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Political Philosophy

Success & Luck

Carlo Filice argues that we should share our success, even if it’s hard earned, because we often don’t deserve it as much as we’d like to think.

In thinking about slightly redistributive economic policies, it is essential to address a belief many people hold deeply. This is the belief that honest, hard-working people always deserve most or all that they earn. This belief is bound up with notions of fairness, of self-ownership, and with ideas of the very essence of what a person is. Unfortunately these are also the very notions that undermine the belief in absolute deserving, once examined.

Let’s start with the part that’s hard to dispute.