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Should distributive justice be conceived in terms of welfare, resources, or something else? If the latter, what and why?

Amartya Sen in Equality of What? states that moral philosophy has offered numerous answers to the question of 'equality of what?'. Frankfurt in Equality as a Moral Ideal argues that economic equality is not of a high moral importance as it is often argued to be, the point is that everyone has 'enough' rather than everyone having 'the same.' Then he continues, however, adding even though it is not a 'morally compelling social ideal' nevertheless equality is desirable. Dworkin defines equality as a 'envy-free' distribution of resources where the Pareto optimality principle suggests that no individual is willing to change his endowment. Meanwhile Anderson argues that current egalitarian thought focuses on compensating people for 'brute' luck for the sake of equality too much that it leaves out egalitarianism's political aims. Rawls, essentially, was the first one to develop the idea of equal distribution of resources in his theory of justice. In Rawlsian thinking the 'general conception of justice' relies on a main idea that resources should be distributed equally. Thus Rawls defends the idea of "equality of resources" while utilitarians have argued for the "equality of marginal utility", luck-egalitarians have made a case "equality of fortune". Nearly all views of justice require the equality of something whether be it resources, welfare, marginal utility, opportunity, liberty and so on. Both equality of welfare and resources have had criticism and objection. Distributive justice, then can be conceived in terms of equalising differences between people whether they are in resources of welfare. This is called luck egalitarianism, but even though luck egalitarianism answers to the objections of critics of equality of welfare and resources, it is the target of numerous objections itself.

Utilitarianism in its classical form can be argued to be an egalitarian theory since it makes a case of the maximizing of individual's marginal utility by equalizing marginal utility, and treats units of utility as equal. As a result the aggregate utility of people will increase, hence the greatest number of goods for the greatest number of people. But this would require granting the goods to those who will get the most utility out from it, thus ignoring individual differences that may effect one's consumption of utility. For example while considering two people; Goofy a 'utility monster' and Grumpy with a disability, utilitarianism would allocate the utility to Goofy who is easily pleased not to Grumpy who has a disability he needs to pay for thus is a less efficient generator of utility. Such and action would be unfair for the sake of justice. While utilitarianism takes utility from the inefficient generators, granting it to the efficient ones, it ignores individual differences which may end up in unjust allocation of utility.

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An alternative to equality of marginal utility is the equality of welfare since it seeks to bring the welfare of individuals and identical level. Although the idea of equality of welfare-or total utility equality as Sen calls it- is advantageous over utilitarianism since it will compensate the disabled individual in doing so it also will support those with expensive tastes just as it does the disabled.

John Rawls, in his A Theory of Justice, presents an alternative to both utilitarianism and equality of welfare; he aims 'to develop a systematic political theory that structures our different intuitions'. He suggests 'all social primary goods-liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect-are to be distributed equally unless and unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favoured.'(1710) Rawls argues that equality can be achieved not by removing factors that make people unequal but by removing those that make the disadvantaged less equal. He then continues by structuring a system of 'lexical priority'. Rawls's first principle proposes that 'each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.' His second principle proposes 'social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and are attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.'

Kymlika suggests that Rawls almost grants those less well of with a 'veto over inequalities.' Rawls's theory of justice in this case will take those people with disabilities, "less efficient generators" of utility into consideration unlike utilitarianism but will also distinguish those less efficient generators with expensive tastes unlike the equality of welfare. Thus equality of resources will not compensate those with expensive tastes, however, will support those with disabilities.

Sen argues that 'just as utilitarianism pays no attention to the force of one's claims arising from one's disadvantage, leximin ignores claims arising from the intensity of one's needs.' He suggests that leximin has very little interest in to the number of people whose interest are ignored for the sake of the interests of the worst off. In this sense Sen claims that Rawls theory is insensitive to numbers; the precedence the worst off takes can cause millions of people to be worse off overall. Thus Sen continues 'if utilitarianism is attacked for its unconcern with inequalities of utility distribution, and leximin is criticized for its lack of interest in magnitudes of utility gains and losses, and even in the numbers involved, then isn't the right solution to choose some mixture of the two?'. Later he concludes that a combination of the two would still be 'confined to the box of 'welfarism' which he claims is inadequate.

Ronald Dworkin argues that Rawls difference principle theory is too endowment sensitive. He aims to develop a more 'ambition-sensitive' theory of his own. So as Rawls's theory was a response to utilitarianism, Dworkin's is a response to Rawls's. He argues that resources include 'initial endowments', i.e. illnesses, disabilities, talents, some of which can be positive endowments while some are negative. So Dworkin tries to reflect on the choices people make rather than their endowments; thus people's lives are lead through the choices they make not the circumstances they find themselves in. Dworkin's theory can be argued to be flawed, however, since this view ignores natural talents while recognizing social differences. People's preferences may not be sufficient to achieve certain goals if they lack some necessary talents that others possess naturally. Some preferences are voluntarily shaped while others are genetically or environmentally determined. In this same way people with disabilities, who work as hard as those without, may not be as successful due to the initial negative endowment they have started out with, Roemer further argues that once we acknowledge the fact about initial endowments that effect life, why not take into consideration internal differences such as certain brain chemicals.

Luck egalitarianism or equality of fortune takes 'the fundamental injustice to be the natural inequality in the distribution of luck'. Luck egalitarians seek to equalize differences whether they be in welfare or resources, so their aim is to offset the disadvantages people are not responsible for not the preferences they are responsible for. This is the 'luck-neutralizing' idea. Luck egalitarianism answers certain criticisms that were directed to both equality of welfare and resources. It will distinguish between the preferences one is responsible for so will distinguish between the disabled and the one with expensive tastes.

The critics of this view suggest that it is very hard to define luck. If someone has a natural talent for singing and they become a famous opera singer, it cannot be considered mere luck; the hard work has to be considered as well in addition to the family which was well off to support her education, or is it her luck that she was not born into a war-torn country? In the case of disabled people for example, luck-egalitarianism suggests that disabled people cannot be held responsible for their handicaps while people with expensive taste are responsible for their preferences. It can be argued that this is not the case; a baby born to a heroine addict mother will have an addiction to an expensive preference that he is not responsible for.

Luck egalitarianism is faced with a more objections of its own as well. The debate of whether people are ever responsible for anything is one; another is the 'religious believer objection' which argues that it is odd to compensate for guilt that is brought about by religious convictions. A third one is the 'dilemma objection' which argues that it is hard to compare "unluckiness".

It is hard to claim that distributive justice should be considered in terms of resources or welfare since both have received considerable objections. Another option is to regard justice in terms of luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism has responded to some of the objections that were directed towards welfarism and equality of resources. But luck egalitarianism or equality of fortune also is subject to certain credible criticisms and objections of its own.

Bibliography

• Anderson, E.(1) 'What is the Point of Equality?', Ethics, Vol. pp.87-7

• Frankfurt, H.(187) 'Equality as a Moral Ideal', Ethics, Vol.8pp.1-4

• Hurley, S. Lecture Notes, Week 5

• Kymlika, W.(00) Conpemtorary Political Philosophy, NewYorkOxford University Press

• Sen, A.(000) 'Equality of What?' in Choice, Welfare and Measurement, USAUniversity of Michigan Press

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