Exigencia básica HS 5: Evacuación de aguas

This chapter has established that Dworkin’s theory cannot justify restrict-ing wealth inheritance coherently to a broad range of intuitions in a liberal democracy without some modifications. This was achieved by raising three problems for Dworkin’s theory.

Firstly, in response to the Harshness Problem I suggested that Dworkin’s theory must be reread as focusing on social institutions. This is opposed to Dworkin’s original focus on individual transactions. Applying GT1 and GT2 to social institutions means that wealth inheritance would be restricted only when it affects the lives of others. This would mean that Dworkin’s attempt to satisfy those who hold the luck intuition would not be incoherent with proposing a theory of distributive justice in a liberal democracy.

Secondly, in response to the Wrong Focus Objection I suggested that

the focus on social institutions would mean that Dworkin’s theory would also hold individuals responsible for the way they were connected in polit-ical relationships. To that end I suggested that Dworkin’s theory should adopt an understanding of responsibility as a reciprocal relation between individuals and social institutions. This would mean that Dworkin’s fo-cus on equalising resources, like inherited wealth, would not be incoherent with the normative ideal of equality because Dworkin’s principles would also apply to the social relationships between individuals.

The final criticism considered was Cohen’s use of his theory of Equal Access to Advantage to challenge the coherency of Dworkin’s justification for restricting wealth inheritance. I argued it was incoherent for Dworkin to restrict wealth inheritance when resources were unequal but choose not to when unchosen opportunities for welfare were unequal. Cohen’s argu-ment is that Dworkin makes an unjustified distinction between preferences and circumstance. Cohen argues that his theory is better than Dworkin’s because it does not require this distinction to answer the nominative con-cerns of the opportunity and luck intuition coherently. Cohen argues that only by equalising all types of unchosen disadvantages can a restriction of wealth inheritance be consistent. To that end, Cohen’s challenge has shown that Dworkin must either reinterpret his theory or adopt parts of Cohen’s theory to avoid arbitrarily discriminating between cases of brute luck disadvantage.

Some of the costs for adopting an institutional interpretation included the potential for Dworkin’s theory to weaken its conception of moral re-sponsibility too much and that to compensate a robust theory of democracy may be required.¹¹ It also appears that according to Cohen, Dworkin’s the-ory needs to justify why resources are worthy of being equalised instead of

11It appears that only a theory of democratic political institutions would realise the solution and that a distributive theory alone cannot. Another cost is that if Dworkin chooses to adopt a robust theory of democracy, then luck-egalitarianism may appear to be indistinguishable from Anderson’s conception of “Democratic Equality” which forms an important part of a distinct theory of relational-egalitarianism.

opportunities for well-being. Although these solutions and their costs will be examined in Chapter 5, it is clear that Dworkin’s restriction of wealth inheritance cannot be justified without modification.

Solutions for Rawls and Dworkin

The last three chapters steadily raised issues for using Rawls and Dworkin’s theories to justify restrictions on wealth inheritance. Chapter 2 targeted Rawls’s theory and Chapter 3 targeted Dworkin’s theory. While I already offered solutions to four of the problems raised in Chapters 2 and 3, in this Chapter I offer solutions to the remaining problems. In the next chapter I will use the solutions I suggest below to analyse the comparative costs and benefits for Rawls and Dworkin. The analysis will conclude that Dworkin’s theory is better suited to the task of justifying restrictions on wealth inheritance than Rawls’s theory.

I offer solutions in this Chapter to establish the best versions of Rawls and Dworkin’s theories to use in the comparative analysis in Chapter 5. If the problems I discuss in this Chapter are left unanswered they will be sig-nificant theoretical costs to Rawls and Dworkin. These costs include, being motivationally incoherent, making incoherent distinctions, the inability to answer all three normative intuitions in some way and the inability to give equal weight to each of the three intuitions. The last two costs are espe-cially troubling because they attack the central reason for including Rawls and Dworkin as candidates. As I outlined in the Introduction, Rawls and

Dworkin expect to justify their theories to a range of intuitive concerns in a liberal democracy. Rawls and Dworkin do not expect their theories to reveal metaphysical truths about justice. They expect their theories to describe a system of normative principles which are justifiable to a broad range of intuitive normative judgements.

The problems I discuss in this Chapter appear in an order of priority.

This means that I will first offer solutions to the two internal problems against Rawls’s theory and then to the most significant challenge against Dworkin’s theory. To that end I begin by offering a solution to the Distinc-tion Problem that I raised in Chapter 2. The DistincDistinc-tion Problem is that Rawls’s theory does not give a coherent justification for treating wealth inheritance similar to natural talent but different to social class. I offer a solution to avoid the comparative cost of an incoherent justification. This comparative cost means that the way Rawls’s theory justifies restricting wealth inheritance to those who hold the luck intuition would be incoher-ent. This would be a comparative disadvantage over Dworkin’s theory.

The normative judgement that grounds the luck intuition is that a just society should not hold individuals morally responsible for being born into a high social class or having wealthy bequeathers. Rawls must justify why he chooses to treat these two events differently when they are both judged identically by those who hold the luck intuition.

The second problem I offer a solution to is the Structural Injustice Problem I introduced in Chapter 2. This problem is that Rawls’s theory does not answer the normative concerns of the luck intuition because it permits wealth inheritance to contribute to social behaviours that limit the choices open to individuals. Permitting wealth inheritance in this way is contrary to the intuitive judgement made by those who hold the luck intuition that individuals should not be held responsible for how unchosen social behaviours and values disadvantage them. This means that those who hold the luck intuition will not find Rawls’s restriction of wealth inher-itance justifiable. I offer a solution to avoid this comparative cost because

a theory that cannot justify itself to one of the three normative intuitions cannot claim to be broadly justifiable in a liberal democracy.

The third problem I propose a solution for is Cohen’s use of his theory of Equal Access to Advantage to challenge Dworkin’s theory. Cohen’s chal-lenge is that the coherent way to justify restricting wealth inheritance is by restricting all forms of brute luck and not just unchosen circumstances.

Cohen argues this because it seems Dworkin’s theory restricts wealth heritance without taking into account the effect of restricting wealth in-heritance for individuals with other unchosen passions or capabilities for well being. This would be a comparative cost because it is incoherent with the normative judgement of the luck intuition that individuals should not be held responsible for the disadvantages of unchosen phenomena. Cohen argues the only way to avoid this is to adopt, at least in part, Cohen’s theory of equalising access to advantage instead of resources. I offer a so-lution to avoid the comparative cost because it involves a large conceptual departure from Dworkin’s original arguments and motivations. All three of the problems I have outlined demand either a response that reinterprets or modifies Rawls and Dworkin’s original theories.

But before exploring the solutions, let us remind ourselves of how Rawls and Dworkin set out to justify restricting wealth inheritance. This outline will include the solutions I offered in Chapters 2 and 3 to Cohen’s Distilled Arguments, the Harshness Problem and the Wrong Focus Objection.

Rawls (2001: 42, 51–53) justifies restricting wealth inheritance by proposing that unrestricted wealth inheritance violates his two principles of justice. Wealth inheritance violates the second principle of justice be-cause it allows similarly talented and motivated individuals to have un-equal opportunities to attain social and economic goods. However, wealth inheritance should only be restricted insofar as it is most beneficial to the least advantaged in society. Rawls (2001: 42, 114) answers the liberal in-tuition using his first principle of justice which does not permit a society to completely restrict a bequeather’s freedom to dispose of their private

property. This is because the freedom to accumulate and dispose property is a primary good that all free and equal people desire when endorsing a fair system of social cooperation.

Rawls (2001: 43) then answers the opportunity intuition using his sec-ond principle of justice which entails that wealth inheritance should be restricted because it does not give all individuals an equal opportunity to attain social and economic goods. For Rawls, equality of opportunity is more than the formal equality of allowing all individuals to participate in the market or treating them as equal citizens. It is the equal chance for all individuals regardless of their social class to compete against others.

Inequalities of opportunities are only permitted when they are to the great-est advantage for the worst off. Rawls’s theory answers the luck intuition by specifying the types of things that contribute to unequal opportunities, namely social contingencies that individuals should not be held responsible for. These contingencies include lucky events that affect an individual’s prospects in life. Wealth inheritance is one such contingency that provides some individuals significantly more capital in their lives than others and hence more opportunities.

Nevertheless, Rawls’s original theory prioritises the opportunity intu-ition because the difference principle sets out the limits for equalising op-portunities. One consequence of Cohen’s argument in Chapter 3 was to modify Rawls’s theory from treating inequalities as necessary to treating inequalities as contingently permissible. As a consequence opportunities should not be equalised at all costs because an inequality can be permis-sible if it is of the greatest advantage to the worst off. This is because Rawls (2001: 62–63) believes that the best way for all individuals to have an equal chance to attain the primary goods that all free and equal people desire is to have a productive society. According to Rawls a society can only be productive enough to advantage those in the lowest social class if individuals have an incentive to be productive. This incentive includes the ability to accumulate more resources than others and the ability to

further the lives of their descendants through inherited wealth. There-fore an emphasis on equalising opportunities does not mean neutralising or confiscating all instances of inherited wealth but only restricting wealth inheritance to the extent that it benefits the least advantaged most.

On the other hand Dworkin’s original theory prioritises the luck intu-ition by proposing the abstract egalitarian principle and the principle of abstraction (2000: 128, 147–148). The general normative theses - GT1, GT2 and GT2.1 which I introduced in Chapter 3 - codify a general concep-tion of Dworkin’s principles and the means to implement them. Dworkin’s theory entails that a just society should restrict wealth inheritance because it is a form of brute luck that distributes resources unequally through a process that individuals do not choose. Dworkin justifies his claim on the basis that wealth inheritance violates both GT1 and GT2. To this end, Dworkin answers the luck intuition primarily through GT2, because GT2 specifies that the effects of brute luck, not option luck, on an individual’s social and economic state of affairs should be minimised as much as pos-sible. Since wealth inheritance is an instance of brute luck, this means that it should be converted as efficiently as possible into a form of option luck. This is because wealth inheritance is an unchosen advantage that individual’s cannot be held responsible for.

Dworkin answers the opportunity intuition using GT2 and GT2.1 which prescribe that a just society should equalise resources and the freedom for individuals to use their resources. For Dworkin (2000: 77–78, 128, 147–

148), the transformation of brute luck into option luck means giving all individuals an equal chance to use their social and economic freedoms. This entails the freedom to use their resources to make choices about leading their lives. In short, the formal equality of political and economic freedoms combined with transforming brute luck into option luck using insurance schemes ensures that all individuals have an equal opportunity to lead a life for which they can be held responsible. This does not mean that equal-ity of opportunequal-ity is the primary concern for Dworkin. Dworkin’s theory

allows gross inequalities in opportunities, even to the extent that it makes the worst off even more disadvantaged, so long as the inequality is a result of a direct choice or option luck. Dworkin answers the liberal intuition using GT2.1 because it prescribes that all individuals should have the per-sonal freedoms that are compatible with the efficient running of insurance schemes and markets. This can include an individual’s right to bequeath since bequeathing is a choice, even though inheriting is not. Therefore inheritors must bear the true opportunity cost of lucky circumstances like being born to wealthy ancestors.

Unlike Rawls, Dworkin’s original theory prioritises the luck intuition.

This is evident in the way he approaches the concept of distributive justice.

Dworkin starts from a desire to equalise the power individuals derive from their private ownership of resources. Dworkin’s initial motivation is to legitimise an equal division of resources. For this he relies on the envy test and the auction (2000: 67–69). Both of these devices ground the legitimacy of equal resource distributions in the moral responsibility that individuals have to bear the costs of their choices. Wealth inheritance is one act that violates this responsibility because it does not present individuals with a choice. Therefore individuals cannot be held responsible either for its advantages or its disadvantages. Dworkin’s initial link between choice and equality is what makes him prioritise the luck intuition above the opportunity and liberal intuition.

Nevertheless Dworkin’s theory has been modified slightly from his orig-inal account to solve the Harshness Problem and Wrong Focus Objection.

These changes modify GT2, by specifying in more detail when and what parts of a just society should hold individuals responsible for their choices.

Three changes are made. First, that social institutions hold individuals responsible for their choices by educating them about the potential risks of their choices. Second, that some level of mandatory insurance is per-missible to ensure that individuals understand the inevitable risks of their choices for other people. Third, that responsibility is a reciprocal relation

between social institutions and individuals. While the consequences of the first two changes are obvious, the third change suggests a more developed conception of moral responsibility. This developed conception means mak-ing all individuals equally responsible for their social interactions through society’s institutions.

In the following sections I develop Rawls and Dworkin’s theories further from the way I have outlined them so far. In §§4.1–4.2 I offer solutions to resolve internal problems about the coherency of Rawls’s normative machinery. In §4.3 I offer two defences of Dworkin’s theory against Cohen’s challenge.