Egalitarianism: Is Leximin the Only Option?.

It has been argued that any plausible egalitarian theory should give asbolute priority to the worst off in a conflict with the best off in society. In this paper, we show that this framework is closely linked to the leximin approach, and on the basis of a condition named the conditional contracting extremes, we provide characterisations of both the maximin and the leximin principle. Moreover, we argue that this condition is too strong to embrace every plausible egalitarian perspective, and suggest a weaker condition which allows for a broader view on egalitarianism.