I have expounded Cohen’s metric of access to advantage, his view of responsibility, and his reliance on the notion of needs in his argument. His argument against equality of resources is that people have bad luck in the price of satisfying their preferences for things which they need, and that where this is the case they should receive a greater than equal share of resources in order to maintain equality. In this section I will argue that it is wrong to compensate people for their bad price luck. First of all, I will consider that bad price luck claims would violate the continuity test. I will then consider an alternative Cohenian continuity test and argue that this test is inferior to the resources- based continuity test.
I said above in response to the problem of bad preference luck that equality of resources implies that people should be held responsible for the true opportunity costs of their activities; for what is expressive of their personality and not simply their circumstances. This can be generalised into a test for disadvantages that are worthy of compensation—for which people should not be liable. This continuity test indicates the limits on the kind of compensation that people can request from others. According to this test, only claims that are continuous with one’s ethical commitments are acceptable.222 Paul the photographer’s claim that he is disadvantaged by his expensive leisure pursuit is discontinuous with his beliefs. If Paul claims that he needs additional resources to meet his more expensive preferences he would need to claim that preference satisfaction is his aim in life.223 However, if he were really interested in preference satisfaction he would presumably want to make his preferences as cheap as possible. Instead, Paul wishes to claim that his particular preference is a disadvantage,
222
Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue at 294-5, Williams, 'Equality for the Ambitious', at 387, Clayton, 'The Resources of Liberal Equality', Rasmus Sommer Hansen and Søren Flinch Midtgaard, 'Sinking Cohen's Flagship — or Why People with Expensive Tastes Should Not Be Compensated', Journal of Applied Philosophy, (2011), 1-14 at 4-5.
223 If he merely claimed that photography was his aim in life then this would not be an attractive
basis for allotting resources; it violate the egalitarian and/or anti-perfectionist principles to focus resources on photographers.
78 while not accepting preference satisfaction as his aim in life. If it is continuous with his ethical beliefs, and he has assignment responsibility for his ethical beliefs, then it would be wrong to limit his liability-responsibility for the pursuit.
Complaints about resource inequalities do not fall foul of the continuity test because they do not involve any ethical commitments on the part of the parties involved; Jude can complain that he envies the resources of others in his society who could afford to go on holiday—to do what he wants to do—while he cannot. Jude is only claiming that he has fewer resources.
Cohen argues that people can regret the price of their preferences without rejecting those preferences. He therefore appears to be accepting the idea of a continuity test, but specifying it differently. I will now consider two alternative interpretations of the continuity test, both of which are suggested to me by his discussion. The first is suggested by Cohen in his response to the continuity test. This is that people should phrase their complaint not in terms of what they themselves count as important, but in terms of what is important tout court.224 This tout court continuity test would appear to be self-defeating, however, since it would appear to provide an external answer to questions of justice; why do we need to ask people what they envy about others if the answer is always in terms of what is taken to matter tout court?225 Such a test would give up on attempts to determine equality based upon the values and choices of each individual. Since it would require a notion of what matters it is perfectionist. After all, it would need to say what forms of welfare and needs matter and to what extent in order to determine whether the envy that someone has is legitimate or not tout court.
224 Cohen, 'Expensive Tastes Rides Again', at 25.
225 Hansen and Midtgaard, 'Sinking Cohen's Flagship — or Why People with Expensive Tastes Should
79 The second alternative interpretation of the continuity test is a needs-based continuity test.226 Paul can reject not the taste itself, nor the desires of others as calculated in a market process, but the greater expense of meeting his need for leisure than that faced by others.227 Since the needs-based test focuses on needs rather than the particular taste in question, it would appear to avoid the problem that Paul would have to reject his self-affirmed desire to make photographs as part of his fundamental ethical commitments. This needs-based test would also allow Cohen to provide a different answer to the expensive tastes of Louis to that of Paul, since Louis’ tastes do not relate to his needs.228 Put in terms of an envy-test, people envy others’ cheap needs, not cheap tastes. Either one would problematize the use of the market, but the former is much more reasonable than the latter. It is on the basis of this needs-based continuity test that Cohen’s examples gain their traction. This continuity test is more attractive than the previous one on the basis that we might not begrudge others greater resources than ourselves if it is necessary in order for them to meet needs, while we would feel aggrieved at missing out on resources in order for another person to obtain what they simply desire.
There are many problems with this needs-based test, however. The first is that is a controversial issue as to what counts as a need, and what the specific nature of this need is. It is fairly straightforward in biological cases, such as the need for food, to say that a human needs x calories and y litres of water a day in order to survive. However, to the extent that we can un-controversially accept some matters to be needs, equality of resources would provide for these. People would have an equal amount of resources to others to meet these simple needs. In addition, the requirement that people have freedoms and authenticity in order to ensure that true opportunity costs are met
226
Indeed, Andrew Williams was partly influenced by Cohen when first describing the continuity test, Williams, 'Equality for the Ambitious', at 388.
227
Cohen, 'Expensive Tastes Rides Again', at 25.
228 Cohen seems to tie himself in knots attempting to argue that Louis has deliberately cultivated the
taste, Ibid. at 21. As Dworkin argues, Louis perhaps had a second order un-chosen taste than led him to desire to cultivate expensive tastes Dworkin, 'Ronald Dworkin Replies', at 347.
80 means that people would have a decent starting position in which their needs are met. Furthermore, if people cannot take care of their needs through their resource share they would also have had the option to purchase hypothetical insurance to cover the costs of their needs. Most people would insure for homeless shelters and soup-kitchens in case they should find themselves destitute.
Unlike the simple cases of need described above, in the cases of leisure activities upon which Cohen appears to rely it is less obvious what the need is. With the exception of the biological requirements for survival, the extent to which different parts of life generate needs is bound to be controversial.229 Some people may feel that they should go without leisure activities altogether and dedicate themselves to their careers and/or loved ones. How much leisure should each person have? Should there be a limit on the cost of a leisure pursuit—should someone whose only leisure interest is to visit outer space receive the required compensation? In Paul’s case, is it enough that he can read about professional photographers and observe them as they go about their activities, or does he need to have his own camera, film and dark-room? Paul’s assignment responsibility over his life implies that he should decide upon his leisure activities based upon the resources available to him.