I recently finished reading Donald Palmer’s Why It’s Hard to Be Good, a nice little introduction to the basics of ethical theory (marvelously illustrated by funny cartoons drawn by Palmer himself). Toward the end of the book the author discusses the broad school of thought of “contractualism,” the idea that morality is a matter of agreement among the members of a society. Contractualism’s most notorious exponent is, of course, Thomas Hobbes, who famously quipped that human beings got together to live in societies because otherwise, in the state of nature as he called it, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Well, presumably one would hope one’s life were to be short if it had to be solitary, nasty, etc.)Of course, no contractualist really maintains that there ever was a non-social state of nature for human beings (if they did, they would be contradicted by evolutionary biologists), nor that the so-called social contract was an historical event (historians would go crazy with that one), nor that it is actually entered into voluntarily by most people (you are usually born into a society with a given contract, meaning a set of laws and customs -- unless you are an immigrant such as myself, in which case you are the only one truly entitled to say that you are “proud to be an American” and other such nonsense -- but I digress).
Arguably one of the most interesting contractualists in recent times has been John Rawls (1921-2002), whose work is well described by Palmer. Rawls started out with the idea that justice can be conceived as fairness, and that therefore a just society has to set up its governing rules (its social contract) to be as fair as possible. Of course, the problem even with rational people (let alone slightly irrational ones, as is far more common) trying to arrive at an agreement is that usually the negotiating table is imbalanced. For all the nice talk in the US about opportunity for everyone, anyone who is not totally in the throws of nationalistic propaganda can easily see that the playing field is anything but level. So, how do we go about setting up a rational just society given the (rather rational, if not just) propensity of human beings to take advantage of whatever their current position happens to offer?
Rawls’ solution was what he called the veil of ignorance. Assume that you arrive at the bargaining table with no knowledge whatsoever of your social status, economic power, ethnicity, religion or gender. Then, asks Rawls, what kind of society would you want to set up? The answer, he argued, is a society that would guarantee maximum liberty equally distributed among its members, as well as an equal distribution of wealth and power, unless there are situations where some sort of unequal distribution would favor everyone and if everyone had an equal opportunity of being so favored. In other words, you’d be a far-left liberal Democrat, and most certainly not a Republican (and not even a Libertarian, because of the as-equal-as-possible distribution clause).
Rawls’ argument may seem either trivial or absurd, but it is neither, and it grows on you if you give it some time and think about it. For instance, contrary to what it may appear to be at first, Rawls envisions a meritocracy, not a socialist or communist society, because people do have a chance of acquiring more resources than others; but this is made possible only under the strict double condition that such inequality is in fact to the benefit of all, and that all do have a really equal shot at it. Needless to say, American society is not (yet?) even approaching that ideal status, largely because of the incredibly weak social net, its huge imbalance between the richest and the poorest, its lack of truly equal opportunity, and its still widespread racism and sexism. Oh well, one has to have some goal to work toward...
M and others,
ReplyDeleteEven if we could magically instill a solid social safety net, ensure real equal opportunity, and eradicate sexism/racism/etc overnight, how even do you really think resources would be spread in a perfect meritocracy? I suspect, though I of course have no idea, it would not be as even as we might hope. Chance events, true differences in ability between individuals, true differences in want/need of resources (some people really prefer to live frugally), and so forth will still produce inequality. To take one example, the scientific community, despite its numerous flaws, is probably the closest thing to a meritocracy that exists today. Nonetheless, the disparity between scientists in terms of resources (grant money, students, salary) is still quite large, though probably nowhere near that of income inequality in the US. Is something even close to Rawls' ideal society possible? I'm not asking to be contrary or because I have any answers, just curious to see what people think.
-- Chris
What would Rawls do about inherited wealth?
ReplyDeleteIf children of the winners in the meritocracy start out ahead of the relative losers, then the playing field is only level for one generation.
If on the other hand, you simply can't inherit any wealth, then many people will not work as hard to amass an estate to leave to their offspring.
Oddly enough, I'm currently teaching a political philosophy course, the middle 3 weeks of which were spent working through Rawls' "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement." So having just reread it myself, I'm in a fairly good position to respond to some of the comments, though I am not an expert on Rawls' philosophy.
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me say that Massimo's brief summary of Rawls' position is excellent. The one thing I would stress more is that the "veil of ignorance" thought experiment is meant to model our intuitions about what we already agree is fair in thinking about the political realm. We don't think that e.g., laws should be made to benefit specific groups (though they often in fact are), and we don't think that e.g., one's standing before the justice system should be influenced by one's social class (though it surely is). etc.
Well, one more thing to stress. The whole *point* for Rawls is to outline a system for organizing the "basic structure of society" that will encourage social cooperation and permit people with very different ideas about what's good, what the best way to live is, what matters in life, etc., to get along with each other in the political realms without trying to force their views on one another through the coercive use of the state power.
That said, Chris's comments re: the equality of resources is an important one. For Rawls, the limits on the inequality in distributions of wealth come from a) what can really be expected to benefit everyone and b) what can really be expected to compatible with the "fair value" of political liberty for each person and the fair equality of opportunity.
But that could still be rather large differences in wealth! For example, Rawls requires "fair equality of opportunity" with respect to jobs that income and wealth attach to. What we are looking for there is something like everyone having reasonable access to a high-quality education, and the opportunity to be exposed to the various possibilities re: jobs, etc. Then, the idea is, we permit people's "natural" talents, abilities, and drive, to determine what jobs they actually get.
Rawls is quite confident that if we demanded "equality" far less "stuff" would be produced, and everyone would be worse off. By permitting inequalities, we provide incentives for people to work hard, and everyone benefits. Ralws reminds us that the production of stuff, as well as the ownership of things, and esp. money, are all essentially creations of the state, and that therefore it doesn't make sense to ask "who deserves what?" outside of an agreement on how to organize the state.
So, on the one hand, inequalities will naturally emerge as we try to maximize the well-being of everyone (including the least-well-off). Also, of course, different people's different "conceptions of the good" (life-plans, ideal ways of living, etc.) will differ, and inequalities will emerge from the preferences that go along with those differences.
But what we need to make sure of is that wealth never becomes so concentrated as to undermine the fair value of the political liberties. Because the ability to influence the political world is vital to our understanding of ourselves as equal citizens, we must not only protect the formal (legal) equality of our political liberties (right to vote, right to hold office, etc.) but the fair value of those liberties. That is, we need to make sure that people with (roughly) equal talents, abilities, and interest in the political realm have (roughly) equal chances of influencing it, regardless of the social class they were born into. Some of this can be maintained by e.g., campaign finance laws, etc., but some of it demands that we not permit extreme concentrations of wealth.
With respect to inherited wealth, yes, Rawls does believe that there need to be limits on the inheritance of wealth. But for example, Rawls writes that we could but need not tax the estate or the total bequest itself, but might instead apply "the principle of progressive taxation... at the receiver's end." So, Rawls isn't entirely against inheritance, but does think that we should work to restrict (but not eliminate) the accumulation of wealth. So there would still be a point in accumulating wealth to leave to your offspring, but the system would work to prevent "excessive" accumulations at each point.
The other way of helping to ensure fair equality of opportunity across generations are the "usual suspects" -- educational opportunities, investment in infrastructure, ensuring reasonable access to residential opportunities, etc etc.
Hope that makes sense!
jk
Jonathan, thanks for the excellent and detailed comment.
ReplyDeleteI will add one brief comment of my own: I simply never bought the idea that people want to become wealthy so that they can leave the fortune to their children. I seriously doubt that even a 90% tax on inheritance would make a dent on people's aspiration to wealth (and the power, fame, sex, that it usually carries).
"I simply never bought the idea that people want to become wealthy so that they can leave the fortune to their children. I seriously doubt that even a 90% tax on inheritance would make a dent on people's aspiration to wealth (and the power, fame, sex, that it usually carries)."
ReplyDeleteAlmost certainly true, especially for large amounts of wealth. At the extremes, we in fact see an increasing reluctance to leave the "whole pile" to the kids, but "merely" enough that the kids will never have to work or worry about money, with the rest getting bequeathed to various charitable causes...
But certainly people do want to leave their kids (and other loved ones) *something* and perhaps especially some *things*, and under a Rawlsian system that's OK.
jk
"Assume that you arrive at the bargaining table with no knowledge whatsoever of your social status, economic power, ethnicity, religion or gender. Then, asks Rawls, what kind of society would you want to set up?"
ReplyDeleteTo attempt to answer that question I would start by arguing that we must begin to eliminate disparities in access and quality of education starting in the earliest years.
It is a brutal fact that our public schools are funded in most cases by local property taxes. Therefore, from the earliest periods of the rat race, children born to the affluent are given a huge head start.
The gap in resources and educational outcome between a wealthy school district and a poor one can be huge.
This advantage continues through to access to higher education. Even if one manages to get through a college education by working and loans, your opportunities in education are hampered, and you can be burdened with debt while the children of the affluent use their income to invest and accumulate wealth.
So it seems, to create a genuine meritocracy, barriers to education need to be targeted.
"a society that would guarantee maximum liberty equally distributed among its members, as well as an equal distribution of wealth and power" is much easier to achieve when there is bountiful resources and space relative to the population. With plenty of wealth and space for folks to do whatever they want without interfering with others desire to do what they want society can be mostly peaceful and fair. But when you begin to abut against the limits of resources and space available there emerges intense competition for those resource and a break down of fairness and equality. That break down becomes more extreme as the competition becomes more and more desperate just to survive as resources become ever more limited. We are approaching that scenario today.
ReplyDeleteJared Diamond's book "Collapse" is a good overview of how societies collapse after using up their resources.
"Almost certainly true, especially for large amounts of wealth. At the extremes, we in fact see an increasing reluctance to leave the "whole pile" to the kids, but "merely" enough that the kids will never have to work or worry about money, with the rest getting bequeathed to various charitable causes..."
ReplyDeleteI agree with that, but short of the extremes many people do want to leave their kids something. That's why they get life insurance to pay off debts. Debts are not inherited, but they can eat up an estate.
Old post, but I was on vacation in Brazil and am catching up on my RS reading... So here goes a small thing.
ReplyDelete"given the (rather rational, if not just) propensity of human beings to take advantage of whatever their current position happens to offer?"
I have a slight problem with calling that propensity "rational". Actually, it depends on the situation, of course, and the text does not give the background context I mean here. Up to a point, it IS rational to take advantage: until you are able to live comfortably, raise your kids, etc., I'd say. After a certain (large) amount of wealth, I think it becomes irrational to take all possible advantage. I mean, if I had, say, a few million U$, why should I ever worry about getting any more? But lots (relatively speaking) of people do. Is that rational? Maybe it's just the way I am, but I think it's not.