Thesis: There is a deep connection between equal treatment and justice, but not between equal treatment and equal shares.

ON BEHALF OF EQUAL SHARES

Bruce Ackerman's essay, “On Getting What We Don't Deserve,” is a dialogue that beautifully captures the essence of egalitarian concern about differences in wealth and income. Ackerman imagines you and he are in a garden. You see two apples on a tree and swallow them in one gulp while an amazed Ackerman looks on. Ackerman then asks you, as one human being to another: Shouldn't I have gotten one of those apples?

Should he? Why? Why only one? What grounds our admittedly compelling intuition that Ackerman should have gotten one – exactly one – of those apples? Notably, Ackerman denies that his claim is based on need, signaling that his concern is not humanitarian. Instead, Ackerman's point is that one apple would have been an equal share. To Ackerman, the rule of equal shares is a moral default. Morally, distribution by equal shares is what we automatically go to if we cannot justify anything else. In Ackerman's garden, at least, to say Ackerman does not presumptively command an equal share is to say he does not command respect.

Is Ackerman right? Looking at the question dispassionately, there are several things to say on behalf of “equal shares” even if we reject Ackerman's presumption in favor of it. In Ackerman's garden, equal shares requires no further debate about who gets the bigger share.