Cynthia Stark
June 07 2014 - July 14 2014
Research Topic
The Benchmark of Equality
Project Outline
Egalitarians typically do not endorse strict distributive equality. Rather they invoke a benchmark of equality; departures from equality, they think, face a case to answer. Rawls, for instance, argues that inequalities are just if and only if they maximally benefit the worst-off. Luck egalitarians argue that inequalities are just if and only if they are produced by choice and unjust if and only if they are produced by brute luck. Although the idea of a benchmark of equality is intuitively appealing, it turns out to be difficult to defend. Indeed, existing arguments for the benchmark are flawed. Sometimes the problem is that the claim postulated to ground the benchmark does not in fact entail it. In other cases, the argument for the benchmark implies that virtually all extant theories of distributive justice rely on a benchmark of equality, rendering that notion empty. And in yet other cases, the argument for the benchmark is inconsistent with the grounds offered for departing from the benchmark. My immediate project is to defend a broadly Rawlsian approach to establishing the benchmark and arguing for departures from it. This project is part of a larger research program defending an approach to distributive justice that treats social cooperation as a joint venture undertaken by citizens who rely on one another for their various contributions, rather than as a competition between self-reliant individuals who differ in their capacity or ambition to contribute.
Scholarly Profile
Cynthia Stark received her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993. She is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah.
Main areas of research
Political philosophy, feminist philosophy and normative ethics
Selected Publications
- Luck, Opportunity and Disability, Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, 16, 3 (2013): 383-402.
- Rawlsian Self-Respect, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 2, Mark Timmons, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012): 238-261.
- Respecting Human Dignity: Contract Vs. Capabilities, Metaphilosophy 40, 3-4 (July 2009): 366-381.