ppe politics essay

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ʻA just socialist society would be one where there were no inequalities

between persons traceable to brute luck but there might still be vast

inequalities between persons traceable to responsible choiceʼ. Do you agree

or disagree with this claim?

I agree with the claim that inequalities traceable to responsible choice

do not make a society unjust, whereas those traceable to brute luck do. First I

will establish that inequalities due to brute luck are unjust. There is a slippery

slope from standard formal equality of opportunity; that there should be no

discrimination based on random traits like gender, race, or sexual preference,

to a socialist equality of opportunity; where equally random traits such as

intelligence or ability also have no bearing on achievement. Following this I

will justify inequalities due to responsible choice; full equality of outcome is

unattractive and goes against most notions of just desert that we have. There

are problems with luck egalitarianism; for example, it is difficult to decide

exactly what characteristics are determined by luck, and which we choose,

but overall I will conclude that there is a good case for eliminating the effects

of brute luck from a society, if it is to be just. Using the common analogy of life

as a race: “the fact that no one is allowed to have a head start does not make

the race fair if some contestants have only one leg”1.

1Ha‐JoonChang,‘Welostsightoffairnessinthefalsepromiseofwealth’onTheGuardian,accessed9/11/11:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/30/fairnessinequalityfreemarketgrowth


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There is an intuitive desire for some sort of equality of opportunity, or at

least a lack of discrimination, in an ideal society. The majority of people argue

that it is wrong for an individual to be punished (through being denied

employment for example) due to her race or gender. Upon analysis, this

appears to be unjust to us because the individual did not pick her race or

gender: they were not her fault. The issue is with responsibility, or lack

thereof. If we wish to prevent involuntary factors such as these from affecting

somebodyʼs opportunities, then it seems we must also say other equally

arbitrary factors like talent should have no effect. There is a slippery slope

from formal and substantive equality of opportunity to socialist equality of

opportunity as described by Cohen2, later called luck egalitarianism. Of course

this only refers to constitutive and antecedent luck (luck determining your

innate abilities and the circumstances you came from)3.

There are issues concerning other types of luck, as at first it seems it is

inescapable in all areas of life, and so almost irrelevant to our conception of

justice. Resultant luck (where decisions that initially looked positive hurt you

as a result of luck) and circumstantial luck (luck that determines the

circumstances you make decisions in) are a part of our choice-making

processes. An objection could be raised that since luck influences almost all

of our life, it is futile to try and eliminate its effects. The response to this

criticism must appeal to a distinction between brute luck and option luck.

Option luck is the kind that influences responsible decision-making, as we

2G.A.Cohen,WhyNotSocialism?,(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2009)p133KasperLippert‐Rasmussen,‘JusticeandBadLuck’,StanfordEncyclopediaofPhilosophy,accessed10/11/11:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justicebadluck/


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weigh up the pros and cons of any particular situation, before making an

informed choice whilst aware of the risks. This is comparable to the resultant

and circumstantial luck described above: deliberate gambles. Brute luck on

the other hand is described by Dworkin as “a matter of how risks fall out that

are not in that sense deliberate gambles”4. Brute luck has nothing to do with

decision-making and is usually seen as ʻunfairʼ in comparison to fair gambles.

Most people would not feel aggrieved or that an injustice had been done to

them if they did not win the lottery, but we might feel sympathy for, or want to

help, somebody who suddenly contracted cancer. This distinction is important,

as it allows luck egalitarians to maintain an element of random chance in a

society whilst eliminating unfair brute luck.

Having established that inequalities due to luck, specifically brute luck,

are unjust, and defended against the objection that luck is a part of life that we

should preserve, I will now justify why the above system of luck egalitarianism

allows for vast inequalities due to responsible choice. It seems intuitively true

that we do not want to compensate people for mistakes they have willingly

made; absolute equality of outcome no matter the effort expended or choices

is not a particularly attractive system as it goes against notions of just deserts.

It is unjust to reward someone for laziness or bad choices in the same way

that it is unjust for someone to be punished because they were born the

wrong race, or with the wrong abilities. The idea behind luck egalitarianism is

that people should get what they deserve, which is attributed solely to the 4RonaldDworkin,SovereignVirtue(CambridgeMA:HarvardUniversityPress,2000)p73


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amount of effort they apply, and the choices they make: what matters is the

things we have control over, and so inequality due to these factors is therefore

just.

Hence, if by “responsible for” we simply mean “should bear the costs of”

(compare Ripstein 1994, 19n), the theist is responsible for his religiously

mandated feelings of guilt.

Is everything a matter of luck? Isnʼt everything about our nature and

personality genetically based, and as arbitrary as talent or skin colour? As

Thomas Nagel writes “Everything seems to result from the combined influence

of factors, antecedent and posterior to action, that are not within the agent's

control. Since he cannot be responsible for them, he cannot be responsible for

their results” (Nagel 1979, 35).

Add to this the fact that talent often has a large influence on effort, or choices

made, and there seems to be a strong objection to luck egalitarianism. It is

quite common for people to try harder in school subjects that they enjoy and

are good at for example. For socialist equality of opportunity to hold, we would

have to be able to unravel the complex combination of talent, enjoyment and

effort for any given task, and say beyond doubt that having less talent does

not affect your capacity for making decisions about it.

There needs to be a way of deciding what kind of inequalities matter,

and what ʻcurrencyʼ we should use to correct inequality. I suggest Rawls

expensive tastes objection “Citizens seem to be regarded as passive carriers


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of desires. The use of primary goods… relies on a capacity to assume

responsibility for our ends”5 Cohen argues that this is no real objection at all,

assuming no choice was made about the tastes. Combination of factors

outside of the agentʼs control has made their tastes expensive, and under

egalitarian principles they should not be punished for this. Their innate tastes

have been developed by their parental/cultural influence, and the things she

desires are made expensive by society. It isnʼt her fault that society deems

these resources expensive: in a world where champagne was widely available

and inexpensive she would have a much higher welfare at lower cost, and

someone with a taste for something less common and more expensive would

be punished. As long as we can assume that her taste for champagne does

not derive directly from itʼs exclusivity and high price (as a status good), then it

is difficult to justify why she should be punished for it. Actually when we talk

about tastes, we need to be careful: what we donʼt want to allow

compensation for are expensive ends. If what is at stake is merely an attempt

to achieve the same standard levels of nourishment as everybody else (i.e.

somebody who cannot stand eggs but cannot afford to buy fish may wish that

he could eat the cheaper eggs). In this case it is justifiable to compensate for

the individualʼs ʻtastesʼ as we are essentially raising them to the same

standard level as others. It is analogous to providing medical help. Scanlon

makes the point that ʻcompensationʼ is therefore a somewhat misleading term

for what is required, since the point is to enable the people to have these

5Rawls,“SocialUnityandPrimaryGoods,”inAmartyaSenandBernardWilliamseds.UtilitarianismandBeyond(Cambridge,UK:CambridgeUniversityPress,1982),pp.168‐169


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essential things without difficulty, not simply to raise their level of welfare”.6

This is an important distinction that appears to solve the problem of expensive

tastes for equality of welfare. Our intuitions are correct in that we should not

have to pay for somebody else to gain pleasure from something more

expensive, but at the same time we should do if the expensive good is

required to bring them to a similar basic level as everyone else.

I have argued that a just socialist society would have no inequality due

to brute luck, but could (and possibly should) have inequalities due to

responsible choice. Indeed, as Cohen argues, it is possible that equality itself

could be considered unjust when “in disaccord with choice”, as these choices

are what is important for justice (Cohen 2006, 444). I demonstrated that

inequality due to brute luck is unjust, but inequality as a result of properly

informed decision-making is just. The objection that luck is an integral part of

life that should not be eliminated was dealt with by distinguishing unjust brute

luck form just option luck. I also argued that such a system should attempt to

equalise welfare for those who make equal choices and expend equal effort,

despite the ʻexpensive tastesʼ problem. As long as the individual has not

actively chosen his tastes, then he should not be punished for happening to

live in a market where certain things are more expensive than others. Also, as

Scanlon argues, we should be sympathetic to an individual who, through no

fault of their own, has to expend many more resources to achieve the same

standard level of welfare as other people.

6ThomasScanlon,‘Justice,responsibility,andthedemandsofequality’,Theegalitarianconscience:EssaysinhonourofG.A.Cohen,ed.ChristineSypnowich(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2006)p17


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Having considered the previous objections, I therefore conclude that

my thesis has been upheld: it would be just for a socialist society to have vast

inequalities due to responsible choice, as long as inequality due to brute luck

was eliminated.


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Bibliography

• CHANG,Ha‐Joon,‘Welostsightoffairnessinthefalsepromiseofwealth’onThe

Guardian,accessed9/11/11:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/30/fairnessinequality

freemarketgrowth

• COHEN,G.A.,WhyNotSocialism?,(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,

2009)

• DWORKIN,Ronald,SovereignVirtue(CambridgeMA:HarvardUniversityPress,

2000)

• SCANLON,Thomas,‘Justice,responsibility,andthedemandsofequality’,The

egalitarianconscience:EssaysinhonourofG.A.Cohen,ed.ChristineSypnowich

(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2006)pp.70‐87

• RAWLS,John,‘SocialUnityandPrimaryGoods’,inAmartyaSenandBernard

Williamseds.UtilitarianismandBeyond(Cambridge,UK:CambridgeUniversity

Press,1982),pp.159‐186

• LIPPERT‐RASMUSSEN,Kasper,‘JusticeandBadLuck’,StanfordEncyclopediaof

Philosophy,accessed10/11/11:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justicebadluck/

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