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532 SEIDEL
the socio-relational critique would simply sidestep essentially distributive questions. 11
Moreover (and consequently), if ESV is really about something else (like freedom or valuable
human relationships), then not undermining this value would be a condition of adequacy for
any conception of distributive justice and not just for distributive egalitarianism.
Sufficientarians and prioritarians, too, may also accept that we should treat each other with
equal respect; but their agreement on this understanding of ESV would not settle their
substantive disagreements about what constitutes a fair distribution. In other words: By restating
ESV in this way, ESV ceases to have any bearing on distributive questions – it would
be “distributively inert”. Again, the socio-relational critique looses much of its appeal: If
taking this ideal into account is a general criterion for any plausible conception of justice, why
should the (luck-)egalitarian be especially worried about it?
A last reply to my line of reasoning may be called the “stipulative currency objection”: “Of
course,” the critic may say, “we may talk about distributing something (e.g. rank, power,
status, social standing) equally; but it would be completely stipulative to do this, a purely
formal and artificial way to plug in something as a currency just for the sake of having a
currency.” I think that the stipulative currency objection is either self-refuting or
overgeneralises. Regarding the first horn of this dilemma, note that “artificial” cannot mean
“unimportant”, “unwarranted” or “not being supported by further reasons”. The currencies
under consideration (e.g. rank, power, status, social standing) clearly are important from the
critic’s point of view, because these are the very concepts employed to characterise the
content of ESV; and while it is true that no reasons are given why differences in the currencies
under consideration (differences in e.g. rank, power, status, social standing) are supposed to
be relevant, this charge would, mutatis mutandis, apply to ESV as well because no further
reasons are given why certain human relation ought not to be governed by differences in
rank, power, status, social standing etc. Let us turn to the second horn: The stipulative
currency objection may also be read as complaining not so much about what is regarded as a
currency or distribuendum but rather as objecting to the fact that something is regarded as a
distribuendum in the first place. The objection will be then be that it is misleading to think of
rank, status, power etc. as something like apples, newspaper or spam mails which may be
literally “distributed” by a distributor who, at some point in time, has all of the distribuendum
at her disposal and then hands it out to the recipients. But this objection is too strong; if valid,
it would apply to all distribuenda which are discussed in the debate on distributive justice
(e.g. welfare, resources, opportunities): Of course, no single entity, person or institution
possesses (or ever possessed) all of the welfare, resources or opportunities and then, after
careful thinking, hands it out to the people. The existence of such a distributor or “social
planner” is not necessary for questions of distributive justice to arise since we can also be said
to “distribute something” if we have some sort of causal influence on the distribution of
something by shaping our social institutions. For instance, as long as we are able to influence
the distribution of income through taxes, expropriation, education or whatever, we may call
any action that so affects the distribution of income an act of (re)distributing income. And
given that, through institutional arrangements, we surely do have such a causal impact on
differences in rank, status, power, social standing etc., there is nothing artificial or stipulative
in talking about the distribution of rank, status, power or social standing. I thus conclude that
the stipulative currency objection fails and that the first problem with the socio-relational
critique is still unsolved: ESV is not distinct from DE but rather presupposes some from of
DE.
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This answer to the critic naturally invites the following question: What distinguishes “a question of
distributive justice” from a “question of morality in general”? While I am not able to give a fullydeveloped
answer, a plausible first approximation is that paradigmatic questions of distributive justice
arise where (1) a group of persons benefits from (2) some important good which (3) is provided by a
(possibly different) group of persons and (4) whose distribution can intentionally be affected (either
directly or through social institutions).