Equality of What? Equal Capabilities and Equality of Resources.

Two questions: Equality or what? (week 5) Equality of what?

Abstract Egalitarian Principle ‘No government is legitimate that does not show equal concern for the fate of all those citizens over it whom it claims dominion and from it claims allegiance. Equal concern is the sovereign virtue of political community’ SV 1. What does ‘equal concern’ mean?

From utility to welfare Utilitarianism –Distribution problems (separateness of persons, inegalitarian results) Natural move: equality of welfare. –Equalise levels of preference satisfaction. –Appeal: John is blind, but Joe is unimpaired. If we give Ft to each, we aren’t treating them as equals. –Give to John as much as needed as to make him as happy as Joe

Problems for Welfarism Sour grapes (adaptive preference formation) Expensive tastes (Louis) Income/welfare Joe100/100 Louise100/75125/100 Fox75/12550/100

Welfare Is welfare irrelevant to justice? Or is it only incomplete?

Louis Welfare is initially equal because resources are distributed equally and ambitions are equally expensive to satisfy. Louis voluntarily acquires some relatively expensive ambitions, and will have lower welfare unless he receives more resources than others possess.

Jude Welfare is initially equal because those who have fewer resources also have less expensive ambitions. Jude voluntarily acquires ambitions that are no more expensive than others possess, and will have lower welfare unless he receives as many resources as them

welfarism Equality of welfare panders to expensive tastes. Equal opportunity for welfare penalises cheap tastes

Options: Externalist versions of advantage: –Primary goods (Rawls) –Resources (Dworkin) –Capabilities (Sen/Nussbaum). Internalist views: –Equality of opportunity for welfare/ equal access to advantage (Arneson/Cohen).

Rawls’s Primary Goods Given by a list (index) Things parties in the OP would prefer having more of rather than less Things citizens need to satisfy their two moral powers: –Effective sense of justice –Capacity to form, revise and pursue a conception of the good

Criticisms to PG It is a far too simple notion of advantage Incomplete PG are instrumentally valuable (fetishism) Two Answers: –More complete version of external resources (Dworkin) –Internalise resources without welfare (Sen)

Capabilities Start with ‘functionings’: ‘represents parts of the state of a person -in particular the various things that he or she manages to do or be in leading a life’ (‘Capability and Well-being’, 31). A person’s capability reflects the alternative combinations of functionings the person can achieve, and from which he or she can choose one collection’. ibid.

Appeal Observable, measurable, comparable: literacy, longevity, nourishment. Capabilities go deeper than externalist resourcism, avoiding the problems of pure welfarism. –Cf. ‘2500 daily calories (1/2 Kg. Rice a day)’ / ‘achieving certain level of nourishment’. Provide grounds for other goods: grounds for self-respect, participation in community, etc. Matches our intuitions about illness/disabilities better than other conceptions (Rawls, welfarism, utilitarianism).

Problems Not clear how long the list should go: –Cf. Nussbaum’s list: 1.Reasonable life span 2. Bodily health 3. Bodily integrity. 4. Senses, imagination, thought. 5. Emotions. 6. Practical reason. 7. Affiliation. 8. Other species. 9. Play. 10. Control over one's environment: (A) Political. (B) Material

Issues Because it is an objective account, it seems incapable of taking into account people’s attitudes regarding their own circumstances Does it draw too much from controversial conceptions of the good life? -is it liberal or perfectionist?

R. Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously (1977) As a Matter of Principle (1985) Law’s Empire (1986) Life’s Dominion (1993) Freedom’s Law (1997) Sovereign Virtue (2000) Is Democracy Possible Here? (2006) Justice in Robes (2008) Justice for Hedgehogs (2011)

Equality of Resources ‘to make people equal, so far as this is possible, in the resources with which they face uncertainty (‘SV Revisited’: 107) Equality of resources provides the best interpretation of equality.

Features of EoR Ambition-sensitive but endowment- insensitive. Rawls DF makes some people subsidise others’ choices. (Kymlicka’s example) Our ambitions are constitutive to ourselves, the VI arbitrarily hides this information

EoR I Auction: Assume equality of personal resources/talents –‘an economic market […] must be at the centre of any attractive theoretical development of equality of resources’ (SV 66). Bid for resources till the ‘envy test’ is satisfied: –‘No division of resources is an equal division if, once the division is complete, any immigrant would prefer someone else’s bundle of resources to his own bundle’. (SV, 67)

EoR II Ambition sensitivity: People decide how to use their resources. Fred decides to work hard and plant tomatoes, Anne decides to surf. Fred ends up with more resources than Anne Envy test is satisfied again: Neither would change his place taking into account income and occupation.

EoR III: After the Auction Allow for inequalities in personal (internal) resources. The envy test is violated: Alice and Karl work equally hard doing the same job. Alice is more talented than Karl, he would change his place with hers. Differentials in health have the same result.

EoR III Neutralising natural inequalities before the auction: Neutralising all inequalities is impossible Neutralising most inequalities is self- defeating: it’d leave no resources left for the auction! Solution: Insurance

Two forms of luck Distinction between brute- and option-luck ‘Option luck is a matter of how deliberate and calculated gambles turn out’ ‘Brute luck is a matter for how risks fall out that are not in that sense deliberate gambles’ SV 73.

Brute and Option luck Inequalities should not be caused by differentials in bad BL. But, insurance converts BL into OL. Assume equal risk, and compensate people according to the insurance packages they buy. Cf. Skiing packages. But: people do not face equal risks, you can’t insure once things have happened.

Hypothetical insurance Assume: –Equal impersonal resources (back to the auction) –Perfect understanding about costs and benefits for insurance packages –VI respecting one’s susceptibility to disadvantage, but knowledge about distribution in society. Insure people as the average would do in this situation. Take tax as premium.

Equality and luck Hypothetical insurance does not neutralise BL, but mitigates it. –A expensive medical condition, that no one would’ve insured against is not covered. Two conceptions of equality: ex-ante equality: covered by the envy test and the hypothetical insurance scheme. Ex-post equality: up to people’s ambitions and plans of life. Interference here would violate the abstract egalitarian principle

Policies Progressive income tax redistribution from the rich to the poor Distinctive approach to health care decisions Unemployment funds: no cut off, help in retraining, and assistance to find employment, but is not unconditional: good faith to seek employment.

Cohen and luck egalitarianism The right distinction between choice and luck. Equality is about neutralising luck Advantages due to luck are unjust People should be responsible for their own choices Thus, differences due to choice are acceptable

Cohen and luck egalitarianism ‘a large part of the fundamental egalitarian aim is to extinguish the effect of brute luck on distribution. Brute luck is an enemy of just equality, and, since effects of genuine choice contrast with brute luck, genuine choice excuses otherwise unacceptable inequalities’ (Cohen 1989: 951).

Back to Louis Equality demands that people enjoy equal access to advantage If Louis cultivates expensive tastes, then he’s responsible for his welfare deficit. No compensation is due. If he’s not responsible for it, then he should be compensated: Paul the photographer.

Dworkin’s response People do not take their ambitions as handicaps Someone who likes expensive champagne cannot claim that he deserves more because he has less welfare. The fact that he likes champagne shows that he does value welfare directly. Ambitions are not addictions

Cohen on the envy test The envy test is satisfied when A is happier with his resources then he would be with anyone else’s bundle of resources (and endowments). ‘I can think myself better off in my shoes than I would be in yours while nevertheless thinking myself worse off in mine than you are in yours’ 2011, 114.

Why this matters? For resourcists markets play a fundamental role is determining which distributions are egalitarian (and just). For Cohen they don’t: ‘Cohen ‘sees the market as at best a mere brute luck machine’ 2011 p.102 Cohen’s view is closer to ‘to each according to her needs [to whatever they need to fulfill their lives]’,

Issues EoR is not clear about the levels of deprivation people should endure due to bad decisions. –Reckless driving example. –Smoking related illness Is a hypothetical insurance against bad choices consistent with the ambition sensitivity of EoR? Is EoR really ambition sensitive? Insurance depends on average decisions, not on individual choices. What matters is not equality of personal resources but equal social relations or the end of oppression (Anderson)