ABSTRACT
Preventing disadvantage would certainly seem to a central goal of egalitarian social policy. This preference for prevention more vividly illustrated than in the sphere of health, where prevention pursed primarily through public health policy, and compensation, through the acute treatment of illness by physicians and other healthcare workers. These complexities aside, prevention would seem to an important part of egalitarian social policy and over the course of this chapter explores its role. In particular, it focuses on the luck-egalitarian approach to distributive justice. Because it structured as a response to uncertainty, it would seem to invite a preventive orientation. However, it argues that while opening the door to preventive responses, luck-egalitarianism ultimately fails to realize this potential because of an attenuated understanding of uncertainty. It moves on to offer a refined account that can potentially recognize the place of prevention in distributive justice. Fundamentally, the distinction between prevention and compensation is temporal.
