We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Inequality in Political Philosophy and in Epidemiology: A Remarriage.
- Authors
Eyal, Nir
- Abstract
Abstract: In political philosophy and in economics, unfair inequality is usually assessed between individuals, nowadays often on luck‐egalitarian grounds. You have more than I do (through no fault of my own) and that's unfair. By contrast, in epidemiology and sociology, unfair inequality is traditionally assessed between groups. More is concentrated among people of your class or race than among people of mine, and that's unfair. I shall call this difference the egalitarian ‘divorce’. Epidemiologists, and their ‘divorce lawyers’ Paula Braveman, Norman Daniels, and Iris Marion Young, explain that not every inequality between individuals is an inequity. Only inequality between social status groups is unfair. Only such inequality stems from problems like partiality, discrimination, oppression, inequality‐related population health problems, and unfair distribution of prospects. And it alone is actionable. By contrast, inequality between individuals, e.g. in longevity, is natural, inevitable, less important, or otherwise less informative — not unjust. In ‘divorce trial’ mode, I respond to epidemiologists that group inequalities lack the intrinsic disvalue that they ascribe them. They may be instrumentally or contingently bad or wrong, not essentially so. I then shift to ‘remarriage’: although group inequalities lack intrinsic badness or wrongness, for multiple reasons they remain useful to measure.
- Subjects
EQUAL rights; POLITICAL philosophy; EPIDEMIOLOGY; SOCIAL classes; DIVORCE lawyers
- Publication
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2018, Vol 35, Issue 1, p149
- ISSN
0264-3758
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/japp.12150