Following the reading of chapters 11 and 12 in Amartya Sen’s book, the ‘Idea of Justice’ this entry focuses extensively on a discussion of Sen’s ‘capability approach’.
Fundamentally, Sen’s capability approach is an attempt to stem away from defining deprivation solely in terms of financial deficit and focuses instead on establishing the real, underlying causes of poverty. Sen believes that ‘disadvantages’ are often ‘coupled’ together meaning that it is not sufficient to just examine things from a purely financial perspective in terms of improving the welfare of those in need. Although it is evident that financial assistance is required in order for the disadvantaged to achieve what he refers to as specific ‘functionings’, it is not sufficient if long term change is on the agenda. Sen believes that it is essential to examine the links that exist between the different types of disadvantages in order to determine their just causes and to establish their interconnectedness.
Although deprivation affects ability and therefore hinders income earning capacity, poverty results from capability deprivation and not income deprivation as is commonly believed within capitalist government systems. With his capability approach, Sen argues that the income approach to poverty is disproportionate and does not take into consideration; individual heterogeneities, disparities in the physical environment, societal variation and individual perspectives.
The capabilities approach is linked to substantive freedom and values ability over income, focusing on opportunities rather than the means to the opportunities, in other words wealth, resources and utility. However, Sen still remains sceptical about income distribution as a means of rectifying capability deprivation as he believes that it ultimately does not facilitate understanding nor contribute to long term poverty alleviation in tackling the issues behind capability deprivation, what Sen refers to as ‘real poverty’.
Although the capability approach is a viable alternative to the income approach, especially when long term change is on the agenda, it frequently slips short of the mark, notably in terms of its execution. The capability approach is a necessary critique of traditional welfare economics in that poverty isn’t judged by a lack of wealth or resources but by a human inability to achieve valuable functionings. Although the capability approach is clearly superior to the income approach in that it searches for answers by taking into account all aspects of life in determining the real factors for poverty it can also be criticised for being too general. Although Sen is absolutely correct in focusing on functional capabilities as opposed to access to resources in judging advantage, it must also be acknowledged that this approach is not always either usable or preferable as it is often considered to be too multidimensional.
When used in conjunction with each other, both the income approach and the capability apporach have the highest chance at success. Although the capability approach has proven to be groundbreaking, the benefits of the more simple analyses of what constitutes as poverty (for example comparative wealth or income) should not be completely ignored as although financial deprivation is not the only aspect of poverty it still remains its defining feature.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Capability Approach as an Idea of Justice
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Pareto by Proxy
The following blog-post is a commentary on Cohen's “Pareto Argument”, from Ch. 2 of his book Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cohen himself is commenting on Brian Barry's account of the Rawlsian principle for inequality, which I shall briefly explain:
Rawls argues that through the use of a “Veil of Ignorance” members of a closed society can determine what principles of justice ought to guide distribution of essential resources. The premise is that said members have a starting point with no knowledge of their role, position, talents or heritage in this society, so they are free from personal conflict of interest or bias towards arbitrary conditions of typical asymmetries in power and wealth. From this original position of no knowledge, individuals would be prompted to establish two basic principles of justice: first, that all members gain access to an equal initial distribution of resources; second, that if there are to exist any inequalities at all, these should only be permitted if it is for the benefit of those worse off.
From the way Barry interprets Rawls, it seems the argument is that it would be irrational to maintain strict equality for the sake of equality when, if given a certain degree of inequality for the talented or fortunate, the worse off would be left in a better position than otherwise, which is a weak pareto effect. Cohen takes this account and frames it as a springboard for inequality. I would object to this perspective on Rawls, presented as if to make this misleading argument in favour of a principle of inequality, and even setting the conditions to argue in favour of a pareto superior state. This is established to uphold his own vision of justice, proposing a third dimension to egalitarian establishment:
If in D1 the talented and the unskilled have the same income, and in D2 the talented would have a proportionally greater income than the unskilled (which would make the skilled inclined to work with more effort) but the unskilled are still better off than in D1, the Rawlsian principle would allow this inequality. However, Cohen argues, if D2 exist, it is in fact possible to establish a third state in which the talented and the unskilled have a greater income than in D1 because if the talented are indeed egalitarian they should not mind working with the necessary effort for all to be better off. Hence, truly commited egalitarians ought not to worry about a pareto effect.
I would argue that the object of inequality in the system is only justified when meant to remedy an already existing condition of inequality, such as positive discrimination, affirmative action, exponential taxation on coefficient of utilities and so on. I do not believe that Rawls would base his principles of equality on a social state plagued by weak pareto schemes, much less pareto superior. In my opinion this is an oversimplified and catered understanding of Rawlsian theory in order to serve as a platform from which Cohen springs his conclusions.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Equality in Love, Care and Solidarity: A Critique of Eva Kittay's 'Love's Labour'
Although I initially found myself agreeing with Eva Kittay’s argument, upon further inspection I found it extremely difficult to maintain that same enthusiasm for her writing. Despite agreeing with Kittay on the basis that an egalitarian theory of justice should be fairly distributional, it is essential that we first question what exactly it means to be both ‘free and equal’ and why is it that social cooperation is so necessary for egalitarians?
Freedom and equality are at the heart of egalitarian thought. Egalitarians believe that all people should be treated equally, and this involves a degree of ‘social cooperation’. Although the logistics of this are highly complex and varying it is safe to assume that in egalitarian thought, all human beings are considered free and equal in terms of both status and worth. In Kittay’s article she is predominantly concerned with critiquing Rawls’s theory of social cooperation and believes that his thoughts are insufficient and do not adequately take the position of dependents into consideration. For Kittay, Rawls’s perception of social cooperation is insufficient, i.e. that social cooperation is a necessity as a means to achieving an ends. Kittay does not agree with this as she believes that in order for this to be applicable, all citizens need to be rational and reasonable which she believes cannot possibly be achieved by dependents. Kittay argues that in order for dependents to be considered as citizens, then Rawls’s list of ‘primary goods’ needs to be urgently expanded. Kittay believes that a Rawlsian account of justice is not sufficient in a society where the recognition of dependency is a concrete component of justice.
My thoughts on this are as follows. I believe that Rawls intends his primary goods to be considered as a building block towards social justice and although Kittay feels that they are inadequate, they are still fundamentally egalitarian in that they revolve around the notion of fair and even distribution. Although I agree with Kittay in principle, I think it fundamentally boils down to interpretation issues. If Rawls considers both basic and non basic liberties among his primary goods, then surely Kittay’s argument is indefensible as her concerns over dependency and reciprocity have actually been included by Rawls in his A Theory of Justice? Furthermore, as part of Rawls’s ‘Two Principles of Justice’, he focuses on the fair distribution of the aforementioned primary goods, including the distribution of social welfare. It is here that Kittay’s fears over dependency should be quelled as care, including the care of dependents, is intended by Rawls to be an element of social welfare.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Opportunity and Responsibility
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Global Luck Egalitarianism, Responsibility and Desert
Put simply, global luck egalitarianism is what you end up with when you apply the principles of luck egalitarianism beyond the borders of the state. In this blog post, I want to put three questions to you:
- Conceptually speaking, is global luck egalitarianism entailed by luck egalitarianism in general? That is to say, if one accepts the principles of luck egalitarianism, is one then bound to apply these principles globally, rather than confining them to a particular state.
- Should we accept luck egalitarianism in the first place?
- If we accept global luck egalitarianism, what consequences might this have in terms of how we shape international institutions in order to meet the demands of justice entailed by global luck egalitarianism?
So, just to refresh your memory, luck egalitarianism is essentially the view that it is unjust for some people to be worse off than others in virtue of nothing more than sheer bad luck. What we have is basically a contrast between brute luck and responsibility designed to pull out the sorts of intuitions which would make us likely to pity the man who is struck by lightning, but not the man who sticks the fork in the toaster.
It’s not difficult to imagine the sorts of ways endorsing this idea might apply in practice. We see that some people are born with medical conditions for which they are not responsible, so we decide to provide them with the medical resources necessary to overcome or minimise the disadvantage. Similarly, we can provide scholarships to children born into families who might otherwise not be able to afford the same standard of education open to their more well-off co-citizens, and so on.
The move from the national to international level works something like this: I should not bear burdens for circumstances for which I am not responsible. I am not responsible for having been born in the country in which I have been born. Because I have been born in this country, rather than that country, I face significant burdens as to my quality of life. Therefore some sort of redistribution of resources (which might be material resources from you to me, or your country to mine, or you could offer me citizenship perhaps) is necessary in order to meet the demands of justice.
There is of course an important empirical step in the above argument, whereby we need to show that the person really is worse off because of their bad luck in being born in country X rather than country Y. I don’t think it would be very difficult to demonstrate in most cases, however, since we have plenty of data which shows the enormous inequalities in terms of living standards (including everything from basic food and water rights to availability of education, healthcare and access to political institutions) between much of the developed and the developing world.
So, to repeat the three questions, given the above:
- Conceptually speaking, is global luck egalitarianism entailed by luck egalitarianism in general? That is to say, if one accepts the principles of luck egalitarianism, is one then bound to apply these principles globally, rather than confining them to a particular state.
- Should we accept luck egalitarianism in the first place?
- If we accept global luck egalitarianism, what consequences might this have in terms of how we shape international institutions in order to meet the demands of justice entailed by global luck egalitarianism?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The right to work
I would like to give a brief blog post as a preamble to next week’s topic of works role in an egalitarian society and weather one should be guaranteed access to work. For me this issue is essential to an egalitarian society. Work has had a central role in the development and life of human beings since the dawn of our species. The opposing thumb is a physical expression as to our evolutionary tendency to labour. In this sense, work is as fundamental to being human as love and friendship and the desire to produce and develop is universal to mankind. We are both a social and a productive species. The right to work therefore for me is as close to a natural right as we can come across, not only on normative grounds, but also on the same biological grounds as establishes the right to food and shelter. To fully develop ourselves as rational agents we must have the right to work. Demonstrating this fact is the considerably higher rates of depression, suicide, and chemical dependency among the unemployed. It is clear that capitalism is unable to deliver on this right. That people actively seek employment in lieu of social welfare is demonstrated by the large amount of individuals who labour at minimum wages despite their weekly income barely justifying the work instead of sitting at home and collecting social welfare.
There is a concern however that the jobs provided by a bureaucratic state would not be socially useful and therefore would leave those in them still lacking in self esteem. However I believe this can be overcome by payment being linked to work for charitable, political, civil or not for profit organisations who would apply to the state to have certain jobs listed as state funded for the long term unemployed and for a higher wage then that of welfare payments. In this way the worker will know they are fulfilling a socially useful task not being provided by the state as simply “make-work” solution. What is more, if the work is carried out for not-for-profit organisations the private sector may have little basis for complaint as often the work is focussed around areas the market has no interest in, i.e animal welfare, litter, homeless organisations
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (Find out what it means to me!)
In Chapter 7 of Culture & Equality, Brian Barry takes to task those he accuses of ‘abusing’ culture. Specifically, Barry takes aim at three sorts of claim he finds to be pervasive in discussions about multiculturalism or accommodating cultural differences.
The first involves the defence of some particular practice with the claim that ‘it’s part of my culture/tradition/etc.’. Barry points out (rightly in my opinion) that this amounts to little more than a descriptive fact (or ‘anthropological observation’ to use Barry’s term) which carries zero normative weight; just because you have always done something does not mean that you always should. The second claim, which Barry presents as a response to the above objection is that ’to justify a practice it is not necessary to demonstrate that it satisfies some universal criterion of value. All we need say, indeed all we can say, is that simply in forming part of the group’s culture, it is essential to its well-being.’Following on from this, the third claim Barry focuses on is ‘that cultures are of equal value, or at any rate should be presumed or affirmed to be of equal value.’
According to a liberal individualist like Barry, it is people, not cultures, which are of equal value. How then are we to ensure we treat everyone with equal dignity and respect, even if some people embrace cultural practices or beliefs which we find ridiculous, repugnant, or intolerable?
There seem at least three possible approaches we could take: First, we could be compatibilists- we could argue that Barry is correct, but that we can still find room to respect everyone, even while not respecting their ‘cultural baggage’. If we can’t find a credible compromise, if we think Barry’s approach is incompatible with respecting everyone equally, then we have at least two further options: we can reject Barry’s view, or we can reject the necessity of affording all people equal dignity and respect.
What I would like to do here is begin to make a case for the compatibilist, i.e. the position that we can accept Barry’s position while also affording all people with the dignity and respect they deserve. Since this is a blog entry and not an essay, I’m going to simply sketch out what I think a convincing compatibilist argument might look like with a few bullet points.
- First of all, we need to get a handle on what exactly it means to respect someone. We could start with a weak notion of respect as non-interference: I think that tie you’re wearing is hideous, but I will not force you to change it. If I want to respect you in this case, must I refrain from trying to get you to wear something more aesthetically pleasing? Surely not: we argue amongst our friends all the time about books, bands, movies and so on without thinking that we are disrespecting one another. I would suggest that whether or not such interactions end up as disrespectful depends mostly on the language we use and the context of the particular situation (compare “Oh, you didn’t like Avatar? Did you not think it had very impressive special effects?” to “Oh my God, I can’t believe you didn’t like Avatar, you have no taste in cinema whatsoever!”). Maybe we can go even further and suggest that if you really respect me as a person, you will speak up and tell me to change my tie, unless I want to be laughed at.
- Not only are there times when respecting someone may require us to challenge their beliefs (a more serious example might look something like this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520690,00.html), there are clearly some values and beliefs which merit active disrespect. No reasonable theory of respect could suggest that liberals ought to affirm the value of a belief system and way of life of a virulent theocrat like Fred Phelps, for example. Yet Phelps’s beliefs are clearly far more important to his sense of self than whether or not he wears ugly ties or happened to like Avatar. What seems to qualify Phelps for public disapproval is the extreme nature of his beliefs, so there does not seem to be a blanket immunity on criticism, at least. For a less extreme case, we can go back to the question that was asked in class- can you respect a Muslim person while not approving of his or her religion? Yet if we investigate this, my intuition is that we could make a reasonable argument to say that anything short of conversion to Islam is not affording full and total respect to the beliefs- it may not make much sense to say to a Muslim ‘I believe Islam is right for you but not for me,’ when Islam is, by definition, right for everyone, as the Muslim understands it.
- If we take from 1) that we may have obligations to challenge people’s beliefs, even when these are deeply held and important, and from 2) that we can and do separate individuals from the views they hold (we surely feel we can adequately respect a Muslim without converting), we still need to show that Barry’s view allows us to respect people in the right way. To do this, I would begin by talking about the value of empathy in understanding and ultimately respecting other individuals. Empathy, in my view, is hugely important in achieving any kind of egalitarian outlook – we hold other people to be equal because we see ourselves reflected in them, to an extent. We recognise a common capacity for suffering, common welfare needs, and so on. Part of this process of empathising with others may involve a kind of universalist abstraction to a sort of ‘lowest common denominator’. The Christian recognises the value of faith in his own life, and recognises that the Muslim also values faith (even though it is misplaced, according to the Christian’s beliefs), and comes to empathise with a fellow person of faith. The heterosexual couple see the homosexual couple and recognise a familiar romantic bond between them which is independent of gender, and come to recognise the homosexual relationship as equally valuable, since both are made of the same fundamental ‘stuff’ worthy of respect. Brian Barry sees Iris Marion Young as a passionate and dedicated philosopher, and recognises those features in himself, even though he profoundly disagrees with her conclusions (okay, maybe that last one’s a bit optimistic).
4. If the above works (which is a big IF, I’ll admit) then I think you would have the bones of an argument showing that Barry’s version, or something close to it, allows us to have just the right amount of respect, while avoiding the sorts of problems which may arise if a person’s entire cultural baggage is rendered immune from criticism.
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