by Phil Parvin
An alternative approach is Frankfurt’s sufficiency approach – outlined in ‘Equality as a Moral Ideal’ (1987) – according to which egalitarians should focus on everyone having enough, or sufficient, resources. Frankfurt gives many reasons for preferring sufficiency to equality. His general claim is that usually, when we think that an inequality is morally wrong, we are actually reacting to the wrongness of the position of the worst-off. More specifically, we think it is wrong for some people not to have enough of a particular resource. So, when we say that global inequality is wrong, we mean that poverty and famine are wrong. When we say that it is wrong for some people to be able to afford a great deal of leisure time when others must work extremely long hours to earn enough money to support themselves, we are actually saying that it is morally wrong that some people do not have sufficient leisure time.
Often, then, when we complain about inequality we are actually complaining about insufficiency. But Frankfurt goes further. He argues that it is morally undesirable to care about equality rather than sufficiency. Caring about equality, Frankfurt argues, means caring about how you are doing in relation to others, and ignoring the more important question of whether you yourself have enough to meet your own goals. What is important in life, he maintains, is considering your own preferences and your own welfare, not jealously comparing yourself to others and meanly complaining that they have more than you, regardless of the fact that you have enough.
The sufficiency view raises two important questions.
• 1 How should we define sufficiency?
If egalitarianism is about making sure that everyone has sufficient resources to live a worthwhile life, we need to know at what level they can be said to have enough to do this, and what a ‘worthwhile’ life consists in. These questions are at the heart of contemporary debates about justice, as we will see in Part Two. Frankfurt defines sufficiency as the condition where having more, though it might be nice, has no effect on one’s happiness. Frankfurt maintains that one can be perfectly happy even in a situation where more resources would be desirable. This leaves many questions unanswered, in particular:
• 2 How likely is it that everyone can have sufficient resources?
We live in a world of scarce resources. Not everyone can have everything they want because there is only so much of everything to go around. Therefore, one of the principal challenges facing a theory of justice is to manage conflicts which arise out of differing claims on available resources. The sufficiency approach suggests that we should distribute resources in such a way as to allow people to pursue a life that makes them happy. But this may not always be possible, given scarcity of resources. In other words: in a world in which not everyone is able to have enough resources to be happy, how should we determine who gets what, and why? Equality (as opposed to sufficiency) is one response to this kind of conflict.
Spotlight: Happiness
In his Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, the economist Richard Layard suggests an interesting link between happiness and equality (Layard, 2005). According to empirical studies, he says, one of the most important factors in how happy we are is our perception of our relative wealth. What really matters to us is not how much money we have, or even how much money we have relative to others, but how much money we think we have relative to others. Layard uses these findings to subvert the dominant economists’ view that economic policy should be geared toward creating growth, arguing instead that it should be aimed at increasing overall happiness, through higher taxes and egalitarian redistribution.
Conclusion
In this first chapter on equality we introduced various ways in which the concept of equality might be understood: equality of status (as human beings), equality of treatment (as either sameness or difference), equality of opportunity, and equality of outcome. We focused on the first two, putting off a detailed discussion of equality of outcome until Part Two, and equality of opportunity until the next chapter. We then discussed several criticisms of the idea of equality.
There is a lot more to be said, as we will see throughout the rest of this book. Is equality valuable as an end in itself or as a means to other ends such as justice? Does the idea of equality ignore the ways in which people are not, and should not be considered, equal? Or is the point of equality to ensure that all people have a fair opportunity to succeed, and to live a life that they value, despite the many inequalities of talent, intelligence, ambition and so on which distinguish them? We will look at this final question in more detail in the next chapter.
Key ideas
Equality of opportunity: The idea that equality is about ensuring that no one is unfairly excluded from the same opportunity to succeed, or to live the life that they want, as a result of some arbitrary fact about them, such as the colour of their skin, their religion, their sex, or their social status.
Equality of outcome: The idea that the aim of equality is to ensure that all individuals end up with an equal amount of some set of goods.
Prioritarianism: The idea that egalitarian redistribution should be concerned not with ensuring strict equality, but rather, improving the condition of the worst-off. Defended by, among others, Derek Parfit and Richard Arneson.
Sameness/Difference: The idea that treating people equally requires treating them the same, or treating them differently (for example, by recognizing their unique perspectives or rectifying past injustices through affirmative action).
Sufficiency: The idea that egalitarian redistribution should be concerned with ensuring that everyone has sufficient resources to live a life that they believe is worthwhile. Similar to prioritarianism. Defended by Harry Frankfurt.
Dig deeper
Harry Frankfurt, ‘Equality as a Moral Ideal’, Ethics 98 (1987), pp. 21–42.
Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 1990).
Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘Post Socialist’ Condition (London: Routledge, 1997).
Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (London: Penguin, 2005).
Thomas Nagel, ‘Equality’, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp.106–27.
Derek Parfit, ‘Equality or Priority?’, Ratio 10 (1997), pp. 202–21.
Samuel Scheffler, ‘What is Egalitarianism?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (2003), pp. 5–31.
Larry Temkin, Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Stuart White, Equality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (London: Penguin, 2010).
Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985).
Fact-check
1 What is the priority view?
A The view that what matters is giving priority to the worst-off
B The view that what matters is giving priority to equality
C The view that what matters is giving priority to the best-off
D The view that what matters is giving priority to treating people the same
2 What is the sufficiency view?
A The view that equality is sufficient for justice
B The view that what matters is that everyone has enough
C The view that everyone should be self-sufficient
D The view that what matters is maximizing resources
3 ‘Equality says that it would be better if everyone were blind than if some people were blind and some people were sighted. Therefore, equality is not a good goal.’ Which objection to equality is being expressed in this quote?
A The prioritarian objection
B The sufficientarian objection
C The incentives objection
D The levelling-down objection
4 ‘Equality would encourage everyone to be lazy. We need inequality to make people work hard.’ Which objection to equality is being expressed in this quote?
B The sufficientarian objection
C The incentives objection
D The levelling-down objection
5 ‘If a person has enough to live a decent and worthwhile life it is petty and undesirable for her to care that some people have more than her.’ Which objection to equality is being expressed in this quote?
A The prioritarian objection
B The sufficientarian objection
C The incentives objection
D The levelling-down objection
6 Which of the following policies could be justified by appealing to equality based on sameness?
A Laws against sex discrimination in the workplace
B Equal pay for equal work
C Unified standards of work for all employees
D All of the above
7 Which of the following policies could be justified by appealing to equality based on difference?
A Different retirement ages for men and women
B Unequal pay for equal work
C Allowing employers to promote men before women
D All of the above
8 Which of the following policies could be justified by appealing to equality of outcome?
A Redistributive taxation
B Special benefits for the disabled
C Help for housewives to return to the workplace
D All of the above
9 Which of the following policies could be justified by appealing to the idea that people have equal moral worth?
A Paying people according to how moral they are
B Ending racial discrimination
C Not imprisoning criminals
D All of the above
10 Which of the following weakens the force of the levelling-down objection?
A The fact that egalitarians do not believe that equality is the only value
B The fact that we prefer no athletes to take steroids rather than have some take steroids and perform better as a result
C The fact that levelling-down would have some good effects
D All of the above
4
Equality (2): Equality of opportunity
In the previous chapter we looked at the concept of equality, including the idea that equality requires equal treatment and the idea of equality of outcome. In this chapter, we consider the idea of equality of opportunity. Most contemporary political theorists, and most people in contemporary liberal societies, endorse equality of opportunity. However, there is disagreement over what such a commitment entails. In this chapter, we analyse two versions of equality of opportunity: non-discrimination and meritocracy.
Equality of opportunity as non-discrimination
Equality of opportunity differs from equality of outcome. Defenders of equality of opportunity do not tend to argue that it is the responsibility of a just state to ensure that everyone has an equal share of society’s resources and wealth. Rather, they seek appropriate criteria by which it is possible to distinguish between fair and unfair inequalities in outcome. There may be good reasons why some people should have more money than others; what is important is that the inequality is fair. Defenders of equality of opportunity generally argue that it is a responsibility of the state to ensure that all individuals have an equal opportunity to succeed, and to live a worthwhile life, on a level playing field with everyone else.
Securing a level playing field means that the state must remove any unfair influence of arbitrary, unchosen social and economic circumstances and personal characteristics. It must ensure that people are not held back by factors over which they have no control. In particular, equality of opportunity means that no one’s life-chances should be influenced by factors like race, sex, sexuality or religion. These ascriptive characteristics are, to use John Rawls’s phrase, ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’: they are distributed according to luck rather than choice, and so it would be unfair to distribute public goods like jobs, places at university, and so on, on the basis of these characteristics. Defenders of equality of opportunity therefore generally agree that jobs and positions should be allocated on the basis of relevant characteristics rather than irrelevant ones, and that things like race, sex, sexuality, and religion are irrelevant.
This idea of equality of opportunity is sometimes called a principle of non-discrimination, but is perhaps more accurately called a principle of fair discrimination. After all, employers have to be able to discriminate between candidates for jobs on some grounds, just as university admissions offices need to discriminate between applicants for places on popular degree programmes: not everyone can be offered a place, or a particular job, and so we need to work out the criteria on which it is appropriate to discriminate between candidates.
Although it is popular to do so, it is not good enough to simply state that race and sex are not relevant to the process of allocating jobs or university places. Discrimination on grounds of sex and race does sometimes seem to be justified. Imagine, for example, that a gym is hiring somebody to work in the men’s changing rooms, someone who will be required to enter the changing rooms when customers are undressed. Surely it is reasonable to insist on hiring a man, or at least to give preference to a man? Or imagine if a university wishes to show that it is welcoming to black people even though it is currently disproportionately white. To achieve this aim, it hires someone to go to schools which have mainly black pupils and talk to the pupils about the university and encourage them to apply. Might it not be reasonable for the university to give preference to a black applicant for the job?
One response to these kinds of cases is to say that race and sex are sometimes relevant to the job in question and that they can be considered in such (and only such) cases. That is to say, it is justifiable to hire only men or black people in those cases where men or black people will be better at the job than women or white people. On this view, equality of opportunity means hiring people according to their ability to do the job, not according to some other extraneous characteristic.
The issue of relevance still does not solve the problem, however. Imagine if a shopkeeper is hiring shop assistants, and that most customers of the shop are white and racist. As such, the customers will not buy from the shop if it hires non-white assistants. As a result, then, a non-white assistant will be worse at the job than a white assistant, because a non-white assistant will reduce, not increase, sales. Given that the point of a shop is to sell as much as possible, race is surely relevant to the job of shop assistant. So, is the shopkeeper entitled to hire only white people?
The problem here is that characteristics like race and sex become relevant to successful performance of a job in precisely those cases in which there is widespread discrimination concerning a particular job. In other words, the more entrenched is the discrimination, the more it actually is the case that being a member of the discriminated-against group really does make one less able to do the job in question.
Positive discrimination (or affirmative action)
The conception of equality of opportunity as non-discrimination is further complicated when we consider arguments in favour of positive discrimination, sometimes called affirmative action. Unfair discrimination tends to be historically entrenched: part of a long pattern of treating people differently. Consequently, we might allow race and sex to count as appropriate grounds for discrimination in certain circumstances, in order to undermine entrenched systems of oppression. Actively discriminating in favour of historically disadvantaged groups might be part of remedying that disadvantage.
Thus affirmative action has become popular among many defenders of equality in liberal democratic states such as Britain and the USA. Defenders of positive discrimination like Iris Marion Young and Anne Phillips argue that it is only fair that those who have suffered from an unjust disadvantage in the past should benefit from advantage now, so as to make up for their bad treatment (Young 1990; Phillips 1999). If black people have been denied access to a universi
ty for years, it is only fair that they get most of the places now. If women have been denied senior management positions for years, then it is right that they should now be given a higher priority for promotion. A policy of positive discrimination therefore represents a short-term, temporary corrective to entrenched patterns of unfair discrimination: once the composition of the universities, political institutions, the labour market and so on are made more equal as a result of favouring historically excluded people, then the policy of favouring these groups above others in the distribution of positions and opportunities will be redundant.
Positive discrimination is controversial. It requires us to think of people as fundamentally members of groups, rather than as distinct individuals. If we think of people individually, then past discrimination is no justification for current positive discrimination unless the same people are involved. Some have argued that this view is at odds with the wider liberal concern for individuals, over groups or communities. Others, however, have argued that liberalism requires positive discrimination.
One reason that liberals have given in defence of positive discrimination is that it is important to have more people from disadvantaged groups in certain positions, regardless of whether those particular individuals have faced past discrimination. This is the kind of argument that is often used in favour of women-only shortlists for candidates for the UK Parliament. It is important to give women priority, one could argue, because it is important to have more women in Parliament in order that it be more representative of society as a whole.