Mutual Recognition and Moral Luck

Abstract According to contractualists, whether we are able to lead a flourishing and meaningful life is influenced, in part, by our capacity to relate to other rational self‐governing beings on mutually justifiable terms. At the same time, it seems that our success in relating with our fellow rational creatures on terms that they could not reasonably reject is crucially dependent on moral luck, specifically, on what I call justificatory moral luck. In this paper, I argue that these two thoughts, together with certain plausible assumptions about the nature of social justice, yield the following claim: that insofar as individuals are owed the preconditions normally necessary for leading flourishing and meaningful lives, and insofar as the capacity to enter into morally justified relationships with others is a normal precondition for leading a flourishing and meaningful life, our public institutions are under a duty of justice to ensure each a fair and adequate opportunity to stand in morally justified relations with others.