In this post I shall comment on Richard J. Arneson's 1989 paper “Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare”.
Arneson presents an interpretation of distributive equality based on Rawlsian welfare arguments, albeit in a more refined structure. With the a priori understanding that “opportunity” is the chance of obtaining a good if it is one's will, Arneson suggests that people ought to be presented with equivalent arrays of options when facing their life decisions (the degree of frivolity or mundaneness of these decisions is not clarified by the author). It is important that as opposed to an Equality of Resources approach (like Dworkin's), in this construal presents actions associated with outcomes, and therefore the element of accountability comes into play. This is important to Arneson because one becomes responsible for poor decisions made in an ideal environment of full awareness of information, in a calm state of mind and a flawless reasoning. Indeed...
Arneson will admit that in this real world with unequal access to information for citizens and policy-makers alike, and full of imperfect judgement, differences in the implementation of his own interpretation of distributive equality with those of Rawls or Dworkin may be hard to distinguish. It would revolve most importantly around the standards agreed by these societies on what resources and welfare mean. I take issue with the notion of considering talents to be resources at the disposal common distribution, firstly because it is completely contrary to the democratic-liberal ideal of self-ownership, and secondly because it would discourage people from actually developing a talent. Furthermore, under a Rawlsian regime one's condition may become highly deterministic, where one can never be at fault and the system is supposed to readjust to compensate for one's preferences. Case of the matter is that the theoretical foundations for each do differ, even if practise is fairly similar. Perhaps it is for this reason that Arneson recurs to Sen's capabilities approach in regards to what welfare is supposed to mean (fearing that it could be no more than a set of resources not that different from Dworkin's). If Rawls suggests society ought to aim for a distribution of basic social goods, Sen's approach is centred around the effect. In other words, how much it contributes to the individual's capabilities. Out of the whole paper, I would say this is the single most sensible argument, for Equality must aim for the enablement of people. We provide education because it will enable knowledge, hospitals enable health, food enables nutrition, so on and so forth. If we consider Arneson's proposal to be valid, in a universe where everyone knows what is best for them (again, indeed...) we would have the choice to pursue happiness by the means we deem most fit, and we would have the option to do so, even if initial circumstances (like ethnicity, economic status or gender) might present an obstacle to this. I will refrain from bashing Arneson's wishful universe where all this is possible and simply state that at a theoretical level his proposal is sound.
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Having re-read the Arneson paper, I find I don’t understand the fundamental difference between Arneson and Sen. I think I understand the point Arneson makes at the end of his paper, which he describes as a ‘residual welfarist disagreement’ with Sen’s capabilities approach, but this seems to me to be a relatively minor quibble about assessing ‘capabilities’, which to my mind seem to be more or less the same thing as ‘opportunities’. Arneson himself admits that he agrees with much of Sen’s position, and considers his theory to belong in the same ‘family’ as Sen’s, so I suppose this contributes to my confusion.
I’m sure I’m doing Arneson an injustice here (though I’ll not take all the blame; his writing style is not the most lucid in the world). Maybe one of my fellow bloggers or John could help me out here?
The single major problem I have with the opportunity of welfare egalitarianism that Arneson proposes is that it’s distinction of what is morally arbitrary, what cannot be said to be the fault of the individual, and what is not, and so the individual can be held responsible for, seems to be very blurred. If we seek to compensate or tax individuals on the basis of their talent or upbringing, to equalise equality of welfare, we deem that to be morally arbitrary. But if so why not consider ones tendency to risk to also be morally arbitrary and not subject to either reward or punishment? Since we do not have perfect knowledge there will always be a large aspect of our outcomes that are subject to outside arbitrary factors. If two individuals take the same risk why and it works out for one but not the other, both for reasons beyond their control, why should one suffer while the other doesn’t? If we decide to redistribute on this basis we simply end up with resource equality. Arneson makes the point that if determinism is the case we will indeed end up with resource equality. But it seems that he cannot escape from making the case that determinism is true. If your opportunity for welfare is in part determined by your talents, and we seek to redistribute on this basis, what could we possible look to to justify an inequality of resources? Hard work? Effective risk taking? All these seem to me to be as arbitrary as talent, for one could make the case that even hard work is a product of your upbringing and your genetic tendency to labour.
As someone who thinks that determinism is probably true, but isn’t satisfied by equality of resources, which seems to be the consequence of such a view, I find myself on pretty shaky philosophical ground.
One distinction which might be worth exploring is a distinction between causal chains which involve intentional human agency and those which do not. There is an common assumption (not held without good reason, but perhaps not immune from criticism) that if determinism is true, then I am not morally responsible (or culpable) for anything. If this could be undermined somehow then there might be a way to have determinism without equality of resources.
Another option might be to look at some sort of utilitarian justification of inequality of resources. Utilitarian considerations can explain why we should behave as though people are responsible in situations where they might not be. This doesn’t give us true moral responsibility, but it might be close enough. If this approach could be translated from debates about moral philosophy to egalitarian theory, there might be a way to break the connection between determinism and equality of resources (though it might leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth).
*I should say 'equality of outcome' rather than 'resources', above woops!
I find that Arneson extending his ideas of distributive welfare to include the equal distribution of talents to be both unusual and wholly impractical. Firstly, I do not view talents as goods and therefore do not believe that they should be fetishised on the competitive market, which is what would undoubtedly occur if people were offered shares of other people's talents; as is what Arneson is suggesting. Arneson is right to state that this mode of thinking immediately encounters difficulties; babies are not all born with the same talents, the worth of one's talents varies depending on the individual, etc. On these grounds I side with Dworkin's 'slavery of the talented' as fundamentally talented individuals would be under constant obligations to serve the less talented.
This mode of thinking is ultimately dangerous and would surely have adverse effects on the greater society as people would be too 'enslaved' to their talents and in serving those who possess them to focus on the bigger picture, for example on the maintenance and growth of society and the care of those who inhabit it.
I would reject visions of hard determinism when establishing a theory of justice. I believe I've stated before that in order to accomplish any level of equality, this must be through a solid quintessential interpretation, and hence we ought to avoid ballooning effects. If we allow for overarching interpretations of tangents, such as the case of responsibility, then the theory itself becomes pointless.
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