TY - JOUR
T1 - The intergenerational justice dilemma for relational egalitarians
AU - Bengtson, Andreas
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Relational egalitarianism is a prominent theory of justice according to which justice requires equal relations. However, relational egalitarianism faces a central problem, i.e. the problem of intergenerational justice: the view is silent when it comes to relations between non-overlapping generations. In this paper, I want to explore whether relational egalitarians may escape the problem by adopting a different view of what it means to be relevantly related. I discuss four such views and argue that they all face two problems. Ultimately, this means that relational egalitarians end up in a dilemma: Either relational egalitarians adopt their standard lexical view of social relations, but in that case the theory does not speak to relations between non-overlapping generations (the problem of intergenerational justice); or they adopt a non-lexical understanding of (social) relations in which case the theory does speak to relations between non-overlapping generations, but then (a) it is not clear that the relations are thick enough to ground relational, as opposed to distributive, requirements of justice, and (b) even if the relations are thick enough to ground relational requirements, it is hard to see that they can justify egalitarian, as opposed to, say, sufficientarian, relational requirements.
AB - Relational egalitarianism is a prominent theory of justice according to which justice requires equal relations. However, relational egalitarianism faces a central problem, i.e. the problem of intergenerational justice: the view is silent when it comes to relations between non-overlapping generations. In this paper, I want to explore whether relational egalitarians may escape the problem by adopting a different view of what it means to be relevantly related. I discuss four such views and argue that they all face two problems. Ultimately, this means that relational egalitarians end up in a dilemma: Either relational egalitarians adopt their standard lexical view of social relations, but in that case the theory does not speak to relations between non-overlapping generations (the problem of intergenerational justice); or they adopt a non-lexical understanding of (social) relations in which case the theory does speak to relations between non-overlapping generations, but then (a) it is not clear that the relations are thick enough to ground relational, as opposed to distributive, requirements of justice, and (b) even if the relations are thick enough to ground relational requirements, it is hard to see that they can justify egalitarian, as opposed to, say, sufficientarian, relational requirements.
KW - intergenerational justice
KW - Relational egalitarianism
KW - relational sufficientarianism
KW - social relations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85217748734&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13698230.2025.2462360
DO - 10.1080/13698230.2025.2462360
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85217748734
SN - 1369-8230
VL - 28
JO - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
JF - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
IS - 3
ER -