I have argued that a society's primary distributive obligation is to render each of its members sufficiently able to live his own life effectively; and I have suggested, though not yet argued, that for each person that ability has some upper limit. Like any sufficiency view, mine needs to be backed by an explanation of where on the relevant continuum we should set the threshold. However, because the ability to live one's life effectively depends on a number of factors that come in degrees, some internal to the agent and some not, I will not be able to identify or defend the threshold until I have specified which continuum is the relevant one. That, accordingly, is my first task.

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To satisfy its obligation to render its citizens sufficiently able to live their lives effectively, the state must render each of them sufficiently able to satisfy the standards that are built into the activities of setting ends and formulating and implementing plans for their achievement; and to do that, it must cause each citizen to attain a suitable level of education, opportunity, resources, and quality of judgment. Thus, on this account, there are two distinct (sets of) sufficiency thresholds: namely, (1) the level of overall ability to live effectively to which the state must elevate each citizen, and (2) the levels of education, opportunity, and the rest with which it must provide each citizen. Because these thresholds are located on different continua, there is an obvious question about how we can best order our thinking about them.