INFRAESTRUCTURAS Y SERVICIOS DE GESTIÓN DE RESIDUOS

This work has been located within the domain of distributive justice. But this is a surprisingly problematic claim. This chapter examines further what some of the reasons are for characterizing luck egalitarianism as a theory of distributive justice, some of the difficulties of so doing, and some important implications of this.

The what and the why of equality

Beliefs about equality, luck and choice are central to luck egalitarianism. However, luck egalitarians can, and do, disagree over what ought to count when trying to determine whether someone is worse off or better off. They disagree, that is, over what exactly needs to be equalized. In general terms, luck egalitarians, like all egalitarians, believe that the benefits and burdens of social co-operation should be shared equally, or that each person should be equally well off as regards the distribution of the numerous advantages and disadvantages that accrue to the members of a society. A number of more specific candidates have been suggested that spell out what is meant by this; welfare, well-being, resources (income and wealth), opportunities, primary goods and capabilities are some of the more commonly discussed ones. However, this can be set aside to some extent, as what exactly we ought to distribute equally is not the most fundamental question for egalitarians and is certainly not critical to luck egalitarianism.

That last statement is by no means obvious and needs some defending. A glance at the philosophical literature on egalitarianism for the past thirty odd years would appear to support the belief that what we should be distributing equally is of major concern. Dating particularly from Amartya Sen’s paper, “Equality of What?” (1979), there has been intense debate over the correct metric of equality, to which many of those seen as canonical luck egalitarians have contributed. Sen (1992, p. 4) claims that “equality of what?” is the central issue that differentiates egalitarian theories. While there is also the not unimportant question of “why equality?” this is, for him, of only secondary concern. He sees the question of what to equalize as being central for a number of reasons. One is the perfectly reasonable point that we can hardly make judgements of equality or inequality if we do not know in what respect we ought to be comparing individuals. Another is that Sen believes that all major ethical theories advocate for some particular principle of equality; even theories generally considered to be virulently and explicitly anti-egalitarian in fact have somewhere in them a principle of equality. So, for example, the libertarianism of Nozick appeals to a principle of equality when it claims that each person has an equal bundle of inviolable rights and liberties.

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However, luck egalitarianism is not at heart making a claim about what the right focal variable ought to be. What is distinctive about luck egalitarianism is not any particular claim about what ought to be equalized. Indeed, those generally called luck egalitarian are clearly not being identified as such on the basis of any agreement over the right focal variable.

Look, for example, at four of those seminal luck egalitarian thinkers originally identified as such by Anderson (1999). Ronald Dworkin⁵⁷ (Dworkin, 1981a, 1981b, 2000) argues for equality of resources, Richard Arneson (1989) for equality of opportunity for welfare, G.A.

Cohen (1989) for equality of access to advantage and Philippe Van Parijs (1995) for an unconditional basic income. What is distinctive about luck egalitarians comes out of noting that they appeal to the core principles that individuals should not be disadvantaged or advantaged solely because of bad or good luck but that, under suitable circumstances, it is proper to hold agents responsible for the outcomes of their choices and so some inequalities are not unjust. These principles are not about what needs equalizing. This is not to say that luck egalitarianism holds that what ought to be equalized is unimportant, but instead, that it takes the question of why we should equalize the focal variable as being of greater importance to the egalitarian project than Sen allows.

Tan (2008) argues that luck egalitarianism should most properly be seen as supplying a motivating or grounding principle that tells us why distributive equality matters. Luck egalitarians say it matters because people’s lives matter, they matter equally and people’s life prospects ought not to be predominantly a matter of luck. Taking this seriously means not allowing morally arbitrary factors to influence the distribution of those things that are important to how a life goes. Tan argues too that it is a separate matter what substantive principles are entailed by this. By this he means that it is a further question what should be distributed equally and how it should be distributed. He claims that substantive principles do not just fall out of the luck/choice principle but require further investigation of the implications of this principle. This echoes a similar point made by Cohen (1989) concerning what he called the equalisandum of equality. Cohen writes that egalitarians can disagree over the equalisandum of equality, over precisely in what way we should make people equal, but he thought that, whatever the equalisandum is, they should agree that it should not be a matter of luck how it is distributed.

Philosophically, but perhaps not from the standpoint of political feasibility, Cohen and Tan seem on firmer ground than Sen in giving priority to the question of why distributive equality matters. It is more likely that the grounding principles for a principle of equality can be argued for independently of what the distributable substantive good is, rather than the

57 It is normally acknowledged that Dworkin rejects the claim that he is a luck egalitarian (Dworkin &

Burley, 2004), but this is generally ignored as he fits the label as well as anybody else so identified.

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other way around. Determining substantive principles is a separate exercise involving arguments about what else is valuable, what matters as well as equality, what things are in a person’s interests, what things make a life go better or worse, and many of these will vary across individuals. But it will also depend much more on what you think the most fundamental principles of equality are. Believing a distribution should be largely free of the influence of luck is likely to have implications for thinking about what we should be equalizing. This is because luck may not be morally relevant or applicable to the distribution of some goods. For instance, friends and marriage partners are counted as great goods and luck clearly plays a part in who can become our friends or spouse. But such human relationships do not seem to be of the right nature for considering them the sort of good where luck can be the grounding concern governing their distribution. It would be very peculiar for luck egalitarians (or any egalitarian) to demand as a matter of justice that friends and spouses be equally distributed, even if such a thing would be nice and help lives to go better. However, other factors, that have an influence on who we can meet, do appear to be of the right nature. We may be concerned about the distribution of wealth and income or access to schools and universities. These have a big effect on whom we meet and therefore on the people who can become our friends or spouses. But the actual distribution of friends itself is not a legitimate focus of egalitarian concern.

To illustrate the pertinence of why over what further, John White (1994) mounts an argument which is representative of a particular critique of egalitarianism. He rejects egalitarianism, and egalitarianism as a basis of educational policy, because he thinks the answers offered for “why equality?” are inadequate, not because he is concerned about the appropriate focal variable. White is perhaps being somewhat disingenuous, or maybe just tendentious, when he says that he fails to see that the proponents of equality give any reason for the desirability of equality. He says this immediately after quoting from a writer (Nielsen, 1985) who defends equality on the grounds of fairness. To my mind fairness is a substantial reason in support of equality. Nevertheless, I think White’s concern with “why equality?” is indeed the more fundamental question and concerns about the focal variable do not have much grip until that is answered.

White argues that egalitarianism is dead in the water if no good reason, more than just instrumental ones too, can be given for it. He also suggests that equality is not a fundamental moral value which needs no further justification and that egalitarians often argue from a starting point that presumes equality – although if the intended audience is fellow egalitarians this need not matter. In response to these concerns, I argued in chapter 4 that there is indeed no presumption in favour of treating people equally and equality often requires us to treat people quite differently. I argued that treating people equally is not the fundamental egalitarian principle, which is rather that people ought to be treated as equals

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(Dworkin, 1977, p. 273). Sometimes this injunction may require us to treat them the same, but just as often it may not. Egalitarians do not presume moral equality and I gave a number of arguments to support that claim. It has also been argued that distributive equality, and by implication therefore, educational equality too, is entailed by moral equality and is a type of fairness. To this I now add that luck egalitarianism also motivates equality of distribution by its identification of luck as an unjust distributor. It also gives us reason for accepting some inequality by its identification of choice as a, sometimes, not unjust distributor.

Perhaps White’s difficulty with the answers to “why equality?” is not that there are no answers, but because it is unlikely that the answers are going to be knock-down conclusive.

This is because with equality, although we are not at the level of fundamental moral belief or basic value, we are certainly approaching it. As such we are dealing with moral principles which depend, not so much on further facts and reasons, as on their coherence with all our other best considered moral intuitions and beliefs, such as the one just given of fairness.

The success of giving a good answer to why equality is to be judged on the total package and is dependent on how well it coheres with other values, not because these are the foundational and more basic values, but because they cohere and mutually support each other. Luck egalitarianism offers a particular take on why equality matters that should be taken in conjunction with the wider reasons supporting the value of equality.

So what the equalisandum should be is not central to luck egalitarianism which claims that, whatever the substantive good is, a fair distribution will be equal and it is unfair if luck is the dominant influence on how that good is distributed. In talking about what is to be equalized then, it often suffices to talk in generalities such as advantages and disadvantages, well-being, utility or benefits and burdens. These expressions can be taken as place holders for whatever it is that ought to be of ultimate distributive concern.

This is an important point for this work which is only concerned with the metric of distributive equality to the extent that it throws light on developing an understanding of education as one of the advantages that a person can have and that its distribution is therefore a matter of egalitarian interest. This idea happily means that that there is no obvious obstacle to applying a luck egalitarian conception to education, with education (in a way to be further developed) as the equalisandum. My task here can partly be viewed as an attempt to supply a grounding principle for educational equality. I am arguing that education ought to be equally distributed, because its distribution should not be a matter of luck, a matter of where you live, who your family is, or what sex you are, for example. Note though that an implication of this is that it is not so much my purpose to set out how this happens. Some implications will be touched on, that is unavoidable, but what exactly it might mean to distribute education equally will require further working out within a framework that says choice, but not luck, can permit inequalities.

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Complexity

Thomas Christiano (2007) employs the idea of a fundamental substantial good to serve as a place holder for the correct metric of distributive equality. He too argues that the precise metric is not critical to theories of egalitarian justice but, whatever it is, it should satisfy three basic criteria. It should be something that all rational agents must pursue for themselves and others (this explains why it is substantial); it should be something that can give us an overall measure of the quality of a life (it is a universal good and it is how lives go that matters) and it should make approximate interpersonal comparisons possible (equality is necessarily comparative in nature). Christiano believes that notions of well-being and capabilities are closest to achieving this but some sort of general notion of advantage, that incorporates these and resources, also looks promising. In this he would also appear to be following Cohen’s (1989) preferred metric of equal access to advantage, where he understands advantage as being wider than welfare and including resources, at least.

While a fixation on resources ignores the fact that resources do not matter intrinsically, it is what we can do with them that matters, they cannot be ignored. As Rawls points out, they are the principal means to pursue whatever is of ultimate value to us and have the advantage of allowing individuals the opportunity to pursue whatever conception of the good they have. However, a simple equalizing of resources fails to take onto account differences in needs, desires, preferences and abilities. Clearly too we value welfare. We all have an interest in avoiding pain and it would be foolish to suggest that pleasure and happiness are not worth having. However, as resources are required to promote welfare, and if we think welfare matters for equalizing, then we are logically required to think that resources must matter too. But welfare too is not all that matters to us and we cannot focus just on welfare and resources as metrics because our preferences and desires can be distorted by the circumstances we find ourselves in and the resources people require, and the welfare they are capable of achieving, are both affected by a person’s various unchosen physical and mental attributes. And if we think freedom is important to how a life goes then resources are the means to freedom, but they are not freedom itself, and neither is well-being.

So the sketch Christiano gives of a fundamental substantial good points out something significant about the appropriate equalisandum and helps clarify both why the debate over what to equalize has been inconclusive and why it is not the central issue for egalitarian theories. It is often unproblematic to talk in generalities about what to equalize because the range of advantages and disadvantages that are of legitimate egalitarian concern – because they matter for the quality of a life – is extensive. It is likely therefore that the correct metric of equality is some quite general and composite good. The debate about what to equalize

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has therefore been somewhat misdirected and could never have reached a consensus on any one narrow metric.

It has, nonetheless, not been fruitless and highlights that the correct equalisandum must actually be something quite complex. All the possible candidates – broadly resources, welfare, and opportunity for welfare – have something right about them and not one of these candidates alone is sufficient to fit all our considered judgements. The range of goods of legitimate egalitarian concern is wider than any simple metric can encompass.

This perhaps partly explains the popularity of the capabilities approach to well-being, a popularity that goes beyond philosophy and into economics. The idea of capabilities is broad and contends that what is relevant to equality is the diverse range of possible human

“beings and doings” and the opportunities to achieve those beings and doings (Sen, 1992). It is thus concerned not only with the means of achieving well-being, such as resources, but also with the freedom an individual has to pursue and achieve well-being, and this must take into account features of the person himself. Sen sums up the capability approach by saying that under it “individual advantage is judged … by a person’s capability to do things he or she has reason to value” (2010, p. 231). It focuses on “the freedom that a person actually has to do this or be that” (ibid.) and includes the freedom to decide for ourselves what we want, value and choose to do. Sen is explicit in recognizing the plurality of spaces that are thus of relevance to equality as there are a plurality of features that are of significance to how our lives go and which matter to us. This, he suggests, reflects the fact that there are many, valid, ways in which one person can be advantaged in comparison with another and this should not be a source of any embarrassment for the idea of equality. As Sen explains it, the capabilities approach represents a clear departure from a concentration

“on the means of living to the actual opportunities of living” (2010, p. 233, his emphasis).

But it is not clear that Sen’s capabilities are a radical departure from other metrics and, as Cohen (1989) points out, they are in many ways a blend of Rawls’ social primary goods, which included a bundle of liberties, and welfare. It is also not clear that it is substantially different from Cohen’s own, tentative, proposal of opportunity to achieve advantage.

Stuart White suggests that both Sen and Cohen have what he calls a pluralistic access theory. In judgements about the equality of two people we need to consider “their access to a plurality of types of advantage which include, but are not reducible to, welfare”(2007, p.

87). But a problem for both approaches is that in order to say what opportunities or “beings and doings” matter, a theory about what makes a life valuable is required. This is difficult without the answers to controversial questions about value which do not look like being solved anytime soon.

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What I think we should take from this is that the correct equalisandum is going to be complex, a sum made up of weighted parts that include, at least, means (resources), opportunities, freedoms, advantages, welfare and, I would suggest, Rawls’ (1982) idea of the social bases of self-respect. The exact weighting of parts is unlikely to be the same for each individual. This fits the fact of human diversity and the observation that different

What I think we should take from this is that the correct equalisandum is going to be complex, a sum made up of weighted parts that include, at least, means (resources), opportunities, freedoms, advantages, welfare and, I would suggest, Rawls’ (1982) idea of the social bases of self-respect. The exact weighting of parts is unlikely to be the same for each individual. This fits the fact of human diversity and the observation that different