Philosophy Now Forum

Lawrence Crocker wrote:

I would lean more towards the pragmatic approach - more equality is called for if it benefits a whole society; but equality is not good 'in itself

Equality is a value in itself if it is at least a tie breaker. Suppose we are going to have a distribution in which A has 9 units of wealth and B has 1, or a distribution in which A and B both have 5. If we prefer the latter, other things equal, then equality has some independent value -- as a kind of fairness.

Fairness to whom? It's not fair to me to take mine and give it to someone who hasn't earned it!

For Rawls, equality is more than a tie breaker; it is the baseline. Any departure from equality has to be justified.

Bullshit!

If there is no independent value to equality, then we would feel no preference for 5-5 over 9-1 in the case that no one has any sort of prior claim to the goods in question. Such cases do not arise very often, but they do arise, and cases far more difficult to imagine get routine philosophical exercise.

Lawrence Crocker wrote:If there is no independent value to equality, then we would feel no preference for 5-5 over 9-1 in the case that no one has any sort of prior claim to the goods in question. Such cases do not arise very often, but they do arise, and cases far more difficult to imagine get routine philosophical exercise.

I submit that we only favor 5-5 to 9-1 when we do not know the merits of both parties (such as in Rawls' original position). Once we know something about the two parties, 5-5 means nothing. We may just as well say 'We leave the 10 be until we know something further' rather than using 5-5 as the fall back position. For instance, if wealth consisted of furry little live animals, and we had to choose between George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men, then no thought whatsoever would be put into giving Lennie any wealth. The only questions would be things like - how do we maximize the wealth we have and how do we take care of everybody - i.e. pragmatic considerations.

You have 10 cookies (or biscuits for speakers of English English) you wish to give away to children, of which cohort 10 show up, all strangers to you. You might question them and ferret out biographical details that would cause you to favor some more than others. But that, of course, would cost you time, especially as some of the little rascals might not be entirely truthful with cookies on the line. And, after all, your time is valuable, and we are only talking about cookies. If you would,under these circumstances, not think that rough fairness pulls in the direction of one cookie each, and you do not dismiss all cookies to the kid with the alphabetically first first name, then you truly do not think that equality ever has a distinct value, but you will probably be in the minority.

"Pragmatic" does not reveal as much about your view as you might want, as it denotes only some kind of practical concern for consequences. "Maximize wealth" is better as that zeroes us in on total utilitarianism, at least if we assume that wealth is a good proxy for the good. (It has, however, the theoretical disadvantage as applied to population issues that it could be satisfied by an enormous population, every member of which was just slightly happy. Average utility seems more attractive in this respect, although aiming for a tiny population of ecstatically happy people may also seem slightly unattractive.)

"Taking care of everybody" suggests some concern with equality. Why not just take care of tall people?

Lawrence Crocker wrote:You have 10 cookies (or biscuits for speakers of English English) you wish to give away to children, of which cohort 10 show up, all strangers to you. You might question them and ferret out biographical details that would cause you to favor some more than others. But that, of course, would cost you time, especially as some of the little rascals might not be entirely truthful with cookies on the line. And, after all, your time is valuable, and we are only talking about cookies. If you would,under these circumstances, not think that rough fairness pulls in the direction of one cookie each, and you do not dismiss all cookies to the kid with the alphabetically first first name, then you truly do not think that equality ever has a distinct value, but you will probably be in the minority.

"Pragmatic" does not reveal as much about your view as you might want, as it denotes only some kind of practical concern for consequences. "Maximize wealth" is better as that zeroes us in on total utilitarianism, at least if we assume that wealth is a good proxy for the good. (It has, however, the theoretical disadvantage as applied to population issues that it could be satisfied by an enormous population, every member of which was just slightly happy. Average utility seems more attractive in this respect, although aiming for a tiny population of ecstatically happy people may also seem slightly unattractive.)

"Taking care of everybody" suggests some concern with equality. Why not just take care of tall people?

I was very sloppy with my terminology - I generally don't like specifically 'philosophical' terminology, especially since it's been too long since I was anywhere near academia. I just meant pragmatism in its normal, everyday use:

prag·mat·ic
praɡˈmadik/
adjective
dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.

It's the anti-theoretical part that I was targeting. I think you would probably characterize my position as 'utilitarian' as you mentioned above. As my example of Lennie was unfairly skewed away from 'equality,' your example of children and cookies is skewed the other way, since it deals with something that is unnecessary - more of a luxury item - that for some reason 'you want to give away to children.' Wealth is not something you just want to give away without a reason. And the reason will guide the distribution (if you want to make the children equally happy, then give them equal shares; if you want to reward them for good behavior, reward the ones more who behaved the best).

I agree that 'equal' shares makes sense as a fall-back position. I am saying that this is true not on theoretical or ideological or moral grounds, but just because it amounts to a kind of 'no decision.' The other 'no decision' position I can think of is 'we're holding all of it (in escrow) until we all agree on a sensible distribution.' I don't see the latter as 'moral,' but as a preliminary position - I see 'equality' in the same light. Perhaps a good analogy would be dealing everyone the same amount of cards prior to deciding which game we want to play - it saves some time and if I deal each person seven and we later decide to play five card stud, it is easier for everyone to take two cards off the top and throw them back into the deck. Or, we could decide to wait until we decide which game to play before dealing the cards. I see only practical considerations, not moral or theoretical.

I wouldn't 'just take care of tall people' - not because that wouldn't be fair, but because I can't think of a situation where that would make sense. I do think it is a moral decision (which I endorse) to take care of everyone within the community, however. So, if everyone's lives depended on winning basketball games, I would endorse giving tall athletic people some special treatment; just not to the level of harming others (beyond a certain baseline) within the community.

They aren't entitled to hoard money, they are obligated to tend to the lower class with generosity. But money can be used to increase productivity and enjoy life here and there. The poor are rich in spirit, something rich people often do not have.

ianrust wrote:They aren't entitled to hoard money, they are obligated to tend to the lower class with generosity. But money can be used to increase productivity and enjoy life here and there. The poor are rich in spirit, something rich people often do not have.

As I already indicated, I don't regard hoarding money as being all bad since the banks lend based on what's deposited, among other factors. But hoarding does slow down the velocity of money which tends to hurt the economy. I think there's a concensus among economists as to how much money should be saved, spent and invested based on income.

It's a good rule of thumb that the lower the income, the greater the percentage of income people spend on the the basics or necessities of life.

Nuff said.

PhilX

No one in this thread has given an answer to the OT.
As did not Nozick. He just took it for granted and moved on from there. As did Rawls with "Justice". Nozick basically treats "Entitlement" and Rawls "Justice" in the same manner, that it's kind of given. And the both are totally orthogonal. So probably both are wrong?

Justice and Entitlement are just candidate point of views of what should make money move around or not. Both those guy's Opus Magnii was written when the SOWIET UNION was the big, red threat, and Communism was a big factor in all discussions. Entitlement sure does date back to the two treasies, but Locke give a much more tempered view of whether or not rich brats should be the winners.

Both Rawls and Nozick compared their POW's to utilitarism and found that it's best if the middle class pays. Either to the poor or the rich.

Actually, there are other comparisions to make than the USSR. Take my home country Sweden back in the 70's. Taxation for inheritance was severe back then. But at the same time there was possiblities for sharp people of humble backgrounds to make a really good life for themselves. Not too bad, eh? (Not so any longer...).

What if ... the Good was the ones entitled to be rich...?

"No one in this thread has given an answer to the OT."

I disagree.


"Why are the rich entitled to be rich?"

Again...

When (relatively) smart, mercenary folks go after (perceived) scarce resources, they generally get 'em, keep 'em, control 'em.

So: it's not about entitlement...it's about what 'is'.

...and...

If you want it and can get it; if you have it and can keep it: it's yours.

If you can't get it or keep it (or recover it by way of your own efforts [or the efforts of your proxies]): then it ain't yours.

There is no 'right' (absolute or conditional) to any thing (including your life).

These are my answers...you (and every one else) may not like them or agree with me, but I (among others) have answered the question.

What Phil did ask for in the OT was this:

"Can someone give an economic explanation to justify this?"

Then I expect some kind of economic/scientific discussion as to why this should be better economically than other distributions or at least sound. But that's maybe to ask too much. What you can say about Rawls and justice - he at least tries to do something of the sort. Even though the justice is "intuitive"...

"I expect some kind of economic/scientific discussion"

Fair enough