관계 평등주의의 이론적 전개와 실천적 한계

Relational egalitarianism has proceeded with the criticism of distributive egalitarianism. The criticism is that distributive egalitarianism does not fully consider inequality in social relations. The dominant view among egalitarians believes that relational egalitarianism formed in Iris Young’s criticism of distributive equality and Anderson’s criticism of luck egalitarianism. Relational egalitarians pursue a kind of social relation in which everyone relates as equals, without any domination, oppression, or discrimination. Moreover, they suggest ways for everyone to relate to each other as equals. Some specific theoretical measures include Young’s political responsibility to strengthen citizens’ political responsibilities based on equal citizenship rights and obligations, Anderson’s democratic equality to resolve social oppression and ensure their capability as equal citizens, and Scheffler’s egalitarian deliberation constraints that consider everyone’s interests equally in joint decisions. However, there is a limit that relational equality is ambiguous and abstract as it does not offer a positive definition or constructive discussions of the concept of relational equality. Moreover, the principle of relational equality can be applied to all human relations, making the principle inappropriate to be applied to social institutions and individual actions. Therefore, to overcome the practical limitations of relational egalitarianism, theoretical work to embody the concept of social relations is required, and legal theory research devises a legal system followed by relational egalitarian constraints.