The limits of limitarianism Why political equality is not protected by Robeyns’ democratic argument

Abstract

Limitarianism takes an important step towards an appropriate concern in normative theory about the danger that financial power can pose to political equality. Despite its significant merits, this paper will show that Robeyns’ proposal still has serious shortcomings. These criticisms pave the way for an alternative proposal that we call proportional justice. In the first section, we briefly reconstruct the limitarian approach. In the second section, we formulate a series of criticisms that expose the inadequacies of limitarianism. In the third section we explain how proportional justice is better equipped than limitarianism to defend political equality.

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Author Profiles

Nunzio Alì
University of Catania
Luigi Caranti
Università degli Studi di Catania

Citations of this work

Emission Reductions Without Addressing Economic Inequality? Proportional Justice as a Path to a Fair Green Transition.Nunzio Alì - 2025 - Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 2025 (2):333-352.

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References found in this work

The idea of justice.Amartya Kumar Sen - 2009 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Equality as a moral ideal.Harry Frankfurt - 1987 - Ethics 98 (1):21-43.
Republicanism.Philip Pettit - 2000 - Mind 109 (435):640-644.
Why Inequality Matters: Luck Egalitarianism, its Meaning and Value.Shlomi Segall - 2016 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Justification and critique: towards a critical theory of politics.Rainer Forst - 2014 - Malden, MA: Polity. Edited by Ciaran Cronin.

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