Here, I prove that equality has no intrinsic value.* [*Based on: “Non-Egalitarianism,” Philosophical Studies 114 (2003): 147-71.] 1. The Thesis Egalitarianism holds that equality is intrinsically good, or (perhaps better) that inequality is intrinsically
As Mike well knows (he literally wrote the book) and the comments here verify, we still need to appeal to intuition for this proof to work, since we have to accept the axioms.
Derek Parfit has another "intuition" argument against intrinsic egalitarianism. He imagines two islands separated by an ocean, so that island residents cannot communicate. In fact, they don't even know that the other island exists. One island has beautiful weather and abundant fruit trees, which make its residents rich and happy. The other island has crappy weather and its food is only barely palatable (locals call it "fish and chips"). Parfit asks if there is any way which we improve the value of the world by making the rich island residents poorer, without improving the lives of the poor island residents. According to intrinsic egalitarians, there is one way in which the world is better: there is less inequality. This seems to contradict many peoples' intuition.
Wouldn't an analogous "proof" work against any good that applies to an individual's life as a whole (i.e. any good that has an analogue to Principle A)?
If so, then doesn't this "prove" too much (e.g. doesn't it prove that there can be no such thing as a good life considered as a whole)? If not, why not?
This proof seems like a good bit of rhetoric for convincing someone who likes arguing in terms of cardinal utility. (Equality is not defined if utility is ordinal.) But what about those who have concluded that cardinal utility is incoherent, even when making intertemporal comparisons of the same agent, not to mention interpersonal comparisons?
“ Given principles A, B, and D above, Egalitarianism entails ~Additivity, and Additivity entails ~Egalitarianism.”
Does ~Additivity also entail ~Egalitarianism? How can equality mean anything if we can’t make some sort of stable meaningful quantifiable comparisons? What does “ equal” mean without such comparisons?
Egalitarians try to get around this by using income or wealth as proxies for utility, or just throw out utility and embrace equality of income or wealth directly. But which? They are not equivalent, unless consumption is also held constant among persons and times. But who wants to consume the same things as everyone else at the same time, or would be willing to endure the sort of social regimentation that would require?
At this point, I imagine the egalitarians retreat to the position that this is an ideal, and must be tempered by practical factors. This implies a cost/benefit calculation. But that means equality is not a trump card, but merely a minor cost consideration. And a rather incoherent one.
We don’t have to believe in utility monsters to wonder whether this sort of egalitarianism is really about equality or just envy. That isn’t quite the right word. What is a word for an atavistic urge to attack other persons' attempts (especially if successful) to improve their conditions? Tall poppy syndrome. “The nail that sticks out will be hammered down.” Don’t rock the boat. Conformism of a sort. A sort of funhouse mirror conservatism, where no one can do or change anything, unless everyone does it.
Compassion calls us to help those who need help. Once those who are in the most dire straights receive help, what is the motivation to move further toward equality? Why would anyone advocate for equality rather than a safety net? Is it concern for the unfortunate, or resentment against the successful?
In addition to proving too much, the argument assumes its conclusion. If inequality is intrinsically bad -- the point you're trying to disprove -- and world 2 has inequality at all times, then *by hypothesis* world 2 is intrinsically bad relative to world 1.
I shared this post on my Facebook page and a friend pointed out that Additivity is not being applied in the obvious case, directly comparing V3A to V3B.
In essence, what if we broke World 3 into World Y and World Z, each with only one of the people. Then the value of World Y would be less than World Z. This seems to be a legitimate application of Additivity because it's parallel to proof step 5. Comparing the total of World Y to World Z is parallel to proof step 7.
It would then be weird to claim that the same situation across worlds is different than that situation in the same world.
The notion of 'welfare' should be defined, and the scale should be clarified. For example, does having a welfare level of 5 imply that your life is already 'bad' in the time span under consideration, or is it still 'good', even though it is way less good than the life of someone with a welfare level of 150?
Your line of reasoning depends much on how welfare and your scale are to be understood.
I would question axiom A, that inequality (of utility) within an individual’s life doesn’t matter. Economists have found that people tend to prefer to smooth their consumption between periods of time, that is, to maintain their consumption at roughly the same level despite fluctuations in income. If a similar phenomenon happens with utility, then a more equal distribution of utility over time is preferable.
<<Of course, most philosophers won’t accept the argument, because most philosophers are basically completely dogmatic and only use argumentation as a tool for rationalizing their prejudices.>>
If most philosophers are just dogmatic what makes you so confident that you as a philosopher aren't dogmatic?
"Everybody suffers from biases but me... I'm just immune to all of them."
Experiments from psychology show that people dislike being inferior to others (we call it "envy") and that people are loss-averse (i.e. a loss costs more "utils" than an equal gain provides). This suggests that world 2 is worse than world 1; the gains for young A and old B do not offset the losses for old A and young B. This also addresses David Jenkins's comment about non-communicating islands because being inferior to somebody very distant is much less relevant than being inferior to the person next door.
I'm still confused by your argument, especially as it relates to the extreme case of individual A with 150 units of utility and Individual B with none. Suppose the first unit of utility is a pound of beans. If individual B has nothing, then certainly overall welfare is increased if he can survive the day. Total welfare is meaningless to me unless you consider total utility.
I think a committed egalitarian would rather reject A than C. If you already think inequality between different people is bad, you could argue that inequality between a single person at different points in time is bad, because they are in some sense different people.
In your three possible worlds, you presume that 150 units of welfare can be divided arbitrarily between two individuals and result in the same total welfare. You ignore that the marginal utility of a unit of welfare may not be constant. The first unit of welfare may be necessary for enough calories to survive or protection from the elements. The ab-absurdum example of 150 units of welfare to individual A and zero to B resulting in his death defeats your argument.
As Mike well knows (he literally wrote the book) and the comments here verify, we still need to appeal to intuition for this proof to work, since we have to accept the axioms.
Derek Parfit has another "intuition" argument against intrinsic egalitarianism. He imagines two islands separated by an ocean, so that island residents cannot communicate. In fact, they don't even know that the other island exists. One island has beautiful weather and abundant fruit trees, which make its residents rich and happy. The other island has crappy weather and its food is only barely palatable (locals call it "fish and chips"). Parfit asks if there is any way which we improve the value of the world by making the rich island residents poorer, without improving the lives of the poor island residents. According to intrinsic egalitarians, there is one way in which the world is better: there is less inequality. This seems to contradict many peoples' intuition.
Wouldn't an analogous "proof" work against any good that applies to an individual's life as a whole (i.e. any good that has an analogue to Principle A)?
If so, then doesn't this "prove" too much (e.g. doesn't it prove that there can be no such thing as a good life considered as a whole)? If not, why not?
This proof seems like a good bit of rhetoric for convincing someone who likes arguing in terms of cardinal utility. (Equality is not defined if utility is ordinal.) But what about those who have concluded that cardinal utility is incoherent, even when making intertemporal comparisons of the same agent, not to mention interpersonal comparisons?
“ Given principles A, B, and D above, Egalitarianism entails ~Additivity, and Additivity entails ~Egalitarianism.”
Does ~Additivity also entail ~Egalitarianism? How can equality mean anything if we can’t make some sort of stable meaningful quantifiable comparisons? What does “ equal” mean without such comparisons?
Egalitarians try to get around this by using income or wealth as proxies for utility, or just throw out utility and embrace equality of income or wealth directly. But which? They are not equivalent, unless consumption is also held constant among persons and times. But who wants to consume the same things as everyone else at the same time, or would be willing to endure the sort of social regimentation that would require?
At this point, I imagine the egalitarians retreat to the position that this is an ideal, and must be tempered by practical factors. This implies a cost/benefit calculation. But that means equality is not a trump card, but merely a minor cost consideration. And a rather incoherent one.
We don’t have to believe in utility monsters to wonder whether this sort of egalitarianism is really about equality or just envy. That isn’t quite the right word. What is a word for an atavistic urge to attack other persons' attempts (especially if successful) to improve their conditions? Tall poppy syndrome. “The nail that sticks out will be hammered down.” Don’t rock the boat. Conformism of a sort. A sort of funhouse mirror conservatism, where no one can do or change anything, unless everyone does it.
Compassion calls us to help those who need help. Once those who are in the most dire straights receive help, what is the motivation to move further toward equality? Why would anyone advocate for equality rather than a safety net? Is it concern for the unfortunate, or resentment against the successful?
In addition to proving too much, the argument assumes its conclusion. If inequality is intrinsically bad -- the point you're trying to disprove -- and world 2 has inequality at all times, then *by hypothesis* world 2 is intrinsically bad relative to world 1.
I shared this post on my Facebook page and a friend pointed out that Additivity is not being applied in the obvious case, directly comparing V3A to V3B.
In essence, what if we broke World 3 into World Y and World Z, each with only one of the people. Then the value of World Y would be less than World Z. This seems to be a legitimate application of Additivity because it's parallel to proof step 5. Comparing the total of World Y to World Z is parallel to proof step 7.
It would then be weird to claim that the same situation across worlds is different than that situation in the same world.
Is he missing something?
The notion of 'welfare' should be defined, and the scale should be clarified. For example, does having a welfare level of 5 imply that your life is already 'bad' in the time span under consideration, or is it still 'good', even though it is way less good than the life of someone with a welfare level of 150?
Your line of reasoning depends much on how welfare and your scale are to be understood.
I would question axiom A, that inequality (of utility) within an individual’s life doesn’t matter. Economists have found that people tend to prefer to smooth their consumption between periods of time, that is, to maintain their consumption at roughly the same level despite fluctuations in income. If a similar phenomenon happens with utility, then a more equal distribution of utility over time is preferable.
<<Of course, most philosophers won’t accept the argument, because most philosophers are basically completely dogmatic and only use argumentation as a tool for rationalizing their prejudices.>>
If most philosophers are just dogmatic what makes you so confident that you as a philosopher aren't dogmatic?
"Everybody suffers from biases but me... I'm just immune to all of them."
Experiments from psychology show that people dislike being inferior to others (we call it "envy") and that people are loss-averse (i.e. a loss costs more "utils" than an equal gain provides). This suggests that world 2 is worse than world 1; the gains for young A and old B do not offset the losses for old A and young B. This also addresses David Jenkins's comment about non-communicating islands because being inferior to somebody very distant is much less relevant than being inferior to the person next door.
I'm still confused by your argument, especially as it relates to the extreme case of individual A with 150 units of utility and Individual B with none. Suppose the first unit of utility is a pound of beans. If individual B has nothing, then certainly overall welfare is increased if he can survive the day. Total welfare is meaningless to me unless you consider total utility.
I think a committed egalitarian would rather reject A than C. If you already think inequality between different people is bad, you could argue that inequality between a single person at different points in time is bad, because they are in some sense different people.
In your three possible worlds, you presume that 150 units of welfare can be divided arbitrarily between two individuals and result in the same total welfare. You ignore that the marginal utility of a unit of welfare may not be constant. The first unit of welfare may be necessary for enough calories to survive or protection from the elements. The ab-absurdum example of 150 units of welfare to individual A and zero to B resulting in his death defeats your argument.