are also shared assumptions—regarding the importance of individual choice
and the role of the market as a mechanism for ensuring fair distributions—
which critics of this literature challenge. These critics tend to focus on liberal
egalitarians’ exclusive preoccupation with the distribution of resources and
their failure both to address the causes of structural inequality and to
recognize human diversity.
Some critics suggest that Dworkin’s account of equality of opportunity has
been successful because it incorporates the key concerns of the anti-egalitar-
ian right: choice and responsibility (Armstrong 2003 , 415 ). Here equality
becomes a discretionary privilege that one must earn—and whether one
does so will depend upon one’s ‘‘choices.’’ The liberal egalitarian literature
assumes that one can distinguish between talent and ambition and be rela-
tively sure which part of an individual’s life is the result of each. Armstrong
suggests that it therefore focuses attention on the market and resonates with
the neoliberal rhetoric of economic competitiveness. Indeed, liberal egalitar-
ians are increasingly likely to advocate the free market as the most appropri-
ate route to egalitarian justice. This means that they maintain a concern with
material andWnancial distributions, rather than distributions of power or
status, ‘‘thus facilitating the colonization of allWelds of human activity by the
market’’ (Armstrong 2003 , 421 ).
Other theorists suggest that egalitarianism cannot be reduced to the
distribution of one thing, or to a single value. Jonathan WolV, for example,
argues that there are two ideas central to egalitarianism: fairness and respect.
Fairness, he suggests, demands that no one be disadvantaged by arbitrary
factors and, as such, ‘‘in order to implement genuinely fair policies a great
deal of knowledge of individual circumstances is required’’ (WolV 1998, 106 –
7 ). The gathering of this knowledge—in order to determine whether someone
is unemployed because of a lack of talent (a circumstance they face) or
because of a lack of ambition (a choice they have made)—will, he suggests,
require intrusive questioning, and possibly shameful revelation and humili-
ation ( 1998 , 113 ). This puts the pursuit of fairness in potential conXict with the
granting of respect. Accordingly, WolVproposes that both fairness and
respect be valued by egalitarians, and more broadly, that ‘‘distributive
justice should be limited in its application by other egalitarian concerns’’
(WolV 1998, 122 ).
Similarly, Amartya Sen argues that egalitarianism should not be reduced to
the distribution of one thing. He criticizes Dworkin’s account of the initial
equality of resources, and Rawls’s account of primary goods, as neglecting the
equality and difference 475