Sufficiency as Freedom from Duress

Abstract

IN this article, we defend the statement that the requirements of distributive justice are fulfilled when everyone has enough, often referred to as sufficientarianism or the sufficiency principle.1 This entails that justice does not require that we aim for an equal distribution, as many contemporary political philosophers claim. In fleshing out our account of sufficiency, we will show that the reasoning behind many arguments for distributive equality are, ought to be, or at least could be compatible with sufficiency understood in this manner.We will introduce the ideal of freedom from duress, by which we mean the freedom from significant pressure against succeeding in central aspects of human life, as the threshold above which people can be said to have enough. Alternative versions of the sufficiency principle have often been met with forceful objections, which have brought certain aspects and implications of the principle into question. 2 We believe, however, that sufficientarianism understood as freedom from duress can disarm these objections. Thus, we mean to bolster the notion of securing enough for everyone by providing intuitively appealing reasons for the importance of achieving sufficiency. We will claim, then, that any plausible *We are very thankful to Søren Flinch Midtgaard,

Capabilitarian Sufficiency: Capabilities and Social Justice

“…In this article, we attempt to bridge the gap between these two perspectives by proposing an ideal of social justice informed by the capability approach, which we shall term capabilitarian sufficiency. In a previous article, we have suggested that a sufficientarian ideal of social justice could be a good companion for the capability approach (Axelsen & Nielsen 2015), but here we wish to specify and elaborate on how and why this is the case. Where our previous article suggested the potential for approximation between the two conceptual cores, this one actively pursues a fusion.…”

“…Elsewhere, we have suggested and defended a sufficientarian ideal of social justice via the concept of freedom from duress, by which we mean "the freedom from significant pressure against succeeding in central areas of life" (Axelsen & Nielsen 2015). At the heart of this account is the three-step argument that: (a) justice is concerned only with people's opportunities in central, as opposed to non-central, areas of life; (b) that a critical threshold of sufficiency exists in each particular central area; and (c) that what effectively determines sufficiency in a specific area depends on the distributional logic of the capabilities within that area.…”

Introduction

“…Some suggest multiple thresholds "vertically" at different levels of well-being, thereby making it less implausible that distributive demands do not apply above the "higher" threshold (Benbaji 2005;Huseby 2010). Others suggest multiple threshold "horizontally", applied to every distinct relevant dimension of value, so that to be above the threshold in a relevant sense is to be above all such thresholds (Axelsen and Nielsen 2015). Yet others develop sufficientarianism into a hybrid-view by combining the positive thesis with other distributive principles above the threshold (Fourie and Rid 2016).…”

Sufficient Autonomy and Satiable Reasons

“…2 See for instance Axelsen and Nielsen (2015), Benbaji (2005Benbaji ( , 2006, Crisp (2003), Frankfurt (1987), Huseby (2010Huseby ( , 2012, Nielsen (2016).…”