ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the tentative first steps towards identifying some historical antecedents of luck egalitarianism among the main works of Western political thought. Luck egalitarianism is a family of egalitarian theories of distributive justice that give a special place to luck, choice and responsibility. Aristotle argues that justice does mean equality but equality for those who are equal, and not for all. Again, inequality is considered to be just; and indeed it is but only for those who are unequal, and not for all a just distribution is one in which there is proportion between the things distributed and those to whom they are distributed. By contrast, how luck egalitarianism is related to the history of political thought or philosophy more generally has been left unexplored by its proponents. Perhaps this is because they see luck egalitarianism, with its focus on individual choice and association with such contemporary concerns as equality of opportunity, as without significant predecessors in the canon.
