This article explores the Rawlsian goal of ensuring that distributions
are not influenced by the morally arbitrary. It does so by bringing discussions
of distributive justice into contact with the debate over
moral luck initiated by Williams and Nagel. Rawls’ own justice as
fairness appears to be incompatible with the arbitrariness commitment,
as it creates some equalities arbitrarily. A major rival,
Dworkin’s version of brute luck egalitarianism, aims to be continuous
with ordinary ethics, and so is (a) sensitive to non-philosophical beliefs
about free will and responsibility, and (b) allows inequalities to
arise on the basis of option luck. But Dworkin does not present convincing
reasons in support of continuity, and there are compelling
moral reasons for justice to be sensitive to the best philosophical account
of free will and responsibility, as is proposed by the revised
brute luck egalitarianism of Arneson and Cohen. While Dworkinian
brute luck egalitarianism admits three sorts of morally arbitrary disadvantaging
which correspond to three forms of moral luck (constitutive,
circumstantial, and option luck), revised brute luck egalitarianism
does not disadvantage on the basis of constitutive or circumstantial
luck. But it is not as sensitive to responsibility as it needs to be to
fully extinguish the influence of the morally arbitrary, for persons under
it may exercise their responsibility equivalently yet end up with
different outcomes on account of option luck. It is concluded that
egalitarians should deny the existence of distributive luck, which is
luck in the levels of advantage that individuals are du
