A Preliminary Exploration of the Ideal of Compensatory JusticeCHAPTER 1:

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INTRODUCTION

This thesis aims to determine whether or not the ideal of compensatory justice is an attractive way to determine wage rates. Currently in most societies, the market largely dictates how much workers receive in exchange for their labour. I believe that the market does not determine wage rates in a just manner. As a replacement, I propose the ideal of compensatory justice.

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Compensatory justice is an ideal of distributive justice that focuses on what people get paid in exchange for performing their jobs. Compensatory justice is compensation for the work a person performs in her chosen occupation. Imagine if incomes were adjusted so that each individual was compensated with money for the work they did: those who worked very hard at horrible tasks would be paid very well to compensate for their great sacrifice, and those who did little at their cushy jobs would be compensated with a smaller amount to reflect how little they sacrifice. This would fulfil the requirements 1

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of the ideal of compensatory justice. Compensatory justice is egalitarian because it seeks to equalise peoples package of workload-plus-income. It is also liberal, as it takes into account how worthy workers are of compensation. Defenders of the ideal of compensatory justice, either in part or in full, include Joel Feinberg, James C. Dick, William Galston, Arthur DiQuattro, Oskar Lange, Fred Taylor, H. D. Dickinson and George Bernard Shaw. The main thrust of the ideal is also reflected in Ronald Dworkins theory of equality.

Dworkin believes a system of distribution should be ambition sensitive and not endowment sensitive.1 This means that what people receive should be relative to their choices and the effort they put into those choices, rather than influenced by factors that are beyond their control. This captures the underlying principles of the ideal of compensatory justice. In compensating for the work people do, the distribution of income is sensitive to the choices people make and the effort they exert in their occupation. And because compensation comes for the work a person actually does (lifting pianos, trading currency, etc.), not what they are (doctor, model, etc.), how talented or untalented someone is will not affect the amount they are paid.

Dworkin, What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources, Philosophy and Public Affairs, v.10, no.4, 1981, p.311.

Compensatory justice is an intuitively fair ideal.2 Some people work under dangerous or unhealthy conditions, and many people work in stressful or boring jobs. It seems fair that these people be adequately compensated for the burdensome aspects of their jobs. Compensatory justice, for example, might support compensation for hard workers due to their greater effort, and gives lower pay to lazier workers, because they do not have as much need for compensation. Compensation means an individual gets paid relative to how hard she works and how much she enjoys or dislikes her job. All other things equal, if a person loves her job and works at an easy pace at convenient hours for a short time, she would struggle to convince others that she should receive a higher income than someone who hates her job, and works very hard during her long and awkward working hours.

Comment [TD1]: Not sure I have this intuition independently of the we need the unpleasant job done consideration. I could spend my days sorting though a rubbish dump. It would be hard and unpleasant, but that surely doesnt entitle me to compensation of no one wants me do it. But if its the fact someone wants th job done, then it doesnt look like its the effort or unpleasantness. One issue here is who is meant to compensate on the hard and unpleasant view.

Comment [TD2]: Is this a subjective measure? Suppose I hate teaching stage 1 classes, while some of my colleagues dont mind. The task is the same for all of us but the subjective disutility varies dramaticall Shouls I get higher compensation?

Compensatory justice combines values from liberalism and egalitarianism. It is liberal in the sense that individuals are personally responsible for their income. Unlike straightforward equality of income, compensatory justice rewards those who work hard and those who perform arduous tasks for a living, while giving less to those who do not work hard or have undemanding jobs. It is also egalitarian, however, in the sense that people are to end up equally well off when both income and labour burden are combined as a package. As Dick says,

Joseph H. Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, Economics and Philosophy, v.1, 1985, p.41.

the guiding principle should be that workers at all jobs be so recompensed that when that nature of their work and the amount of their pay are considered together, all are treated equally in the workplace.3

Inequalities in income are only morally permissible under a system of compensation if they reflect relative occupational disutility. Choices and effort influence income; morally arbitrary factors do not. Egalitarian and socialist proponents of compensatory justice view it as morally superior to the neoclassical labour market where natural and social advantages (as well as more general instances of luck) are allowed to influence income. Conversely, liberals see compensatory justice as morally superior to the socialist model of equality of income, as people are made responsible for the income they receive.

One possible weakness of compensatory justice is that it does not reward economic contribution. As Carens points out, under a compensation scheme, lavatory attendants would probably get paid more than engineers.4 This would be fair according to the ideal of compensatory justice due to the relative pleasantness of the two occupations. The problem may be however, that without reliable material rewards for individuals who contribute more, society may suffer from labour shortages in important areas. Without the appeal of a high income, a would-be engineer might instead take a job as a lavatory

James C. Dick, How to Justify a Distribution of Earnings, Philosophy and Public Affairs, v.4, 1975, p.272. 4 Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, p.42.

attendant simply because she would garner a greater income in the more unpleasant job. Proponents of the neoclassical labour market value its natural reactivity to labour shortages in highly valued industries. The same inherent efficiency is not found in compensation schemes. This means that some of those who support the ideal of compensatory justice make room for material incentives out of a concern for productive efficiency and economic output.5

However this is to be seen as an outside concern and not part of the ideal of compensatory justice; within compensatory justice such incentives would not be permissible. Incentives for highly productive or particularly valuable occupations would have to come out of a desire for enhanced efficiency. Efficiency should be seen as a competing value that might justify constraining aspects of compensatory justice, not as part of it. So, since what I am concerned with at present is the ideal of compensatory justice, I will not take this version of distributive justice to include efficiency-enhancing material incentives.

Another potential problem for the ideal of compensatory justice is measurement: how should the relative unpleasantness of certain jobs be measured? One option is to assign the government the task of deeming the amount of compensation necessary for all the various occupations. This would mean that the measure of how enjoyable a job is would be objective; it would

Ibid, pp.42-3.

be decided outside of how particular individuals felt about it. For example, if someone worked as a receptionist but greatly disliked interacting with people, her greater burden would not be compensated; she would receive the same amount of income as all the other people doing the same job as her. Another option then would be to have a subjective measure of labour burden one where how people felt personally about their work determined their level of compensation. Both approaches have problems.

For example, the objective method of measuring labour burden, as in the case of the misanthropic receptionist, does not take into account the fact that people will certainly feel differently about performing the same job.6 But the subjective means of measurement, which avoids this problem, does not react to cases where peoples preferences for work are malformed.7 If, as a child, Bertrand was brainwashed to think plastering was the most venerable and desirable occupation by his plasterer father, we might think it unfair if he does not get paid as much as Damien who did not receive such messages regarding his chosen occupation. A way around these problems is suggested by James Dick. According to Dick, the correct amount of compensation can be determined by a persons transfer earnings.

Economists distinguish two different types of pay in an individuals income: (1) transfer earnings and (2) economic rent. Dick defines transfer earnings as
6 7

Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, pp.42-3. Ibid, pp.42-3.

the amount necessary to keep [a person] from transferring to another job8 and economic rent as the difference between what [a person] actually receives and the amount that would be enough to prevent him from transferring.9 Take the case of Alec, a successful novelist, who is paid an average of $100 000 a year. Alec loves writing novels, and would continue to write them even if he was earning much less than $100 000 per year. Alec would only stop writing novels for a living if his income dropped below $40 000, in which case he would take a job as an English tutor at a language school. So Alecs transfer earnings are only 40% of his total income $40 000. The rest of his salary, $60 000, is economic rent. An individuals transfer earnings equal the amount required to compensate her for her labour burden. Under a scheme of compensatory justice, Alec would receive $40 000 per year for writing novels.

Compensatory justice is a relatively unexplored concept in distributive justice. However, the idea that incomes should reflect the relative disutility of an occupation is common outside the realm of academia, although expressed rather differently. For instance, it is not unusual for people to complain that television celebrities salaries are exorbitant for the perceived amount of work that they do. I believe cCompensatory justice also has significant intuitive
8 9

Dick, How to Justify a Distribution of Earnings, p.268. Ibid, p.268.

appeal to those of an egalitarian ilk. Given the large amount of egalitarian theories in the field of distributive justice, it makes sense to see whether compensatory justice is any kind of match for the more well-known ideals that dominate the current academic landscape.

This thesis takes the ideal of compensatory justice and puts it under a microscope, albeit a somewhat weak one, the ultimate aim of which being to find out how promising attractive compensatory justice is as a just a means of determining wage leveldirective for just distributions. This thesis can be seen as a launch pad for a more rigorous examination of compensatory justice , not a complete study in and of itself.

Comment [TD3]: I think the beginning needs to be reworked a bit. If your topic is about income reflecting disutility, then I would be inclined to start with that, rather than with the general example of compensatory vs. distributive justice. (My immediate thought was that it was an odd pair: why would compensatory justice b=e an element of distributive (as opposed, for instance to corrective) justice?

Comment [TD4]: Too apologetic I think. Describe the project you are doing and say youre doing it, rather than apologise for n doing some other project.

I begin by addressing compensatory justices prima facie compatibility with egalitarianism. The aim of this initial task is to see what kind of egalitarian might favour compensatory justice. I think this is a valuable exercise because the answer to the question of whether or not the ideal of compensatory justice is an attractive way to determine wage rates will depend on whom we ask., This process willand also help to clarify the moral grounds on which it compensatory justice rests by analysing how it relates to various accounts of equality. Chapter 21 sets out the categories of egalitarianism. Chapter 32 begins with an overview of compensatory justice, and goes on to assesses its the prima facie compatibility of compensatory justice with the previously demarcated types of egalitarianism. In this chapter I also give my opinion of 8

whether or not compensatory justice is likely to be complementary to, or to conflict with, each incarnation of egalitarianism.

The following two chapters look at the underlying moral foundations of compensatory justice. I believe these to be desert, and, equality of opportunity. In order to know if compensatory justice is an attractive ideal, we need to see what is at its heart. We need to know what moral stuff it is made of (so to speak). I believe the concepts of desert and equality of opportunity lie at compensatory justices core. However, these ideals are broad, and only a particular kind of each will lend their support to compensatory justice. Chapter 43 takes the concept of desert and whittles it down to the precise variation that underpins compensatory justice; chapter 54 does the same to equality of opportunity. The resulting principles are deontic, non-radical, moral, pre-institutional desert, and substantive equality of opportunity (also called responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism). Chapter 54 ends with my attempt to show that these two principles are really one and the same.

At this point I turn my attention to a key objection to compensatory justice: the self-ownership objection to redistributive taxation. If the self-ownership objection holds, compensatory justice cannot even get off the ground because taxation is its most vital practical component. The question of whether or not the finer points of compensatory justice are just is moot if it is not morally 9

acceptable to redistribute income in the first place. Therefore the strength of the self-ownership objection is of importance to any study of compensatory justice. Chapter 65 is my attempt to show that the thesis of self-ownership does not preclude taxation, and that furthermore, self-ownership is yet to be defended adequately.

My final point of interest is an elementary part of compensatory justice: labour burden. Compensation suggests remuneration for a burden, but what constitutes burden in occupations? A metric for labour burden is the first step required to flesh out the concept of compensatory justice from an amorphous principle to an articulated system of redistribution. This is why the nature of labour burden is the subject of chapter 76. In this chapter I look at several possible measures of labour burden, coming to the conclusion that it is best defined as subjective disutility in the area of work. Subjective disutility is a welfarist metric, so subsequently, and finally, I talk about the expensive tastes objection to welfarism and what it means for compensatory justice. Finally, chapter 8 sums up my thesis.

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CHAPTER ONE2: EGALITARIANISMS - DIFFERENT VIEWS FROM DIFFERENT WINDOWS

I. Introduction

Comment [TD5]: I think somewhere here you need to say clearly what you think compensatory justice is: The discussion seems a bit unmotivated. You might start with an example a case which you could then use to structure the discussion.

This chapter will identify the different branches of egalitarianism and locate what distinguishes them from one another. As we shall see, different types of egalitarianism have different ramifications for how one might view the ideal of compensatory justice. The purpose of this, and of the following chapter, is to discover what kind of egalitarian might find compensatory justice attractive. I think those of an egalitarian persuasion are the most likely to see 11

Also or perhaps instead, need to say something (more) about why youre talkin about egalitarianism.

the value of compensatory justice because it seeks to equalise how well-off people are when both income and labour burden are combined as a package. I think it is possible that other theories of justice can see something valuable in compensatory justice, but I deal with only egalitarianism here. As we shall see, different types of egalitarianism have different ramifications for how one might view the ideal of compensatory justice. In order to move on to the analysis in the next chapter, I need to explain how I have categorised the many ways to be egalitarian. In this chapter I set out the distinctions between variants of egalitarianism by focusing on how each one values equality.

Section II explains what I consider egalitarianism to be. Section III discusses the first type of egalitarianism: intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism. Section IV moves onto the second branch, which I define as intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism. Section V outlines instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism as the third variant of the equality view. The next branch of egalitarianism is instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism and it is explained in section VI. In section VII I talk about justice egalitarianism, which differs from all the previous branches because it sees equality as just, as opposed to good. Lastly, in section VIII, I note that procedural egalitarianism is an also a kind of egalitarianism.

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II. The equality view

While prioritarians are generally considered egalitarians of a kind, myMy use of the term egalitarian from now on refers to those who hold what Denis McKerlie calls the equality view.10 The equality view deems the relative position of people to one another as morally important. Whether or not any one person or group is badly off, the fact that any person or group is worse off than another is a concern for egalitarians. Hence, egalitarianism is concerned with relationships between individual lives, not the content of individual lives.

Comment [TD6]: Again explain what thi means. Its hard to see where it comes fro

This poses a significant challenge for egalitarians because many philosophers question the relevance of relative well-being in questions of distributive justice. The core idea of their objection is that what egalitarians are really concerned about, is the fact that some are badly off while others are well off, not that there are different groups with different levels of well-being per se. As Joseph Raz states:

What makes us care about various inequalities is not the inequality but the concern identified by the underlying principle. It is the hunger of the hungry, the need of the needy, the suffering of the ill, and so on. The fact that they are worse off in the relevant respect than their neighbours is relevant. But it is relevant not as an independent evil of inequality. Its relevance is in showing that their hunger is greater, their need more pressing, their suffering more hurtful, and therefore our
10

Denis McKerlie, Equality and Priority, Utilitas, v.6, no.1, May 1994, p.25.

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concern for the hungry, the needy, the suffering, and not our concern for equality, makes us give them priority.11

Views such as Razs are prioritarian. Prioritarians advocate giving priority to the concerns of the worst off, which could conceivably conflict with the ideal of equality. Despite the objections to the equality view inherent in prioritarianism, it is still considered highly valuable by egalitarians. Egalitarians who are not prioritarian can be broken into several distinct groups according to their defence of equality, which results in a number of different types of egalitarianism.12

The branches of egalitarianism I discuss in the next section are concerned with outcomes. To be concerned with outcomes means to value equality in the final distribution of things like resources or welfare.13 In contrast to this view, there is a kind of egalitarianism that is more concerned with what is often called procedural equality, that is, the realisation of equal opportunities for people to procure things like resources and welfare. For now though, I wish to concentrate on types of egalitarianism that focus on outcomes.

11 12

Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986, p.240. I have left out prioritarianism in this preliminary investigation into the value of compensatory justice. 13 Egalitarians disagree about the correct metric for equality. Here I suggest resources and welfare because they are well-known and suffice as examples of the kind of metric egalitarians use to measure equality. I am putting aside the debate about what equality should be measured by.

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III. Intrinsically impersonally beneficial egalitarianism

Different egalitarians value equality for different reasons. These variations reflect important differences in the various strands that sit under the umbrella term of egalitarianism. These differences have significant ramifications when each ideal is applied to a situation or issue. So, with the overall aim of analysing the application of the different versions of egalitarianism to the labour market, I shall now clarify how different forms of egalitarianism differ from one another, drawing attention to the specific manner in which each assigns value to equality.

These distinctions are somewhat artificial because it is possible to be an egalitarian for a number of confluent reasons. So, while the two overlap at times, these categories should be viewed as tools of clarification and comprehension as opposed to actual strains of thought. There are five main ways to value equality: (1) as intrinsically impersonally beneficial; (2) as intrinsically personally beneficial; (3) as instrumentally impersonally beneficial; (4) as instrumentally personally beneficial; and (5) as a requirement of justice. Let us begin with (1), the view that equality is intrinsically impersonally beneficial.

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This brand of egalitarianism values equality between persons as an end in itself. Equality is then intrinsically valuable because it is considered a standalone virtue. On this view, equality need not produce any positive effects because equality itself is the aim. Through this strictly intrinsic account of the value of equality, this view also commits itself to an impersonal view of the good.14

This means that the question of whether or not something is beneficial can be answered autonomously independently of how it affects people. So an impersonal view of equality that holds equality as valuable does so even when equality affects people adversely. Indeed, whether people are favourably affected, adversely affected or not affected at all, equality still has value according to this particular view.
Comment [TD7]: I wouls say independently

Finally, this branch of egalitarianism takes equality to be beneficial as opposed to just. Equality is taken as an ideal alongside notions such as justice and freedom; it is not defended by an appeal to fairness such as views about equal shares of societys resources. Also, inequalities are taken to be bad even when they are not caused by human activity or cannot be altered.15 This

14

This idea of equality being defensible as an impersonal good is taken from Larry Temkins article titled Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection in Matthew Clayton and Andrew Williams (eds.), The Ideal of Equality. New York, St. Martins Press, 2000. 15 The view that inequalities are bad even when they are unalterable refers to a distinction made by Derek Parfit in his article Equality or Priority? in Clayton and Williams, The Ideal of Equality, p.90. Here Parfit makes a distinction between Telic egalitarians and Deontic egalitarians by demonstrating that Telic egalitarians find equality to be bad even when no form of social activity brought it about, and even when social activity could not rectify it.

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take on egalitarianism that I refer to as beneficial has been categorised by different philosophers under such headings as non-instrumental egalitarianism,16 non-derivative intrinsic egalitarianism17 and telic egalitarianism (short for teleological)18.

An intrinsic impersonal beneficial conception of equality can be said to be the most pure and stringent version of egalitarianism. This is because it values equality so highly and in so many cases. Imagine a society where there are two groups, Rich and Richer. Both these groups are materially and emotionally rich but Richer is slightly more so than Rich. This type of egalitarianism would judge the inequality between Rich and Richer as bad, even if making the two groups equal would affect the members of both groups negatively. It should be noted that proponents of this view of equality can value other ideals alongside equality utility and freedom being two examples that would also play a part in advocating any change to a society. So a concern for utility could conceivably override a move to equality for Rich and Richer. However, this does not change the fact that this type of egalitarianism still values equality irrespectively of how it affects people.

This is contrasted with the Deontic egalitarian view that nothing can be said about forms of inequality that were not caused by social activity, or forms of inequality that cannot be altered, because this view is only concerned with what should be done. If an inequality was not achieved through the actions of people then there has been no wrongdoing because nothing has been done at all; and if an inequality is unalterable then nothing can be done, so nothing can be done wrongly. 16 Temkin, Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection, p.130. 17 Clayton and Williams, Some Questions for Egalitarians, in Clayton and Williams, The Ideal of Equality, p.17. 18 Parfit, Equality or Priority?, p.84.

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Many egalitarians see this as unjustifiable, if not incomprehensible if it is irrelevant whether anyone is affected positively, why is equality even a concern? Proponents of such a view value equality only if it is viewed as beneficial to those who live under it. An example of this is intrinsically personally beneficial egalitarianism.

IV. Intrinsically personally beneficial egalitarianism

This view differs from the previous one in that it values equality because it has beneficial effects on people. This means that this brand of egalitarianism has a personal view of the good, that is, that whether an outcome is good or not depends on whether or not it is good for the people who live under the conditions of that outcome. However, this view retains the idea that equality is intrinsically valuable, which means that this view also contains the idea that equality is beneficial to people in and of itself. To understand this conception of equality, take T. M. Scanlons claim that equality is valuable because it rids society of stigmatising differences in status.19

19

T.M. Scanlon, The Diversity of Objections to Inequality in Clayton and Williams, The Ideal of Equality, p.46.

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Large differences in material well-being can be objectionable on the same ground: when the mode of life enjoyed by some people sets the norm for a society, those who are much worse off will feel inferiority and shame at the way they must live. The egalitarian character of this objection is shown by the fact that it provides a reason specifically for the elimination of the differences in question rather than an improvement of the lot of the worse off in some more general sense. This is obviously so where the differences are purely ones of status. But even where the basis of inferiority is a difference in material well-being, the aim of avoiding stigmatisation can in principle provide a reason for eliminating the benefits of the better off (or for wishing that they had never been created) even if these cannot be transferred to the worst off.20

This illustrates the way in which equality can be seen simultaneously as intrinsically valuable and good for people. The measure for equalitys intrinsic worth is that it affects people in a favourable way. It is possible to challenge my labelling and claim that stances like Scanlons are in fact representative of an instrumental view of the value of equality. For example, one could appeal to Derek Parfits position on the distinction between instrumental egalitarians and intrinsic egalitarians:

Equality has many kinds of good effect, and inequality many kinds of bad effect. If people are unequal, for example, that can produce conflict, envy, or put some people in the power of others. If we value equality because we are concerned with such effects, we believe that equality has instrumental value: we think it good as a means.21

20 21

Ibid, p.43. Parfit, Equality or Priority? p.86.

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I believe however that while in many cases this would be true in the case of conflict for example in a case like Scanlons (this may or may not be the only one), even though equality of sense of status can be labelled an effect, because it is extremely likely to be brought about by equality and only equality can bring it about, save enlisting some kind of brainwashing machine, it is reasonable to summarise that it is equality itself that is valued, and not its role in bringing about some other ideal. So it makes sense to say equality is intrinsically valuable to Scanlon and others, so long as they are able to defend the position that equality and only equality bring about a particular good effect on people.

So, to those who I have convinced at least, this conception of the value of equality is still intrinsic, and not instrumental, because equality itself is viewed as a good. It is however different in the sense that it derives equalitys intrinsic worth from its promotion of the personal good, and not from what may be a more amorphous and potentially harder to defend impersonal good. This can be seen as a slightly softer and more defensible version of egalitarianism. Let us then apply this version of egalitarianism to the case of Rich and Richer and see how it differs from the previous one.

In the case of Rich and Richer, this type of egalitarianism would still recommend a move to equality, but this would be on the basis that the new equality between people would affect those people favourably. As with the 20

first brand of egalitarianism, it is possible for egalitarians that hold this view of equality to be pluralistic about their approach to distributive justice. So, as before, concerns sourced from other ideals like utility and freedom could theoretically outweigh any benefits that equality is expected to produce. However, equality is still considered an ideal; a concern that should be given significant weight and consideration even when it is merely one of several ideals that constitute a pluralistic moral outlook.

Finally, as with the first view of equality, this view takes equality to be beneficial as opposed to just. Equality is attributed value as something which is good. Equality is believed to make an outcome better than one that is unequal, not more just. Equality is a good according to this view, not a requirement of a theory of fairness.

So, the view that equality should be understood as intrinsically personally beneficial values equality because it affects people positively in a morally important way; it relieves feelings of inferiority for example. The next brand of egalitarianism I will discuss values equality because it causes something that is beneficial in a morally important way. This approach differs from the view that equality is intrinsically personally beneficial in two respects: a) it values equality only in so far as it brings about another ideal, and b) this end goal ideal is thought to be good independently of its effects on people. This type of egalitarianism is (3) instrumentally impersonally beneficial. 21

V. Instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism

Instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism views equality as a means rather than an end. This type of egalitarianism demonstrates an important shift from valuing equality in itself to valuing equality for its effects. This difference between intrinsic egalitarianism and instrumental egalitarianism reflects a large discrepancy in their underlying principles. Parfit denies that instrumental egalitarians are in fact real egalitarians: For true Egalitarians, equality has intrinsic value.22 Instrumental egalitarianism treats equality as a mere means, which makes it far less devoted to equality in the theoretical sensefor its own sake. So instrumental egalitarians tend to have greater allegiance to whatever ideal they believe equality will promote than equality itself while intrinsic egalitarians are committed to equality for its own sake.

Comment [TD8]: I think you mean for its own sake?

Instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism deems equality as instrumentally valuable, it is also, however, characterised by the kind of ideal it is ultimately concerned with. The end goal that equality between persons is intended to promote is an impersonal good: an ideal that is valuable regardless

22

Parfit, Equality or Priority? p.86.

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of how people are affected. Take political equality as an example. A proponent of the view that considers equality to be instrumentally impersonally beneficial might be primarily concerned with achieving political equality between persons. Realising equality in the distribution of well-being could be seen as a way of achieving political equality. Equality of resources for example would discourage the concentration of wealth, which can often lead to the concentration of political power. Equality in distribution could in this way be instrumentally valuable to a proponent of political equality.

Such a view would involve a commitment to an impersonal good. In the same way as the first, this brand of egalitarianism encompasses (albeit indirectly) the notion of impersonal goods. Political equality is typically defended not on the basis of it being beneficial at an individual level, but beneficial to a society. The realisation of political equality through the distribution of wellbeing could be defended on the grounds that it has positive effects on people, making it a personal good this kind of view is discussed next. But if the end goal is defended as an impersonal good (a beneficial ideal that is beneficial even when it does not benefit individuals) it would be classifiable as this particular type of instrumental egalitarianism. Finally, this view also considers the end goal ideal and its advance via equality as bettering a situation, as opposed to making a situation more just or fairer.

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Let us now apply the instrumental impersonal benefit view of equality to the case of Rich and Richer. Let us also use political equality as our first-order objective. Imagine that in the society made up of Rich and Richer, the Richer group is more politically influential. If they were not, that is, if both groups were politically equal, this kind of egalitarianism would not support a move to equality. But if we take the Richer group of people to be more powerful in influencing policy (via lobbying, ownership of large corporations and so on) an instrumental egalitarian with the primary goal of achieving political equality would defend an equal distribution of resources. Naturally, the bigger the gap between Rich and Richer, the more likely political equality will be threatened. So if it was the case that a society had two groups, Rich and Slightly Richer, equality of resources would not be so much of an urgent goal because it is likely to be a reasonably politically equal society. Here instrumental versions of egalitarianism gain an advantage because they tend to sit better with peoples intuitions. In this case, it is a significantly large gap that is required before inequality can be objected to. And we shall see that the next branch of egalitarianism, which is also instrumental, draws a conclusion about Rich and Richer which is probably intuitive to many people.

VI. Instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism

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The fourth category of egalitarianism, the kind that values equality as instrumentally personally beneficial, is similar to the previous one in that it views equality as instrumental in achieving some other end, and because it considers the attainment of its end goal as a good outcome (not primarily a fair or just one). Indeed the only real difference is that the ideal that equality is considered instrumental to achieving is a personal good rather than an impersonal good. An example of a personal good is the relief of suffering endured in conditions of poverty. The relief of suffering is normally deemed to be beneficial because it is good for people themselves not for society to be free of people who are suffering. So taking this as an example, a proponent of this egalitarian view would value equality on the grounds that it relieves suffering. Now let us apply this view to the case of Rich and Richer.

Since no one is suffering under impoverished conditions in the society of Rich and Richer, there is no support for a move to equality. For this brand of egalitarianism to encourage equality between persons, equality must be instrumental in bringing about a personal good. So, in this case where the personal good is the relief of suffering a society of Poor and Rich for example would be thought of as bad because the inequality in wealth and/or welfare would affect the poor adversely in this way. As I mentioned earlier, this type of judgement is more in line with peoples intuitions and makes it more appealing than intrinsic accounts of equality.

Comment [TD9]: Do you do anything with this taxonomy?

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VII. Justice egalitarians

So far, all the views of equality have seen equality as beneficial. They have taken equality to be either good for people, good in itself or instrumentally good. The last category I specified earlier however does not view equality as beneficial, but as a requirement of justice. This difference is important because unlike goodness, justice is an artificial virtue, which means that it applies to products of social interaction only.

To illustrate this, take the case of a baby that is born with only one arm, purely through chance. It is not unjust that the baby only has one arm because it could not have been born with two arms; no one is in charge of who gets healthy limbs and who does not. It may however, be thought to be bad. The first four categories of egalitarianism feel this way about inequality; inequality is bad for whatever reason. But for justice egalitarians, inequality is regrettable because it is unjust. Equality is taken as something social institutions should promote in order to achieve justice in distribution, not something which will make things better per se.

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An example of this justice-based view is egalitarianism that is based on a social contract. According to one this contractarian position, if all people are engaged in producing, all have a claim to an equal share of what is collectively produced. All other things equal, equal members of a society who partake in the production of goods and services should be equally well-off.

Another example takes equality to be the correct distribution by default. When there is no justification for inequality, equality is then the just outcome. So let us assume for a moment that in the society of Rich and Richer, Richers superior wealth is not justified by any principle of justice. Given that this inequality is unjustified, according to this default position, wealth should be redistributed equally. Another example is the view that inequalities in natural abilities should not affect peoples life prospects.

According to this justice-based view, inequalities in individual well-being caused by natural abilities are unjust. A naturally high IQ for example, should not ceteris paribus allow someone to end up with a bigger pay packet than someone who has a naturally low IQ. People should be made equally well-off because inequalities in ability are simply endowed upon people by nature; they are not a result of actions or decisions employed by the people themselves. Note that it is not natural differences in ability that are unjust on this view, but allowing them to affect well-being through social institutions, for example the labour market. 27

So there are a range of theories within egalitarianism as a requirement of justice that are all fairly different from one another in the way they attribute justness to equality. What they have in common is the way in which they value equality, that is, as a requirement of justice. This is the factor that distinguishes this form of egalitarianism from the first four types of egalitarianism. This branch is not concerned with forms of inequality that are not caused by social activity, or forms of inequality that cannot be altered by social processes, because it is interested in what should be done. According to this view, if an inequality was not achieved through the actions of people then there has been no injustice because nothing has been done at all; and if an inequality is unalterable then nothing can be done, so nothing unjust can be done.23

VIII. Equality of opportunity

Before I move on to the task of comparing compensatory justice with various types of egalitarianism, Now I would like to add another category of egalitarianism.m, Tthis kind of egalitarianism values equality in the procedure for distributing well-being. This procedural kind of egalitarianism also views
23

Parfit, Equality or Priority?, p.90.

28

equality as just, but the metric of equality is different. The equality required by justice is procedural whereas the former type of egalitarianism required substantive equality. So instead of favouring equality of outcomes, procedural egalitarianism favours equality of opportunities. This claim is seen as a less strong version of egalitarian justice because it allows for large inequalities in well-being when everyone has an equal opportunity to access well-being. An example of this type of egalitarian view is demonstrated by John Rawls notion of fair equality of opportunity.

Fair equality of opportunity, according to Rawls, is the combination of formal equality of opportunity and the equalisation of social contingencies.24 Formal equality of opportunity entails a lack of formal barriers. For example, a law that prohibits women from enrolling in university would count as a formal barrier to opportunities for women. The removal of inequalities in social advantages means that things like education should be made equal. Expensive private schools that give an advantage to children in wealthy families for example, would not be permitted. The background idea being that everyone should have an equal chance at achieving well-being. To use a common analogy: everyone should start the race at the same place and be subject to the same rules.

24

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1999, p.73.

29

So procedural equality is essentially equality of opportunity, whereas substantive equality (demonstrated by the previous five categories) is essentially equality of outcomes. In the former, the rules of distribution are supposed to be fair, and in the latter, the result of distribution is supposed to be fair. Let us now review the various types of egalitarianism I have outlined.

IX. Conclusion

Firstly I discussed the egalitarian view that equality is intrinsically impersonally beneficial. This variant of egalitarianism values equality as intrinsically good irrespective of its effects on individuals. The second category I outlined views equality as intrinsically personally beneficial. As with the first, this branch of egalitarianism values equality as an intrinsic good, but differs in that equality is taken to be beneficial to peoples lives. The third version of egalitarianism I described views equality as instrumentally impersonally beneficial. This position holds that equality is valuable in so far as it promotes a particular impersonal good. The fourth kind of egalitarianism is the same as the third except that the good it wishes to advance is a personal good, so it values equality as instrumentally personally 30

beneficial. The fifth category is different to all the previous ones because it views equality as a requirement of justice. Equal outcomes are thought to be valuable because they are a requirement of justice and not simply beneficial to people or society. The last category I listed also values equality as a requirement of justice, but in a different space. While the fifth brand of egalitarianism took equality of outcomes to be just, the sixth took equality of opportunity to be just.

These branches overlap in most real egalitarian theories, which is not a problem for the present analysis because what is important are the underlying principles that these theoretical categories rest upon. There are clear divisions that cut across these categories. These divisions are: instrumental versus intrinsic, impersonal goods versus personal goods, goodness versus justness and outcomes versus opportunities.

Comment [TD10]: I think this chapter needs, at6 least, some set up work to show why it matters to your thesis. It might be that a fuller introduction would do it, or a reordering, or perhaps some motivating examples. As it reads its a bit hard to see the point of the taxonomy.

I now have a means of sorting the many types of egalitarianism that will allow me to find out which of these variants is compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice. I want to find out whether or not compensatory justice is an attractive way to set wage levels, especially in the eyes of egalitarians as I think they are most in tune with it.

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Formatted: Font: Not Bold Formatted: Centered

CHAPTER 32: PRIMA FACIE COMPATIBILITY AND POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF EGALITARIANISM WITH THE IDEAL OF COMPENSATORY JUSTICE

Formatted: Font: Not Bold

I. Introduction

This chapter will examine the prima facie compatibility of the previously outlined branches of egalitarianism with compensatory justice. Compensatory justice is a type of labour market organisation that Joseph Carens calls a liberal and egalitarian ideal25. It involves restructuring the relationship

25

Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social InstitutionsJoseph H. Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, Economics and Philosophy, v.1, 1985, p.41.

Comment [TD11]: Some version of this ha to come earlier. With a sketch of what youre talking about, you might be able to show why you need a foray into the taxonomy of egalitarianism.

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between the performance of labour and the distribution of income, with the overall aim of equality. It is of interestimportant then to test whether the presumed egalitarian principles underlying compensatory justice are compatible with all or any versions of egalitarianism.

To begin with I shall explain the ideal of compensatory justice and mention some of the issues it evokes. ThenIn this chapter I shall discuss the prima facie compatibility of each branch of egalitarianism with compensatory justice, focusing on the relationship between how each branch values equality and the principles intrinsic to compensatory justice. I will also note any potential areas of conflict.

Section III addresses the question: What is compensatory justice? In section III begins my searchforay into into compensatory justices prima facie compatibility by comparing it to intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism. Section IIIV looks at how intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism and compensatory justice seem to compare. In section IV, compensatory justice is set up against instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism, and prima facie compatibility between the two is assessed. Section VI does the same to instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism, while sections VII and VIII compare compensatory justice to justice egalitarianism and procedural egalitarianism respectively.
Comment [TD12]: Grammar/Typo I begin?

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II. What is compensatory justice?

Comment [TD13]: As above, I thinktyou need some reordering. This should be in a introduction or at least very early on.

Compensatory justice is an ideal of distributive justice that focuses on what people get paid in exchange for performing their jobs. Compensatory justice is compensation for the work a person performs in her chosen occupation. Imagine if incomes were adjusted so that each individual was compensated with money for the work they did: those who worked very hard at horrible tasks would be paid very well to compensate for their great sacrifice, and those who did little at their cushy jobs would be compensated with a smaller amount to reflect how little they sacrifice. This would fulfil the requirements of the ideal of compensatory justice. Compensatory justice is egalitarian because it seeks to equalise peoples package of workload-plus-income. It is also liberal, as it takes into account how worthy workers are of compensation. Defenders of the ideal of compensatory justice, either in part or in full, include Joel Feinberg, James C. Dick, William Galston, Arthur DiQuattro, Oskar Lange, Fred Taylor, H. D. Dickinson and George Bernard Shaw. The main thrust of the ideal is also reflected in Ronald Dworkins theory of equality.

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Dworkin believes a system of distribution should be ambition sensitive and not endowment sensitive.26 This means that what people receive should be relative to their choices and the effort they put into those choices, rather than influenced by factors that are beyond their control. This captures the underlying principles of the ideal of compensatory justice. In compensating for the work people do, the distribution of income is sensitive to the choices people make and the effort they exert in their occupation. And because compensation comes for the work a person actually does (lifting pianos, digging graves, etc.), not what they are (doctor, model, etc.), how talented or untalented someone is will not affect the amount they are paid.

Compensatory justice is an intuitively fair ideal.27 Some people work under dangerous or unhealthy conditions, and many people work in stressful or boring jobs. It seems fair that these people should be adequately compensated for the burdensome aspects of their jobs. Compensatory justice also supports compensation for hard workers due to their greater effort, and gives lower pay to lazier workers, because they do not have as much need for compensation. Compensation means an individual gets paid relative to how hard she works and how much she enjoys or dislikes her job. All other things equal, if a person loves her job and works at an easy pace at convenient hours for a short time, she would struggle to convince others that she should receive a higher

Comment [TD14]: Not sure I have this intuition independently of the we need the unpleasant job done consideration. I could spend my days sorting though a rubbish dump. It would be hard and unpleasant, but that surely doesnt entitle me to compensation of no one wants me do it. But if its the fact someone wants th job done, then it doesnt look like its the effort or unpleasantness. One issue here is who is meant to compensate on the hard and unpleasant view.

26 27

Dworkin, What is Equality? Part 2, p.311. Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, p.41.

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income than someone who hates her job, and works very hard during her long and awkward working hours.

Comment [TD15]: Is this a subjective measure? Suppose I hate teaching stage 1 classes, while some of my colleagues dont mind. The task is the same for all of us but the subjective disutility varies dramaticall Shouls I get higher compensation?

Compensatory justice combines values from liberalism and egalitarianism. It is liberal in the sense that individuals are personally responsible for their income. Unlike straightforward equality of income, compensatory justice rewards those who work hard and those who perform arduous tasks for a living, while giving less to those who do not work hard or have undemanding jobs. It is also egalitarian, however, in the sense that people are to end up equally well off when both income and labour burden are combined as a package. As Dick says,

the guiding principle should be that workers at all jobs be so recompensed that when that nature of their work and the amount of their pay are considered together, all are treated equally in the workplace.28

Inequalities in income are only morally permissible under a system of compensation if they reflect relative occupational disutility. Choices and effort influence income; morally arbitrary factors do not. Egalitarian and socialist proponents of compensatory justice view it as morally superior to the neoclassical labour market where natural and social advantages (as well as

28

James C. Dick, How to Justify a Distribution of Earnings, Philosophy and Public Affairs, v.4, 1975, p.272.

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more general instances of luck) are allowed to influence income. Conversely, liberals see compensatory justice as morally superior to the socialist model of equality of income, as people are made responsible for the income they receive.

One possible weakness of compensatory justice is that it does not reward economic contribution. As Carens points out, under a compensation scheme, lavatory attendants would probably get paid more than engineers.29 This would be fair according to the ideal of compensatory justice due to the relative pleasantness of the two occupations. The problem may be however, that without reliable material rewards for individuals who contribute more, society may suffer from labour shortages in important areas. Without the appeal of a high income, a would-be engineer might instead take a job as a lavatory attendant simply because she would garner a greater income in the more unpleasant job. Proponents of the neoclassical labour market value its natural reactivity to labour shortages in highly valued industries. The same inherent efficiency is not found in compensation schemes. This means that some of those who support the ideal of compensatory justice make room for material incentives out of a concern for productive efficiency and economic output.30

29 30

Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, p.42. Ibid, pp.42-3.

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However this is to be seen as an outside concern and not part of the ideal of compensatory justice; within compensatory justice such incentives would not be permissible. Incentives for highly productive or particularly valuable occupations would have to come purely out of a desire for enhanced efficiency. Efficiency should be seen as a competing value that might justify constraining aspects of compensatory justice, not as part of it. So, since what I am concerned with at present is the ideal of compensatory justice, I will not take this version of distributive justice to include efficiency-enhancing material incentives.

Another potential problem for the ideal of compensatory justice is measurement: how should the relative unpleasantness of certain jobs be measured? One option is to assign the government the task of deeming the amount of compensation necessary for all the various occupations. This would mean that the measure of how enjoyable a job is would be objective; it would be decided outside of how particular individuals felt about it. For example, if someone worked as a receptionist but greatly disliked interacting with people, her greater burden would not be compensated; she would receive the same amount of income as all the other people doing the same job as her. Another option then would be to have a subjective measure of labour burden one where how people felt personally about their work determined their level of compensation. Both approaches have problems.

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For example, the objective method of measuring labour burden, as in the case of the misanthropic receptionist, does not take into account the fact that people will certainly feel differently about performing the same job.31 But the subjective means of measurement, which avoids this problem, does not react to cases where peoples preferences for work are malformed.32 If, as a child, Bertrand was brainwashed to think plastering was the most venerable and desirable occupation by his plasterer father, we might think it unfair if he does not get paid as much as Damien who did not receive such messages regarding his chosen occupation. A way around these problems is suggested by James Dick. According to Dick, the correct amount of compensation can be determined by a persons transfer earnings.

Economists distinguish two different types of pay in an individuals income: (1) transfer earnings and (2) economic rent. Dick defines transfer earnings as the amount necessary to keep [a person] from transferring to another job33 and economic rent as the difference between what [a person] actually receives and the amount that would be enough to prevent him from transferring.34 Take the case of Alec, a successful novelist, who is paid an average of $100 000 a year. Alec loves writing novels, and would continue to write them even if he was earning much less than $100 000 per year. Alec would only stop writing novels for a living if his income dropped below $40 000, in which case he would take a job as an English tutor at a language
31 32

Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, pp.42-3. Ibid, pp.42-3. 33 Dick, How to Justify a Distribution of Earnings, p.268. 34 Ibid, p.268.

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school. So Alecs transfer earnings are only 40% of his total income $40 000. The rest of his salary, $60 000, is economic rent. An individuals transfer earnings equal the amount required to compensate her for her labour burden. Under a scheme of compensatory justice, Alec would receive $40 000 per year for writing novels.

Setting aside the feasibility of compensatory justice as a model of distribution, and any potential problems the ideal may intrinsically have, it should be clear by this point what the ideal of compensatory justice entails. So now I shall examine if compensatory justice is prima facie compatible with various kinds of egalitarianism.

Comment [TD16]: So I think it is just clear this material has to come first. It describe an interesting puzzle. I think from here (though I havent see how this goes yet) y need to describe why the puzzles around compensatory justice lead to the discussio of egalitarianism (I don think thats clear yet).

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III. Intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism and compensatory justice

In the previous chapter I defined the branches of egalitarianism according to why and how each values equality they are as follows: (1) intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism; (2) intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism; (3) instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism; (4) instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism; (5) justice-based egalitarianism; and (6) procedural egalitarianism. These distinctions are theoretical and not taxonomical; this is because theoretical distinctions make it easier to analyse the compatibility of different kinds of egalitarianism with different modifications to labour market. These categories are defined by the underlying principles of each brand of egalitarianism. It is these principles that are important in discerning compatibility with compensatory justice this is why I separate and compare them on this basis.

So does it seem like the first branch of egalitarianism is compatible with compensatory justice? Its underlying principles will show whether or not it is. Intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism takes equality between persons to be good in itself. This means that equality is intrinsically valuable, or, to put it another way, equality need not produce any positive effects since equality itself is believed to be good. How does valuing equality intrinsically 41

affect intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianisms compatibility with compensatory justice?

Compensatory justice promotes equality in the sense that compensation for labour should equalise everyones combination of take-home pay and labour effort. While incomes are unequal, in the wider sense of quality of life or some such measure, there is equality. The ideal of compensatory justice aims for the kind of equality demonstrated by the following example of Sue and Sally. Sue and Sally are both research scientists who equally enjoy the work they do. Sue always works hard and consistently puts in long hours. Sally is lazier in nature and dislikes working hard and aims to maximise her time doing things other than working, so she does not work hard and puts in as few hours as possible. Sue receives $60 000 per year in compensation, while Sally receives $35 000. Sue has more money but less leisure time and a less serene work experience. Sally has less money but more leisure time and a more comfortable work experience. If quality of life is taken to be as important as income, then Sally and Sue can be seen as equally well off.

Now, because intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism values equality intrinsically, it seems to be compatible with compensatory justice. So long as it produces equality, a type of egalitarianism that values equality in itself is able to approve of that model of distribution. Compensatory justice does

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produce equality, so it is compatible with valuing equality as an intrinsic good.

This branch of egalitarianism also holds an impersonal view of the good. This means that the question of whether or not a distribution is good can be answered independently of how it affects people. Whether people are favourably affected, adversely affected, or not affected at all is not an issue for this branch of egalitarianism. Equality is simply thought of as a straightforward good. This view is also prima facie compatible with compensatory justice, as compensation for work produces equality in the space of income-received-plus-labour-burden. Because, in this branch of egalitarianism, equality is taken as an impersonal good, the value attached to equality is not dependent on anything other than its existence. So, since the effects of equality are not of any importance to intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarians, all that must be discerned for determining the compatibility of intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism with compensatory justice is that equality is promoted. Equality is promoted in the ideal of compensatory justice; therefore, in this respect, this brand of egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with compensation for work.

The last principle that characterises intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism is that equality is seen as a good. According to this view, equality is a good thing just as other views see ideals like utility or freedom 43

as goods whose promotion is to the benefit of society. So how does this aspect of intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism fit in with compensatory justice? Are the two still prima facie compatible?

The last constituent principle of intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism is not as obviously compatible with compensatory justice, but is not obviously incompatible either. The beneficial value attached to equality does not suggest straight out incompatibility, but more a potential source of tension and conflict. Egalitarians of this sort are likely to be moral pluralists; as explained by Larry Temkin, who advocates moral pluralism including valuing equality as an intrinsic, impersonal good:

Equality is not all that matters, but it matters some. Advocates of the Levelling Down Objection are mesmerised by pure equalitys terrible implications. But equality is not the only ideal that would, if exclusively pursued, have implausible or even terrible implications. The same is true of justice, utility, freedom, and probably every other ideal. Recall Kants view that justice be done though the heavens should fall. Do we really think, with Kant, that it would be wrong to falsely imprison an innocent man for even five minutes, if it were necessary to save a million innocent lives? Or consider the principle of utility, which would require us to torture an innocent person if only enough people had their lives improved by the tiniest amounts because of our action. Or finally, consider the implications of unfettered freedom to act as one wants without government interference, as long as one doesnt interfere with the rights or liberties of others. Such a principle might allow complete neglect of the least fortunate, even regarding basic necessities such as food, clothing shelter, and healthcare. Such considerations do not show that justice,

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utility, and freedom should be rejected moral ideals, only that we should be pluralists about morality.35

Setting aside the strengths and weaknesses of moral pluralism, how does adopting intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism within a pluralistic moral view affect its compatibility with compensatory justice?

Because equality is conceived as a good, it takes on the character of something that is thought of in terms of the more the better. Without other ideals to balance equality with, that is, outside a pluralistic view of morality, intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism would want as much equality as possible. In a scheme based on the ideal of compensatory justice however, there would be only limited equality. There would be no equality of income, but furthermore there would be no equality of job status (doctors may be respected more than drain layers, for example), no equality of effort exerted during working hours, no equality of working hours, and no equality of work experience, to name but a few. Achieving equality in areas such as these is usually limited by concerns for freedom and efficiency, but if equality is either a lone ideal or valued highly enough, this may push extensive equality up the list and make intrinsic impersonal beneficial equality less companionable with compensatory justice. So while incompatibility is not an accurate description to give in this case, it seems that without other values to limit equality, compensatory justice might not meet the standards of intrinsic

35

Temkin, Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection, p.155.

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impersonal beneficial egalitarianism, in that there may be an inadequate amount of equality.

IIIV. Intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism and compensatory justice

The second branch of egalitarianism I defined in the preceding chapter is intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism. An intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarian values equality because she believes equality is good for people. This view differs from the previous one in that it values equality because it has good effects on people. This means that intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism has a personal view of the beneficial ability of equality: equality is good because it is good for people. However this kind of egalitarianism, like the previous one, also contains the notion that equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning that it also takes equality to be good in and of itself only this time equality is supposed to be good in and of itself for people. So how compatible is this brand of egalitarianism with the ideal of compensatory justice?

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Intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism values equality in itself. In this respect, as with the first type of egalitarianism intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism it appears compatible with compensatory justice. As long as a system of distribution produces equality, a type of egalitarianism that values equality in itself is able to approve of it and is hence compatible with it. A scheme based on the ideal of compensatory justice must, in order for it to be satisfactory to its blueprint, produce equality. This equality is in the area of income-received-plus-labour-burden. Compensatory justice is compensation for the effort a person exerts at work and the unpleasantness of her occupation. This compensation results in equality of the package of income-received-plus-labour-burden. The presence of such equality is compatible with valuing equality as an intrinsic good because equality per se is deemed valuable; that is, it need not generate any particular good effects distinct from equality itself. But what about the point of difference between the first and the second brands of egalitarianism the kind of good each takes equality to be? Is a personal view, as opposed to the impersonal view, of equalitys beneficial character also compatible with compensatory justice?

The view of equality as a personal good is the idea that equality is good for people. This notion is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. Taking equality to be good for people and believing that people should be compensated for their labour burden do not appear to be incompatible ideas. But while the two are not prima facie incompatible, holding the wider belief

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that all goods are personal goods is not so in tune with the ideal of compensatory justice.

Believing equality to be a personal good does not in any obvious way commit one to the belief that all goods are personal goods that is, that goods must be good for someone to be classified as good. However, it is not unlikely that someone who believes equality is good for people as opposed to believing equality is good irrespective of whether or not it is good for people, would also hold a personal view of the good. If someone takes equality to be a personal good, as opposed to an impersonal good, this suggests that she finds the concept of equality being impersonally good (good no matter how it affects people) unconvincing in the space of equality. It is then easy to imagine such a person finding other ideals such as justice, freedom, efficiency and so on, just as unconvincing when thought of as impersonally good. The core idea that anything could be good if it was not good for someone may be unconvincing itself to such a person.

John Broome presents the principle of personal good as follows:

The principle of personal good. (a) Two alternatives are equally good if they are equally good for each person. And (b) if one alternative is at least as good as another for everyone and definitely better for someone, it is better.36
36

John Broome, Weighing Goods. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1991, p.165.

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A commitment to this view could potentially come into conflict with the ideal of compensatory justice. Compensatory justice works on a premise of desert. Individuals are compensated for what they deserve, hard workers are paid high incomes, and lazy workers are paid low incomes; people with burdensome jobs are paid a lot, and people with carefree jobs are paid a little. The ideal of people getting what they deserve is a kind of justice, and is an impersonal good. Under a scheme of compensation, it is possible that every worker will receive a low income even though the pool of money that comes in could allow them to be paid more. If every worker is lazy enough, or every job is cushy enough, according to the principle of compensatory justice, pay rates for everyone will be low. In an alternative scheme, everyone could work as slowly as each other in similarly cushy jobs, but all the money would be redistributed, even though the workers do not deserve it. People would receive more than they deserved in absolute terms, while relative to one another, they would fare the same as before. This second scheme would be better for everyone. Compensatory justice in this case makes everyone worse off than they could be. If one was open to the idea of impersonal goods, the scheme based on the ideal of compensatory justice could still be preferable to the second scheme, but if one believed the principle of personal good, compensatory justice would be very hard to defend indeed. The principle of personal good states that: if one alternative is at least as good as another for everyone and definitely better for someone, it is better.37 The second scheme

37

Ibid, p.165.

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is definitely better, not just for one person, but for everyone. Compensatory justice has no inherent link to personal good it has no inner commitment to having good effects on people. So while it is not intrinsically incompatible with the principle of personal good, compensatory justice may not always score highly on the personal good scale when compared to other systems of distribution that are more connected to utility.

So valuing equality intrinsically is not prima facie incompatible with compensatory justice, nor is taking equality to be a personal good. However, a further commitment to the principle of personal good may make for a less happy pairing. So far, as with the first branch of egalitarianism, intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. I have discussed the intrinsic value this view gives to equality and its treatment of equality as a personal good. Finally I will discuss the beneficial character this branch confers on equality.

As with the first branch of egalitarianism, the fact that intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism sees equality as a good does not suggest prima facie incompatibility. There is no innate conflict between the ideal of compensating for work and believing equality to be beneficial. The view that equality is beneficial may however potentially make compensatory justice less attractive. This is because, when equality is seen as a good, the more equality there is, the better the system of distribution becomes. As I mentioned earlier, 50

egalitarians that value equality as beneficial are likely to be moral pluralists, which will limit the reach of equality. However, equality may easily be valued highly enough so that compensatory justice becomes inadequate and other systems of distribution become more attractive. So, while the beneficial character assigned to equality by intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarians is not prima facie incompatible with the ideal of compensatory justice, it is not completely in tune with it either.

IV. Instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism and compensatory justice

I now move on to my third category of egalitarianism: instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism. This category sees equality as a means rather than an end, signalling a key shift away from valuing equality in of itself to valuing equality for its ability to produce some other ideal. A significant divergence in underlying principles is reflected in the move from intrinsic egalitarianism to instrumental egalitarianism. As I have mentioned in other places, Derek Parfit has made the claim that instrumental egalitarians are not real egalitarians: For true Egalitarians, equality has intrinsic value.38

38

Parfit, Equality or Priority? p.86.

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Instrumental egalitarians value equality in so far as it promotes some other aim. They do not see value in equality itself.

So how does this difference affect this brand of egalitarianisms compatibility with the ideal of compensatory justice? Instrumental egalitarians, while valuing equality for different reasons than intrinsic egalitarians, still value equality as a good. This means that as with intrinsic egalitarians, instrumental egalitarians are concerned with the presence of equality. Equality is still good it is just good for a different reason. So because compensatory justice aims for equality (in the area of labour burden and income, taken together as a package), instrumental egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice.

There is room for conflict, however. The kind of equality present in a scheme of compensation for labour burden is a specific type of equality that may or may not engender the ideal that equality is supposed to be instrumental in bringing about. Take for example the end goal ideal of political equality. Someone who wants political equality might be an instrumental egalitarian because she sees equality of resources as instrumental to achieving political equality. However, schemes built on the ideal of compensatory justice will not necessarily have equality of any degree in the area of resources. People who choose to work hard in unpleasant occupations will receive high incomes under a compensation scheme, making these people more resource-rich than 52

those who enjoy their jobs and work at a comfortable pace. Compensatory justice is compatible with great inequalities of income, and an instrumental type of egalitarianism with an end-goal of political equality is likely to be incompatible with large gaps in income across society. So in order for instrumental egalitarianism to be compatible with compensatory justice, its specific breed of equality equality of labour burden must satisfactorily bring about the particular end-goal ideal that equality is supposed to be instrumental to. In saying this however, at the primary stage of examination, there is nothing incompatible about instrumental egalitarianism and compensatory justice.

Instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism is unique in the sense that the end-goal ideal is an impersonal good. So the ideal in which equality is supposed to bring about is taken to be good, regardless of how people are affected. Political equality is such an ideal. So how does this impact instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism and compensatory justices compatibility? The fact that this brand of egalitarianism values equality because it brings about an impersonal good is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. Valuing something as an impersonal good is not counter to the ideal of compensatory justice. Compensatory justice is an impersonal ideal; as such, there is no salient suggestion of incompatibility or potential for conflict in this area.

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With all the branches of egalitarianism discussed so far, equality has been seen by instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarians as a good. Therefore, as with the other two branches, the beneficial facet of instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. However, as with these other two branches of egalitarianism, this aspect also suggests possible tension with compensatory justice due to the potential extent to which equality may dominate a moral view. If equality is given significantly more weight than other values, it could find the amount of equality present in a compensation scheme unsatisfactory.

VI. Instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism and compensatory justice

The fourth branch of egalitarianism to examine is instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism. This kind of egalitarianism values equality in a very similar way to the previous kind, in that it values equality as an instrument in achieving some other good. The two differ only in that one is primarily concerned with an end-goal ideal that is taken to be an impersonal good, while the other takes this end-goal ideal to be a personal good. So in terms of prima facie compatibility instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism does seem 54

compatible with compensatory justice on two counts. Instrumental egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice (although, as I have discussed, there is potential for conflict on this count) and beneficial egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice (although there is also room for tension in this aspect). The third aspect appears compatible also.

There are no clear irreconcilable principles between the ideal of compensation for labour burden and valuing equality because it is instrumental to a personal good. Compensatory justice aims to equalise the income-plus-labour-burden package and instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism aims for equality. Unlike the last branch however whose end goal ideal was an impersonal good this branch suggests a possible area where further tension may arise. This tension is the same as that which I discussed with reference to intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism. If, in addition to valuing the end-goal ideal as a personal good, an instrumental personal beneficial egalitarian maintained the principle of personal good, then compensatory justice may not be defensible in her eyes since it is an impersonal ideal. But the principle of personal good that all goods are personal goods is not in any way inextricably bound to the idea that one good is a personal good. So in total, instrumental personal beneficial egalitarianism is prima facie compatible with compensatory justice.

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VII. Justice egalitarianism and compensatory justice

The fifth category I defined was justice-based egalitarianism. The first four categories take equality to be something which makes things good, either for people, or just good full stop. But this view values equality in the sense that is required by a theory of justice. Equality is taken as something social institutions should promote in order to achieve justice in distribution, and not as a good-producing phenomenon. This kind of egalitarianism does not attribute a more the better character to equality; instead it sees equality as a fair distribution given a particular line of argument. So, is this justice-based kind of egalitarianism compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice?

The abstract exercise of taking equality to be a requirement of justice is compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice. This is because compensation for labour burden defends equality on the basis of justice. Compensatory justice is a theory of justice that views compensation for work as a requirement of fairness. But a level down from pure abstraction, we find that a justice-based egalitarian holds a particular theory of justice that has equality as its aim. In this sense, without knowing the ins and outs of this particular theory of justice, talk of compatibility is purely speculative (though, there may well be incompatibilities once this information gap is filled). At the same time, a theory of justice that recommends equality may well be compatible with compensatory justice. Compatibility with types of justice57

based egalitarianism will become clear once those specific theories that dictate equality are compared with compensatory justice. But at this level of definition, such things are too far removed. What can be said at this stage, however, is that there is prima facie compatibility between justice-based egalitarianism and the ideal of compensatory justice, since valuing equality for the reason that justice requires it and compensating for labour burden are not incompatible principles.

VIII. Procedural egalitarianism and compensatory justice

The last kind of egalitarianism I distinguished was procedural egalitarianism. Procedural egalitarianism attaches importance to equality in the procedure for distributing well-being. Like the previous one, this kind of egalitarianism views equality as just. The distinction between these two, lies in the metric of equality each type uses. For procedural egalitarians, the equality required by justice is a process, whereas the former type of egalitarianism required substantive equality. Instead of favouring equality of outcomes, procedural egalitarianism favours equality of opportunities.

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So is procedural egalitarianism prima facie compatible with compensatory justice? It certainly seems so. Equalising the procedure of distribution is similar to the ideal of compensatory justice, as it is also a liberal egalitarian ideal. Equality of opportunity allows people to end up with different levels of well-being when this is due to voluntary actions, but also ensures that each person is equally open to faring well (or poorly). Procedural egalitarianism is in this way endowment-insensitive and ambition-sensitive. As I explained earlier, this means that what people receive should not be influenced by factors that are beyond their control, but instead by their choices and the effort they put into those choices. Compensatory justice, then, is prima facie compatible with procedural egalitarianism. In compensating for the work people do, the distribution of income is insensitive to how talented or untalented a person is, as well as sensitive to the choices people make in the effort they exert in their occupation.

There is however a discrepancy between the two ideals. While procedural egalitarianism suggests equality of opportunities on a large scale, compensatory justice just does not necessitate such basic requirements as equality of educational opportunities or even equal employment opportunities. So long as people are compensated for their labour burden, the fact they may still have unequal access to the type of work they perform is not objectionable. In saying this though, given the similarity of the underlying principles of compensatory justice and procedural egalitarianism, requirements like equality of educational opportunities and equal employment 59

opportunities are certainly compatible with compensatory justice; indeed they are complimentary to it.

VIIIIX. Conclusion

This chapter examined the prima facie compatibility of the branches of egalitarianism with compensatory justice and any possible conflicts with it. I began by elucidating the ideal of compensatory justice and noted some of the issues surrounding it. Then I discussed, in turn, the prima facie compatibility of each branch of egalitarianism with compensatory justice, highlighting potential areas of tension. Each branch was found to be prima facie compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice, but some were less companionable than others.

Intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism was deemed to be prima facie compatible with compensatory justice, with only one factor that indicated potential for conflict. This factor was the beneficial character attributed to equality by this view. I claimed that without other ideals to balance equality with, intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism would advocate maximising equality. The potential for conflict then lay in the fact that 60

compensatory justice only requires equality in one space that is, the combined package of income and labour burden. Intrinsic impersonal beneficial egalitarianism was also found to be prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. I claimed that this branch of egalitarianism however had two possible sources of tension with the ideal of compensatory justice. In addition to the issues brought up by this views beneficial conception of equality, the fact that intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism took equality to be a personal good also hinted at possible incompatibility. I suggested that, if the view that equality is a personal good is extended to a wider principle of personal good, then compensatory justice becomes a less companionable ideal because it is essentially an impersonal principle. The third category of egalitarianism was also deemed overall prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. I claimed that instrumental impersonal beneficial egalitarianism has no inherent principles that conflict with the ideal of compensatory justice, but that again, in addition to viewing equality as a good, another of its components implied potential for incompatibility. I argued that because this branch of egalitarianism views equality as a means rather than an end, there is room for conflict if the kind of equality present in a scheme of compensation did not engender the ideal that equality is supposed to be instrumental in bringing about.

I claimed that the next branch of egalitarianism also had this potential point of difference, and that while it was prima facie compatible with compensatory justice, there was more room for conflict. Instrumental personal beneficial 61

egalitarianism takes equality to be a personal good, so I suggested that as with intrinsic personal beneficial egalitarianism, if this view of equality as a personal good connected to the principle of personal good then compensatory justice would be less defensible for those holding such a view. I also noted that as with all the categories of egalitarianism I had discussed up to that point there was a possibility of incompatibility between compensatory justice and the view that equality is a good. I then claimed that another branch of egalitarianism that which is based on a theory of justice is also prima facie compatible with compensatory justice. Compensatory justice is a theory of justice that advocates equality, so I stated that the two are obviously compatible in this sense. I noted however that extensive compatibility is dependent on the content of the theory of justice this kind of egalitarianism is based on. Lastly I claimed that procedural egalitarianism is also prima facie compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice. I argued that procedural egalitarianism and compensatory justice are common ideals, and that while compensatory justice technically allows inequality of opportunities for education and employment, it is also highly compatible with securing these equalities of opportunities.

All the branches of egalitarianism are prima facie compatible with the ideal of compensatory justice because each view values equality, and compensatory justice grants equality of labour-burden-plus-income it is egalitarian itself. I concluded that all egalitarianisms are prima facie compatible with compensating for labour burden, but that some are more likely to conflict with 62

compensatory justice than others. What was revealed was that instrumental, personal and beneficial egalitarianisms are more likely to conflict with compensatory justice than intrinsic, impersonal, justice-based and procedural ones.
Comment [TD17]: I think this material needs reworking. It is difficult to keep tra of the point of the discussion. It would be easier, with a case or two, allowing the reader to see why the discussion is taking the turns it is.

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CHAPTER 43: DESERT

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I. Introduction

The next two chapters analyse the moral foundations of the ideal of compensatory justice. I claim in these chapters that compensatory justice is best defended by the principles of desert and equality of opportunity. The purpose of this particular chapter is to clarify what exactly I mean by the term desert when I list it as a moral foundation of the ideal of compensatory justice. In order to know how attractive compensatory justice is as a determinant of wages we must have a clear idea of its moral bases. This chapter will explore the detailed aspects of desert with the overall aim of precisely describing the kind of desert that supports the ideal of compensatory justice.

The notion of compensatory justice is deeply and extensively rooted in common-world sense views. For example, most people have an opinion on whether nurses get paid enough and whether MPs are paid too much. The same goes for teachers, rural GPs, bus drivers, CEOs and so on. On the face of it, it seems a large part of peoples everyday ethical considerations on 64
Comment [TD18]: Common sense?

matters of pay revolve around the concept of desert. The most crucial question on peoples minds is what do people deserve to be paid, not what does the marketplace dictate people be paidor what can the government afford. However, the notion of desert is absent from most political agendas in employment today.

In saying that, desert is currently enjoying something of a resurgence in political philosophy. This is partly because of a move within egalitarianism toward a responsibility-sensitive form of distribution.39 Compensatory justice seems to fit with a conception of desert as justice because it distributes on the basis of peoples choices and efforts. However, desert is not a clear and unified concept. There are various ways to conceive desert and just as many ways of valuing it. Not all theories of desert will support compensatory justice, but it is likely that some will. In this chapter I will explore the concept of desert and narrow it down to a conception that supports the ideal of compensatory justice.

Section II introduces the principle of desert in a broad sense, showing what distinguishes a desert principle from other kinds of principles and also pointing out the many complications in defining desert. Section III explains the difference between deontic and telic desert and shows why telic desert is not a good suitor for compensatory justice. I then mention the possibility of a

Comment [TD19]: Notice again, that this strategy asking which conception of x fit with a n account of compensatory justice requires readers to have a fully fleshed ou account of compensatory justice, and to think that it provides a plausible test for th plausibility of other conceptions ie. That we should want to hold onto a particular account of compensatory justice and so be prepared to choose between other conceptions by seeing which preserves tha account. It assumes, that is, a priority to compensatory justice, and that will have to have been defended or motivated.

Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 10 pt, Italian (Italy)

39

Serena Olsaretti (ed.), Desert and Justice. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, p.2.

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theory of justice based only on desert in section IV and suggest this kind of radical use of desert has unattractive consequences. Having set out the brand of desert I wish to defend as being deontic and non-radical I move on to discuss two types of desert in section V; these two types are known as ecumenical desert and selective desert. Section VI explains the popular concept of moral desert and section VII explicates the difference between institutional and pre-institutional desert. Section VIII then looks at what kind of desert can be used as a defence of compensatory justice looking back at all the various types of desert expounded in previous sections.

II. Desert

Desert40 is the notion that people should be treated on the basis of their characteristics or behaviour; Good people should be rewarded, bad people should be punished. The basic structure of desert is X deserves A in virtue of B. X being the deserving person, A being the treatment they should receive, and B being the characteristic or behaviour that justifies the treatment of the deserving person. The nature of B is what sets desert apart as a distinct moral concept. This is because B, the justification for treating a person nicely or

40

I use the term desert to denote personal desert i.e. desert which applies to persons, not objects or other animals.

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cruelly, must be something attributable to her. An outcome rendered by desert is not for the greater good, or to equalise well-being, or any other broad aim, but rather for the appropriate treatment of meritorious or unmeritorious individuals.

While desert may seem a simple and straightforward concept, it is in fact vastly complicated. As such, in examining the role desert plays in the concept of compensatory justice many things must be considered.

III. Deontic desert versus telic deesert

Formatted: French (France) Formatted: French (France) Formatted: French (France)

Firstly I would like to set aside versions of desert that attach no moral force to desert claims, that is, those that do not consider desert claims to place obligations on others. Such theories can be deemed telic in the sense that they place judgement on things that are, as opposed to what ought to be.41 Telic desert is the kind which says an innocent boy with terminal cancer deserved the good weather he enjoyed in his final days.42 I neither wish nor need to consider the plausibility of telic desert as it is neither contrary to, nor

41 42

Olsaretti, Desert and Justice, p.8. Ibid, p.8.

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incompatible with, compensatory justice. I am considering compensatory justice in a deontic rather than telic sense, and so only a deontic conception of desert will either lend itself in support or not.

Deontic desert is the most common conception amongst desert theorists.43 This means that desert claims are generally claims about what people ought to receive; if X deserves A in virtue of B, then, ceteris paribus, X ought to get A. It is also widely held that desert is one reason among several possible reasons to give someone something, not a conclusive reason in and of itself. So, Justine might deserve three lollipops, but she should not be given three lollipops because it will spoil her dinner, or it will make her little brother Dylan upset. Or, to use a more serious example, an innocent black man accused ofshould be found guilty of raping a white woman in a racist town should be found guilty, even though he has been proven innocent in order todoes not deserve it, because if the man is found innocent there will be attacks on black citizens and many people will sufferavoid race riots.44 In these cases it is a concern for utility that trumps considerations of desert. This kind of approach means that desert is generally considered as a part of a pluralistic moral view.

43 44

Ibid, p.4. This example is from John Kleinig, Punishment and Desert. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1973, p.67. In this example, Kleinig explains that there might be potential reasons for convicting an innocent black man in a racist American township in order to aid the greater good. The example involves the rape of a white woman, and the townships belief that a black man committed the offence. The black man stands trial but is not proven guilty. In this case utility concerns provide a reason to convict the black man anyway, because letting him go free would almost certainly lead to town-wide attacks on many more innocent black people and general violence between whites and blacks because of the impulsively malevolent and racist attitude of the white population.

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IV. Radical desert

There are however those who hold what Robert Young calls the radical view of desert, which regards desert as the only principle that should be considered in matters of distributive justice. This view is considered to be problematic, as so many primary goods do not seem to be appropriate as objects of desert.45 For instance, it would seem unjust if virtuous people were to get more voting power than other people, or better education opportunities, or more civil liberties than the more vicious. It probably is possible to shift ones definition of desert in such a way as to justify things like political equality. One could say for example that every person deserves equal political influence in virtue of the fact they are part of a society, but this would stretch the concept of desert so far as to render it meaningless. This raises the issue of what sort of things, and how many different things, can we base desert on? In order to decipher the nature of the type of desert that seems to back up the ideal of compensatory justice, we need to further explore the concept of desert.

Comment [TD20]: Again, I think some signposting would help here. Say what yo think this section has shown; how it has advanced the argument.

45

See Robert Young, Egalitarianism and Personal Desert, Ethics, v.102, no.2, 1992.

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V. Ecumenical desert versus selective desert

Serena Olsaretti categorises desert theorists into two groups: those who believe there are lots of different things one may base desert on, and those who believe only certain kinds of things can be used to qualify desert.46 Olsaretti calls the first group ecumenical and the second group selective. Ecumenical conceptions of desert such as that of Feinberg, Kleinig and Sher, seem to draw from the common usage of the term deserve in classifying different kinds of desert bases. So, possible desert bases on this view are things like exceptional performance (the fastest runner deserves to win the race), achievement (students who write excellent essay answers deserve pass the exam), virtuous acts (a charitable donation deserves praise), vicious acts (murderers deserve to be punished), and suffering a harm (the victim deserves compensation for his ordeal). The idea of the varied nature of desert bases on the ecumenical view is encapsulated by Robert Young:

Whether someone deserves to win the World Chess Championship will be determined by utterly different considerations from those that are relevant to whether someone deserves to be given life imprisonment, and utterly different again from whether someone deserves to be awarded compensatory damages for injuries sustained as a consequence of medical negligence.47

46 47

Olsaretti, Desert and Justice, pp.5-6. Young, Egalitarianism and Personal Desert, p.320.

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Olsaretti also puts the institutional view of desert in the ecumenical camp.48 The institutional view takes desert bases to be only those set out by institutions. Institutional desert therefore incidentally holds that anything an institution aims to achieve can provide a desert basis, making it ecumenical. As Olsaretti explains:

On this view, what grounds individuals are deserving on will depend on what purpose or goal the institution which provides the deserved good has or promotes. There are then as many desert bases as there are goals which institutions pursue. For example, since the purpose of a running race is to reward the best runner, and the best runner is thought to be the one who runs fastest, performance is the relevant desert basis here; and since the goal of the market is that of meeting wants of consumers by allocating rights over scarce resources, efficient allocating of resources is the basis on which entrepreneurs are said to deserve their profits.49

The ecumenical view, having been distinguished according to the large number of very different things that may form bases for claims about desert, is subject to one key objection: how can desert be a meaningful moral construct if it encompasses so many things which are so distinctive from one another?50 What can it mean to say Jean deserves the golf prize and Saddam deserves to be hung other than that Jean and Saddam should get these things? What exactly is desert if it can warrant such varied treatments for such vastly different behaviours?
48 49

Olsaretti, Desert and Justice, p.5. Ibid, p.6. 50 Ibid, p.6.

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Presumably those who ask such questions take them to be unanswerable (or at least very difficult to answer) since they prefer to limit the range of things which desert may be applied to. In response to the broadness of the ecumenical view, the selective view takes there to be a common thread to the things which are eligible for desert bases. The most prevalent selective view of desert is that which takes desert to only apply to morally appraisable personal characteristics (actions, motives, etc.).51 So-called moral desert focuses on things like effort and harm as potential bases for desert, for example, a hard worker deserves fair pay, a murderer deserves to suffer blame from her community. Moral desert judges individuals only in the sense that they are moral agents; this means that things which are either not appraisable or not accountable to the agent are not according to this view grounds for desert. This might be closer to the ideal of compensatory justice because it is concerned with the responsibility of the agent: a central theme of compensatory justice.

VI. Moral desert

51

Olsaretti, Desert and Justice, p.6.

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Moral desert is in itself a divided concept because what counts as morally appraisable differs from theorist to theorist. For example, the question of how to attribute moral responsibility to agents yields various responses that reach far back into debates over determinism and free will.52 A further concern is what follows from judgements of moral desert. Some theorists believe moral desert only warrants soft treatment, such as either praise or blame,53 while others think moral desert should go further and influence the distribution of goods.54 So while most desert theorists recognize moral desert as a legitimate, and indeed important type of desert, there is no single model of it that they ascribe to.

Valuing moral desert, and only moral desert, is a selective form of desert. This means it limits what counts as a basis for desert to certain kinds of deeds. So while it may be seen as more useful and meaningful than ecumenical views which encompass a variety of desert bases, the selective view faces the objection that, in terms of deserving things, there are many other bases people are commonly referred to that exist outside the realm of moral desert. So why limit it at all?55

52

E.g. Richard Arneson, The Smart Theory of Responsibility in Olsaretti, Desert and Justice. 53 E.g. Samuel Scheffler, Distributive Justice and Economic Desert in Olsaretti, Desert and Justice. 54 E.g. Shelly Kagan, Equality and Desert in L.P. Pojman and O. McLeod (eds.), What do we Deserve? A Reader on Justice and Desert. New York, Oxford University Press, 1999. 55 David Miller, Market State and Community. Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989, pp.158-9.

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VII. Institutional desert versus pre-institutional desert

Another fundamental distinction concerning types of desert exists between institutional and pre-institutional desert. As I mentioned earlier, institutional desert is the idea that people can only deserve things based on the promises and goals of institutions. Consider two claims: 1) Christopher Robin Milne deserves a portion of the millions of dollars Disney makes off of his fathers character Winnie the Pooh because the legal system provides wills and intellectual property rights which enable Christopher Robin Milne to own the rights to his fathers character and sell them to Disney; and 2) Christopher Robin Milne does not deserve a portion of the millions of dollars Disney makes off of his Fathers character Winnie the Pooh because he did nothing to earn the money. The first desert claim is institutional; the second is preinstitutional. In the first, Christopher Robin is said to deserve the money because there exist institutions which grant him royalties. If such institutions did not exist, Christopher Robin would neither deserve nor not deserve the money he gets from the Pooh Bear brand. In the second case, Christopher Robin is said to not deserve his Pooh money because he has not earned it 75

through effort or choice or dedication or anything else it was simply endowed upon him by luck. This claim appeals to pre-institutional desert.

Pre-institutional desert, also known as raw or natural desert, is the more intuitive concept that people should get certain things because of morally appraisable facts about themselves. Another example of pre-institutional desert is a fraudster deserving blame for his deception, or a hard worker deserving a coffee break for her efforts. Such claims could be used to criticise or create institutions (like mandatory breaks for workers) because they are conceptually independent of them. Institutional desert claims on the other hand could not be, because they are conceptually tied to institutions; it is the rules and practices of the institution that forms the basis of people deserving things, so it is incoherent to use these claims to inform institutions since they were created by the institutions and would not exist without them.

Unsurprisingly then, desert theorists adopt the pre-institutional view and generally take institutional desert to not be a type of desert at all. For example, in response to Brian Barrys illustration of institutional desert (where he deserves 50 because he has climbed a rock and a 50 prize was offered for climbing the rock) John Kleinig states that this kind of desert is not a sense of desert at all. Instead, what Barry [has] given us is an analysis of entitlementand desert is not a kind of entitlement.56 Entitlement is closely

56

Kleinig, p.64.

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linked to the concept of desert, and while some theorists like Barry are comfortable intermingling the two, most believe it is of fundamental importance to differentiate between them. Take Feinbergs now well-known example of a presidential candidate:

To be eligible for the presidency of the United States, one must be thirty-five or older and a natural born citizen. Eligibility is one kind of qualification: satisfaction of some important preliminary necessary condition. Another kind of qualification, equally rule-connected, is satisfaction of a sufficient condition. So, for example, in this sense a man qualifies for the presidency of the United States by winning a majority of the electoral votes Anyone who qualifies in this strong sense can claim the office as his right; according to the rules he is entitled to it. I think it clear that qualification in neither of these senses is the same as desert. There are millions of persons eligible to be president who do not deserve to be, and it is often plausible and always intelligible to say that a man in fact elected president did not deserve to be. To deserve something, one must be qualified in still a third sense: one must satisfy certain conditions of worthiness which are written down in no legal or official regulation.57

So going back to our earlier example, if we agree with Kleinig and Feinberg, we could claim that Christopher Robin is entitled to the royalties from Disney but not deserving (or undeserving for that matter) merely on the grounds that he has a legal right to them given the rules and practices surrounding intellectual property and wills. But even with this distinction between desert

57

Joel Feinberg, Justice and Personal Desert in his Doing and Deserving. Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1970, p57.

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and entitlement made clear, there is more of the concept of institutional desert to consider, since it is more than a simple re-labeling of entitlement.

Olsaretti distinguishes two kinds of institutional desert. The first is that which we have been discussing, Olsaretti calls this rule-based institutional desert, as it only considers the rules of the institutions in question. The other kind of institutional desert considers more than rules, it also considers the goals of the institutions involved. Goal-based institutional desert looks at the intended goal of institutions in judging matters of desert. Take the institution of the will for example. Wills, in principle, are intended to grant the wishes of the deceased in terms of the allocation of their property. When the deceaseds wishes are granted, the goal of the institution of a will is achieved. When the wishes of the deceased are not enshrined in their wills, the goal of the institution is not achieved. So if A. A. Milne wanted, in the event of his death, the rights to Pooh to go to his son Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin (according to goal-based institutional desert) deserves the rights to Pooh. If, on the other hand, A.A. Milne actually wanted the rights to Pooh to be given to me, but in fact Christopher Robin was named in the will as the intended recipient (say he swindled his way in somehow) then the goal of the institution in question would not be achieved and Christopher Robin would not deserve his inheritance according to goal-based desert.

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This kind of institutional desert then does in fact differentiate between desert and entitlement and can play a role, albeit a limited one, in advising the design of institutions. To use the case where I am really the one A. A. Milne wanted to give the rights to Pooh Bear to, we could say that I deserve the rights but Christopher Robin is entitled to them, as his name ended up in the will and mine did not. So here there is a desert-entitlement gap58 because the goals of the institution were not achieved, and a goal-based institutional desert theorist could recommend restructuring the institution of the will to ensure its goals are better met.
Comment [TD21]: OK but now where does this get us?

Rawls view of desert fits into the goal-oriented category but goes one better. Rawls claims that it is not the goals of simply any old institution that may confer desert, but only ideal, just institutions.59 So once the just goals of institutions are decided upon, it is the promotion of these through institutions which makes people deserving when they receive some benefit (or burden) as a result of the rules and practices of institutions. This, (and all goal-based views of institutional desert) while being more useful than rule-based versions, remains reasonably weak in terms of the moral force it has on influencing outcomes. This is often, as in the case of Rawls, a deliberate attempt to put desert in its place, as desert is regularly shunned as a principle of justice. I should point out however that those who do believe desert has a role in distributive justice are not unconcerned or uninterested in the role institutions play in desert claims. As Olsaretti states:
58 59

Olsaretti, Desert and Justice, p.10. Ibid, p.12.

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 Those who hold the view that there is a notion of preinstitutional desert do not suggest that desert and institutions are unrelated. Defenders of pre-institutional desert can recognize that most desert claims are made in the context of given institutions and that some elements of those claims, such as just what form the reward should take, and just how much of it will be appropriate, will be institutionally determined.60

It seems to me that on the face of it, compensatory justice will be supported by a pre-institutional conception of desert. However I believe a closer look at all of these incarnations of desert with compensatory justice in mind is necessary. As I have said before, it is vital to understand what moral concepts lie behind compensatory justice if we are to judge its attractiveness as a determinant of wages. Now that we know about the various types of desert and the surrounding debates, we can now get to our second task which is to see what kind of desert, if any, defends compensatory justice. The next section will juxtapose compensatory justice with all of the divisions within desert theory.

Comment [TD22]: A summary and perhap account of where this is taking us might be useful here. Taxonomy is tough to read if you cant see what its doing

VIII. Which brand of desert supports compensatory justice?

60

Ibid, p.11.

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Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, I believe only a deontic form of desert will lend itself in defence of compensatory justice. This is because a telic view seems ill-fitted with the idea principle that people should be compensated for labour burden. Compensatory justice is concerned with installing justice into outcomes created by social practices by this I mean that it is the labour market which compensatory justice turns its attention to, and the labour market is a social practice. The appointment of people to occupations is an artificial human construct, unlike cancer or rainy days which are natural occurrences. In this sense, a conception of desert that supports compensatory justice should be deontic rather than telic, since telic desert can judge things that have occurred naturally and deontic desert cannot. Furthermore, compensatory justice is an ideal that suggests that goods should be redistributed. Redistribution of wealth is deontic rather than telic because deontic morality implies that what ought to be is what can be, and redistribution of wealth is useful only if it is possible. All in all, compensatory justice has nothing to say about states of affairs in terms of their justness or unjustness unless they relate to wage differentials that can be changed. So we shall go on using a deontic view of desert to defend compensatory justice; meaning that whatever the specific nature of the type of desert we use, it will have an ought nature.

I think it is also true that radical desert (the idea that desert is the only principle of justice) is not an issue for defenders of compensatory justice. 81

Compensatory justice is limited to the space of labour, so while a radical view of desert may well be compatible with compensatory justice, we need not presume it to be part of its defence. By this I mean that if desert is found to be the only principle of justice, then compensatory justice could well form a part of the ensuing theory of justice; but also that compensatory justice is just as viable within a pluralistic desert-based theory of justice. A pluralistic view that uses desert as one of many principles of justice requires a non-conclusive version of desert. A non-conclusive version of desert provides a desert-based reason to give certain things to certain people but it is not the only principle to be considered making it non-conclusive. Non-conclusive desert is compatible with compensatory justice and is, moreover, more likely to fit with its general thrust. So for now we can conceive of our version of desert as nonradical, and part of a pluralistic moral view.

Moving on, we shall now consider whether it is an ecumenical or selective view of desert that is most likely to help defend the ideal of compensatory justice. To recapitulate, an ecumenical view of desert takes a variety of things to be grounds for desert claims. Genocide, putting in a hard days work, or growing the largest zucchini in the state, are all reasonable desert bases on an ecumenical view. A selective view however would limit the things that one could legitimately be deemed to be deserving of, so that a common thread is conspicuous throughout all desert bases. If we were to take moral desert as the only kind of desert, we could say that someone who was responsible for genocide deserved to be killed, and that someone who has worked hard all day 82

deserves a break, but we could not say someone deserved a thousand dollars for growing the largest zucchinibeing the prettiest girl in the state. This is because on this view the common thread is that the desert bases are morally appraisable things, and while the first two are morally appraisable acts, the third is not; growing a large vegetabeing attractiveble is neither a virtuous nor vicious thing, while killing off a peoples and working hard are vicious and virtuous respectively.

Which view then would best defend compensatory justice? It would seem that a selective view which only values morally appraisable things as grounds for desert is most in tune with the idea that wages should reflect workers labour burdens. This is because the notion that high burden deserves high compensation reflects a concern for moral acts such as effort. However, it also seems that there is no reason why a view that values moral desert bases amongst others cannot be a supporting principle also. In fact, I think if we look at ecumenical desert versus moral selective desert in a different way, this will show that either conception could support compensatory justice given certain conditions.

If desert is the notion that people should receive things on the basis of their characteristics or behaviour, then the real reason for conceiving of desert as moral desert only is because proponents of moral desert are uncomfortable with characteristics that are due to luck affecting what people may claim they 83

should receive. But conceptualising desert as ecumenical does not require us to grant any and all things to people we conceive of as deserving. How you conceive of desert is not particularly important, what is important is what you allow to be given out on the basis of various desert grounds. Compensatory justice is only incompatible with giving out higher incomes for morally nonappraisable things. One could still advocate crowning the prettiest girl Miss Universe or handing out the title of winner to the best golfer at the U.S. Masters for example, even though neither she can be saidmay not to be morally deserving.61 There is no prima facie conflict between recognising all different kinds of desert claims and then only distributing goods on the basis of morally significant things. Compensatory justice needs both the concept that people cannot deserve extra income for things they are not responsible for, and the condition that only moral desert can be the basis for distributing goods, but people may be said to deserve recognition in the form of titles or grades for aspects of themselves and their actions for which they are not responsible. The question of whether compensatory justice is defended by an ecumenical or selective view of desert is therefore moot since both work equally well with the ideal.

Before we move on I should also like to point out that elements of retributive justice such as punishment are neither incompatible nor necessarily connected to the use of any kind of desert to justify compensatory justice. The death
61

Presuming the reason for the victories is the natural talent of the winners.

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penalty for example is compatible with compensatory justice, and so is its prohibition.

Compensatory justice can be defended either by the selective view or the ecumenical view of desert, so long as moral desert is taken to be the correct basis for the distribution of goods. Let us then narrow our brand of desert to moral desert, as it is the defender of compensatory justice and therefore the appropriate principle to look at. At this stage therefore we are proceeding with a type of moral desert which is deontic but non-conclusive (or non-radical). The final distinction to consider is whether this kind of desert is preinstitutional or institutional.

Institutional desert is the principle that people deserve things which they are entitled to according to institutions. For example, under a welfare state an unemployed person deserves to receive the unemployment benefit while she is out of work only because the governments welfare programme sets out to provide a safety net for people who cannot find work. Pre-institutional desert on the other hand is a natural concept which appeals to our intuition that people should get certain things because of features they possess or their behaviour. For example, a person who gives half their income to charity deserves praise. Compensatory justice is, fairly clearly, not defended by an institutional view of desert, as an institutional view of desert cannot support a principle unless it is an existing aim of an institution. So the type of desert 85

which is most likely to defend the ideal of compensatory justice is preinstitutional desert. A pre-institutional moral desert can influence institutions so that people in part receive what they receive because they are worthy of such treatment. This idea is echoed in compensatory justice.

Finally we are left with the brand of desert that is most likely to support the ideal of compensatory justice. That brand is deontic, non-conclusive, moral and pre-institutional. It has moral force, it is not the sole principle of justice, it takes things which are morally appraisable to be grounds for desert, and it is a natural or raw principle as it does not take the aims of institutions to be the only basis for desert. It may be either part of an ecumenical view of desert or form the criteria for a selective view. This means that the type of desert I have in mind to espouse compensatory justice is similar in nature to the common view of desert as it is used in everyday language with regards to wages. When people make comments like those lazy MPs dont deserve $250 000 a year, the principle which is utilized is, at least in part, that wages should be based on characteristics attributable to the worker. This notion, as I mentioned earlier, is distinct from concerns about such things as equality, utility, and efficiency because it forms a moral judgement of the worker herself. These other common principles of distribution are not directly concerned with the character of the people who receive more of, or less of, societys resources. Desert as I have construed it in this chapter reflects the growing concern of egalitarians with the role of personal responsibility in distribution, and compensatory justice aims to hold people responsible for 86

their incomes. This is why I have set out desert in this chapter as something which holds morally appraisable things to be influential. Moral desert equates desert to morally appraisable bases, and, depending on a compatible definition of what constitutes morally appraisable, worker characteristics such as laziness thus play a significant role for desert in affairs of distributive justice.

IX. Conclusion

This chapter set out to clarify what kind of desert could support the ideal of compensatory justice. This was necessary because desert is a principle with many incarnations and branches. Desert seemed to me to be a viable foundation for a defence of compensatory justice because of its connection with personal responsibility. But not all types of desert echo this commonview meaning. As in the Brian Barry example of institutional desert, one may say Barry deserves 50 if he climbs a rock that someone had offered a 50 prize for climbing.62 This kind of desert determines how deserving someone is on rules and institutions, as opposed to the character of the individual. It is not the fact that Barry has achieved an admirable feat through perseverance and good old-fashioned sweat that is the basis for his 50 reward, but rather the fact that a rule existed and thusly he must be granted what that rule promised.
62

Brian Barry, Political argument. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, p.53.

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Since desert is a term with so many varying meanings it was necessary to elucidate just what constituted the type of desert I had in mind.

I started the chapter with an introduction to the issue of desert as it relates to the ideal of compensatory justice. Then I talked about desert in general, introducing it as a complicated principle of justice. I then dealt with the subject of deontic versus telic desert. And also radical versus non-radical desert. I concluded that deontic desert was better suited to compensatory justice than telic desert, and that non-radical desert, i.e. desert that makes room for other principles in a pluralistic view of justice, mirrored compensatory justices concern only with the spaces of wages and work. I then explained how there are two more approaches to desert: the ecumenical approach, which takes a variety of things to be bases for desert, and the selective approach which limits desert bases to one type of thing. After this I looked at the concept of moral desert, showing that this is a distinct brand of desert because it considers only things which are morally appraisable to be appropriate grounds for desert. The last distinction I noted was that of institutional and pre-institutional desert. Finally, I decided on which types of desert fitted with compensatory justice. My conclusion was that a desert that was deontic, non-radical, moral, either selective or ecumenical, and preinstitutional would best defend compensatory justice. This kind of desert provides a reason to distribute goods according to the worthiness of workers, making it, I believe, very close to the everyday meaning of the word deserve. 88

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CHAPTER 54: EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: A FOUNDATION OF COMPENSATORY JUSTICE?

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I. Introduction

Having established that compensatory justice is underpinned by desert, I wish to complete the analysis of what lies beneath by looking at equality of opportunity. In order to know if compensatory justice is an attractive ideal for setting wage-levels, I believe it is important to be clear about the values that support it. This chapter will explore the principle of equality of opportunity and analyze its role as a supporting principle of the ideal of compensatory justice. Equality of opportunity is an umbrella term that encompasses several different moral concepts. For example, some theorists take a view of equality of opportunity that requires only the absence of formal barriers to positions, while others take equality of opportunity to mean the levelling of all life

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prospects across individuals.63 Compensatory justice has two clear moral notions that underpin it firstly, the idea that an individuals well-being should not be affected by those things which are beyond her control, and secondly, the idea that an individuals well-being should be affected by those things for which she is responsible. These two concepts can be expressed respectively in the terms endowment-insensitivity and responsibilitysensitivity. The type of equality of opportunity I have in mind also reflects these two ideas. It is for this reason that I think equality of opportunity, in addition to desert, is a defence for compensatory justice. In fact, I believe that equality of opportunity construed in a certain way the way that supports compensatory justice is identical to the kind of desert I settled upon in the previous chapter.

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In Section II I introduce equality of opportunity as a mutation of equality, showing how a concern for choice and responsibility supported a move from equality of outcome to equality of opportunity. Section III briefly illustrates the possibility of different interpretations of equality of opportunity and states the three major variants I will discuss. The first is formal equality of opportunity which is the subject of section IV. Section V surveys the substantive interpretation of equality of opportunity and section VI its socialist variant. I then go on to explain why I think that substantive equality of opportunity supports compensatory justice in section VII. In section VIII, I
63

For instance Richard Arneson. See his Equality and Equality of Opportunity for Welfare, Philosophical Studies, v.56, 1989 and Debate: Equality of Opportunity for Welfare Defended and Recanted, The Journal of Political Philosophy, v.7, no.4, 1999.

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refer back to the principle of moral desert and aim to show that morally speaking, it is the same principle as the type of substantive equality of opportunity I think supports compensatory justice: responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. I then sum up the chapter in the final section, section IX.

II. From equality of outcome to equality of opportunity

Equality is a well-known ideal of fairness: to aim for equality across persons is a familiar distributive goal. But equality construed as equality of outcome, has been made a target by critics concerned with personal responsibility.64 A criticism of equality, that is as familiar as the concept itself, is that under conditions of equality individuals have no incentive to contribute to society. The idea is that if everyone were guaranteed a pay cheque, some people would become lazy and exploit the system. It is (arguably) intuitive that this is unfair to the people who continue to work productively, and even more unfair to those who perform exceptionally. The problem, it seems, is that people are not held in any way responsible for their choices; those who choose to be lazy and exploitative suffer no consequences for their lazy and exploitative behaviour, just as those who choose to work over and above what is required

64

John E. Roemer, Equality of Opportunity, chapter written for the New Palgrave Dictionary in March 2005, p.1.

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of them receive no reward for their exceptional behaviour. This lack of accountability clashes with many peoples idea of fairness. As Roemer says:

The equal-opportunity approach says that one cannot judge the goodness of a social outcome by knowing only the distribution of outcomes; one must also know how hard people tried in order to evaluate that goodness in other words, one must know the correlation of effort with achievement to pass judgment on the fairness of a distribution scheme. Put this way, it is clear that the equal-opportunity approach formalizes a view that is held quite generally by citizens in many countries, judging by opinion surveys. In judging how just schemes of distribution are, the proverbial man on the street usually wants to know if reward is proportionate to effort expended. Knowing just the distribution of outcomes does not suffice.65

One response to this criticism is to revise what type of equality is important. Inequality that is brought about by circumstances of ones own making may not in fact be objectionable, since it is directly attributable to individual choice. If a lazy farmer yields little while her hardworking neighbour yields plenty, it may be that no injustice exists in this situation. The kind of inequality that might actually be objectionable is inequality that is brought about by things which individuals are not responsible for. If a congenitally one-armed farmer yields little while her two-armed neighbour yields plenty, there may be something unfair about this inequality if the farmer with one arm is not responsible for her poor yield. Equality of opportunity captures this idea in that the type of equality that is required is not equality of well-being, but

65

Ibid, pp.7-8.

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equality of the chance to achieve well-being however one chooses to construe well-being.66

III. The many guises of equality of opportunity

Equality of opportunity is not a specific concept; rather, it can denote quite different moral requirements. This is illustrated in a passage from Janet Radcliffe Richards article Equality of Opportunity:

Consider, for instance, Christopher Jenkss Ms Higgins,67 a school teacher committed to equality of opportunity. She is anxious to share her time and attention among her pupils accordingly, but quickly finds herself baffled. Should she make herself equally available to all, or give equal time to all, or give more to children from deprived backgrounds, or try to make all the children equally proficient at everything by the end of the year, or even think beyond the classroom to the effects children will eventually have on the community or the world at large?

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In this chapter I use well-being to signify whatever the correct metric one thinks equality should have, be it welfare or resources or advantage and so on. 67 Christopher Jenks, What Must be Equal for Opportunity to be Equal?, in N. Bowie (ed.), Equal Opportunity. Boulder CO, Westview Press, 1988.

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Dozens of incompatible policies seem plausible candidates for equality of opportunity68

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In this section I will outline three categories which most of the different manifestations of equality of opportunity fall under. These three categories are formal equality of opportunity, substantive equality of opportunity and socialist equality of opportunity.

IV. Formal equality of opportunity

Equality of opportunity to many peoples minds involves the absence of barriers to achievement. It violates the principle of equality of opportunity for example, when a school has entry criteria based on social class. Another example of a barrier to achievement is the prohibition of women from enlisting in the army. A key area of equality of opportunity violation is employment, where barriers to entry have been and are still both explicit and implicit. From the now illegal workplace policies denying black Americans employment, to covert gender bias in the selection of board members of large

68

Janet Radcliffe Richards, Equality of Opportunity, Ratio, X 3, December 1997, pp.253-4.

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companies, several instances of perceived injustice are deemed so by human rights supporters because they violate the principle of equality of opportunity.

This conception of the principle of equality of opportunity is essentially a negative moral requirement. By this I mean that it is concerned with the absence of barriers as opposed to the presence of opportunities. The idea that a gay man should not lose a job opportunity to a straight man purely because he is gay, is very different to the idea that gay men should have the prospect of gainful employment. The first idea requires a lack of barriers being gay cannot be used as a reason not to employ a person. The second idea requires the presence of opportunities. If the second type of equality of opportunity was to be implemented as a requirement, every gay man must be given the chance to become gainfully employed. This is a significantly different idea in that its enforcement, for example, would require that a misanthropic, illiterate, hermit, living in the bush on one of the smaller Chatham Islands among conditions of high national unemployment, must be supplied with the opportunity to become gainfully employed if he is gay. There may be good reason to supply such a man with this opportunity, but my point is that it is clearly a positive action to do so, whereas preventing a gay man from being discriminated against on the basis of his sexual orientation is a negative action. The kind of equality of opportunity that is alluded to when barriers to employment are under discussion is typically the negative kind, sometimes called formal equality of opportunity.

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Formal equality of opportunity is a form of procedural justice that is concerned with the rules of the game, as opposed to the ability of the players. To use the analogy of a running race, formal equality of opportunity says that everyone must start at the same time, in the same place, and have to run the same distance. It does not say that everyone should be of relatively equal ability. If one were speaking purely of formal equality of opportunity one would say that a running race between Kathy Freeman and Stephen Hawking is just, since both competitors started at the starting line at the same time and had the same distance to run. The fact that the two competitors differ wildly in their capability to run is not relevant on this interpretation. Formal equality of opportunity is concerned with procedures, that is, the way in which a competition is conducted. In a running race, procedures are the rules of competition; in the employment market, procedures are the laws of the nation and the policies of the workplace.

V. Substantive equality of opportunity

The idea that people should be legally free to compete for desirable social positions is not something that one would expect to be controversial. It seems to be both fair and just. But for some theorists, this notion known as the 96

formal principle of equality of opportunity, is not fair or just enough. It is instead viewed as inadequate in its attempt to fulfil the fundamental intentions that lie behind its conception. Probably the most well-known critic of formal equality of opportunity is Rawls.

The idea of equalising opportunities appears attractive because it implies two things: firstly, that people should not be disadvantaged by factors beyond their control, and secondly, that there should be a causal relationship between peoples choices and what they receive. In relation to the formal principle of equality of opportunity, Rawls takes issue with the claim that when certain features cease to reduce peoples life chances, a just distribution results. For, according to equality of opportunity in its formal sense, everyone has the same legal rights of access to all advantaged social positions.69 This means that people enjoy a lack of constraints in their attempts at a successful life and are therefore free in the negative sense of the word. Officially, no one can be discriminated against on morally irrelevant grounds such as gender and ethnicity. This appears to satisfy the intuitive notions implicit in equality of opportunity, i.e. that peoples success or failure in achieving their ends should depend on the choices they make, and not on circumstances beyond their control.

69

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.62.

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But Rawls draws attention to the fact that a persons expectations are also affected by factors that mere legal freedom does not protect against. For example, the standard of education a person receives can depend on the social class she belongs to. Children from families that have access to private schooling will have an unfair advantage over those from families who cannot afford it. This seems unfair, so Rawls suggests that it is logical to extend the formal principle of equality of opportunity to regulate the effects of all social contingencies, thus producing the principle of fair equality of opportunity.70 The thought behind the principle of fair equality of opportunity is described as follows:

Assuming that there is a natural distribution of natural assets, those who are at the same level of talent and ability, and have the same willingness to use them, should have the same prospects of success regardless of their initial place in the social system. In all sectors of society there should be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly endowed.71

This thought is echoed by another eminent critic of formal equality of opportunity,, John Roemer.72 Roemer argues that a persons circumstances should not affect their chances of success. In Roemers opinion, equality of opportunity should work to eliminate the effects that differences in environment have on well-being. Roemer separates circumstances from effort

70 71

Ibid, pp.62-63. Ibid, p.63. 72 See Roemer, Equality of Opportunity. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1998.

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to show those things which supporters of equality of opportunity should let influence achievement, and those which should not.

The influences on the outcome a person experiences [are] circumstances and effort: the former are attributes of the persons environment for which he should not be held responsible, and effort is the choice variable for which he should be held responsible. An equal-opportunity (EOp) policy is an intervention (e.g., the provision of resources by a state agency) that makes it the case that all those who expend the same degree of effort end up with the same outcome, regardless of their circumstances.73

In the same vein, Roemer also argues that equality of opportunity is not synonymous with meritocracy.74 The thought that equality of opportunity equates to meritocracy - that is, the success of the talented and failure of the untalented has proven to be a subject of criticism by many academics. The formal interpretation of equality of opportunity is undoubtedly similar to meritocracy. Take the running race referred to above to illustrate this point. In the running race, which has no barriers to achievement, the talented runner, Kathy Freeman, wins the running race over the untalented runner, Stephen Hawking. Despite the lack of obstacles in his way, Hawkings innate lack of running talent means he will not win the race. Nothing or no one is standing in his way and yet Stephen Hawking seems to be unequal to Kathy Freeman in a way that proponents of equality of opportunity should care about. Perhaps this
73 74

Roemer, Equality of Opportunity, p.3. Ibid, p.14.

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example fails to show exactly what some people find objectionable about formal equality of opportunity since Stephen Hawking is very talented at other endeavors and is not at all worse off than Kathy Freeman in the scheme of things, so let us widen the example and take the running race to represent the task of achieving the good life.

Kathy Freeman represents the talented, for example those who are able to find well-paid, enjoyable work, and Stephen Hawking represents untalented, for example those who are unable to find well-paid, enjoyable work. Here again, the talented will fare better than the untalented. It is this more general inequality that many find unjust. For example, Peter Singer claims that meritocratic equality of opportunity rewards lucky people and penalizes those who are unlucky.75 And Janet Radcliffe Richards describes John Schaars take on meritocratic equality of opportunity as a cruel deception that entrenches the inequalities of the status quo, makes people feel their failure is their own, and cheats them into thinking they have a chance to achieve what they could never possibly achieve.76

So in addition to social contingencies, there are also natural contingencies which can be said to be irrelevant from the point of view of justice. This was noted by Rawls who agreed that the elimination of socially contingent factors

75

Peter Singer, Practical Ethics 2nd Edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p.39. 76 Radcliffe Richards, Equality of Opportunity, p.253.

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in determining distribution still falls short of satisfying the conditions for genuine equality of opportunity. This is because:

Once we are troubled by the influence of either social contingencies or natural chance on the determination of distributive shares, we are bound, on reflection, to be bothered by the influence of the other.77

This means that getting a fair go at governing how successful one is would, if possible,78 require that all of the things that are not chosen and could affect ones likelihood of success are taken into account when equalising opportunities. So talents like physical ability, IQ, etc. will also have to be observed when distributing shares, because they too are a matter of chance not choice. For example, someone who is congenitally dim should not receive less opportunity for well-being than someone who is naturally gifted; both should have the chance to be equally well off despite their differing starting positions. For example, take the case of a logistics technician for NASA who combined her innate intelligence with diligence and prudence and attained a high-paying job, versus an equally diligent and prudent owner of a small commercial fishing boat, who, despite his efforts, became stuck with a relatively low-paying job because of his lack of natural intelligence. The enforcement of substantive equality of opportunity would compensate the fisherman so that he had an equal opportunity to achieve well-being. It is possible to construe the substantive interpretation of equality of opportunity as
77 78

Ibid. p.64. Rawls does not think it is possible.

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a responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, or luck egalitarianism as it is also called, is the type of equality of opportunity that I wish to show supports compensatory justice.

There are, however, those who object to substantive equality of opportunity from within the paradigm of equality of opportunity. Richard Arneson, for example, takes issue with the possibility of what he calls wrongful discrimination that operates through ambition affecting socialization.79 Arnesons argument is that even when substantive equality of opportunity holds, social processes may still affect peoples opportunities to achieve wellbeing. Arneson illustrates his point by asking us to imagine a society where citizens are brought up to believe in an ideology which takes it to be unladylike for women to hold many offices that are advantageous to those who hold them. Substantive equality of opportunity mitigates the effects of circumstances, both social and natural, but still women do not have the same chance of achieving as men since their ambitions are stunted.80 Arneson claims that this kind of influence on ambition formation is a kind of wrongful discrimination that goes against the ideal of equality of opportunity.

79

Richard Arneson, Against Rawlsian Equality of Opportunity, Philosophical Studies, v.93, 1999, p.78. 80 Arnesons critique is actually of Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity, which does not mitigate the effects of natural contingencies but his objection still holds when posed against substantive equality of opportunity as I present it here.

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Anne Phillips also finds fault with substantive equality of opportunity agreeing with Elizabeth Anderson on making the cut down the luck versus choice line:

In closing the gap between social and natural circumstances, it has also turned attention away from the structures that generate and sustain inequality. It has redefined what is predominantly a problem of inter-group relationsthe inequalities between rich and poor, male and female, black and whiteas a conundrum about luck and choice. One consequence, as Elizabeth Anderson has noted, is that recent egalitarian thinking has come to be dominated by the view that the fundamental aim of equality is to compensate people for undeserved bad luck81; this promotes an essentially individualist understanding of equality that threatens to lose sight of oppressions that are socially imposed.82

Arneson seeks to amend substantive equality of opportunity by prohibiting all types of wrongful discrimination; and Phillips goes the downhill route, concluding that equality of opportunity is best achieved by equality of outcome. There is one final manifestation of equality of opportunity, which I wish now to mention, and that is socialist equality of opportunity.

VI. Socialist equality of opportunity

81 82

Elizabeth Anderson, What is the point of equality?, Ethics, v.109, 1999, p.288. Anne Phillips, Defending Equality of Outcome, The Journal of Political Philosophy, v.12, no.1, 2004, p.17.

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As far as I can tell, socialist equality of opportunity is not popular amongst contemporary academics, but it is still an interpretation of the ideal of equality of opportunity. Like substantive equality of opportunity, socialist equality of opportunity takes into account the need to mitigate social and natural contingencies. But where under substantive equality of opportunity it may be adequate to compensate the unlucky with resources taken from the lucky to achieve equality of opportunity, under socialist equality of opportunity it would not be just. This is because while people may have a kind of equality of opportunity, they do not have genuine equality of opportunity. To use my earlier example of the logistics technician and the fisherman, while redistribution of income can provide the fisherman with the opportunity to buy a jet ski, it cannot grant him the opportunity to become a logistics technician.

Socialist equality of opportunity makes a trade off between liberty and genuine equality of opportunity to the effect of actually equalising peoples opportunities. So if person A has the opportunity to become a policeman, so must persons B, C, D, and so on. How this would be achieved is open to interpretation, but one option might be to set up the education system so that natural strengths and weaknesses were counterbalanced. Imagine that little Jimmy is a mathematics prodigy but cannot hold a tune to save himself, whereas little Joni is a regular Celine Dion but struggles with fractions. To even out this genuine inequality of opportunity (Jimmy has the opportunity to 104

become a statistician whereas Joni does not; Joni has the opportunity to become a lounge singer whereas Jimmy does not) extra tutelage could be given to Jimmy in the area of singing, and to Joni in the area of fractions. Thus, they not only have equal opportunities to achieve well-being but they have the same, identical opportunities. So socialist equality of opportunity is essentially different from both formal and substantive equality of opportunity because it requires genuine equality of opportunity all the way down to specifics, rather than the more liberal but still relatively substantive equality of opportunity to achieve well-being.

VII. A foundation of compensatory justice

Now I shall explain why I think substantive equality of opportunity, or responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism as we may also refer to it, actively supports the ideal of compensatory justice. I should note at this stage that I am glossing over one major issue in this discussion. This is the issue of what things, if any, people are responsible for. Effort, for example, may not be something which we have control over, as the ability to exert effort could very well be innate rather than chosen the question here is do hard workers simply make a choice to work harder than others, or do they have a natural talent for working hard? I do not know what factors individuals have control over or indeed how to judge what things people have control over. For the 105

purposes of this discussion I am assuming it is possible to ascertain all of the attributes which people are responsible for, and which they are not responsible for. So, unless stated otherwise, responsibility will be treated as a known quantity.

As I mentioned earlier, the moral basis of compensatory justice is that it is unjust for people to suffer or benefit due to factors that are beyond their control. This concept is compatible with all types of equality of opportunity. But as we have seen, a concern for formal equality of opportunity leads reasonably to a concern for fair equality of opportunity. This is because if one is concerned with the extent to which merit influences distribution (in the field of employment for example) then one is likely to feel that it is those things that people are themselves responsible for which deserve merit, and not those things that are simply endowed upon people (e.g. gender and ethnicity). So the notion that unchosen attributes are arbitrary from a moral point of view supports the ideal of substantive equality of opportunity which encompasses the formal form of equality of opportunity where careers are open to talents but also seeks to mitigate the influence of social contingencies. And finally, the ideal also requires that natural contingencies be mitigated since these are also beyond peoples control. While socialist equality of opportunity also includes these notions, it is not so in tune with compensatory justice, because, as suggested by its name, compensatory justice aims to achieve equality of opportunity for well-being through compensating for inequalities in opportunities rather than making all opportunities the same.

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To recapitulate, compensatory justice is an ideal of distributive justice that focuses on what people get paid in exchange for performing their jobs. Compensatory justice is compensation for the work a person performs in her chosen occupation. Imagine if incomes were adjusted so that each individual was compensated with money for the work they did: those who worked very hard at horrible tasks would be paid very well to compensate for their great sacrifice, and those who did little at their cushy jobs would be compensated with a smaller amount to reflect how little they sacrifice. This would fulfil the requirements of the ideal of compensatory justice. What people receive should be relative to their choices and the effort they put into those choices, rather than influenced by factors that are beyond their control. This captures the underlying principles of the ideal of compensatory justice. In compensating for the work people do, the distribution of income is sensitive to the choices people make and the effort they exert in their occupation. And because compensation comes for the work a person actually does (lifting pianos, digging gravestrading currency, etc.), not what they are (doctor, model, etc.), how talented or untalented someone is will not affect the amount they are paid.

Take, for example, a case of two stonemasons. One stonemason is naturally powerful, while the other is physically feeble. Under the scheme of compensatory justice, if all other relevant factors were equal, the income each would receive would depend on the amount of labour burden each is subjected

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to.83 Given that the powerful and brawny stonemason will find it easier to do her job, and that, again, all other relevant factors are equal, the brawny stonemason will bear a significantly smaller labour burden than her weedy colleague. Looking at this state of affairs from the point of view of a responsibility-sensitive egalitarian, we see how factors that are beyond the control of the individual are not allowed to influence the stonemasons opportunity for well-being. This is because the natural ability of the brawny stonemason is subtracted from the equation through the use of the concept of labour burden.

To illustrate this point further, consider two salespeople: Friendly Fran and Misanthropic Myrtle. Friendly Fran is naturally gregarious and personable; from the moment she exited the womb she found herself well liked, her congenitally sunny disposition a magnet, drawing in anyone around her. Misanthropic Myrtle, on the other hand, has found herself repelling anyone brave enough to approach her, her distaste for others triggering the others to have an equal distaste for her so is her nature, she was born this way. As opposed to a typical market scenario, where Friendly Fran would almost certainly earn a higher salary through her commissions and leave Misanthropic Myrtle floundering in a far lower income bracket, the reverse would be true under a scheme of compensatory justice. Misanthropic Myrtle would receive a higher salary than Fran because she endures a higher labour burden, since she spends all day talking to people. Thus, she is not forced to
83

I am glossing over the issue of how the stonemasons came to be stonemasons. For the sake of this discussion let us assume that their entry into the occupation of stonemasonry was compulsory.

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suffer a lack in income, and additionally, she is compensated for the extra hardship she undergoes through no fault of her own. Looking at this again, from the point of view of a responsibility-sensitive egalitarian, we see that opportunity for well-being is not affected by morally arbitrary factors that is, things which people have no influence or control over. Myrtles misanthropy does not condemn her to a poor salary and an unhappy time while in her role as a salesperson. Similarly, Friendly Fran, who in a market scenario would clean up, so to speak, would, under a scheme of compensatory justice, receive a relatively low income given the relatively low labour burden she experiences. This means that Friendly Frans natural talent for selling does not allow her to benefit. So again, we see how compensatory justice ameliorates the influence of factors beyond the control of individuals.

Comment [TD23]: This sounds like a kind reductio! Myrtles disposition make her worse at the job, and less suited to it, but she earns more?

So the type of equality of opportunity that supports compensatory justice is a restricted egalitarianism that allows for inequalities that individuals are responsible for. I believe that responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is in fact the same idea as moral desert. Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is interchangeable with desert-sensitive egalitarianism when desert is construed as I have construed it earlier in this thesis. When desert bases are limited to things that individuals are responsible for, then responsibility becomes intrinsic to the concept of desert. What I now wish to discuss is what I take to be the illusory nature of the distinction between responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism/ desert-sensitive egalitarianism and moral desert, as I have construed it. 109

Comment [TD24]: If this really is the case you have in mind, I would have it right at the start somewhere, because it is very interesting: my bet is almost no one will believe Myrtle should be paid more than Fran, so it would be impressive if you coul defend the claim.

As an aside, it seems a bad idea! Do we really want to incentivise people to do job theyll probably be bad at and made miserable by? (Though I suppose the idea that the money compensates for the miser at least: I remember when I started work a a lawyer one of the partners telling me tha commercial law was terrible work, and tha only the money made it worthwhile. Seemed a terrible reason to be a commerc lawyer.

Comment [TD25]: This would be a good time to explain the payoff of the analysis o desert, which was hard work.

VIII. Same difference: responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism and moral desert

So far I have presented desert and equality as two different paths that lead to compensatory justice. I have filtered each value down to a specific type that lends itself to the case for compensating for labour burden. What I have ended up with is a type of desert that considers only morally appraisable things to be grounds for desert claims, and a type of egalitarianism that considers only those inequalities that are due to luck to be unjust.

If something is morally appraisable it can be judged as either vicious or virtuous. This entails that whatever is being appraised as virtuous or vicious is in fact accountable to the agent. It is not, for example, coherent to judge Robert Redfords masculine beauty as virtuous as he is not responsible for the construction of his face; a persons god-given looks cannot be morally appraised. It is, however, coherent to say that Robert Redfords dedication to independent filmmaking is virtuous, as he is (more than likely) responsible for it. So, by definition, moral desert takes only things which people are responsible for as grounds for desert; all other things, like beauty and 110

intelligence, cannot be defended by the concept of moral desert as grounds for either the receipt of benefit or the imposition of burden. Responsibilitysensitive egalitarianism objects only to inequalities in well-being that are attributable to factors that individuals are not responsible for. Differences in the distribution of benefits and burdens that are caused by factors that are within peoples control are just. Therefore, when mapping this onto moral desert, taken in the context of distributive justice, we find that things which are morally appraisable, that is, things which people are responsible for, are allowed to influence levels of well-being just as under responsibilitysensitive egalitarianism levels of well-being are allowed to vary in accordance with those factors which are within peoples control. Therefore responsibilitysensitive egalitarianism and moral desert are essentially the same concept. This is because it is the issue of distributing according to factors that are beyond peoples control that each moral concept objects to.

To assess whether responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism and moral desert as I have construed it are in fact the same concept, we can take cases of distribution and use each value to judge whether or not the distributions are just. If in every case the two are unified in their assessment of the justness of each distribution we will have good reason to believe that responsibilitysensitive egalitarianism and moral desert as I have construed it are indeed identical concepts.

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Consider Figure 1. Figure 1. Deservingness A B 10 10 50 50 Well-being

Comment [TD26]: You need the figure her I think

C D

10 10

20 80

E F

15 5

75 25

G H

15 5

50 50

Agent A and agent B have a deserving level of 10. A and B have well-being levels of 50. Moral desert deems this distribution just, because distribution correlates to how deserving each agent is. Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism also deems this distribution just, because factors that are 112

beyond the control of the agents do not influence distribution. We know this because in the deservingness index, all the factors that are taken into consideration are ones that the agents themselves are responsible for, and only those that the agents are responsible for. Therefore, nothing that appears in the deservingness index is the result of chance, or is a factor beyond the control of the individual agents.

Let us now see if responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism and moral desert converge in their judgment of a different distributive scenario. Both agent C and agent D have a deservingness index of 10. Agent C has a well-being level of 20, whereas agent D has a well-being level of 80. Moral desert deems this distribution unjust because the agents are equally deserving, and yet their levels of well-being are significantly disparate. Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism also deems this distribution unjust since an inequality in distribution exists that is due to factors beyond the agents control.

In the scenario of agents E and F, agent E has a deservingness index of 15, whereas agent F has a deservingness index of only 5. In terms of levels of well-being, agent E has a level of 75, while agent F has a level of 25. Moral desert deems this distribution just because the agents levels of well-being are in accordance with their levels of deservingness. Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism also deems this distribution just, since the inequality in well-

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being is due to factors that are within the scope of the individual agents control.

In the final scenario, agent G has a deservingness index of 15. Agent H has a deservingness index of 5. Distribution of well-being is equal at a level of 50. Moral desert deems this distribution unjust, since distribution does not reflect desert. Responsibility sensitive egalitarianism also deems this distribution unjust because, it is clear, that it is not sensitive to responsibility.

Figure 1. Deservingness A B 10 10 Well-being 50 50

C D

10 10

20 80

15

75

114

25

G H

15 5

50 50

Comment [TD27]: Ill have to look at this i a printed copy.

So it seems from these examples that moral desert and responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism are in agreement on the justice or injustice of different models of distribution. This is because moral desert is, by definition, only concerned with factors that individuals can be held responsible for, and responsibilitysensitive egalitarianism is also, by definition, only concerned with these factors. It is this essential similarity that causes me to think that moral desert as I have construed it in this thesis, and responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, are the same concept.

Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is, as Shelley Kagan has claimed in his article Equality and Desert, not a type of egalitarianism in any strong sense.84 Kagans thesis is that forms of egalitarianism that are restricted by a desert component (such as responsibility) are not really forms of egalitarianism at all, except in the very weak sense that people are equally subject to the criteria of moral desert, and that it is moral desert which is the crucial factor in such
84

S. Kagan, Equality and Desert, in Pojman and McLeod, What do we Deserve? p.289.

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brands of equality of opportunity.85 I tend to agree with Kagan on this point for the reason I have outlined above, that is, that responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is essentially concerned with the influence of factors which are beyond peoples control on distribution, and this is not an element of equality so much as it is an element of desert.

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85

Ibid, p.299.

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IX. Conclusion

In this chapter I have sought to delineate the principle of equality of opportunity as a supporting principle of compensatory justice. I began by explaining the conception of equality of opportunity as a revised version of equality of outcome. Then I illustrated how equality of opportunity can be construed in various ways. After discussing three of the main ways to express the principle of equality of opportunity (formal, substantive and socialist) I concluded that substantive equality of opportunity supports the ideal of compensatory justice in the form of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. Finally, I tried to show that the other supporting principle discussed in this thesis, that is, moral desert, is in fact identical in nature to responsibilitysensitive egalitarianism because both take responsibility to be morally relevant to distributive justice.

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CHAPTER 65: THE SELF-OWNERSHIP OBJECTIONSELFOWNERSHIP: A PROBLEM FOR COMPENSATORY JUSTICE?

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I. Introduction

This chapter addresses the issue of self-ownership. Self-ownership is the idea that the individual has ultimate say-so over what may and may not be done to her or his person. Ownership of the self is often said to be at odds with coercive taxation for redistributive purposes, and therefore it is a potentially fatal blow to the ideal of compensatory justice. That is why I feel I must address self-ownership in my exploration of whether or not compensatory justice is an attractive means of determining wages.

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I begin by discussing the concept of self-ownership. I set out what selfownership means by delineating four key rights that denote ownership as conceived in political philosophy and applying them to ownership of the self. I also address the issue of whether the concept of owning oneself makes sense. Secondly I explain how the thesis of self-ownership relates to libertarianisms, both left and right. Then begins my attempt to show that selfownership is not a worthy objection to compensatory justice.

Self-ownership is proposed by thinkers of all political persuasions as incompatible with non-consensual redistributive taxation. For the thesis of self-ownership to cease to be an objection to compensatory justice it either has to be shown to be indefensible or, alternatively, compatible with taxation. I contend that both of these are the case. To begin with I draw on Robert Taylors study of the right to income to show why I think self-ownership is compatible with taxation. Then I take three main arguments for selfownership Kants categorical imperative, autonomy, and intuition and explain why I find them unpersuasive. I conclude that self-ownership is not an objection to compensatory justice because not only are the two in fact compatible, but self-ownership is not a defensible thesis in itself, either.

In section II, I address the question: What does it mean to own oneself? Then in section III, I talk about the thesis of self-ownership in the context of libertarian theory. Section IV argues that taxation is compatible with self119

ownership. And finally, section V argues that self-ownership is yet to be convincingly defended.

II. What does it mean to own oneself?

As I mentioned in the introduction, self-ownership is the idea that the individual has the ultimate say over what may and may not be done to her or his person. Setting aside for now the question of whether self-ownership should hold in an ideal society, I wish to look merely at the concept of owning oneself to clarify exactly what is at issue here, and also to see whether selfownership is nonsensical. What is it exactly to own oneself? What does selfownership mean in terms of how we live our lives?

Self-ownership, unsurprisingly, seems a relatively non-controversial idea to most non-academics, but it is not the simple and politically benign concept it appears to be. Self-ownership is not the idea that we are merely in possession of our bodies. By this I mean that self-ownership is not a description of our 120

relation to our bodies that is, that our minds control our bodies to a great extent. This control and possession is not ownership, but a physical phenomenon. The distinctness of ownership from physical possession/control of the self86 is demonstrated by the fact that people can technically own other people, as they did in periods of slavery, despite a lack of physical control over their minds and bodies.

Ownership of anything is generally conceived in distributive justice to be a collection of negative rights that owners have in relation to the things that they own. Some theorists list a multitude of things that make up ownership, but there are four rights that delineate reasonably well the concept of ownership that is presently at issue.87 These rights are 1) The right to use that which one owns as one wishes; 2) The right to exclude others from using that which one owns; 3) The right to transfer that which one owns to others or to no one; and lastly, 4) The right to not have the state expropriate that which one owns.88

The first right requires that no one can interfere with an owners use of that which she owns unless of course it infringes upon another owners use of that which he owns. This proviso is a standard one in the logistics of equal rights

86

By self I mean (and continue to man throughout this chapter) the complete person; body, mind and so on. I am glossing over the issue of whether or not the mind is separate from the body or not. 87 A.M. Honore, in his influential essay on this subject, lists eleven constituents of ownership. 88 Robert S. Taylor, Self-Ownership and the Limits of Libertarianism, Social Theory and Practice, v.31, no.4, October 2005, pp.466-7.

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because, if everyone is to be granted the same right, the exercising of rights by individuals must be constrained by the rights of others around them. This means that owners have a right to use that which they own however they like, except for when this conflicts with someone elses ownership rights. So I may use my pencil to write in my diary, to pick my nose (carefully) or to fix my hair in a bun in the event of a lack of hairpins. I may not use my pencil to block your windpipe this would infringe on your right to use your windpipe in any way you like. The second ownership right is the right of exclusion: an owner has the power to deny anyone the use of that which she owns. Exclusion forms more solidly the owners dictatorship over that which she owns because it involves the right to deny access to others, should one wish to do so. I may allow Moses, for example, to use my pencil on the first Friday of each month while depriving Stewart from the use of my pencil entirely. The third right is the right of transfer. This means that owners have discretion over who may gain ownership of that which they own. I can gift my pencil to Moses, or sell it to Stewart for $100, or take it to my grave. I may also transfer ownership of my pencil from myself to no one, effectively resigning from my role as owner. That would be the case if, for example, I deliberately threw my pencil into the Thames during a game of lunchtime Pooh sticks with a work chum. The fourth right is the right to not have ones property taken off one by the state. For example, if I own my pencil, agents of the state may not put me in prison if I refuse to hand over my pencil or pry it from my fingers midsentence. Indeed, if I am the owner of my pencil and all its chattels, even the highest authority of the state may not appropriate the little pink eraser on the end without my permission to do so. 122

These rights are all centred around the idea of sole influence of the owner over the disposal of her property, and can even be thought of as specific delineations of the second right, that is, the right of exclusion. Take Robert S. Taylors analysis for example:

The right of exclusion plays a central justificatory role with respect to the other incidents. The right of use, for example, can be thought of as a temporary right of exclusion contingent upon use the right of exclusion simply implies the right of use: a permanent right of exclusion by definition includes a temporary right of exclusion. The right of exclusion does not imply a power of transfer, but it comes close: an owner can effectively transfer his property to another party by making a binding promise to exercise his own exclusion rights as the second party Finally, an immunity from expropriation is essentially a higher-order right of exclusion: it excludes state efforts to override existing rights of exclusion through the exercise of (political) power.89

Now that we have a clear idea of what ownership is, we can apply it to ownership of the self. Self-ownership, then, is the idea that people have the right to use themselves as they wish; to grant or deny others the use of themselves; to transfer ownership of themselves to others; and to not be made to surrender the above rights over themselves to the state. So if I own myself I may for example dreadlock my hair, work as a lawyer, rent my kidneys out to a Yo Yo Ma, or drown myself in the Thames. Additionally, if I own myself, no one may (amongst other things) pull my hair, force me to work as a house

89

Ibid, p.467.

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painter, or take my fingernail clippings from my bathroom floor. Essentially, self-ownership means that you have authority over everything that constitutes your self.

Let us now turn to the issue of whether the concept of owning oneself is comprehensible. A problem with self-ownership as a concept might be that the two entities involved in the relationship are the same entity - how can I own myself when I am myself? Conceptually I see no significant problem with the idea of self-ownership, especially within the context of distributive justice. Whether or not the subject of metaphysics of the self can absorb selfownership is not something I feel equipped to deal with here, but in relation to the present subject matter, self-ownership makes sense as a concept if we take it to mean that people have certain rights with respect to the use of themselves. As Gerald Cohen puts it:

According to the thesis of self-ownership, each person possesses over himself, as a matter of moral right, all those rights that a slaveholder has over a complete chattel slave as a matter of legal right, and he is entitled, morally speaking, to dispose over himself in a way such a slaveholder is entitled, legally speaking, to dispose over his slave.90

If we can comprehend slavery in the form of one person owning another person, then we can also comprehend self-ownership in the form of one

90

G.A. Cohen, Self-ownership, Freedom and Equality. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.68.

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person owning another person that happens to be the same person as the former. This is the concept of owning oneself.

III. Self-ownership and libertarianism

Now that we have established that in this context self-ownership does make sense as a concept, we must now consider the thesis of self-ownership as a potential counterargument to the justness of compensatory justice. Up until this point we have only looked at self-ownership as a concept, as opposed to a thesis that vindicates that concept. The thesis of self-ownership states that people should have all the rights which ownership entails over their selves. Defences of self-ownership are generally tied to a libertarian point of view. Libertarians value freedom and only freedom, and have their roots in classical liberalism. In the words of well-known libertarian Jan Narveson:

The libertarian principle is essentially John Stuart Mills Principle of Liberty Why is this? Because of liberalism, which strongly propels us in the direction of libertarianism: indeed, libertarianism may reasonably be characterized as the logically 125

extreme upshot that is, the view that people should be free to do whatever they please constrained only by minimal fundamental rights of others. 91

Libertarians also consider the rights that manifest maximum equal freedom to be negative rights. Negative rights impose duties on others to refrain from doing something, like stealing your bike for instance; while positive rights impose duties on others that they do something, like providing you with basic healthcare. Libertarians in general support only negative rights, which constrain the actions of others rather than command the actions of others as positive rights do, and take liberty to be the ultimate value in questions of justice.

On the whole then, for the libertarian, the only reason for coercive force (e.g. policing backed by a legal and judicial system) is to stop people from using non- consensual force on one another - consensual force is okay. For example, if I ask you to punch me in the face and then steal my bike and you do, those things, you will not have done anything unjust in the eyes of the libertarian. Unwanted force, however, is unjust, as it is contrary to liberty. As Narveson puts it that is what is meant by the claim that everyone has the general right
91

Jan Narveson, Libertarianism vs. Marxism: Reflections on G. A. Cohens Self-ownership, Freedom and Equality, The Journal of Ethics, vol.2, 1998, p.4.

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to liberty: it is the right to the absence of imposed costs at the hands of others, force meaning a cost/harm that is imposed as opposed to consented to.92

It should be noted that libertarians as a group are not necessarily adherents of the right-wing brand of libertarianism maintained by the likes of Narveson and Robert Nozick; there is also a type of libertarianism known as left libertarianism which also holds the view that people are self-owners. The main difference between the two is not to do with eithers devotion to liberty, or libertys connection with negative rights, as these are fundamental libertarian principles. The difference is that left libertarians maintain a view in relation to initial appropriation of raw resources that yields a more egalitarian distribution of benefits and burdens than the right libertarian theory on the same topic.

The right libertarian view tends to be Lockean, in that right libertarians often take raw materials to be private property as soon as they are mixed with someones labour. Narveson explains why libertarians should support the law of Lockean initial acquisition in his Libertarianism Marxism vs. Marxism Libertarianism:

The obvious example is that of the farmer who plants corn in a field, and sees cobs emerge later in the summer his labors on
92

Ibid, p.4.

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the earth come to fruition. H aving harmed no one else thereby, the liberty rule allows him to do this, and to do it indefinitely.93

In the (hypothetical) beginning, right libertarians take it to be that no one had a claim to any land, minerals, waterways and so on, until an individual mixed her labour with these resources, at which point it became her property. To demonstrate, imagine that one idle Tuesday I happen upon an uninhabited island that has never been found by anyone else, and decide to take up residence there. I cut down most of the trees and make a shelter using the wood, I pile up most of the stones in the river to make a bridge-type crossing, and make jewellery out of all the diamonds from the diamond mine I dig having found diamond deposits one sunny morning early in my stay. On the right libertarian/Lockean view, the wood, the stones, and the diamonds I have used are now my own. Narveson calls this the rule of first occupancy, which he goes on to describe as first come, first served, and finders keepers.94 This is not a wildly implausible theory of just initial acquisition given that the materials became mine, because I both found them and worked them into something useful using my intellectual and physical labour. Now, say that Linda the left libertarian is washed up on the shore of the island a year later. Linda, being a left libertarian, would not agree that I have rightly acquired the once raw resources. Instead, Linda would claim that since all the raw resources on the island were owned by no one originally (because they are products of nature rather than peoples labour) we then have equal ownership

93 94

Narveson, Libertarianism vs. MarxismIbid, p.13. Narveson, Libertarianism vs. MarxismIbid, p.12.

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by default over all the resources.95 So say I had used 90% of the islands resources. I now (in Lindas eyes) owe Linda the value of 40% of the islands raw materials for justice to be done, because in Lindas view I did not come to own them justly; it is of no moral significance to Linda that I happened to stumble across natures windfall first.

Note that on both accounts of just acquisition I am allowed to keep the socalled fruits of my labour on the right libertarian account I can keep my fruits because my labour mixing with the unowned resources grants me ownership rights, and on the left libertarian account I can keep my fruits because I only owe others their equal initial share of the unowned materials, not any percentage of my earnings from my initial equal share. So going back to mine and Lindas island, while I must compensate Linda for her lost 40% share of the islands resources, I remain the rightful owner 50% of the islands total natural resources and can therefore keep them and any value I add to them. And if we were to ask Rachel the right libertarian why I am allowed to reap the benefits of my rightful (according to her) 90% of the islands raw materials, she would say it is because I found them first and put them to use. Either way, the idea of ownership and its constituent rights are upheld.

95

Lindas libertarianism is based in Hillel Steiners left libertarian theory in his Essay on Rights,. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1994, which Cohen calls probably the most sophisticated ever statement of left-wing libertarianism in his Self-ownership, 1995, p.15.

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Really, the fundamental point of difference between right and left libertarianisms is from where they think value is derived. Right libertarians tend to believe that value is derived from labour (albeit construed in a broad sense). For instance in Libertarianism Marxism vs. LibertarianismMarxism Narveson states that resources, as goods, are not natural: all require work to utilize. The only thing exchanged on markets is services.96 And again later:

What is exchanged on markets? The usual answer goods, or perhaps goods and services is superficial. There is a more fundamental one: all exchange is of services. Often the service is that of transferring the right to (use of) some material item, previously held by one party, to the other. And often not: if A purchases a violin lesson or a church service, what he gets is an increment in his musical skills or his spiritual welfare not in some private mass of material objects. All exchange is of services97

Whereas left libertarians think that things other than the hand of man can bring value, or to put it another way, natural resources can be valuable in and of themselves. But despite this disagreement and the vastly different distributions each side justify, the two hold property rights to be the best way to protect individual liberty, including ownership of the self.

The fact that the more egalitarian left brand of libertarianism and the right wing libertarianism both support the thesis of self-ownership only shows how widely accepted and popular it is. It is an idea that many libertarians and liberal egalitarians find just. Hence it is worth considering how compensatory
96 97

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Narveson, Libertarianism vs. Marxism, p.19. Narveson, Libertarianism vs. MarxismIbid, p.3419.

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justice fits in with the self-ownership thesis. Proponents of compensatory justice have, prima facie, the option of incorporating self-ownership in a kind of left libertarian view claiming somehow that compensatory justice evens out initial inequalities in the attainment of natural resources - after all, as Jonathon Wolff says in his review of Steiner:

The substance of these conclusions bears comparison with much recent egalitarian-type thought. The idea of receiving subsidies for bad genetic luck, and vice versa, stands comparison with the work of such writers as Ronald Dworkin, G.A. Cohen, John Roemer, Richard Arneson, Will Kymlicka and Brian Barry, who have argued in different ways that distributions should compensate for bad brute luck, while being sensitive to the results of individual free choices.98

I should note, however, that a number of liberal egalitarians challenge the attractiveness of the thesis of self-ownership (including left libertarianisms attempt to use it to support equality)99. Cohen, for example, devotes a third of his book Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality to the issue, concluding that self-ownership should be cast off in favour of brute-luck-eliminating egalitarianism.100 One might wonder why a liberal egalitarian would even bother to argue against the appeal of the thesis of self-ownership; the answer Cohen gives is that self-ownership and taxation101 are incompatible.102 Therefore, if self-ownership is defensible then taxation is not. This is certainly

98

Jonathon Wolff, Critical Notice Review of An Essay On Rights By Hillel Steiner, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, v.5, no.2, 1997, p.310. 99 See chapters 4 and 5 of Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality. 100 Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, p.15. 101 By taxation I mean a tax on income derived from labour, and do so for the entirety of this chapter. 102 Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, p.15.

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the view of right libertarians, who use self-ownership as an objection to nonvoluntary redistribution of income.103 As Nozick says:

Taxation of earnings is on a par with forced labour patterned principles of distributive justice [like egalitarianism] involve appropriating the actions of other persons. Seizing the results of someones labour is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. If people force you to do certain work, or unrewarded work, for a certain period of time, they decide what you are to do and what purposes your work is to serve apart from your decisions. This process whereby they take this decision from you makes them a part-owner of you; it gives them a property right in you. Just as having such partial control and power of decision, by right, over an animal or inanimate object would be to have a property right in it.104

I disagree that self-ownership is incompatible with taxation. I also think that arguments for self-ownership are unpersuasive. If I can convincingly argue my way through either of these claims I will have dealt with the selfownership objection to egalitarian taxation. This is because if self-ownership and non-consensual redistribution are compatible, the thesis of self-ownership ceases to be an objection to taxation; and, if self-ownership fails to show itself as a defensible thesis, it loses its place as a viable counterargument to the kind of redistribution involved in compensatory justice.

103 104

By income I mean income derived from labour and do so throughout this chapter. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York, Basic Books, 1974, pp.169-72.

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IV. Can self-owners be taxed?

To recapitulate, right libertarianism holds that self-ownership and taxation are incompatible because income tax effectively forces earners to work without pay. Working without pay against ones will is supposed to be a violation of the negative right to use oneself as one wishes, and to use oneself as one wishes is a key constituent of self-ownership. Below is an outline of the right libertarian argument for the incompatibility of taxation and self-ownership.

AP1. Working without reward against ones will is equivalent to seizing the results of someones labour AP2. Working without reward against ones will is equivalent to forced labour. AC1. Seizing the results of someones labour is equivalent to forced labour

BP1. (C1) Seizing the results of someones labour is equivalent to forced labour BP2. Taxation is seizing the results of someones labour BC2. Taxation is forced labour

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CP1. (C2) Taxation is forced labour CP2. Forced labour violates the right to use oneself as one wishes CC3. Taxation violates the right to use oneself as one wishes

DP1. (C3) Taxation violates the right to use oneself as one wishes DP2. The right to use oneself as one wishes is a fundamental element of selfownership DC4. Taxation contravenes the requirements of self-ownership

EP1. (C4) Taxation contravenes the requirements of self-ownership EP2. Something that contravenes something else is incompatible with it EC5. Taxation is incompatible with self-ownership

My reason for contending that EC5 is false is that I think BP2 of the second syllogism is false, bringing down what is otherwise a valid argument. P2 B2 of the second syllogism is the premise that: taxation is seizing the results of someones labour.

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Taxation is seizing someones income (or part thereof), not the results of someones labour (or part thereof): the two are distinct. Income is not the result of the workers labour;, rather it is the result of a transfer of ownership of X dollars from buyer (of the labour product) to seller (of the labour product). The result of someones labour is their labour product. To illustrate take Beethoven, a talented composer. The result of Beethovens labour is a composition. Income then fits into the equation thusly: I buy Beethovens composition, which entails Beethoven transferring his composition to me, and me transferring X amount of dollars to Beethoven. So in general, income is not the product of labour. Your income, if you get any, is not the fruit of your labour per se. The fruit of your labour per se is the talent/ability that which potentially commands an income. So in terms of ownership, Beethoven owns his composition but does not own the money I am willing to pay for it until I have transferred ownership to him.

I take this point from Robert Taylors article on self-ownership where he attempts to show that libertarians like Nozick source the right to income incorrectly.105 Taylor claims that the right to income does not come from the sellers self-ownership rights; it in fact comes from the buyers property rights over her money:

105

Taylor, Self-Ownership and the Limits of Libertarianism, pp. 468-71

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The seller's right to income is directly implied by the buyer's power of monetary transfer. In other words, all that a seller needs to have a secure right to the income from the sale of some item is the protection of the power of potential buyers to transfer money to him.106

Remember that ownership, of anything, includes the right to transfer ownership of that which one owns. Now if I wish to transfer $100 to Beethoven, and the state interrupts this transfer by taking $30 as tax, it is my right of transfer that is violated, not Beethovens. Beethoven is not entitled, via the principle of self-ownership or ownership in general, to the money I am willing to pay to in exchange for his composition. That money is not a fruit of his labour; rather it is a kind of token that represents his labour products worth. To be sure, Beethoven does own the product of his labour, but taxation has no effect on his ownership rights over the product of his labour, namely, the composition. Beethoven rightfully wishes to transfer his composition to me and even though taxation occurs, this transfer does take place, wholly and completely. But when it comes to my rightful wish to transfer ownership of my $100 from me to Beethoven, that right is breached by taxation.

What is important here, is that an individuals right to income is an indirect right that is sourced in others transfer rights; and what is most important, is that an individuals right to income is sourced in others transfer rights over (most of the time, but I concede not always) their non-self property, i.e. external property like money or sheep. So if taxation violates property rights
106

Ibid, p.470.

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over things, not people, then self-ownership is compatible with redistributive taxation.107

It is not self-ownership that is contrary to non-consensual redistribution (and therefore compensatory justice), it is the right to transfer thing-property as one wishes. This means that the self-ownership objection to compulsory redistribution does not apply. So in terms of the fairness of compensatory justice, self-ownership is neither here nor there; but to be sure in the case I have erred, I will elucidate my earlier claim that arguments for the thesis of self-ownership are unpersuasive.

V. Do we own ourselves?

As far as I can see, it is the defenders of self-ownership on which the burden of justification lies. This means that if all the arguments given for selfownership fail, then the need for an argument against self-ownership ceases to exist. I think I can show all the arguments given for self-ownership are unconvincing. In the following section I will attempt to show that the main
107

Provided that taxation is in the form of expropriating things and not parts of ourselves (or, ipso facto, the direct product of our labour).

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arguments for self-ownership fail to defend it sufficiently. There are three key arguments commonly used to defend the thesis of self-ownership: the argument from Kant, the argument from autonomy and the argument from intuition.

The argument from Kant originates can be traced back to from Nozick, he writes that the rights granted by self-ownership reflect the underlying Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not merely means: they may not be sacrificed or used for the achieving of other ends without their consent.108 So the argument here is that self-ownership rights protect individuals from being used merely as means, and not as an end also, without their consent. However, as Cohen points out, there are actually two different arguments here: the Kantian argument and the Nozickean argument.109 The Kantian argument is that it is wrong to treat people merely as a means, people must always be treated as an end. The Nozickean argument follows after the colon and is in fact different despite Nozicks effort to conflate the two. The Nozickean argument is that people may not be treated as means to an end without their consent. So the Kantian argument puts a proviso on treating people as a means in the form of treating people as an end, and the Nozickean argument puts a proviso on treating people as a means in the form of consent. I shall address the Kantian argument first.

108 109

Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p.31. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, p. 238.

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It is important to note that the Kantian argument does not indicate that it is impermissible to treat a person as a means; it indicates only that it is impermissible to treat them merely as a means. Not to ever treat people as a means is an absurd restriction on behaviour for I treat most people as a means almost every time I come into contact with them the man at the dairy I use for getting cigarettes, the bus driver I use for getting driven to university, I even treat my beloved boyfriend as a means to an end. What the Kantian argument does insist on is that whenever one uses a person as a means one must always also treat them as an end. This is a fairly acceptable moral concept and in most interactions between agents (taxation included) the caveat of respecting an individuals personhood is an expected addition. If I buy a ticket to a film I treat the ticket seller as a means, but just because I am treating her as a means does not mean I am likely to unreservedly punch her in the face and pull her hair. This is because I also respect her as a person.

Now, let us see if this argument supports the self-ownership thesis. Can we ensure people retain their right to not be treated ever as only a means without making them self-owners? I think it is reasonably obvious that the answer is yes. What is necessary to uphold Kants rule is a right to always be treated as an end by those one comes into contact with, this is not the same as the rights granted by self-ownership. If you are a self-owner I can still treat you as a mere means; I can treat the ticket seller as if she were a machine easily enough without punching her in the face and pulling her hair (thereby violating her right to self-ownership). And I can still treat you as an end 139

Comment [TD28]: No no no! This is another example of getting carried away with the cute example. And it matters her It is true that you cant (according to Kant) use the ticket seller as a mere means, but i misleading to say that that means you can do whatever you want to her the hair pulling gets in the way. Its rather than when you buy the ticket you have to treat her also as an end and that typically mea making sure that selling you the ticket is a project she adopts as a moral agent of a certain kind (ie. that its her end too) and thats going to get us to consent, which is why this might matter).

Comment [TD29]: See last comment. The problem is to show that you can treat people as ends in themselves lets say as the sort of entity which can be the author o their own life without treating them as self-owners. And that might mean much more than not punching them. It might mean getting their consent, and then were much closer to a link between treating people as ends in themselves and as selfowners.

without treating you as a self-owner. Say you have dislocated your shoulder and I see you are in great pain, even though you may wish to ban me from touching your sore shoulder, I think it is a reasonable interpretation of treating you as an ends for me to decide to try to put it back in to ease your pain. Here I have violated your self-ownership right to exclusion by acting paternalistically but I have still treated you as an end. Thus self-ownership is not necessary for protecting people from being used merely as a means by others, nor are the two obviously linked in some kind of positive relationship where one promotes the other. I do not think it is correct to put too much emphasis on this last point however because there is a relationship of some kind since self-ownership can easily promote the Kantian principle, it is just that it does not obviously always do this.

Now let us turn our attention to the Nozickean argument. The Nozickean argument is that people may not be treated as means without their consent. I follow Cohens lead here and claim that Nozicks argument is not so much an argument for self-ownership so much as it is a definition of self-ownership.110 The proviso of consent is meaningless as an argument outside a context of self-ownership because consent is an expression of the rights that constitute self-ownership. Really what Nozick is saying is that people may not be used (in any way) without their consent - this is the first right of self-ownership and therefore needs to be defended, not used as a defence for self-ownership.

110

Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, p.239.

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Putting Kant and Nozick behind us, we now move on to the argument from autonomy. The argument from autonomy is that to have autonomy we need to be self-owners. I contend (again following Cohen) that this is not a defence of self-ownership. I think this because self-ownership does not necessarily promote autonomy and can easily threaten autonomy. To demonstrate my first point, take my counterexample of the bunker baby.

Say that in a world of five people a newborn baby, once the doctor has cut the cord, is suddenly sucked down a tube and carried to a small dark concrete bunker. The bunker baby has all the rights of self-ownership, but alas, very little autonomy. So self-ownership does not necessarily go hand in hand with autonomy. To demonstrate my second point: if the doctor and the three others do not help the baby voluntarily, they may not be forced to assist her because that would go against self-ownership. Now say that the proposed policy is to coerce the doctor and her three cohabitants into giving up one strand of hair each so that a rope can be made to save the baby (set aside how unrealistic it is to make a rope out of four strands of hair). Instituting this policy would significantly increase the babys autonomy while only claiming a tiny loss in autonomy for the four others. In this case, refusing the proposed policy in favour of self-ownership threatens autonomy in general. So I conclude from this that autonomy is not an adequate defence for self-ownership.

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The final argument I mentioned that is commonly used to defend selfownership is the argument from intuition. The argument from intuition is that it goes against our most basic intuitions to deny that we own ourselves. A famous case used to appeal to our intuitions about the justness of selfownership is the eye-transplant example. In this case, we are asked if it would be just to take one of the eyes from sighted people to give to the blind, presuming that the sighted people could still see using their single eye and that transplanting the eyes into the blind would enable them to see through their lone eye. Intuitively we may feel that it is unjust to force eye transplants in such a way. This is supposed to show that self-ownership is an intuitively attractive principle. I think that the case does succeed in doing this to an extent, but only when self-ownership is the only option offered. Cohens reply to the eye-transplant argument from intuition is that it is not self-ownership that is intuitively attractive but rather a right to freedom from severe interference with our lives:

Suppose that people are born with empty eye sockets and there is a well-established practice of perinatal implantation of perfect artificial eyes by the state. Sometimes a mishap occurs in which a grown-up loses her eyes, and the only way to endow her with an eye is to take one from a sighted person If an eye-lottery is proposed by way of remedy, should we not feel as unhappy about it as we would about such a lottery for natural eyes? If so, the suggestion arises that our resistance to a lottery for natural eyes shows not belief in self-ownership but hostility to severe interference in someones life.111

111

Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, pp.243-244.

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I tend to agree with Cohen, and if he and I are correct then the argument from intuition fails to defend the thesis of self-ownership.

VI. Conclusion

This chapter addressed the thesis of self-ownership as a potential objection to compensatory justice. I set out what is meant by self-ownership, explaining that it is essentially the idea that people have the right to use themselves as they wish; to grant or deny others the use of themselves; to transfer ownership of themselves to others; and to not be made to surrender the above rights over themselves to the state. I also showed that for current purposes owning oneself makes sense as a concept. I attempted to show where the concept of self-ownership comes from by briefly explaining right libertarianism and left libertarianism. Finally I argued two things: that self-ownership is compatible with compensatory justice, and that the thesis of self-ownership is unpersuasive. I claimed that self-ownership is compatible with compensatory justice because non-voluntary redistributive taxation breaches rights people have over normal property as opposed to property of the self. I then tried to show that the argument from Kant, the argument from autonomy and the

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argument from intuition are unsuccessful in defending the thesis of selfownership.

As I have stated throughout this chapter, in order to do away with the selfownership objection to compensatory justice, one must either show that selfownership is compatible with compensatory justice, or, that it is indefensible. I claim to have achieved both of these tasks here.

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CHAPTER 76: THE CURRENCY OF LABOUR BURDEN

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I. Introduction

How compensatory justice might look in a real economy is of great interest to me, and I think it is inevitable that practical details of an ideal have an effect on how attractive it is. . The ins and outs are yet to be fully realised in any theory I know of, but I know that the first thing one needs to knows how is how to measure labour burden. This chapter attempts to give shape to a key factor in the ideal of compensatory justice: the currency of labour burden. Broadly speaking, compensatory justice aims to restore the loss in well-being caused by labour burden. This begs the questionsquestion-,But why and how does labour burden result in a loss of well-being? This all depends on what labour burden is conceived as. Some people say labour burden amounts to the effort exerted during work, others believe contribution indicates the size of sacrifice, still others define labour burden in alternative ways. This chapter seeks to determine, in detail, what compensatory justice would compensate for. Having knowledge of this key element will give further dimension to the ideal of compensatory justice, and consequently, it will assist my overall aim of finding out whether or not it is an attractive way to set wage-levels. 145

In section II, I look at effort as a possible metric for labour burden. Section III discusses whether or not the contribution that ones labour makes to society should be considered indicative of labour burden. Then in section IV, I talk about dangers experienced on the job, and why such occupational risk might signify a loss in well-being. Section V considers the concept of difficulty in occupations, and whether that might fit the bill in terms of a metric for labour burden. In section VI, I claim that in light of the previous discussions, subjective disutility is the best way to measure how burdensome a job is. Lastly, in section VII, I examine how the expensive tastes objection relates to my proposed currency of labour burden.

II. Effort

Effort is an intuitive metric of labour burden. Most people feel more comfortable when hard workers are compensated for their effort than when they are not. Take for example the ongoing support of the public for occupations renowned for requiring a lot of effort, such as teachers or nurses, in their pay disputes with Government. Conversely, it grates against our innate sense of justice that some occupations are overcompensated in terms of 146

worker effort, for instance, sustained public antipathy toward the high salaries MPs tend to receive.112 So it seems, at least at first glance, that it is acceptable to include effort in our definition of labour burden, perhaps even to equate labour burden to effort.

But how are we to defend our intuitions about effort constituting labour burden? One answer is sacrifice. Labour can be viewed as giving something up. We give up such things as time (the typical nine to five for instance, even if we just show up and do nothing), and energy (the giving of care in the case of nursery workers, physical labour in the case of stonemasons, etc.). If we take time and energy given whilst on the job to constitute effort, we can see how this might form the correct basis for compensation of labour burden. If we lose time and energy to our work, this loss is feasibly construed as labour burden. One theorist who believes effort is a sacrifice is George Sher. A notable theory relating to worker compensation via wages is explained in part of his book, Desert.113

Sher claims that the exertion of effort, amongst other things, violates an independent moral standard when placed in the context of the typical work situation.114 In this situation, the worker subordinates her own purposes to those of the employer devoting her time and energy to her employers

112 113

Members of Parliament are seen in New Zealand as holding cushy jobs. George Sher, Desert. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1987. 114 Sher, Desert, pp.122-3.

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pursuits, not her own.115 Given the tenet that each persons aims, aspirations and pursuits are valuable in themselves, and Shers inference that the objects of such are valuable, he concludes that no ones purposive activity should play a merely subordinate role.116 So Sher claims that justice calls for a response that furthers the workers purposes in turn.117 A wage is suggested to assist in the workers fulfilment of her goals.118 Sher says that effort is the most important reason for remuneration: effort is key for Sher because it reveals the workers level of purpose-subordination.119

Part of my own. Purpose-subordination, or sacrifice, fits nicely into the concept of labour burden, but is effort always a sacrifice? What if people gladly give up their time and energy? And what if workers are already compensated to some extent in non-monetary ways? I will address these issues later in detail but first I want to look at another reason why effort might be an intuitive definition of labour burden.

I wish to put forward another reason to account for the intuitive appeal of effort as constituting labour burden, and that is, that the exertion of effort is

115 116

Ibid, p.123. Ibid, p.124. 117 Ibid, p.124. 118 Ibid, p.125. 119 Ibid, p.128.

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often thought of as within the individuals control. Desert theorist Wojceich Sadurski states that:

I consider effort to be the principle criterion of desert, mainly because contribution or success reflect, among other things, factors which are beyond our control and thus for which we cannot claim any credit In the distribution of salaries according to productive efforts we are indirectly rewarding people for factors which are independent of their own will and effort.120

The view that effort is within ones control is most common amongst liberal egalitarians. John Roemer for example, speaking of his own work, says:

He separated the influences on the outcome a person experiences into circumstances and effort: the former are attributes of the persons environment for which he should not be held responsible, and effort is the choice variable for which he should be held responsible. An equal-opportunity (EOp) policy is an intervention (e.g., the provision of resources by a state agency) that makes it the case that all those who expend the same degree of effort end up with the same outcome, regardless of their circumstances. Thus, EOp levels the playing field, in the sense of compensating persons for their deficits in circumstances, making it the case that, finally, only effort counts with regard to outcome achievement.121

But it is far from uncontroversial to say that effort is within ones realm of control. Many theorists claim that we do not have control over our ability to make an effort. Rawls, for example, claims that to some extent our ability to
120 121

Wojceich Sadurski, Giving Desert its Due. Boston, Dordrecht, 1985, p.34. Roemer, Equality of Opportunity, pp.3-4.

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make an effort is influenced by natural and/or social contingencies such as the family environment within which we are raised.122 If we are not responsible for our ability to make an effort, can we be said to be responsible for the effort we do make? This touches on the problem of free will. I do not wish to enter too deeply into free will philosophy, so I shall simply take what I need out of the larger context of the free will versus determinism debate and relay it here. I wish to do so because I think knowing what will be compensated for under a scheme of compensatory justice will influence whether or not one finds it an attractive method of setting wage-levels. If effort is what partly or wholly constitutes labour burden, the issue of whether it is under our control is of vital importance.

Comment [TD30]: Im not sure Im following this but Im not sure whether thats my falut or yours. Perhaps read this through and see if its clear where its goin

I want to distinguish two possible views on effort taken from free will theory: the first claims we do have control over our efforts when our ability to make an effort is not under our control, the second claims that we do not. Robert Kane is a leading thinker on free will and claims that we have something called ownership control over all of our efforts.123 Take event-causal chain A+B+C->D for example. A, B, C, and D are all mental events (thoughts, beliefs, etc.) and D is the decision to make an effort.124 Say that A, B and C are thoughts and beliefs that have been endowed upon this individual without her input. I attach this condition because if A, B and C are the products of free

122 123

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.104. Robert Kane, On Free Will, Responsibility and Indeterminism: Responses to Clarke, Haji and Mele, Philosophical Explorations 2, 1999, p.116. 124 I do not distinguish between mental events, actions, thoughts and decisions; as far as this chapter is concerned they are simply different terms for the same thing.

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choices made by the individual, then D is an uncontroversial free choice also, meaning that the effort is within the individuals realm of control. Let us say that A is the belief that academic grades are of the highest importance. Let us say that B is the knowledge that she has an assignment due in three weeks. Lastly, let us say that C is the belief that she must start work on her assignment three weeks prior to deadline if she is to get a high grade for her assignment. D then, for the purposes of illustration, is the decision to start working on her assignment now. Kane says, that although the individual does not have causal control over D, she does have ownership control over D, because D came about using mental pieces of her.125 Ownership control is to be contrasted with causal control, where the agent causes a mental event by performing another free mental action.126 So in the words of fellow free will theorist E.J. Coffman,

Ssimply put, agents control their efforts not by causing them but by owning them. Free choices [efforts] are thus causally undetermined products of events to which agents bear a certain noncausal control relation.127

If the concept of ownership control seems slippery that is because it is, and a critique of Kanes view will hopefully illuminate this.

125 126

Kane, On Free Will, Responsibility and Indeterminism, p.116. E.J. Coffman, On Making an Effort, Philosophical Papers, v.33, no.1, March 2004, p.16. 127 Ibid, p.16.

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I shall use the countering view of Coffman to illustrate how effort can be viewed as outside ones control. Taking the same event-causal chain of A+B+C->D let us say again that A, B, and C are thoughts and beliefs that have been endowed upon this individual without her input. A is the belief that academic grades are of the highest importance, B is the knowledge that she has an assignment due in three weeks, C is the belief that she must start work on her assignment three weeks prior to deadline if she is to get a high grade for her assignment, and D is the decision to start working on her assignment now. Coffman says, that if A, B, and C are all endowed upon the individual by means beyond her control, then it stands to reason that she does not have control over her arriving at D. It seems to me that the term control is important here. Kane differentiated ownership control from causal control, and claimed that ownership control is grounds for being held personally responsible because of the noncausal but still intimate relation between the stages of the event-causal chain and the resulting effort. Coffman on the other hand, thinks that ownership control la Kane is not the kind of control over and responsibility for [effort which] we prereflectively take ourselves to enjoy in paradigm cases of Free Choice.128 Coffman elaborates by stating two principles that support her position: 1) Person X is personally responsible for mental event E only if E is up to X129, and 2) If E occupies a non-initial position in an event-causal chain, then E is up to X only if some event that is causally relevant to E is up to S.130 So in event-causal chains such as the one

128 129

Ibid, p.18. Coffman takes E is up to X to be synonymous with E is within Xs power and X has a choice about E. Ibid, p. 18 130 Coffman, On Making an Effort, pp.18-9.

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we have been looking at, the individual is not responsible for the resulting mental event. Coffman uses the following example to give force to her claims:

Consider an event that occupies a non-initial position in an event-causal chain, say, the shattering of a window by a baseball. Our shattering is caused by (inter alia) some events involving the baseball. Suppose an agent, Maggie, is such that none of the events that are causally relevant to the shattering is up to her. I submit that the shattering cannot be up to her. (How could it be? In virtue of what could the shattering be up to her?).131

Comment [TD31]: You need a bit more commentary here to show how thius helps (and why it matters).

So there are two arguments pertaining to our control over our efforts given a lack of control over our effort-making abilities. If we in fact have control over our effort-making abilities or, as Sher has claimed,132 have equal ability to make an effort, then the problem is moot. But, if we cannot say with certainty that this is so, and if making an effort is to constitute labour burden because it is something we are personally responsible for, the debate must be resolved in order to complete a theory of compensatory justice. I note here that my explanations of free will theories and their use of event-causal chains are highly simplistic and ignorant of the intricacies involved, and that much more needs to be explored before coming to a decision on our responsibility for our efforts. My aim here was to look into the concept of effort as extensively as possible because I believe it has an effect on how attractive compensatory justice is as a determinant of wages.

Comment [TD32]: I thinkt he real problem is not so much the fairly quick discussion o free will and agency theory, but that you dont say clearly enough why this matters your view.

131 132

Ibid, p.19. Sher, Effort, Ability and Personal Desert, Philosophy and Public Affairs, v.8, no.4, 1979, pp.367-70.

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III. Contribution

I now want to look at an alternative to effort for what we want to compensate for under a scheme of compensatory justice: contribution to society made whilst engaged in labour. Contribution is what one contributes to the good of society during work, for example an epidemiologist contributes to public health, and a business owner contributes to the economy by providing jobs which promote economic growth and raise the living standard of society. A well-known advocate of rewarding contribution as opposed to effort is David Miller. But Miller, by his own admission, does not have any theoretical defence of contribution without a very particular view of justice to support it.133 Miller says that defences of contribution based on utility concerns and property rights are unsatisfactory, and that although the principle seems intuitively acceptable it presents much greater difficulties of application than is commonly realised.134 Implementation issues aside, contribution must have some reason for engendering compensation if it is to be considered as constitutive of labour burden. Internal to any grand theory of justice, Sher

133 134

David Miller, Social Justice. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1976, p.114 Ibid, p.109.

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builds a defence of including contribution as a determining factor of compensatory wage-levels.135

Sher theorises that contribution deserves remuneration because it furthers the goals of the employer, and thusly indicates the furthering of others goals at the expense of the pursuit of your own.136 Remember that Sher defended the compensation of effort for this reason also. When an individuals labour is harnessed for the objectives of another individual or group of individuals, she should receive compensation that will allow her to further her own goals to the extent that her labour furthered her employers/ employers goals.137 According to Sher, because the amount of effort and the amount of contribution a person makes will affect the degree to which ones life aims are achieved, both of these factors should influence the amount of pay a worker receives when working towards the goals of another. 138

Shers defence makes sense in a tit-for-tat kind of way, which after all, is the basic premise of compensation. However, losing the value of ones contribution can only be comprehended as a loss to the employer when the contribution of the worker is viewed as property of the worker. This runs into the difficult task of defending the right to the product of ones labour. As explained in the previous chapter with reference to self-ownership, I agree
135 136

Sher, Desert, pp.130-33. Ibid, p.130. 137 Ibid, p.131. 138 Ibid, p.131.

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with Miller that defending the right to the product of ones labour is too problematic to support the contribution principle.

Michael Slote argues that the debate over whether utopian socialism (construed as the view from each according to his ability, to each according to his need) or democratic capitalism (construed as the free market with democratic freedoms) is the correct ideal of social justice, can be interpreted as disagreement over whether effort or contribution should determine economic shares of the social product.139 Slote says that socialists believe effort is the answer, while capitalists think that it is contribution.140 To clarify the debate which he calls difficult to resolve in any satisfactory way, Slote proposes the following parallelism:

Imagine, then, that a certain woman has lost a book and two friends of hers come by and volunteer to help her find it. The friends make equally conscientious efforts to find the book, and one of them succeeds in finding it and returning it to the woman who lost it. One might well wonder about such a case whether the woman who actually found the book deserves more (by way of gratitude or reward) from the friend who lost the book than does the woman who tried equally hard but failed to find the book.141

139

Michael Slote, Desert, Consent and Justice in Pojman and McLeod, What Do We Deserve?, p.211. 140 Ibid, p.211. 141 Ibid, p.213.

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Slote notes that it is human to feel more generous to the successful friend.142 The successful friend did do moredo more for the woman who had lost her book than the friend who tried but, at the end of the day, came up with nothing. But Slote also questions whether an achievement which is down to pure luck can be a sound basis for reward.143
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Remember that one reason why effort is attractive as a measure of labour burden is because it is within ones control, so making wages relative to effort means we are responsible for our wage rate. If contribution is to affect wages, that control is lost to some extent because we cannot completely control our contribution to society. Take the following example: Bob is a naturally skilled etcher and Carl is a naturally skilled IT analyst. Bobs contribution to society is etching, which at present is not in high demand and has not been for some time. Carls contribution of IT analysing on the other hand is in very high demand. If contribution is to help determine compensation for labour burden, then Carl will receive more money than Bob. This is so even though neither Bob nor Carl had control over how much of a contribution they made. Bob could change professions, or work longer and harder than Carl, but this seems to me to create an inequality. The inequality lies in the fact that Carl gives less time and energy for the same reward, because of luck. It is by chance that Carls god-given skill is more valuable to society that Bobs. But is it fair to

142 143

Ibid, p.213. Ibid, p.214.

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leave Carl, who is nevertheless contributing greatly to society, with no recognition or thanks for his contribution?

Slote tries to draw out this idea by creating two more analogies.144 The first is a scenario where you are dependent on a heart-lung machine to live. The machine is accidentally switched off, but then a passer by falls accidentally onto the switch, turning the machine on again and saving your life. Is it okay to leave the passer by unthanked just because no effort was made? Even though you would have certainly died had he not stumbled in such a way? There is a powerful intuition that this is wrong, and one should show gratitude to someone that saved your life. So Slote introduces another scenario, one in which your life is saved because a tree obstructed a bullet meant for your chest.145 Should we thank the tree? Give it extra root juice or some other tree benefit? Slote concludes that it is just too difficult to decide between effort and contribution in determining economic rewards.146 I think it is possible to say a little more on the subject.

I think the issues raised by Slote can be dealt with satisfactorily in the following way. Contribution warrants gratitude as distinct from reward. If we compensate only for effort but also give thanks and appreciation to those who contribute to society, then no injustice remains. Take the lost book example.

144 145

Slote, Desert, Consent and Justice, p.214. Ibid, p.215. 146 Ibid, p.216.

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Say the two book hunters were hired to find the book. It seems just to me that both are paid the same wage (given their efforts are equal) but the finder gets more gratitude from the woman who lost her book. This way, the woman is allowed to feel more warmly about the friend who found the book but no imbalance in labour burden remains. Further take the heart-lung machine case. You can give as much gratitude as you like to the passer by but compensating him is problematic. If the passer by asked for compensation for his contribution, this, apart from seeming rude, would go against the idea of compensating for something which has been sacrificed. Contribution signifies no loss, and thus, lacks a good reason for compensating for it.

I also agree with the famous Rawlsian argument that morally arbitrary factors should not affect distribution (taken as an isolated argument and not as part of Rawls broader theory of justice). The premier objection to using contribution as a basis for economic reward is that morally arbitrary factors have too much of an influence on ones contribution to the common good.147 Rawls says that morally arbitrary factors pertinent to distributive justice are natural abilities and social environment.148 Natural abilities and the environment one grows up to live in are unchosen features that are not the result of any conscious choice on behalf of the individual. Such things are simply endowed upon us and as such should not affect distribution of goods on the grounds that we are responsible for them because we are not responsible for them. When applied to our inquiry, this means that if I contribute more to society without
147 148

Miller, Social Justice, p.109. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p.73.

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significant effort or merely by good luck I cannot justly claim compensation for my extra contribution because I am not responsible for it. Remember Carl the IT analyst and his lucky ability to contribute more than Bob the etcher. The features that make Carl able to contribute more easily to society are arbitrary from a moral point of view, in that they are (and could only ever be) unchosen, and thus, outside the sphere of personal responsibility. Satisfied that contribution is no longer a viable constituent of labour burden, I will now move on to other possible candidates.

IV. Danger

Danger (or risk) is a widely accepted standard to judge labour burden on. Wage rates often reflect the dangers of a job. It would not be unusual for, say, a cleaner of a nice safe suburban mansion to receive $12 an hour while a cleaner of a biological warfare laboratory receives something more like $20 an hour. Dangerous occupations such as police officer and fire fighter have relatively high wage rates in the form of so-called danger money, for the added risk to ones health involved in those occupations. Empirical data has been interpreted by some economists as showing that riskiness is in fact directly proportional to real-world wages in any given occupation, with wages 160

increasing as the level of risk goes up.149 This fits with the theory of compensating wage differentials attributed to Adam Smith.150

The theory of compensating wage differentials is that in a free labour market, the combined package of labour burden and wages tends toward equality because nasty jobs will command higher wages to attract workers away from the nice jobs. Meaning that the nastier the job, the better the pay (and vice versa), until it is equally advantageous to take either an unpleasant well-paid job or a pleasant, poorly-paid one. So danger money can be seen as compensation for the burden of risk in occupations, and is often stated in defence of companies who are criticized for allowing unsafe working conditions.

Kristin Shrader-Frechette alludes to Smith in her article on the role of compensating wage differentials in the salaries of U.S. nuclear workers:

According to Smith, employers using dangerous technologies will lack employees unless they raise wages or offer some other inducement to attract workers. These hazard-pay premiums or CWDs [compensating wage differentials] thus partially compensate workers for the expected economic costs of their later work-related injury or illness. Smiths theory also suggests that the necessity for firms with risky jobs to pay higher wages

149

Chauncey Starr, General Philosophy of Risk-Benefit Analysis in, H. Ashley, R. Rudman, and C. Whipple (eds.), Energy and the Environment,. New York, Pergamon, 1976, p.16. 150 See chapter ten of book one of Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1976.

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also gives them incentives to invest in safety and health precautions.151

As one may suspect, the link between wages and risk is not beyond criticism, and many economists doubt that Smiths theory holds in real-world labour markets. 152 This is usually attributed to agent irrationality and the lack of options for many unskilled workers. Either way it is difficult to argue that danger (or risk) does not form part of what should be compensated for in a scheme of compensatory justice. What is more controversial is what else should be compensated for, which brings us to the question of difficulty do more difficult occupations warrant higher wage rates?

V. Difficulty

It seems plausible to say that compensation for labour burden should take note of how hard or easy the occupation at issue is. If my job is to do the Times Sunday crossword and yours is to play with a cute puppy, then surely my labour burden is greater than yours and I should receive more compensation than you. But the case for including difficulty in ones account of labour
151

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Risky Business, Ethics and the Environment, v.7, no.1, 2002, p.8. 152 E.g. Shrader-Frechette, 2002.

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burden is complicated once you dig a little deeper. To demonstrate, take the previous example of our respective occupations I am a crossworder and you are a puppy stroker is it still just for me to be paid a higher wage rate if I am a natural born crossworder and you have a debilitating fear of dogs (even the little cute ones)? This raises the issue of what difficulty entails. If we are to go by some objective standard, it is impossible to avoid cases where the actual difficulty felt by a worker is either higher or lower than predicted by the objective standard. If we objectively decide stroking puppies is easy and doing the Times Sunday crossword is difficult then subjective experience of such things is ignored. What about a subjective standard then? If we define difficulty by each workers subjective feelings about the difficulty of her job, the problem is avoided. If I am a normal person who finds the Times Sunday crossword infuriatingly tricky, I will be compensated for my burden. If on the other hand, I am an innately gifted crossworder, I will not. Similarly, you, having no out of the ordinary puppy-fearing foibles, will not be compensated for much labour burden since you endure little, but, if you happen to suffer from a canine-based phobia you will be paid according to the heightened difficulty this brings to your counterfactual job. But now that we are measuring difficulty by subjective standards, how does difficulty differ from effort? Difficulty, it seems to me, is an expression of how much effort is required. Nursing is a difficult job because it demands a lot of effort; same goes for surgeons, astrophysicists and others. So maybe our concern for subjective difficulty in assessing labour burden is the same as our concern for effort.

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Let us summarise what we have concluded thus far. Firstly, we saw how effort is an intuitive constituent of labour burden when conceived as time and energy sacrificed during labour. Secondly, contribution was judged as too heavily influenced by morally arbitrary factors to accurately reflect burden deserving of compensation. Thirdly, danger was set out as a relatively uncontroversial contributor to labour burden due to the generic unpleasantness of dangerous work. And lastly difficulty was unsatisfactory unless construed subjectively which was very similar to, if not the same as, effort. So we are left with danger and effort as candidates for that which compensatory justice should compensate for. There are however unresolved issues with our analysis of effort. Remember the possible problem of workers who gladly give their time and energy are these joyous Jacks and Jills a spanner in the works?

Consider two teachers, Alec and Alison. Alec skips happily to work every day faced with yet another fulfilling pedagogical adventure while Alison merely gets through the day thinking mostly of her pay check. Is it compensating each for their labour burden to pay them the same wage? Both work as hard as the other, exerting the same amount of effort for the same hours. It seems to me however that Alec and Alison have different labour burdens, since Alec is receiving a non-monetary form of compensation in the form of worksatisfaction which offsets his sacrifice to some extent. So while effort still reflects burden, we must also allow for the possibility of non-monetary benefits which already act as compensation for labour burden. This effect will 164

also counteract the burden applied by danger if the worker gets off on living on the edge, for while danger comes off as a non-controversial burden, this is due to the fact that danger is usually unpleasant. It is possible, however, for danger to be pleasant to some people and if these people are working in dangerous professions they will then have smaller labour burdens than their danger-averse co-workers.153

VI. Disutility

So now we have two things that raise ones level of labour burden (effort and danger) and two things that lower it (work-satisfaction and wages). Through the previous discussion it has become clear that what really constitutes labour burden is unpleasantness, or, disutility. Disutility encompasses all the things which need compensation because these things signify a loss of some kind. Where an occupation has intrinsic utility for the worker, as Alec experienced in the teaching example, this utility does not require compensation in the form of wages because utility is a form of compensation in itself: a gain as opposed to a loss. So the idea now is that the cut we are making for defining what we want to compensate for and what we do not is along the line of utility versus
153

How people come to have their jobs will not be addressed. I wish to set aside that complication for present purposes.

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disutility. This is because we are concerned with burden or loss endured during labour, which is precisely what disutility represents. So whether it is effort or danger or other unpleasant work experiences like dirtiness or stress if the worker suffers unpleasantness of any kind on the job, disutility captures it and takes it as cause for redress in the form of wages.

The idea of using disutility to gauge labour burden is talked about in Carens article Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions:

The underlying point is that there are many different sorts of satisfactions and dissatisfactions associated with work, and these satisfactions and dissatisfactions may vary from one individual to another. The principle of compensatory justice must take this complexity into account. It would be arbitrary to select only those differences that happened to catch our attention (for whatever reason) and to compensate for them. Perhaps the ideal should be to compensate for differences in the relative disutility associated with a persons work, using the phrase relative disutility to include all of the satisfactions and dissatisfactions associated with work.154

Disutility is the same concept used by Smith in his theory of compensating wage differentials, where he talks about the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labor, which should equalize in an ideal market as wages adjust to compensate for labour burden.155

154 155

Carens, Compensatory Justice and Social Institutions, pp.43-4. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, p.111.

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I should say further that it is subjective disutility that I am using to define labour burden because, if it was an objectively determined disutility, the definition would be tautological i.e. What is labour burden? Labour burden is disutility experienced through labour. But disutility experienced through labour is labour burden: the definition of utility is yet to be defined. It remains to be seen what is on the objective list of things that are burdensome. An objective view of disutility would need to determine what counts as disutility (danger, effort, etc.) and then determine objectively which jobs had what levels of these factors of disutility. A subjective view however, leaves the determination of what counts as burdensome to the individual who is being burdened.

VII. Expensive tastes

Disutility is a welfarist concept because it measures how well off a person is using their subjective interests as a yardstick. Because of this I must engage with the well-known objection to welfarist versions of egalitarianism: the expensive tastes objection. The expensive tastes objection is that if welfarelevels are to determine distribution, people who have expensive tastes will need more income than those with more modest tastes to achieve the same 167

level of welfare. It is thought that this is counterintuitive.156 The expensive tastes objection comes from the resourcist camp, that is, those who think the distribution of resources is the correct concern for proponents of distributive justice. The most famous resourcist is Rawls, and his attitude to expensive tastes is that:

As moral persons citizens have some part in forming and cultivating their final ends and preferences to argue [that expensive tastes be satisfied] seems to presuppose that citizens preferences are beyond their control as propensities or cravings which simply happen. Citizens seem to be regarded as passive carriers of desires.157

Another famous resourcist, Dworkin, says that:

When the question arises how wealth should be distributed among children, for example, those who are seriously physically or mentally handicapped do seem to have, in all fairness, a claim to more than others. The ideal of equality of welfare may seem a plausible explanation of why this is so. Because they are handicapped, the blind need more resources to achieve equal welfare. But the same domestic example also provides at least an initially troublesome problem for that ideal. For most people would resist the conclusion that those who have ex- pensive tastes are, for that reason, entitled to a larger share than others. Someone with champagne tastes (as we might describe his condition) also needs more resources to achieve welfare equal to those who prefer beer. But it does not seem fair that he should have more resources on that account.158

156

Dworkin, What is Equality? Part 1: Equality of Welfare, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol.10, no.3, 1981, p.189. 157 Rawls, Social Unity and Primary Goods in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, p.168. 158 Dworkin, What is Equality? Part 1, p.189.

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The key issue appears to be one of responsibility. The instinctive aversion one has to satisfying expensive tastes may come from the ethical premise that those with expensive tastes should be held responsible for the higher amount of resources they consume. Unlike Dworkins disabled child who we do not tend to think of as responsible for his claim to more resources the person with champagne tastes is quite plausibly responsible for those tastes. Rawls and Dworkin both contend that we as agents are not passive in the development of our preferences, rather we choose, as part of our selfdetermination, to attach value to certain things. If Theobald, for example, appreciates collecting rare manuscripts, he probably identifies with his passion as an important part of who he is, and not as a sort of disability that needs redress. Granting this as veritable, resourcists have employed the expensive tastes objection for simultaneously dismissing welfare, and embracing resources, as the right metric for justice in distribution.

The welfarist response to this step is epitomised in the articles of Arneson and Cohen. Arneson and Cohen both agree that the objection poses a serious problem for welfarists, but find the rejection of welfare in favour of resources to be too swift a move.159 So it is claimed that the expensive tastes objection does not sound the death knell for welfarism itself, but for one interpretation of it namely, equality of welfare. Arneson states:
159

Arneson, Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare and, Philosophical Studies, v.56, May 1989. Cohen, On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, Ethics, v.4, July 1989.

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On this understanding of welfare, equality of welfare is a poor ideal. Individuals can arrive at different welfare levels due to choices they make for which they alone should be held responsible.one person may voluntarily cultivate an expensive preference (not cognitively superior to the preference it supplants), while another person does not the example might motivate acceptance of equal opportunity for welfare over straight equality of welfare rather than rejection of subjectivist conceptions of equality altogether.160
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And Cohen says:

People with expensive tastes could have chosen otherwise, and if and when they press for compensation, others are entitled to insist that they themselves bear the cost of their lack of foresight and discipline. I believe that this objection defeats welfare egalitarianism but that it does not, as Rawls supposes, also vindicate the claims of the primary goods metric It would be utterly unjustified to adopt a primary goods metric because of the expensive tastes counter-example.161

As Simon Keller points out, it is not just equality of welfare that is vulnerable to expensive tastes, but all egalitarianisms that aim for equality of outcome/achievement. Even a strict form of equality of resources would be defeated by the expensive tastes objection according to Keller who proposes the following counterexample:
160 161

Arneson, Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare, pp.83-5. Cohen, On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, pp.913-4.

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Suppose that each member of our community has an equally sized bundle of resources. Then, Bernice gathers all her material goods together and places them inside her house, which she burns down. She does this freely and deliberately and fully aware of the consequences of her actions; perhaps she loves to watch things burn Bernice now has fewer resources than the rest of us, so if equality of resources is to be restored then we will all have to give a little of what we own to Bernice.162

Keller does not accuse Dworkin of ignoring his own problem of expensive tastes however, because Keller labels Dworkins theory (as does Arneson) as equality of opportunity for resources.163

The welfarist response to the expensive tastes objection is to alter ones conception of welfarism. Arneson and Cohen both amend equality of welfare so that the expensive tastes objection no longer applies to it. The expensive tastes objection is applicable only to theories of distributive justice that are insensitive to choice, as opposed to being applicable to theories that use a welfarist conception of well-being per se. Because of the core problem of personal responsibility, both theorists propose a shift from caring about the achievement of welfare to the opportunity for welfare. This move is summarised by Cohen:

The right way for an erstwhile welfare egalitarian to respond to the objection seems to me to be the following: To the extent that people are indeed responsible for their tastes, the relevant welfare
162

Simon Keller, Expensive Tastes and Distributive Justice, Social Theory and Practice, v.28, no.4, October 2002, p.534 163 Keller, Expensive Tastes and Distributive Justice, p.537. Arneson, Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare, p.93.

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deficits do not command the attention of justice. We should therefore compensate only for those welfare deficits which are not in some way traceable to the individuals choices. We should replace equality of welfare by equality of opportunity for welfare.164

Given that the expensive tastes objection can be avoided within a welfarist theory, the question now is whether compensation for disutility of labour avoids it or not? It does not. This is because compensation aims to restore individuals to the level of well-being prior to undertaking labour, using welfare as a gauge. So essentially compensatory justice is achievement-oriented not opportunity-oriented like Arneson and Cohens theories, which do escape the problem of expensive tastes. There are two points in the ideal of compensatory justice for disutility at which expensive tastes come into play. One is at the stage where the individuals subjective disutility is assessed, and the other is when compensation is calculated. A worker may be expensive to compensate because she is especially susceptible to labour burden, and/or, because she is inefficient as transferring her compensation into welfare. To illustrate, imagine four workers: worker 1) is a happy worker with cheap tastes, worker 2) is a happy worker with expensive tastes, worker 3) is work averse with cheap tastes, and worker 4) is work averse with expensive tastes.

164

Cohen, On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice p.914.

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Figure 2. Cheap tastes Expensive tastes

Happy worker

1) happy worker, cheap tastes

2) happy worker, expensive tastes 4) work averse, expensive tastes

Work averse

3) work averse, cheap tastes

Comment [TD33]: You dont need the descriptions in the boxes. 1, 2,3,4, would d

Worker 1 causes no injustice. Worker 2 has expensive tastes, meaning that she needs more compensation to feel as compensated as worker 1, which may be unjust if we compensate for disutility. Worker 3 is work averse, meaning that she feels a greater labour burden and thus needs more compensation to feel as compensated as worker 1, which may also be unjust. Worker 4 is work averse and has expensive tastes, meaning that she needs more compensation than all three other workers to feel the same level of compensation, which, again, seems unjust.

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The reason I use the term may above, is because there is an issue yet to be settled. The quotes from resourcists Rawls and Dworkin imply that expensive tastes are a problem for justice because satisfying them fails to hold people responsible for their choices, but this begs the question are individuals always responsible for their expensive tastes? If the answer is yes, then in workers 2 through 4 will be unjustly benefit under a scheme of compensation for disutility of labour. If the answer is no, they are never responsible for their expensive tastes, then no injustice occurs. And if the answer is sometimes, then it must be determined when workers are responsible and when they are not, if incidents of injustice are to be avoided by compensatory justice.

Amongst those theorists who discuss the expensive tastes objection, the consensus is that sometimes individuals are responsible for their preferences, and sometimes they are not. For example, Dworkin says that such tastes are often cultivated in response to beliefs beliefs about what sort of life is overall more successful-and such beliefs are not themselves cultivated or chosen.165 While Dworkin goes on to say that it is not whether or not people choose their tastes that matters but whether they experience reasonable regret at having them, I agree with Cohen that the distinction between chosen and unchosen is actually a more accurate description of the idea Dworkin seems to be getting at:

165

Dworkin, What is Equality? Part 2, p.232.

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For Dworkin, it is not choice but preference which excuses what would otherwise be an unjustly unequal distribution. He proposes compensation for power deficiencies, but not for expensive tastes, whereas I believe that we should compensate for disadvantage beyond a persons control, as such, and that we should not, accordingly, draw a line between unfortunate resource endowment and unfortunate utility function. A person with wantonly expensive tastes has no claim on us, but neither does a person whose powers are feeble because he recklessly failed to develop them. There is no moral difference between a person who irresponsibly acquires (or blamelessly chooses to develop) an expensive taste and a person who irresponsibly loses (or blamelessly chooses to consume) a valuable resource. The right cut is between responsibility and bad luck, not between preferences and resources. 166

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So Dworkin, despite his different cut, still agrees that in terms of chosen and unchosen, tastes are sometimes beyond our realm of control. Arneson echoes this thought saying that surely social and biological factors influence preference formation, so if we can properly be held responsible only for what lies within our control, then we can at most be held to be partially responsible for our preferences, as do many others.167

So we should probably conclude pending some kind of definitive proof of whether or not, or to what extent, we control our tastes that sometimes the compensation for workers such as 2, 3, and 4 will be unjust and sometimes it will not. This means that the problem of expensive tastes remains a problem for compensatory justice because sometimes people will choose to develop

166 167

Cohen, On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, p.922. Arneson, Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare, p.79.

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expensive tastes and the model of distribution will take from societys resources to pay for them.

VIII. Conclusion

This chapter explored the currency of labour burden. I explained how effort is an intuitively strong candidate for a metric of labour burden because it seems to signify a loss in well-being. I then looked at contribution as a possible marker for how deserving someone is of compensation. It was found that contribution is only sometimes burdensome and that it relies heavily of the self-ownership argument, which I believe to be flawed. Danger, like effort, was deemed to be heavily suggestive of a loss in well-being and therefore likely to be something which should be included in a metric of labour burden. Difficulty was shown to be an expression of effort, in that how hard a job is really the same as how much effort a job requires. I believe that it therefore ceases to be a distinct concept. I concluded that the reason why effort seemed like the right metric of labour burden is that it has a negative impact on wellbeing, but because effort does not always have this effect I suggested disutility is a more fitting concept. Finally I stated that because disutility is a

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welfarist notion it makes compensatory justice susceptible to the expensive tastes objection to some extent.

CHAPTER 8:

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CONCLUSION

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It is my hope that this thesis has shed some light on the distributive ideal of compensatory justice. I think this exploration has shown that compensatory justice is an attractive system for determining how much workers should be 177

paid. It is in line with both everyday moral intuitions, and egalitarian ideas of fairness. I do not take the thesis of self-ownership to be a threat to compensatory justice because I believe it to be unconvincing. I think disutility is the correct way to conceive of labour burden. This is because disutility reflects a concern for personal responsibility without neglecting those things we do not control. However it is my opinion that the expensive tastes objection puts a rather large dent in the attractiveness of compensatory justice, and therefore must be addressed in any defence of it. While many of its aspects and nuances remain vague, I claim to have begun the theoretical groundwork required to bring compensatory justice to life.

Initially, I gave an in depth analysis of compensatory justices prima facie compatibility with various types of egalitarianism. I did this to explore my intuition that egalitarians in particular might find see who might find compensatory justice attractive. In order to do this I gave a run down of how I classify the many views that dwell within egalitarianism, and outlined the concept of compensatory justice. On completion of my analysis, I concluded that all versions of the equality view are prima facie compatible with compensating for labour burden. Compensatory justice requires equality in the space of labour-burden-plus-income and is therefore egalitarian itself. However, instrumental, personal and beneficial egalitarianisms are more likely to conflict with compensatory justice than intrinsic, impersonal, justicebased and procedural ones. So it is more likely that compensatory justice would be attractive to egalitarians who value equality for those reasons. 178

Then I then moved on to an analysis of the moral make-up of compensatory justice. I showed why I believe that desert and equality of opportunity are the moral foundations of compensatory justice. I did this to expose the values that lie at the core of compensatory justice so its appeal could be more easily estimated. Since desert and equality of opportunity they are both broad principles, it was necessary for me to point out exactly what kind of desert, and exactly what kind of equality of opportunity, are responsible for compensatory justices structure. I argued that deontic, pre-institutional, nonconclusive, moral desert, and substantive equality of opportunity, also known as responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, were the particular kinds of desert and equality of opportunity that lie behind the ideal of compensatory justice. Having described these two types, I aimed to show that they were in fact one, identical concept. Rather than being two distinct principles, I claimed my conception of moral desert and responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism to be two different names for essentially the same thing.

In chapter 65 I dealt with the self-ownership objection to compensatory justice. This is because I think the validity of the self-ownership argument directly affects the attractiveness of compensatory justice as a means of setting wage-levels. Using Taylors argument, I tried to show that people who are self-owners can justly have their income taxed. My main point was that the product of ones labour is distinct from the self, and it is therefore not 179

subject to property rights over the self. Furthermore, I argued that the thesis of self-ownership is undefended. This is because the argument from Kant, the argument from autonomy and the argument from intuition, are all unconvincing from my point of view.

CMy final chapter 7 was dedicated to finding out how labour burden should be gauged. This is because, I think in order to judge compensatory justice as a fully developed ideal of distributiondirective for setting wage-levels, one must know its key details. To my mind, no detail is more key, than how labour burden is to be conceived. I argued that effort and danger were viable metrics of labour burden because they were expressions of disutility, and that therefore disutility is the correct currency of labour burden for compensatory justice. However, I believe that disutility is susceptible to the expensive tastes objection because it is a welfarist concept and this impacts negatively on how attractive compensatory justice is as a distributive ideal..

Compensatory justice is, in my opinion, an attractive way to determine wage ratesviable ideal for egalitarians or desert theorists to adopt. It is compatible with the equality view, and very similar to responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism and moral desert in its principles. Although there is much fleshing out of the concept to be done, including a response to the expensive tastes objection, it is my view after looking into compensatory justice, that it has significant promise as an ideal of distributive justice.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Phew. There is some very nice material here, but it needs reorganising and focussing. A lot of stuff in the early part is pretty hard going: theres a lot of taxonomy without much obvious pay off and a lot of the material at the end, which seems more focused doesnt really seem to call on the material in those 184

earlier parts. I think you need to think just what your thesis is and argue for it, asking yourself for each bit of taxonomy, how does this help? I would put some of the cases much more to the fore, at the beginning, so you can organise the material around them. Perhaps mainly, as it stands, its hard to keep an eye on the thesis the claim thats being argued for, and I think something needs to be drawn out at the beginni9ng and used to organise the material.

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