The Individualist Objection: or Why Ex Ante Probabilities Aren’t Always Individualistic

Should we be able to access benefits, based on our membership in a group? While this sometimes seems plausible, at other times an appeal to group-membership seems objectionable. Given that contractualists are interested in the personal claims of individuals, they must take these concerns seriously. This chapter suggests that determining whether claims which arise from an individual’s group-membership are legitimate is particularly difficult when assessing principles of risk imposition. In fact, it may lead us to re-examine a popular contractualist approach to risk, and the puzzle this approach gives rise to: so-called ex ante contractualism sometimes imposes large burdens on some, in order to secure smaller benefits for others, despite the fact that this conflicts with the anti-utilitarian spirit of contractualism. This chapter offers a diagnosis of this puzzle. It is argued that claims which cannot be justified on grounds other than by appeal to an individual’s group-membership fail to constitute truly individual claims. Yet ex ante contractualism nevertheless admits such claims by relying on probabilities which are conditioned by an individual’s group-membership.