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530 SEIDEL
obstacles in the way of self-understanding or truthful relations among people.
(Scheffler 2010a: 227)
Equality as a social and political value expresses an ideal of how human relationships
should be conducted. (Scheffler 2010a: 232)
So the main idea seems to be that ESV is concerned with relationships between humans and
that these relationships are governed by some generic conception of encountering others “as
equals”. With regard to this idea, the critics claim that (1) it is distinct from the idea of DE, (2)
that it is the basis of any successful vindication of DE, and (3) that luck-egalitarians cannot
use it as a basis to support their position.
I think there are two serious problems with this route of critique; but before I address them in
the following section, let me explain the normative implication of the critique: If successful,
the socio-relational critique would be able to support a restriction of the scope of claims of
distributive justice to contexts with certain social relationships – namely to those contexts in
which it is at least possible to “encounter each other as equals”. It is not entirely clear, for
instance, whether (and how) the idea of “encountering each other as equals” applies to
injustices that arise from global economic institutions. Is it possible to describe the normative
problem of global inequalities in terms of categories like “truthful living”, “respect and
disrespect”, “self-understanding” which are supposed to explicate the content of ESV and
which are most clearly rooted in the context of direct interpersonal relations (e.g. between
spouses, relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues etc.)? If not then it seems that proponents
of the socio-relational critique will not (be able to) provide a rationale for global
redistribution in the face of global inequality; rather they could point out that from the point
of distributive justice, there are no claims for redistribution as long as the relevant human
relationships do not exist. 10 The situation is very different for distributive egalitarians: They
may easily hold that global inequality (in the relevant currency) provides, in itself. a reason
for global redistribution – after all, they believe in the intrinsic value of equality and the
intrinsic disvalue of inequality, and this commitment is not necessarily qualified in scope.
So the success of the socio-relational critique may have implications for the scope of claims of
distributive justice. This is why we should be sure about whether or not the socio-relational
critique succeeds. In the following section, I will argue that it does not.
3. Assessing the Socio-Relational Critique
The socio-relational critique does not succeed for two reasons. The first is that I can see no
way of making sense of equality as a social value without resorting to the idea of distributive
equality. In other words: Claim (C1) is false because DE and ESV are not completely distinct
ideas. The second problem is that – even if ESV was a distinct idea – the project of anchoring
distributive egalitarianism in ESV is bound to fail. In other words: Claim (C2) is false, too.
3.1 DE is Conceptually and Explanatory Prior to ESV
Let me elaborate on the first problem. While reading the collection of quotations you may
have already been wondering whether the given characterisations of ESV are neutral with
respect to the idea of distributive equality. For instance, the claims that “all members of a
society have equal standing” (second quotation), that “each […] enjoys the same social
standing” (third quotation) or that “human relationships […] are, in certain crucial respects at
least, unstructured by difference of rank, power or status” (fourth quotation) seem to be a
10
Of course, they will be able to account for some duties related to global inequalities, e.g. a duty to
assist the starving poor; but these duties would not be duties of distributive justice, but rather duties
grounded in some other value (like the value of human life).