or cooperate togetherto achieve a particular end, or stand in a common relation to a particularinstitutional structure, that some form of equality is appropriate betweenthem. Non-relational arguments will not make appeal to the relationship(s)in which individuals already stand, but will argue instead that individualsare entitled to some form of egalitarian justice simply in virtue of somefeature of their nature as individuals, or the fact of their moral personhood.

It is not inevitable that non-relational views will endorse global egali-tarianism, but it is very likely. The alternative would be to argue that onlya subset of the human population were endowed with a certain qualifyingcharacteristic (certain religious views might take this form; Sangiovanni,‘Justice and the Priority’ 4). But most typically, arguments from moralpersonhood lead to the conclusion that the scope of egalitarian distributivejustice must be global:

persons throughout the world share some morally relevant propertiesand hence if some moral values apply to some persons then they should,as a matter of consistency, also apply to all . . . borders are not offundamental moral importance (Caney, Justice Beyond Borders 265).

Non-relational approaches often make recourse to the idea of ‘moralarbitrariness’ – which suggests that we should not accept inequalities thatconsign some to lives of severe disadvantage simply because of the statethey happen to have been (involuntarily) born into.

Relational views, by contrast, may plausibly have a diverse range ofscope implications. Some relationists would restrict the scope of egalitarianjustice, confining equality to those who share a state (Nagel), or citizenship(D. Miller, Principles of Social Justice). Other contemporary relationists havedefended a global scope for egalitarian justice (see e.g. Tan, Justice withoutBorders). It is important to note that relational views may be complex innature. Thus for Moellendorf (‘Equal Respect’), although the principallypolitical relationship between co-citizens may give rise to some egalitarianduties, the economic relations between individuals globally gives rise toother egalitarian duties. The choice, for relationists, need not be betweenan undifferentiated global egalitarianism which gives no import to ties atthe level of the state, and a robust statism which gives import only to tiesat the level of the state. John Rawls’s position on justice also argued forcomplexity, following from his well-known assertion that ‘the correctregulative principle for anything depends on the nature of that thing’(Rawls, Theory of Justice 25) – but a form of complexity which did restrictequality to the state. Thus relations between individual citizens within agiven society should be regulated by a conception of morality as fairness;a ‘morality of association’ will regulate the life of associations within thestate, such as churches and perhaps families; the ‘basic structure’ of a given



society should be regulated by a (broadly egalitarian) conception of justiceas fairness; and finally relations between societies at the international levelshould be regulated by a (broadly non-egalitarian) set of principles whichhe called the Law of Peoples.

Each of the two kinds of justification for global egalitarian justice hasattracted its own brand of counter-arguments. Non-relational claims arephilosophically straightforward, but a first criticism revolves around thederivation of egalitarian distributive duties from the idea of universal moralpersonhood. It is said in response that moral personhood might imply that anyadequate theory of justice will see individuals treated with equal concernand respect (Dworkin); but why must this take the form of egalitarian, asopposed to sufficientarian or prioritarian distributive principles? It mightbe argued, by a scope-restricting relationalist, that distributive egalitarianismis not merely dependent on the universal fact of moral personality, but alsoon a thicker ideal of individuals as free and equal which may be culturallyor institutionally parochial (Sangiovanni, ‘Justice and the Priority’ 15).This appears to have been Rawls’s view. Second, a relationist might askwhether in the absence of connection of some kind, inequalities are reallyintrinsically objectionable. Imagining that two unconnected communitiesmight nevertheless have duties to eradicate even small inequalitiesbetween them is, claims Blake (‘International Justice’ 31) ‘to fetishize thevalue of equality.’ This point implies that ascertaining that global inequalitiesaffect our life chances is not sufficient to establish that they are ‘morallyarbitrary.’ We need some additional argument (along the lines that suchinequalities are imposed by an institutional order we are all responsible for,for instance) in order for them to be correctly appraisable as morallyarbitrary (see e.g. D. Miller, National Responsibility; Nagel; Sangiovanni,‘Global Justice’). Of course it might be countered that the question of thenormative appeal of non-relational views is a question of purely esotericinterest given the global economic relations that do exist; relational andnon-relational views might in any case converge (Caney, Justice beyond Borders).This may be true, but cannot count as a justification for the relationalview, and there is substantial disagreement about whether relations thatexist globally are of the pertinent kind or not (see below).

Relational approaches face their own distinct challenges. One generalmethodological challenge concerns the derivation of principles of justicefrom social relations. Sangiovanni (‘Justice and the Priority’) argues thatthe relationalist arrives at principles of justice by working out the ‘pointand purpose’ of the practices or institutions they are to apply to. Butwon’t there be disagreement about the point and purpose of institutionssuch as the United Nations or World Trade Organisation, and how, in theabsence of practice-independent principles, can we adjudicate betweencompeting interpretations? A second charge is that relationalism possessesan inbuilt conservatism – it works upwards from institutions or relationsthat already exist, and does not tell us what institutions or relations should



exist – or, alternatively, that it does not possess the necessary criticalresources to condemn institutions which do exist but should not. As wewill see below, this criticism will not always be valid – for a defender ofa relational view might in some cases coherently argue for the creation ofnew institutions or relations.

equality beyond the state?

We have seen that non-relationist egalitarians are likely also to be globalegalitarians, whereas relationists might coherently argue for the restrictionof egalitarian justice to the domain of the state, nation, or else some othersub-national or supra-national domain. In recent years the most promi-nent instances of scope-restricting relationalism have sought to elucidatethe normatively special character of the state. Many such arguments havebeen inspired in some way by Rawls’s argument that principles of justice,properly understood, regulate the ‘basic structure’ of particular societies,conceived in terms of the major institutions of such societies, whichcombine together to distribute rights and responsibilities to their citizens.Some supporters of Rawls (e.g. Freeman) have denied that there is a globalbasic structure, and seen this as a clinching argument against extendingegalitarian principles to the global level. On the other hand ‘Rawlsiancosmopolitans’ have argued that a global basic structure is evident, andhence defended a broadly Rawlsian form of global egalitarianism (Beitz,Political Theory; Buchanan; Hinsch; Pogge, Realizing Rawls). These opposedpositions concur that something like a basic structure captures the appro-priate site for principles of egalitarian justice, but disagree about the scopeof the basic structure, and hence of egalitarian principles. In the event, itseems obvious that a direct equivalent of the Rawlsian basic structure doesnot exist at the global level. Rawlsian cosmopolitans stretched the definitionconsiderably, arguing that ‘any comprehensive social system has a basicstructure and thus falls within the purview of Rawls’s conception of justice’(Pogge, Realizing Rawls 24). As the debate has proceeded the argumenthas become more sophisticated, as it has become increasingly obvious thatinstitutions or relations might be normatively significant for analyticallydistinct – if perhaps empirically overlapping – reasons. Thus more recentapproaches inspired by Rawls have emphasised different aspects of stateinstitutions as giving rise to egalitarian claims (Abizadeh). Some (includingBlake, ‘Distinctive Justice’; R. Miller; Nagel; Risse, ‘What to Say about theState’) have emphasised the coercive nature of state institutions as being keyin triggering egalitarian justice. Very broadly speaking it is because – in beingco-authors of a state structure – we jointly subject ourselves to a coercivesystem of law that it is appropriate for relations of distributive justice alsoto obtain between us. Coercive institutions require a special justificationand in a sense, egalitarianism provides that justification. Others – includingBrian Barry (‘Humanity and Justice’) and more recently Andrea Sangiovanni



(‘Global Justice’) – have emphasised the extent to which the basic structureregulates a system of cooperation or reciprocity. Egalitarian duties are appro-priate between citizens because they are collectively engaged together inthe production of key public goods. Still another view, as Abizadeh pointsout, might suggest that what is key about basic structures is their pervasiveimpact on the life-chances of the individuals affected by them. It is becauseinstitutional structures or relations have such a deep impact on the oppor-tunities available to individuals affected by them that we correctly appraisethose structures or relations according to standards of egalitarian justice.Each of these arguments tells us when inequalities are morally arbitrary, andeach emphasis can be found in Rawls’s work; but there is disagreementabout which, finally, matters.

Arguments that confine equality to the level of the state are common,but far from straightforward. For one thing, even if we accept that coercivestructures, or practices of reciprocity, empirically inhere at the level of thestate, they may also inhere beyond that level (Barry and Valentini). Takingcoercion as an example, there may be a variety of more or less coerciveinstitutions currently functioning at the global level – whether we aretalking narrowly in terms of actual organisations such as the World TradeOrganisation or International Monetary Fund, or more broadly in termsof ‘institutions’ such as the emerging international regime on property rights,or the regime of sovereign states itself, which every day polices stateborders using violence or the threat of violence (Wenar, ‘Contractualism’83–4; see also Julius; Pendlebury; Pevnick). To be sure, some authors haveargued that the coercion practiced by states is distinctive (perhaps in itsimmediacy – Risse ‘What to Say about the State’; or its jointly authoredcharacter – Nagel). But pursuing such arguments may lead to perverseconclusions. For as Abizadeh has shown, if an organisation may make itscoercion indirect or mediated (for Risse), or else brutal and uncontami-nated even by a charade of the consent of those subject to it (for Nagel),then the requirements of distributive egalitarianism will not apply. The moralhazard inherent in such argument is that a sovereign might then absolveherself of egalitarian duties simply by exercising unmitigated or indirectcoercion. Likewise with the idea of social cooperation: the claimthat equality only applies to relationships that are already moralised orexhibiting basic background justice puts the cart before the horse and opensup similarly perverse conclusions. Perhaps instead a theory of equality issupposed to tell us how relations should be constrained by considerationsof fairness (Beitz, Political Theory; Richards).

It is also worth asking precisely what these statist arguments achieve.For we could accept that coercion (for instance) triggers equality, withoutaccepting that only coercion triggers equality. Establishing otherwise wouldrequire a much more exhaustive argument (Caney, ‘Global DistributiveJustice’). Absent such an argument, we are left with the possibility that allkinds of relations could trigger egalitarian duties. Some of these, indeed,



are not the kind of relations we commonly mean by ‘institutions’ – thepervasive impact argument, for example, might dictate that any significanteffect on the life chances of others raises the demands of justice. As suchit might demand that where institutions do not yet exist, we should createthem. A good example could be climate change, where it is at the veryleast plausible that institutions must, morally, be created to deal with thedeep and inequitable impact upon the lives of the disadvantaged causedby anthropogenic climate change. This is why I reserved judgement onthe question of whether relational views can coherently argue for thecreation of new relationships. It may all turn out to depend on what wemean by relationships. If ‘we’ are polluting a population otherwise isolatedfrom the rest of humanity, then perhaps this minimal kind of relationshipdemands that we form a deeper, and more just, form of relationship withthem. The implications of climate change for global justice have beeninvestigated by Caney (‘Cosmopolitan Justice, Rights, and Global ClimateChange’), Gardiner, Page, Rowlands, Shue and Singer.

It remains to be seen whether any really convincing arguments forrestricting egalitarian duties to the state can be made. But it may in anycase be that a simple opposition between statism and a purely ‘cosmopolitan’global egalitarianism misleads us about the possibilities. For we might acceptsome form of global egalitarianism and still maintain that scope-restrictedrelations – such as those between citizens – trigger other forms of egalitarianjustice. In the future accounts might be pluralist along a number ofdimensions. Moellendorf (‘Equal Respect’) provides one example of arelationalist who argues for a differentiated egalitarianism, based on thepolitical relations of the state and the economic relations of the globaleconomy. But it is also quite possible to combine relational arguments likethese with non-relational egalitarian commitments. A good example ofsuch a position is provided by Risse (‘Grounds of Justice’), who broadlywants to restrict relationally triggered egalitarian duties to the state level,but combines this with a commitment to non-relational duties based oncommon ownership of the earth’s resources. Different egalitarian argumentsmight have different justifications, and give rise to different distributiveprinciples, and there is little reason to expect the cosmopolitanism/statismdistinction to capture this complexity adequately.

2. The Content of Global Egalitarianism

In a counterpoint to ‘domestic’ egalitarian theory (where the question‘equality of what?’ long diverted attention from the question ‘equality ofwhom?’), the theory of global egalitarianism has seen somewhat lessattention devoted to the content question. At the outset it is important tonote that as well as the disagreement about the scope of egalitarian justicecanvassed in the last section, there has been extensive (and only partiallyoverlapping) disagreement about what those principles are supposed to



apply to. Should we confine considerations of justice to large-scale formalor semi-formal institutional structures, norms or rules – with entitlementsaccruing to individuals purely as participants in those institutions, if at all?If so, should they apply to already existing institutions such as the WorldTrade Organisation, or call into existence new institutions? If we rejectthis ‘institutional’ focus, what else should they apply to? Similarly, thereis disagreement about precisely what the ‘global’ element of global egali-tarianism implies, with some focussing on distributive justice betweenindividuals, and some focussing on justice between nations or states (thoughprinciples relating exclusively to nation-states might better be termedinternational principles, they could still be global in scope).

If unpacked in terms of principles of distributive justice, what formmight global egalitarianism take? Broadly speaking we have once moreseen a Rawlsian approach dominating the early discussions. Within Rawls’sdomestic theory, the two famous distributive (sub)principles are known asthe Difference Principle and the Fair Equality of Opportunity Principle(Rawls, Theory of Justice). Each has gained its adherents within the globalegalitarian debate, and I will address each in turn before moving on tosome other alternatives.

a global difference principle?

At the domestic level, a Difference Principle suggests that inequalities aretolerable if they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged (therehas been some debate on whether this properly counts as an egalitarian –as opposed to prioritarian – principle; see above). If we were engaged indesigning or reforming global institutions, a Global Difference Principlewould have us select those arrangements that would benefit the leastadvantaged the most. This would almost certainly require us to reducecurrent inequalities both between and within countries (Beitz, Political Theory153; see also Richards; Barry, Liberal Theory of Justice). As opposed to aglobal order which responds to the interests of powerful states andeconomic actors, a Global Difference Principle would mandate structuresand policies seeking rapid advancement for the poorest of the world (mostof them women, although explicit discussion of gender issues within theglobal justice literature is only now emerging – though see Held; Jaggar;Nussbaum, ‘Feminism and Internationalism’; O’Neill; Robinson). Whencoupled with a fair equality of opportunity principle (see below), it mightwell demand major wealth transfers to develop a global infrastructurecapable of delivering opportunities for all (Tan, Justice without Borders 71);and it might also oblige wealthy countries to bear the brunt of the costsof adapting to climate change (Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice 81, 98;Singer).

Though the idea of foregrounding the advancement of the world’s pooris an attractive one, the notion of a Global Difference Principle has been



criticised. Whilst defenders have recognised that it is supposed to applyprecisely to institutional orders (see e.g. Tan, Justice without Borders 109),it has been objected that, in the absence of a global basic structure (onwhich see above), it is not clear that a suitable target exists for the principle,or an agent to apply it. As Freeman has it,

There is no global political authority to apply the difference principle; nor isthere a global legal system or global system of property to apply it to. So a globaldifference principle is doubly infirm, without both agency and object. (444)

If there is no agent or structure which distributes property or propertyrights in the first place, it cannot sensibly be asked how property mightbe distributed more fairly. Similarly, Meckled-Garcia has argued that theequivalents of domestic principles of distributive justice cannot applyglobally, in the absence of an ‘overarching authority’ capable of preservingpatterns of distribution, just or otherwise (this argument would appear tohave some overlap with the coercion-based relationist view discussed inthe last section, though the nature of that overlap remains unexplored).As mentioned above, the narrow focus on a Rawlsian definition of a basicstructure is being displaced by a more sophisticated focus on the distributiveeffects of various kinds of structures, each of which might plausibly beappraisable in their own ways. Two responses might be offered, then. First,and more weakly, it might be said that whether or not we can tick theboxes of any given definition of a basic structure, it still matters whetherglobal institutions that do exist could be reasonably accepted by thosesubject to them, and reflection on this question might still impel us toseek to mitigate the inequalities arising from them, or demand that suchinequalities operate in the interests of all (see e.g. Tan, ‘Boundaries ofJustice’ 335). These institutions might have distributive effects even if theydid not directly allocate either property or property rights (an empiricalquestion which will remain contested). Rawls of course recognised justthis in his reflections on global trade (Law of Peoples 115); the nub of theissue may be whether this drives us to advocate a conception of distributiveegalitarianism, or merely some form of transactional fairness. Second, andmore strongly, perhaps the response – like many scope-restricting relationistviews – inappropriately concentrates on questions about what institutionsdo exist, to the neglect of what institutions should exist. Instead, ournormative reflections might plausibly drive us to construct effectiveinstitutions, rather than lower our moral sights in their absence.

A second, somewhat more technical criticism of a Global DifferencePrinciple concerns the division of labour between domestic and globaljustice. If we assume that states should also apply a Difference Principlein the construction of their domestic institutions, we apparently have aquandary. For how could we apply a Difference Principle at both levelssimultaneously? Tan ( Justice without Borders) believes that there is nofundamental tension here, because the division of labour is already clear:



principles of global justice determine what rightfully belongs to any givennation-state, whereas principles of domestic justice determine how thatnation-state should allocate such resources. Whether this is a fully adequateresponse is not yet clear, but it does raise an important issue aboutwhether we should begin our reflections on egalitarian justice with thethorny question of how access to the world’s resources should be appor-tioned (on which, see below).

global equality of opportunity?

The notion of global equality of opportunity gains appeal from the intuitioncited at the beginning of the first Section. If we are (presumptively)committed to the idea that individuals’ lives should not start at a disad-vantage because of the unchosen facts of their race, gender, physicalabilities and so on, then why not add citizenship to that list? Who, afterall, chooses to be born in Mozambique rather than Monaco, with theradically different advantages that this entails? As Caney ( Justice beyondBorders 123) puts it, ‘The logic underpinning equality of opportunityentails that it should be globalized.’ Following this intuition, Moellendorf(Cosmopolitan Justice 49) has suggested that all individuals should haveequal opportunities to attain valued social positions (such as becoming abanker). Such a proposal might even mandate more open immigrationpolicies, given the way in which borders currently thwart equal opportunities(62; see also Carens). As with the case of a Global Difference Principle,it is worth noting how radically transformative of the existing global sceneimplementing such a principle might be. It is also worth noting thatachieving equal opportunities for all individuals would run counter toconventional views on the place of women in many societies, as well ason the proper place of religion (since in some societies a number of privilegedpositions will currently be readily available not to all, but instead tomembers of some particular religion or caste).

Despite the apparent power of its founding intuition, the notion ofglobal equality of opportunity has also been criticised. David Miller(National Responsibility) has questioned whether it can make sense, giventhe diversity (across, rather than within communities) of goods or positionsthat we value. After all, what would an equal opportunity to becomea banker mean to members of a community which only valued spiritualadvancement (for allied critiques see Boxill; Brock; Moore, ‘Justice withinDifferent Borders’; see also D. Miller, ‘Against Global Egalitarianism’)?Caney’s suggestion that we measure equal opportunity in terms of the rewardsattendant on (a variety of ) positions, rather than the filling of specificpositions, might be expected to face this kind of problem less keenly,but it is not clear that it can entirely avoid such questions, given thecross-culturally diverse valuations placed on resources themselves (see alsoMoellendorf, ‘Equality of Opportunity Globalized?’). Caney’s response is



to suggest that this kind of ‘metric’ problem is not a problem that shoulddeter us at the level of ideal theory (Caney, ‘Justice, Borders and theCosmopolitan Ideal’; see also Caney ‘Cosmopolitan Justice and EqualizingOpportunities’), but much more needs to be said on how a global conceptionof equality of opportunity could be operationalised.

It might be said that the problems faced by global equality of opportunityare merely more acute versions of problems the ideal may face at thedomestic level too, especially given domestic cultural diversity. AlthoughMiller (National Responsibility) and Moore (‘Cosmopolitanism and PoliticalCommunities’) both claim that the ‘metric’ problem facing defences ofequality of opportunity are ‘solved’ at the national level, it is not wholly clearthat this is so. But this response would only establish that the problemsfaced by global equality of opportunity are shared to some degree, ratherthan that they are easily resolvable. Of course we might say that quite howchallenging the ideal of global equality of opportunity turns out to be isobviously at least partly an artefact of how ambitious a conception ofequality of opportunity we are appealing to, and quite how much workwe want that ideal to do within a general theory of distributive justice.Thus one suggestion is that ‘metric’ problems would become much moretractable if we restricted our attention to an ideal of ‘competitive equalityof opportunity’, governing access to the resources and positions which arein fact distributed within specific global institutions (such as, perhaps, jobswithin global organisations). This would narrow the scope of such a principleconsiderably: rather than conceiving the goal of equality of opportunityin a very broad way, in terms of equal access to all the goods, positionsor other opportunities normally covered by a theory of egalitarian justice,we would restrict it to cover specific opportunities within institutions ororganisations which were already global in nature (see Loriaux). Whetherwe consider it worthwhile trading normative ambition for applicability inthis way may depend on our view of the correct role, if any, that empiricalconsiderations should play in political philosophy (though it should benoted too that some would in any case prefer less ambitious versions ofequality of opportunity at the level of ideal theory). It is also not yet clearthat this suggestion will successfully overcome the metric objection, though;if global equality of opportunity is to be an action-guiding principleof justice, important work on its contours remains to be done.

widening the scope

As shown above, much of the debate within global egalitarian theory hasrevolved straightforwardly around the appeal, and applicability, of either aGlobal Difference Principle, or the idea of Global Equality of Opportunity,or both. To date, the greater diversity exhibited by domestic egalitariantheory is not yet fully reflected in debates on global justice. But there aresigns that this is now changing. This is so at the level of fundamental



normative principles, and in terms of the issues and problems whichtheorists of global equality have addressed.

At the level of fundamental principle, it would be wholly mistaken tosuppose that more or less Rawlsian positions exhausted the range of globalegalitarian theorising. To give some brief counter-examples, broadly luckegalitarian positions have been defended by Tan and by Cappelen, extendingthe critique of ‘morally arbitrary’ inequalities further than most Rawlsianswould. Taking a lead from theorists such as Ronald Dworkin (thoughDworkin himself is not persuaded by global egalitarianism), such positionswould seek to link individuals’ economic positions to the choices they make,rather than the brute luck of their place of birth. And the implications ofa ‘left-libertarian’ approach for global justice have been addressed bySteiner, amongst others. By contrast to Rawls (Law of Peoples), who con-sidered the distribution of natural resources between societies to be relativelyuncontroversial from the point of view of distributive justice (at least solong as each society had access to resources sufficient to build adequateinstitutions, which was, he suggested, almost always the case), rivalaccounts have worked from the basis that the earth, and its resources, areowned in common, or equally, by individuals (the implications of equalownership and collective ownership are rather different, but will not bedealt with here in depth). A left-libertarian position, based on a right toan equal share of natural resource values, and mandating a global basicincome, has been defended by Steiner; assuming an equal right to a shareof the world’s resources may profoundly challenge existing distributions.Though not working from an explicitly libertarian perspective, the impli-cations of collective ownership of the earth have also been addressed byBlake and Risse – who go on to consider the connections between thisand legitimate immigration policy – and also by Fabre (‘Justice, Fairnessand World Ownership’).

The ‘capabilities-based’ approach to equality has also made a significantcontribution to the theory of global equality, and may represent the fore-most challenger to the dominance of broadly Rawlsian theory at that level(Nussbaum, ‘Beyond the Social Contract’). Rather than concentrating onaccess to resources, the capabilities approach claims that what is normativelysignificant is the degree to which an individual can achieve importantfunctionings (such as being able to live a life of normal length, to beadequately nourished, or to enjoy human dignity). In fact, the developmentof capabilities, rather than apparently simple measures such as economicgrowth, is what should guide the development process (Sen, Developmentas Freedom). Such a focus would again radically challenge existing economicand political practices, and notably, the literature on this approach hashad more to say about gender issues than has been the case with rivalapproaches (see e.g. Nussbaum, ‘Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements’;Robeyns). There are some issues which remain controversial on thisapproach, though. For instance whilst Sen tells us that to the extent to



which we care about equality, we should endorse capability equality(rather than equality of welfare or resources, say), it is not clear whetherhe does indeed endorse capability equality himself, or whether he believesthe demands of justice can be satisfied with something more basic (suchas the achievement, to an adequate level, of a limited list of capabilities; seeNussbaum, ‘Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements’). Martha Nussbaumhas devoted considerable attention to developing Sen’s approach but also,at least at times, favours a rather sufficientarian approach to distributivejustice. A further controversy concerns which capabilities individuals needto enjoy equal (or alternatively, adequate) access to. Providing a prescriptivelist will tend to attract the charge of cultural bias (which is not to say thatsuch a charge cannot be tackled); refusing to provide such a list will tendto lead to the charge that the ‘metric’ of capability equality is unclear.Nussbaum (‘Women’s Education’) has robustly defended a list of corecapabilities, and argued that at the global level access to education is inmany ways the lynchpin, not least for women.

The appropriate form of global egalitarianism at the level of fundamentalprinciple therefore remains contested. At the same time, as the literaturehas developed it has taken on new issues and projects. In that sense theambit of discussions of global egalitarianism is somewhat larger than itonce was. Issues of ecology and immigration have already been mentioned(and it is a vexed question how the justice of migration relates to issuesof global distributive justice). Other issues which have been discussedrecently include inequalities in access to health, income and property. Onhealth, greater attention is being devoted to the justice or injustice of thecurrent distribution of access to healthcare, and the wide disparities inlife-expectancy and susceptibility to preventable diseases. Some of thiswork follows a broadly Rawlsian pattern (see e.g. Daniels). On the otherhand Thomas Pogge (‘Human Rights and Global Health’) has called,quite radically, for a realignment of incentives so that the global healthindustry responded to genuine need, and medical knowledge was freelyavailable to all as a global public good. Some recent work has consideredthe merits of a global basic income, which would secure the material basesof life for all (see e.g. Van Parijs). Caney ( Justice beyond Borders) has alsodefended the (somewhat more modest, but still highly challenging) ideaof equal remuneration for equal work, which would see pay detachedfrom the ‘brute facts’ of residence or relative economic power.

In terms of property, as mentioned above, there has also been attentionto the question of how access to resources is distributed. From a Rawlsianperspective Charles Beitz (Political Theory) had early on considered a‘resource redistribution principle’ that would grant each nation sufficientresources to be able to develop adequate socio-political institutions (for aproposal for a Global Resources Dividend, see Pogge, World Poverty andHuman Rights; for a global wealth tax see Fabre, ‘Global DistributiveJustice’). But the positions of theorists such as Steiner are still more



challenging. This suggests that questions about the justice of ownershipand use of property – far from being settled within a world of nation-states – are coming increasingly to the fore. Such issues are of great concernin a world where existing conventions on property ownership often workin a highly inegalitarian fashion (Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights;Wenar, ‘Property Rights and the Resource Curse’). Focusing on environ-mental issues, a conception of an equal entitlement to ‘ecological space,’defined as the aggregate natural resources and environmental capacity‘available on a sustainable basis for human use’ has also been suggested(Hayward 445). This seeks to integrate considerations of climate justiceinto a much broader framework of distributive justice, according to whichall issues of resource use and ownership ought to be dealt with by aholistic, and egalitarian, distributive theory.

Conclusion

This paper has sought to provide an overview of the rapidly developingliterature on global egalitarianism. Although relatively new, the literatureis developing in complexity and sophistication. Having covered a gooddeal of ground, a number of important questions have accordingly beenleft to one side, or addressed only fleetingly: how might global egalitarianprinciples be balanced with a commitment to national self-determination or collectiveautonomy? How might duties of global egalitarian justice relate to special duties tofellow citizens? Can there be intelligible global egalitarian principles, given the deepcultural diversity that applies across the globe? What are the institutional requisitesfor global egalitarian justice, and would it require a world state? Although theseare all interesting questions, the intention here has simply been to providean account of how the drive towards global egalitarianism has developed,and how it has confronted some forceful recent claims for the normativesignificance of states.

It has been shown that there are lively debates about the extension ofegalitarian principles to the global level, an issue which is far from settled.It has also been shown that, even if we accept the normative appeal ofequality at the global level, that normative commitment might play outin a number of different ways, adumbrating quite different principles ofjustice and many different areas of possible application. The debate, then,is moving fast, and rapidly transcending its origins in the early debatesabout whether or not to ‘extend Rawls’ globally. The literature on globalegalitarianism can be expected to become more diverse still, in line withdomestic egalitarian theory. And it is also in the process of integratingmore fully concerns with gender, ecology, immigration, and resource useand ownership. In addition to this, it is to be expected that many of thepositions taken in these debates in future will be more complex, and morepluralist (in a variety of ways) than the earliest arguments, hugely influ-ential though they have been.



Short Biography

Chris Armstrong’s research focuses on issues of equality and justice, andmost recently on the theory of global distributive justice. He has authoredpapers in journals such as Philosophy and Social Criticism, Economy andSociety, Political Studies, Critical Review of International Social and PoliticalPhilosophy and the European Journal of Political Theory. His book RethinkingEquality: the Challenge of Equal Citizenship (Manchester University Press,2006) investigated the connections between distributive egalitarianism anda commitment to the ideal of equal citizenship. He is currently SeniorLecturer in Politics at the University of Southampton, and formerlyworked at Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin, aswell as holding a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bristol. Heholds degrees from the Universities of Durham, Bristol and the LondonSchool of Economics. He is currently a Leverhulme Research Fellow,working on the topic of global egalitarianism and global justice, and alsoco-convenor of the (UK) Political Studies Association’s Specialist Groupon Citizenship and Democracy.

Note

* Correspondence address: Division of Politics and International Relations, University ofSouthampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected].

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