Justice and Responsibility—Sensitive Egalitarianism

R. Robinson

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137381248
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This text explores the place to locate the cut between those inequalities for which it is fair to hold one responsible, and those for which it is not. The argument traces a thread of intellectual history, identifying a rejection of strong property rights which we inherit from Locke, and find in contemporary defenders of entitlements such as Nozick.

1

The Correct Cut

Abstract: In this chapter, I begin with the Rawlsian intuition that we eliminate as decisive those factors that influence the distribution of social goods, and that affect one’s life chances, but that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. I also take seriously the intuition that our egalitarian duty is to hold constant those factors that affect life chances, but that are out of the control of the individual, and yet hold people morally responsible for inequalities that result from instances of genuine choice. Of course, a position that relies on identifying instances of genuine choice must take some position on the free will problem, and so I describe a contextualist view of responsibility, which side-steps the free problem, and allows us to describe responsibility along some reasonable continuum. In this way, I defend Cohen’s position against objections that either it is stuck in the free will problem with no solution, or that the solution requires us to hold people responsible for which it is either impractical or inappropriate.

Robinson, Robert C. Justice and Responsibility—Sensitive Egalitarianism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137381248.0004.

1 Introduction

Among egalitarians, should responsibility play a deciding factor in assessing the acceptability of inequalities? So-called luck egalitarians agree that instances of genuine choice are decisive in attributing responsibility for disadvantage, and in justifying unequal distributions of social goods.

This strand of thought reflects Rawls’ concern that we eliminate as decisive those factors that influence the distribution of social goods, and that affect one’s life chances, but that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. At the same time, Rawls argues, so long as people are operating under a basic structure that is fair, as governed by the principles of justice, they then have a legitimate expectation for compensation for the fruits of their labor, where that labor is in high demand, is socially desirable, etc. Ronald Dworkin, a prominent early contributor to the luck egalitarian literature, argues centrally that our egalitarian duty is to hold constant those factors that affect life chances, but that are out of the control of the individual (viz., bad brute luck), and yet hold people morally responsible for inequalities that result from instances of genuine choice (e.g., option luck). He argues that our egalitarian duty is to guarantee a distribution of social goods that is ambition sensitive, but endowment insensitive. In an early work, Richard Arneson argues that if individuals have similar access to opportunities for advantage, then any inequalities that are the result of what those individuals make of their opportunities are just. Gerald Cohen similarly argues that our egalitarian duty is satisfied if individuals are ensured equality of access to advantage. If the person identifies with the disadvantage, the inequalities that result from subsequent choice are, thus, just.

Some critics of the luck egalitarian literature have noted that a theory, which relies on the distinction between choice and luck in assigning a just distribution, must offer an account of genuine choice. And any account of genuine choice is certain to find itself in the middle of a metaphysical morass. Other critics charge that the focus on choice and chance neglects what is most important to egalitarians – for example, eliminating the deleterious effects of economic exploitation and social domination on the life chances of many of the least advantaged people. Instead, the argument goes, we should focus on what we owe to one another as free and equal moral agents.

2 The currency of egalitarian justice

The literature finds a solid foundation, in my view, when Amartya Sen asks in his 1979 Tanner Lecture, Equality of What?,¹ or, put another way, what is the appropriate currency for egalitarian justice? That is, given our liberal commitment to egalitarianism, what, precisely is it that we should be equalizing? Though he offers preliminary suggestions in that work, his more important contribution to the debate comes later, and that is where I will discuss it.

2.1 Equality of welfare

In Chapter 1 of his Sovereign Virtue, Dworkin carefully sets up an egalitarian conception, which he calls equality of welfare, only so that he can give a positive and full criticism of the position. His criticisms, in my view, are decisive, and lead into his positive thesis, that is, equality of resources. Let us take a look first at the former conception. [Dworkin, 2002].

Dworkin’s discussion is framed against the literature of those who attempt to answer Sen’s question: “Equality of What?” That is, among those who think that equality is an important ideal to uphold, there is the further question of what is it that we ought to equalize? The question may be appropriately stated this way: What is the appropriate currency of egalitarian justice? [Sen, 1979].

Consider first equality of welfare—which states that a scheme treats people as equals if it distributes resources in such a way that no other distribution would leave them more equal in welfare. [Dworkin, 2002, pp. 11–12]. There is something attractive about this ideal. First, it is consistent with the language of economists, who talk about what is essential, as well as what is instrumental. Instrumental goods are valuable only insofar as they do good or affect people’s welfare.

Second, it seems that some people need our help more than others, or, in some cases, more urgently.² If we must choose a distribution of goods that will help a handicapped person to walk, versus one that will only make me slightly happier, for example, then there is some intuitive appeal to a scheme that chooses a handicapped individual in this case. A system that gives priority to wheelchairs for the handicapped, over champagne for the thirsty, has some intuitive appeal.

However, notes Dworkin, a distributional scheme that rewards those with very expensive tastes in wheelchairs may have a conceptual difficulty separating them from those with very expensive tastes in champagne. All other things being equal, it is difficult to see how the theory may give a principled reason to equalize the welfare of handicapped people, but not people thirsty for champagne. And it does not seem correct to skew our distribution toward those who simply prefer, as a matter of taste, more expensive things.

Though this is a simplified example, Dworkin takes the expensive tastes argument to be decisive against equality of welfare as a guiding principle of egalitarian distributive schemes.³ Instead of welfare, he suggests, what if we were to aim our egalitarian approach toward equalizing resources?

2.2 Equality of resources

In its simplest form, it looks as though equality of resources precisely captures our egalitarian intuitions: if everyone had the same things, or at least started with the same things, or things of an equal value, then we would all be perfectly equal. Of course, we are not all equal—we have different tastes, talents, and abilities. And it would not do to give us all tennis rackets if you like tennis but I like playing the guitar. Strict equality of resources will not do.

To satisfy this worry about strict equality of resources, Dworkin develops two mechanisms. First is the Walrasian auction. Simply put, if you divide all of the resources into bundles, and no one prefers anyone else’s bundle, then we all have an equal set of resources. I would not trade my guitar for your tennis racket, nor would I envy any part of your set of resources to the exclusion of any part of mine. In that way, our distributive scheme passes the envy test.

This not only allows for differences in people’s tastes and interests, but also in differences in their talents and capacities to transform resources into welfare. Of course, no one should be punished for working hard—indeed, they should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors. And, furthermore, no one should be punished for deficits that are beyond their control. That is, we ought to compensate individuals for results of poor brute luck (that which is out of their control), but not for the results of poor option luck (that which was in their control). To ensure this, we need another mechanism.

In the second mechanism, Dworkin develops what has come to be known as a hypothetical insurance scheme, such that for any risk that I might face in the world (e.g., devastation due to nature, poor health, etc.), we can model what a rational person would pay to hedge against the possibility of that event occurring, and charge that amount against everyone’s bundle of resources. We can simply use the model of the insurance industry to help secure the entire society against the undesirable effects of poor brute luck.

Dworkin calls his view equality of resources.⁴ The literature has identified a few conceptual problems with the equalities of resources approach. Among the most persuasive is what I will call the tame housewife—or alternatively, the problem of adaptive preferences.

Some egalitarian critics charge Dworkin with failing to characterize egalitarian intuitions correctly. The problem here is that resourcism fails to give the correct answer in the case of adaptive preferences, or preferences that are the result of preferences for which she has been socialized to have, rather than those that she genuinely chooses to have. A commitment to ambition-sensitivity in a way that allows for a person’s preferences to be decided or otherwise influenced by restricting her options (such as by poverty, or political oppression) is an affirmation of the justice of cultures that socialize its members to have particular preferences.⁵ Dworkin acknowledges that resource equality does hold the tame housewife responsible for her particular preferences, but does so because these preferences are constitutive of her conception of the good life. That is, she would not exchange them for another person’s bundle of goods. However, as we will see, the question arises whether, and to what extent, what is really important is that people’s preferences are genuine or authentic, and not imposed by outside forces, either social, economic, or other. [Dworkin, 2002, p. 70].

To better see why this problem of genuine, or non-adaptive, preferences is so persuasive, we look first to the arguments of GA Cohen.

2.3 Equal access to advantage

Cohen defends the view that he calls equality of access to advantage, which is very much like a welfare-based approach. Whereas Dworkin considers expensive tastes to be fatally problematic for welfare egalitarianism, Cohen (along with Arneson, Roemer) argues that compensation for expensive tastes was not counter-intuitive, so long as those tastes were not freely chosen. Cohen argues that people should be compensated for deficits in welfare, which are outside the realm of their responsibility, except to the extent that they would not choose to be without them. That is, for example, a starving person, who finds himself in that position, but does not choose to be so, deserves compensation by us (to equalize his welfare). However, this would not apply to a man who is fasting, for example, for religious purposes. The latter, of course, identifies with his welfare deficit, and would not choose to be without it, and so we owe him no compensation. [Cohen, 1989].

This position relies heavily on a theory of genuine choice, which, as Cohen notes, could land the inquiry directly “in the morass of the free will problem” [Cohen, 1989, pp. 933–934]. That is, if we must first wait for an account of free will that generates a theory of genuine choice, we may have a very long wait, indeed. I return to this problem later, but Cohen notes two brief responses:

1It may just be that the problem is genuine, and if so, that is too bad, but it is no reason to give up on the argument. If the correct investigation of equality takes us into metaphysical problems, then that is where we will go.

2Probably, though, we can avoid (1), if what we are looking for is not a solid distinction between free and non-free choices. Instead, what we want is to be able to see some choices as more or less free, and we can map those on to choices for which individuals are more or less responsible. The amount of compensation due will be a function of, among other things, the extent to which a disadvantage does not reflect genuine choice.

I return to this problem later.

Let us return to the handicapped individual who needs an expensive wheelchair just to be mobile. Egalitarians, Cohen suggests, will be disposed to agree that he be given one. And they will be so disposed even before they have heard considerations regarding the effect that the wheelchair will have on his welfare. Instead, egalitarians will be disposed to offer a wheelchair to compensate for the disability as such, even before considerations of how it will affect his welfare. Cohen does not think that egalitarians will be motivated primarily by the individual’s decreased opportunity for welfare.⁶

Of course, why egalitarians will choose to compensate in any given situation plays a central role. For example, do we compensate on the basis of neutralizing deficits in welfare, or do we compensate for resource deficits? But Cohen seems to take it as given that in some situations, such as the one under investigation, egalitarian intuitions report that resources are unambiguously relevant.

2.4 What challenge does he raise for Rawls?

In considering a criticism of Rawls’ justice as fairness, it is fair to inquire about the exact location of the challenge for Rawls and his project.

A central concern for Rawls is the project of justification. Rawls goes to great lengths not only to enumerate, for example, the two principles of justice, but takes nearly as much time explaining how, why, and under what circumstances they would be chosen. So why would they be chosen?

Remember that justice as fairness claims to move from, “widely accepted but weak premises to more specific conclusions” (16). That is, we begin by considering those presumptions that are natural and plausible. The idea here is that by identifying those with which all would agree, the social contract approach would impose bonds on all involved. If we’re moving from propositions with which everyone agrees, then the principles we derive must be acceptable by all.

Cohen presents his argument in such a way that it is meant to undermine the internal consistency of Rawls’ project. That is, if Cohen’s criticism works, then Rawls theory is internally inconsistent. In this, I argue that he fails.

In one sense, then, this investigation into the proper role of entitlements in a correct theory of justice poses no challenge at all fo...