There is a huge gap between the richest
and poorest people in the world.
According to the Global Wealth Report
2019, the poorest half of all people in
the world account for less than 1% of
total global wealth, while the top 1% own
45 percent of global wealth. Let that
sink in for a moment. Almost half of all
the wealth on the planet is owned by
only 1% of the population and half of
all the world's population owns less
than 1% of its wealth. This seems to be an
absurd and even immoral distribution of
wealth on the planet. If you want to get
a better understanding of just how rich
the super-rich are, there's a website
that helps illustrate the point. If you
go to Neil Dot fun slash spend you can
spend Bill Gates money and go on the
wildest shopping spree of your life -
imaginary of course. You start with
ninety billion dollars. How about a
thousand Lamborghinis, ten townhouses 100
TVs, five bars of pure gold and an f-16
jet. Naw, let's add a skyscraper to the list.
Worried about your credit card? No need
of you're Bill Gates! Our shopping list
didn't even make a dent into the 90
billion. Yes that's how rich some people
are. Maybe some of you will feel
disgusted by the fact that some people
are that rich while other people starve
to death. We all agree that it is morally
bad if people don't have enough money to
buy food, clothes, or medicine. In the face
of poverty extreme inequality seems
morally bad. But does equality matter in
itself? Would there be a problem with
huge inequality if everyone had enough
to survive comfortably? Well, that's a
philosophical question!
Economic inequality is a crucial topic
in many political debates, especially in
the current US election.
Bernie Sanders and some other Democratic
candidates emphasized the importance to
tax the richest people in the U.S. more
heavily than it is currently done. We can
assume for the sake of the discussion in
this video the following moral statement:
if rich people can prevent poverty by
donating, they should do so. You can check
one of our previous videos for a more
detailed argument. In that sense more
equality is important. We might disagree
on the specific tax systems that will
guarantee more equality, but we can at
least agree that the inequalities just
mentioned are morally problematic. But
another claim that both philosophers and
ordinary people often uphold is that
equality is important even if everyone
has enough resources to live on. Among
philosophers, this position is
called egalitarianism and states that
equality is intrinsically valuable.
Egalitarianism can be distinguished with
regards to what exactly should be equal.
Let's call economic egalitarianism the
position that everyone ought to have
approximately the same amount of
property. Let's call moral
egalitarianism the position that
treating all people equal is
intrinsically morally valuable. Both
types of egalitarianism have been
criticized by many philosophers but very
famously by the American philosopher
Harry Frankfurt. Frankfurt argues that
striving for equality - be it moral or
economic - is not in itself morally
valuable. As an alternative he proposes
the moral principle that is called
sufficientarianism. In Frankfurt's own
words: To focus on inequality which is
not in itself objectionable is to
misconstrue the challenge we actually
face
our basic focus should be on reducing
both poverty and excessive affluence. That
may very well entail, of course, a
reduction of inequality. But the
reduction of inequality cannot itself be
our most essential ambition. Economic
equality is not a morally compelling
ideal. The primary goal of our efforts
must be to repair society in which many
have far too little while others have the
comfort and influence that go with
having more than enough. So we can
summarize the idea of sufficientarianism
in the sense that from a moral
point of view everyone should have
enough resources to make ends meet or
even live a good life. How much resources
are exactly needed for sufficiency is hard
to say. But the important takeaway is
that equality is not what we should be
concerned with. From the point of view of
morality, it is not important that
everyone should have the same. What is
morally important is that each should have
enough. How does Frankfurt strengthen
his position? For starters, he argues that
focusing on inequality distracts us from
what we should really care about.
According to Frankfurt we should ask
what resources we would need to live a
good life. We cannot figure out what we
need by looking at what others have - and
that's also not what we should do.
Similarly, philosophers who are concerned
with inequality should focus more on the
actual grounds for inequality and their
problems, not on arguments for equality
itself. The second strategy is to argue
that economic equality is only of
derivative value. In other words, it is
not intrinsically valuable. Let's take a
look at an example. If you care about
solidarity among citizens as a moral
ideal, economic equality might very well
be an effective way to guarantee the
solidarity. But if that's your argument,
economic equality doesn't matter in
itself. You care about equality only
insofar as it leads to solidarity. If you
can reach that goal by other means, that
should do as well and equality is
dispensable.
Frankfurt's third argument says that
whenever we think that equality matters,
we really have other aims in mind. This can
be nicely illustrated when thinking
about wealth inequality among the rich
and the super rich. The super-rich are
way more wealthy than the rich. But we
aren't really bothered by that, are we? We
mostly care about the inequality between
the poor and the rich. If that's true, our
concerns are better described as aiming
at reducing the poverty of the worst-off,
but not equality per se. All these
considerations pump the intuition that
equality really isn't important after
all. What matters is that everyone has
enough to live a good life, but if that's
true, why care about equality in itself
at all? Can Frankfurt really explain all
cases in which we care about equality by
saying that these people only want that
everyone has enough. That seems to be a
very bold claim. Let's take a look at
some cool empirical research. There
seems to be initial evidence that people
really do care about equality in itself.
In some experimental studies,
experimenters gave children the task to
divide a certain good, such as erasers, to
other children. When the children had six
erasers but only 5 people to give them
to, for example, they would ask the
experimenter to throw away the sixth
eraser, so that they don't create an
unequal distribution. And they even did
so when the children wouldn't know how
many erasers the other children got and
that the distribution was unequal. How
cool is that! Instead of giving some
people more, children will actively try
to throw away stuff. If that isn't a
preference for equality, what is?
Furthermore, in a large study across 15
cultures, people are willing to punish
those who divided resources unequally.
Punishment in these studies was costly
for participants. For every punishment
they gave, they had to invest some amount
of money which they otherwise would have
kept after the study was over. And still,
people were perfectly fine to spend some
money to punish individuals who made
unequal distributions. This seems to be
additional evidence that people really
do
care about equality. But there's also
evidence to the contrary.
Christina Starmans, Mark Sheskin and
Paul Bloom summarized the research in
their 2017 paper 'why people prefer
unequal societies'. When asked about
wealth distribution in the US, Americans
showed three interesting responses. First,
they vastly underestimate the actual
inequality in their own country.
Second, they want wealth distribution to
be much more equal than it is in the
current US. They prefer a distribution that
is more similar to the actual situation
in Sweden.
Thirdly, most people prefer slightly
unequal societies, even when having the
chance to choose completely equal
societies. This latter study fits nicely
with Frankfurt's observations. People
really want less unequal societies, but
they don't want equal societies. So
there's evidence that sometimes people
care about equality and sometimes they
don't. Well, know what? Is there no clear
answer? Christina Starmans, Mark Sheskin
and Paul Bloom offer a clear answer. And it
perfectly fits Frankfurt's suspicion. People
only appear to care about equality while
they actually care about something else.
The researchers write: we suggest that
this discrepancy arises because the
laboratory findings reviewed above -
which report the discovery of
egalitarian motives, a desire for more
equality, or inequality aversion - do not
in fact provide evidence that an
aversion to inequality is driving the
preference for equal distribution.
Instead these findings are all
consistent with both a preference for
equality and with a preference for
fairness, because the studies are
designed so that the equal outcome is
also the fair one. This is because the
recipients are indistinguishable with
regard to considerations such as need
and merit. Hence, whether subjects are
sensitive to fairness or to equality,
they will be inclined to distribute the
goods equally. Thus, equality of outcome
only appears to be important because
fairness considerations also and
independently favor equal outcomes. Once
we change the settings of the
experiments, however, the outcomes are
different. Let's take another look at the
experiments where children were asked to
distribute goods. When they were told
that one of the other children
in the experiment worked harder than the
others, they insisted on unequal
distribution, even when equal
distribution of resources was an option.
Participants in other studies also
didn't care as much about inequality
when the inequality was the result of
chance or luck such as a lottery. There
only seems to be a problem when people
distribute resources unequally without
having a reason to do so
so Frankfurt's claim seems to be backed
by the empirical research. People only
care about equality in cases where
equality is also fair. If there are any
valid reasons to distinguish between
what people should get - for example hard
work, talent, moral considerations etc -
then people stop to care about equal
distribution. Okay, so Frankfurt's claim
against economic equality seems valid. But
what about his claim that even moral
egalitarianism doesn't matter? This might
even seem more absurd. At least in moral
and legal cases equality seems to be
valuable in itself, doesn't it? We demand
that all people are treated equally in
courts of law and most modern societies
hold that all people have the same
fundamental moral value in terms of
dignity or rights. If egalitarianism is
wrong
Frankfurt needs to explain why we seem
to care about equality in those cases.
And Frankfurt does offer an interesting
response. He proposes to distinguish
between equal and respectful treatment
of people. Respectful treatment entails
that we treat people impartial.
Impartiality, in turn, can explain what
we seemingly care about equality, without
subscribing to the view of moral or
legal egalitarianism. Treating people
with respect precludes assigning them
special advantages or disadvantages,
except on the basis of considerations
that differentiate them relevantly from
those to whom those advantages or
disadvantages are not assigned. Thus, it
entails impartiality and the avoidance
of arbitrariness. To illustrate this
point
Frankfurt responds to an argument offered
by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Berlin
tries to convince us that equality has
primacy over inequality.
If we have a cake and are asked to
distribute the cake to five children, we
ought to give every child an equally
large piece. Giving one child half of the
cake while the other four children have
to share the other half seems wrong -
and it is wrong because equality is
ignored. Frankfurt counters that the
primacy of equality is illusory. It's
true that we should divide the cake
equally to the five children, but not
because we care about equality in itself,
but because we should treat people with
respect, and respectful treatment
includes avoiding arbitrary or partial
actions. If we treat any of the children
differently, we thereby suggest that
there is a relevant difference that
justifies such treatment. If there isn't
one, though, we're acting disrespectfully.
If, on the other hand, there were reasons
to be partial,
we should readily be so. Maybe some of
the children are especially hungry or
one child scored more goals than the
other in a soccer match. All these are
potential reasons to be partial. But
without such reasons we should be
impartial, and thus give every child the
same. Our preferences for equal
distribution can be explained by
appealing to respect and impartiality, not
by a primacy of equality. At this point a
third objection might be intuitive. Is
there really an interesting difference
between what Frankfurt's sufficientarianism
and egalitarianism demand? We
should still treat people equally, except
when there are relevant differences
between people. We should also fight
extreme economic inequalities as long as
people don't have sufficient resources.
But there really is an important
difference, both philosophically and
practically. Frankfurt's sufficient-
arianism is for example incompatible
with socialist or communist positions in
which property is either in collective
ownership or at least equally
distributed. If Frankfurt is right, there
is a good reason to reject such
approaches. So does equality matter?
Frankfurt has offer promising arguments
for why it doesn't matter in itself.
With regards to economic equality, people
seem to be more concerned that everyone
has enough to get by well and that
fairness considerations are fulfilled.
With regards to moral and legal equality,
Frankfurt's proposal that what matters
is respect and impartiality is also
plausible on the face of it. If both
claims hold, he's right in thinking that
equality doesn't matter in itself. Thanks
for watching the video! What do you think?
Is Frankfurt right in claiming that
equality doesn't matter in itself? what
other thoughts do you have? Tell us your
thoughts in the comments below and tweet
us using the hashtag #equalityPQ on Twitter.
 
 
