Diseño de la interfaz de Usuario

PREMISE

The fair equality thesis that appeals to equal compliance runs as follows25:

 Beneficiaries should do their share if there are cooperators who do theirs,

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other things being similar. [Normative premise]

 There are cooperators who do their share. [Factual premise]

 Thus, beneficiaries should do their share, other things being similar.

First of all, the fair equality thesis needs to satisfy the factual premise that there are cooperators who do their share. In exploring this, it will be demonstrated that equal compliance is sensitive to prospective inequality.

Inequality-sensitive equal compliance should satisfy the factual premise of the fair equality thesis. The normative premise of the thesis reaches the conclusion on condition that there are cooperators who do their share. Even though the fact that there are cooperators who do their share does not justify the fairness obligation to be imposed on beneficiaries, it is necessary for the fact to be the case in order for the fair equality thesis to reach its conclusion. If there are no cooperators, then the fair equality thesis cannot be justified on the basis of comparative egalitarianism which is sensitive to inequality between the compliance of cooperators and the non-compliance of beneficiaries. In order to balance the compliance of cooperators and the non-compliance of beneficiaries, there have to be cooperators who do their share. Thus, it needs to be validated that there are cooperators who do their share.

As mentioned earlier, it is impossible that there are no cooperators because there will be no goods at all without cooperators. The fact that there are beneficiaries who are to do their share in return for their benefit means that there are cooperators who have done their share, through which the goods are made available to beneficiaries. Thus, there is no doubt that there are cooperators who

have done their share when there are beneficiaries yet to come under the fairness obligation.

One may point out two cases where the counter party may be missing in establishing equality. There may be no preceding cooperators who have done their share but only the first ever cooperators. The first ever cooperators should comply with the rules of cooperation just as who has complied with them? For example, twenty people need a well in their small village and try to dig one. Every one of them is able to join the work and is required to do so. They are only the first cooperators who are required to cooperate. Equality between them and whom is the reason for them to comply with the requirement?

In addition, to take another example, when some people drop litter in the public streets, they benefit from the cooperation of others who will have raised would-be-unnecessary public funds for dustmen. There is no inequality between litter droppers and non-droppers until the latter pay for dustmen. In cases like these where a negative externality is produced, there are no cooperators who have done their share, so there is no actual inequality.

It is not hard to overcome the problem of the missing counterpart, the first cooperators, in achieving equal compliance. The first cooperators should comply as equally as their fellow cooperators do26. Just as their fellow cooperators submit themselves to digging a well, the first cooperators have to submit, too. This is of course not sensitive to actual inequality between the parties in question because it is yet before fellow cooperators have done their share that the first cooperators are required to do their share. There is no

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imbalance between the non-compliance of the first cooperators and the compliance of fellow cooperators until the latter have done their share. Therefore, what comparative egalitarianism can be sensitive to is prospective inequality that may be caused by the non-compliance of the first cooperators if fellow cooperators have done their share. It is indubitable that there are fellow cooperators; otherwise there will be no goods for the first cooperators. As a matter of fact, there is no significant temporal gap between the act of benefiting by the first cooperators and the act of cooperating by fellow cooperators because it is only when there are fellow cooperators who do their share that the first cooperators can benefit from their cooperation. Thus, it is obvious that the first cooperators will cause an inequality by their non-compliance when there must be some fellow cooperators.

Inequality between future cooperators and beneficiaries of negative externality may be caused by the latter‟s non-compliance. There is no actual inequality between beneficiaries and future cooperators until the latter have done their share. However, comparative egalitarianism is sensitive to prospective inequality that may arise between the non-compliance of beneficiaries and the compliance of future cooperators who will have done their share.

There may be no future cooperators, in which case the counterpart of inequality is missing. If the future generations do not comply, beneficiaries of negative externality cannot cause inequality by their non-compliance. There cannot be beneficiaries without future cooperators. If a small number of people drop a trivial amount of litter in public streets, other people do not need to raise public funds for dustmen. The small number of litter droppers do not benefit

from the cooperation of others. If there are no prospective cooperators for the removal of the negative externality, there will be no beneficiaries of the compliance of prospective cooperators. Neither comparative egalitarianism nor the principle of fairness is of use when there are neither cooperators nor beneficiaries. Therefore, the cases where there are no beneficiaries or future cooperators have nothing to do with the principle of fairness.

In sum, it is obvious that there are cooperators who do their share; they may be cooperators who have done their share, the first fellow cooperators who are doing their share, or the future cooperators who will have done their share. Equal compliance between these cooperators and beneficiaries needs to be accomplished by the compliance of the latter.