Concepts of justice and equality


Essay, 2014

12 Pages, Grade: 1,0


Excerpt


Structure

1. Introduction

2. Frankfurt's Argument against Equality

3. Comparative Justice

4. Equality as a moral ideal

5. Conclusion

Bibliography 11

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

1. Introduction

What does justice consist in? Political philosophy has given various answers to this central question. One prominent answer is that justice consists at least partly in some form of equality. However, the moral ideal of equality has been criticized as both mistaken and misleading (Frankfurt 1987, Powers 1996). In this essay I want to address what I find the most convincing criticism of equality: that it alienates people from other valuable moral ideals in life such as all having enough, i.e. sufficiency. The discussion of this criticism leads to my main thesis, the reverse of the two claims in the question: First, I argue that sufficiency alone is not sufficient for a plausible account of justice. Second, I want to show that equality can be a valuable moral ideal and relevant for justice. The crucial step towards this conclusion is to regard justice as at least partially comparative, a perspective that leads to a pluralist egalitarian account of justice.

The essay is structured as follows. The first section starts with a detailed analysis of Harry Frankfurt's (1987) argument against equality. The second section discusses possible responses to Frankfurt's challenge and argues for a conception of justice that is necessarily at least partially comparative. The third section constructs arguments to defend equality as a valuable ideal in any plausible account of justice. The fourth section concludes that prioritarianism is such an account of justice.

2. Frankfurt´s Argument against Equality

Let me first clarify what type of equality I want to deal with. Thomas Nagel (1977: 60) distinguishes between four types of equality: political, legal, social and economic. It seems easy to argue for equality in the first two cases because legal equality or political equality as fair equality of opportunity might be seen as indispensable for any account of justice in liberal political theory. Therefore, I focus on socio-economic equality, i.e. equality of resources.[1]

On the face of it, there are two main arguments to challenge the moral relevance of equality. First, what has been called the Levelling Down Objection: it seems wrong to destroy or take away resources of the better-off for the benefit of nobody, just in order to achieve equality. This objection derives its force from what Temkin (1998: 132) calls the slogan: a situation cannot be better than another if there is no one for whom it is better. As equality alone does not discriminate between levelling down and levelling up (Goodin 1995: 248), it contradicts the slogan because it provides a moral reason to prefer a situation in which nobody is better-off to a situation in which some are better- off. I will not address this objection to equality because Temkin (1998) and Hirose (2009) have already persuasively shown that the slogan and the Levelling Down Objection are unsuccessful2.

The second main argument against equality is that it is alienating from what justice should be about: that all have enough, regardless of how much others have. Frankfurt (1987) gives a powerful account of this argument which I want to investigate now. An important distinction Frankfurt's argument rests on is between two conceptions about the value of equality. Equality can either be considered instrumentally valuable for something else or considered as valuable in itself. Frankfurt's argument is directed against the latter conception: "Equality in itself lacks moral importance" (Frankfurt 1978: 22). Frankfurt maintains that a belief in equality as a valuable moral ideal in itself is "far from innocuous" (ibid.) and alienating because moral concerns about economic equality are insignificant for what really matters in life:

“A concern for economic equality, construed as desirable in itself, tends to divert a person's attention away from endeavouring to discover- within his experience of himself and of his life- what he himself really cares about and what will actually satisfy him [...]. Exaggerating the moral importance of economic equality is harmful, in other words, because it is alienating." (Frankfurt 1978: 23)

If we consider the broader structure of Frankfurt's argument, we find two additional premises necessary for his conclusion. The first trivial premise, P1, is that equality is always a comparative concept. Indeed, Frankfurt (1978: 23) seems to care more about the harms of comparing one's socio-economic status with others: "What is important [...] is not the comparison of levels of affluence as such".

The second premise, P2, is implicit in Frankfurt's argument. He argues, for example, that "it is inherently rather insignificant and not directly to the point [...] how their [people's] economic status compares with the economic status of others" (Frankfurt 1987: 23). As for the inherently comparative nature of the concept of equality (P1) and Frankfurt's attack on equality itself, Frankfurt needs to assume a non-comparative nature of justice. In other words, if not making socio-economic comparisons is critical for leading a good and flourishing life, a theory of justice that could be reasonably accepted by everyone should be non-comparative and exclude equality in itself as a moral ideal.

Thus, Frankfurt's argument against equality can be broken down to the following schema:

P1 Equality is always a comparative concept. P2 The nature of justice is non-comparative.

C1 The doctrine of equality as morally valuable per se detaches people from understanding "what is most significant to them and contributes to the moral disorientation and shallowness of our time" (Frankfurt 1987: 41)

C2 Equality masks the importance of other valuable moral concepts such as sufficiency.

Frankfurt (1987: 30) illustrates his second conclusion with a scenario of scarcity where thresholds to survive will not be met by an equal distribution of resources. In short, Frankfurt argues that "[e]conomic equality is not, as such, of particular moral importance. With respect to the distribution of economic assets, what is important from the point of view of morality is not that everyone should have the same but that everyone should have enough [sic.]" (Frankfurt 1987: 21).

3. Comparative Justice

In this section I want to challenge Frankfurt's argument by reconsidering his second premise, P2, that justice should not care about comparisons for the sake of equality alone. I argue that it is crucial for the moral importance of equality to regard justice as at least partially comparative. Let me outline possible reasons for this perspective.

Parfit (1991: 88-89) draws a distinction between two conceptions of justice: (a) comparative justice considers the treatment of people and the distribution of resources amongst them in comparison; whereas (b) non-comparative justice only considers treatment of people and their resources in themselves, without making moral judgements based on comparisons to other people. I claim that if one embraces (a) or a combination of (a) and (b), Frankfurt's premise P2 cannot be assumed and his argument against the value of equality in itself falls down. In Parfit's words: "Only comparative justice makes equality our aim" (Parfit 1991: .6).

Let me present three possible reasons leading to different understandings of justice which are all at least partially comparative. First, one might regard the situation of divided worlds as unjust out of a moral intuition in favour of equality. Parfit (1991: 87) describes hypothetical socio-economic states of two halves of the world's population who are unaware of the other's existence with the ratios (1) 100:200 and (2) 145:145. Any moral intuition which leads one to prefer (2) to (1) could be seen as an argument for comparative justice without qualification- in the divided world case the two halves of the world's population are unaware of each other's existence and do not interact with each other.

Second, imagine that the people in Parfit's divided world case came to know about each other. In state (1), the people with the lower economic figure might invoke arguments of justice based on equality once they start interacting with the other half. They could say: 'Now that we know about your existence and that we interact with each other, we are members of the same moral community and should care about each other in a way that gives moral importance to an equal distribution of resources.' Note that this argument could be spelled out independently of whether thresholds of resources are being met. If one thinks that this argument has some moral force, one admits that justice is at least partially comparative- possibly with the qualification of knowledge or interaction amongst members of the same moral community.

Third, one might think that a purely non-comparative conception of justice is implausible. Imagine that the two halves of the population are men and women. To say that justice is not about how the socio-economic situation of men compare to the situation of women, i.e. that comparisons of this kind have no application whatsoever in moral theory, is to say that the fact that UK's female part of the population earns on average 24.1 percent less than the male part doing the same job (Toyne 2002), would not be a concern of justice. To me, this seems implausible regardless of whether the female part of the population has enough to lead a good life or not.

Even if one still adopts a pure conception of (b) non-comparative justice, there are further problems. The first problem arises for a conception of socio-economic sufficiency. The resources needed for this conception of sufficiency are determined on the basis of a relation between the available resources, other people's needs and one's own needs[3]. If a non-comparative theory of justice does not allow any kind of comparisons between people (interpersonal comparisons), it appears that it also cannot construct a conception of sufficiency: such a conception based on welfare economics presupposes interpersonal comparisons (Fleurbaey and Hammond 2003: 24). It seems impossible to know what counts as enough with respect to socio-economic resources without being able to make comparisons between people.

A second problem with non-comparative justice might be a meaningful conceptualisation of the worse-off or poverty in general. Frankfurt (1987: 33) claims poverty to be a non-comparative concept; he denies any link between the poverty of the poor with the richness of the rich and charges Dworkin for confusing the comparative concept of inequality with the non-comparative concept of poverty. However, there are good arguments for some dependency of the worse-off on the better-off in the socio-economic realm: Thomas Pogge (2008: 68) points out that if inequalities widen, both the absolute and the relative share of resources for the poor are negatively affected. If poverty is linked in any way to the richness of the rich, a non­comparative theory of justice dealing with poverty would not be credible if it ignored that link.

Finally, the implausibility of purely non-comparative justice can be illustrated by a one- person scenario. Suppose there is only one world and only one person lives in this world. If this person has 50 coconuts, it seems that it makes no sense for him to speak of his situation as just or unjust. The only possibility would be to appeal to another imagined being, maybe his God, to whom he could direct a complaint of justice. The point is that, regardless of whether 50 coconuts are enough or not, the moral judgement of his situation presupposes a comparison to somebody else, be it an imagined or an existing being. The one-person scenario reveals the necessarily partially comparative nature of justice[4]. I want to give an account of such a theory in the following sections.

4. Equality as a Moral Ideal

So far I have analysed Frankfurt's argument against the importance of equality as a moral ideal and argued against his underlying premise P2 that justice is non­comparative. If my arguments are sound, there are reasons to see justice as at least partially comparative. In this section I want to outline such an account of partially comparative justice. I want to demonstrate why sufficiency alone is not enough for a plausible account of justice and explain the relevance of the moral ideal of equality.

I claim that sufficiency alone is not enough for a plausible account of justice because it ignores human psychology and mechanisms of distribution of resources driven by incentives and interpersonal comparison. To illustrate this point, consider the Ultimatum Game: two people play a game in which 100 pounds are promised to one player on condition that he can make an offer of how to share these 100 pounds with the second person that will be accepted by this person. The interesting finding is that offers less than 30 pounds tend to be rejected (Webster 2013: 3) and that unequal offers are likely to be experienced as unfair (De Cremer, van Dijk and Pilluda 2010: 108). This finding shows that, irrespective of sufficiency, equality is a valid criterion for most people when it comes to distribution of economic resources. If the second person did not care about equality and the comparison to the first player, she had no reason not to accept even only one pound in the Ultimatum Game.

Second, sufficiency alone is not enough because there is a moral intuition that we should care about the worse-off even when they have enough. This is the scenario of abundance. Suppose that there are two possible states for two people described by the ratios (1) 500:500 and (2) 100:900. Suppose further that the figure 100 is more than enough for any person (in your favourite sense of sufficiency) and that no person is more deserving (in your favourite sense of desert). Still, a higher number indicates higher utility, with or without decreasing returns to scale. If the two people were to decide which of the two states the more just one was, it seems intuitive that they would select the first. This decision might not only be based on instrumental values of equality such as the elimination of greed or the benefit of socio-economic balance or fraternity, but might be also motivated by equality in itself.

One might reply that in a scenario of abundance the level of sufficiency should simply be raised. An account of justice motivated by sufficiency alone would then regain its application. This reply, however, would be flawed because it would be tantamount to admitting that justice is at least partially comparative: the reason why the level of sufficiency should be raised could only be the higher socio-economic level of the second person. In summary: Frankfurt cannot allow for any moral intuition in situations of abundance as they point to the possible importance of equality: "if everyone had enough, it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others" (Frankfurt 1987: 21).

Third, equality in itself might be a relevant moral ideal if it stems from chosen personal significance. Contrary to Frankfurt's judgement, somebody could see a concern over equality as originating from a deep moral understanding of what is significant in her life. For example, it seems possible that somebody chooses to regard an equal economic condition in comparison to her neighbour as significant for her flourishing in life and therefore as relevant for justice. It would be hard to argue from a liberal point of view that this concern was morally disoriented and shallow.

Fourth, another strategy to defend equality as a moral ideal is to elaborate on the meaning of the notion of equality in itself. For example, the ideal of equality might be relevant for it prevents stigmatizing differences in status (Scanlon 1996: 43). Prima facie, this seems to be an instrumental reason for valuing equality. However, it could be thought of as a reason to value equality in itself because the prevention of stigmatizing differences is what equality is about: Scanlon (1996: 47) calls this concern "the clearest expression of egalitarianism" and prevention of stigmatization a value that "account[s] for at least a large part of the importance that equality has in our political thinking" (Scanlon 1996: 57). Further, it could be argued that fair equality of opportunity entails the prevention of stigmatization on grounds of socio-economic differences and equality in itself must therefore be included in a plausible theory of justice.

5. Conclusion

I have argued that, first, sufficiency alone is not sufficient for a plausible account of justice and that, second, equality can be a valuable moral ideal and relevant for justice. I conclude that a plausible account of justice must be at least partially egalitarian. As Temkin (1998: 155) states: "Equality is not all that matters. But it matters some." A very convincing partially egalitarian account is prioritarianism because it avoids the problems of purely sufficiency- or purely equality-motivated accounts of justice. Parfit (1991: 101) defines prioritarianism with what he calls the priority view: benefiting people matters more the worse-off these people are. As a pluralist account, prioritarianism ascribes some value to both sufficiency and equality, but can also account for other moral values such as overall utility or desert. Although prioritarianism identifies the worse-off by making comparative judgement, its concern with the worse-off is non-comparative. It therefore represents a mixture of (a) comparative and (b) non-comparative understandings of justice.

Bibliography

De Cremer, D., van Dijk, E., & M Pilluda, M. 2010, 'Explaining Unfair Offers in Ultimatum Games and their Effects on Trust: An Experimental Approach', Business Ethics Quarterly, 20, 1, pp. 107-126.

Dworkin, R. 1981, 'What is Equality? Part 2:Equality of Resources', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 10, 4, pp.283-345.

Fleurbaey, M. and Hammond, P. 2003, 'Interpersonally Comparable Utility', In: Barber'a, S., Hammond, P., and Seidl, C. (eds.), Handbook of Utility Theory, Vol. 2, pp.1-97.

Frankfurt, H. 1987, 'Equality as a Moral Ideal', Ethics: An International Journal Of Social, Political, And Legal Philosophy, 98, 1, pp. 21-43.

Goodin, R. 1995, 'Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hirose, I. 2009, 'Reconsidering the Value of Equality', Australasian Journal Of Philosophy, 87, 2, pp. 301-312, E-Journals, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 April 2014.

MacKerron, G. 2012, 'HAPPINESS ECONOMICS FROM 35 000 FEET', Journal Of Economic Surveys, 26, 4, pp. 705-735, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 April 2014.

Nagel, T. 1977, 'Equality' In: Clayton, M. and Williams A. (Ed.) 2000, 'The Ideal of Equality'.MacMillian Press LTD, London, pp.60-80.

Parfit, D. 1991, 'Equality or Priority?' In: Clayton, M. and Williams A. (Ed.) 2000, 'The Ideal of Equality'.MacMillian Press LTD, London, pp.81-126.

Pettit, P. 2006, 'Freedom in the Market', Politics Philosophy Economics, 5,1, pp.131-149. Available under: http://ppe.sagepub.com/content/5/2/131

Pogge, T. 2008, 'Growth and Inequality', Dissent (00123846), 55, 1, pp. 66-75, Education Research Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 April 2014.

Powers, M. 1996, 'Forget About Equality', Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 6, 2, pp.129-144.

Scanlon, T. 1996, 'The Diversity of Objections to Inequality', In: Clayton, M. and Williams A. (Ed.) 2000, 'The Ideal of Equality'.MacMillian Press LTD, London, pp.41-60.

Temkin, L. 1998, 'Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection', In: Clayton, M. and Williams A. (Ed.) 2000, 'The Ideal of Equality'.MacMillian Press LTD, London, pp. 126-162.

Toyne, S. 2002, 'UK Women "Losing Out on Pay"'. BBCi. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1962036.stm. consulted 23rd April 2014.

Webster, T. 2013, 'A Note on the Ultimatum Paradox, Bounded Rationality, and Uncertainty', International Advances In Economic Research, 19, 1, pp. 1-10.

[...]


[1] Frankfurt's Argument against Equality

Let me first clarify what type of equality I want to deal with. Thomas Nagel (1977: 60) distinguishes between four types of equality: political, legal, social and economic. It seems easy to argue for equality in the first two cases because legal equality or political equality as fair equality of opportunity might be seen as indispensable for any account

[2] Dworkin (1981: 283) defines equality of resources in the following way: "[...] equality of resources is a matter of equality in whatever resources are owned privately by individuals. Equality of political power, including equality of power over publicly or commonly owned resources, is therefore treated as a different issue."

[3] Temkin (1998: 154) argues that the Levelling Down Objection does not succeed in sowing that equality could not be a valuable moral ideal because of the underlying slogan: the slogan (a) is in conflict with views about the non-identity problem, (b) seems to be incompatible with proportional justice, (c) rules out giving weight to any impersonal moral principles in assessing outcomes and (d) asserts a relation between the goodness of outcomes and the goodness of individuals that is not supported by any standard theory of the good. Contrary to a medical concept of sufficiency, sufficiency for socio-economic resources is special in the sense that it is socially dependent: reference group income may be substantially more important than own absolute income for individual happiness (MacKerron 2012: 720).

[4] This conception of justice as necessarily partially comparative is analogous to Pettit's notion of republican freedom as non-domination: if there is no agent imposing certain conditions of unfreedom, one cannot be said to be unfree in a political sense (Pettit 2006: 136). In the same way, a socio-economic situation cannot be just or unjust if there is no other agent to compare one's socio-economic situation with.

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Title
Concepts of justice and equality
College
University of Warwick
Grade
1,0
Author
Year
2014
Pages
12
Catalog Number
V283122
ISBN (eBook)
9783656826927
ISBN (Book)
9783656827030
File size
458 KB
Language
English
Keywords
justice, equality, Harry Frankfurt
Quote paper
Felix Hagemeister (Author), 2014, Concepts of justice and equality, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/283122

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