Fairness and the Demands of Beneficence
In an earlier post I explained some of Liam Murphy's reasons for rejecting arguments that appeal to demandingness in order to reject moral theories such as consequentialism, and for the most part endorsed Murphy's conclusions. Here I want to examine Murphy's attempt to reject optimizing views, such as consequentialism, of our duties to aid others, and suggest one problem (I think there are others as well) for the view that he endorses.
Murphy claims that the demands of plausible moral principles that relate to collective aims that we are all obligated to contribute to, such as promoting (weighted) well-being, will be distributed fairly. One implication of the fair distribution of such demands, according to Murphy, is that one cannot be required to pick up the slack for others' failure to comply; this, according to Murphy, would be unfair. So, on Murphy's view one is obligated to discharge her fair share of the collective burden of promoting well-being, which, especially for the better-off, can involve great sacrifice. He rejects the so-called demandingness objection, so for him the fact that a fair share principle might require individuals to sacrifice a great deal is in itself no objection to it. But one is not, on his view, required to do even more than her fair share simply because others are not doing their shares, or because one knows that others will not do their shares.
There is much that is appealing about the fair share view. Surely we do think that fairness is an important value; and surely it would be unfair if one person's immoral conduct could increase what morality demands of other agents, especially if those agents are already complying with morality's initial demands on them. But there are a number of difficulties attending Murphy's attempt to provide an account of just how the demands on individuals are to be determined. One of these is the problem of past noncompliance, which will be the focus of the remainder of this post.
Murphy claims that when we determine what one's fair share of the collective burden to promote well-being is, we must ignore the past entirely. Limiting the scope of the discussion, for simplicity's sake, to resource allocation, one's fair share at any time is determined by first establishing the overall distribution of resources that would maximize well-being at that time. If one currently possesses more resources than one would in the optimal distribution, then one is obligated to give up the difference between her current share and her share in the optimal distribution. One's fair share at time t is determined, then, by looking from the state of affairs at t forward. Nothing that occurred in the past is relevant.
The problem of past noncompliance arises because it seems clear that the past noncompliance of some has implications for the fairness of the current distribution of demands. And since Murphy's rejection of the optimizing principle is based on his claim that its demands are distributed unfairly, at least with respect to those who do what would be their fair share under full compliance, it would seem devastating to his view if its demands were also distributed unfairly. But by ignoring the past Murphy's view does seem to contravene our ordinary conception of fairness, as I will attempt to show. Furthermore, a fair share view that does take past noncompliance into account, while it may do a bit better in respect of fairness, seems quite implausible for other reasons. And since Murphy has, I think, failed to articulate a view that is both plausible in itself and fair in its distribution of burdens, he hasn't succeeded in undermining the optimizing view.
Imagine that at time t I determine that I must sacrifice, say, $1000, and therefore make a donation in that amount, while nearly all others fail to sacrifice what they ought to. Then, at time t' (say, a month later) I receive my next paycheck, and once again calculate my obligation. Because both my past compliance and others' past noncompliance are not considered on Murphy's view, I must look only at the current distribution of resources. But others' past noncompliance at t means that what I'm obligated to do now, at t', is more than I would have had to do if they had done what they ought at t; and this seems clearly unfair. So Murphy's view does not cohere with our ordinary conception of fairness, which does take into account the extent to which we and others either have and have not complied in the past.
So if we wanted to preserve fairness we would have to adopt an account that does take past (non)compliance into account. But there's no good way to do this, as Murphy rightly points out. If someone at time t wrongly spends a great deal of money that he ought to donate to the poor on expensive dinners and traveling, he cannot be required to donate that same money to the poor at t', for the simple reason that he no longer has it. And if we tried to shift what would be, on Murphy's view, the obligations of past compliers to past noncompliers, the result would be a tremendous loss in overall well-being, and this is unacceptable since on Murphy's view our collective aim is precisely to promote well-being. We could give up on that aim altogether, and make fairness the centerpiece of our entire view, but this is presumably not something Murphy would want to do, nor do I think the result would be at all plausible.
Murphy claims that the demands of plausible moral principles that relate to collective aims that we are all obligated to contribute to, such as promoting (weighted) well-being, will be distributed fairly. One implication of the fair distribution of such demands, according to Murphy, is that one cannot be required to pick up the slack for others' failure to comply; this, according to Murphy, would be unfair. So, on Murphy's view one is obligated to discharge her fair share of the collective burden of promoting well-being, which, especially for the better-off, can involve great sacrifice. He rejects the so-called demandingness objection, so for him the fact that a fair share principle might require individuals to sacrifice a great deal is in itself no objection to it. But one is not, on his view, required to do even more than her fair share simply because others are not doing their shares, or because one knows that others will not do their shares.
There is much that is appealing about the fair share view. Surely we do think that fairness is an important value; and surely it would be unfair if one person's immoral conduct could increase what morality demands of other agents, especially if those agents are already complying with morality's initial demands on them. But there are a number of difficulties attending Murphy's attempt to provide an account of just how the demands on individuals are to be determined. One of these is the problem of past noncompliance, which will be the focus of the remainder of this post.
Murphy claims that when we determine what one's fair share of the collective burden to promote well-being is, we must ignore the past entirely. Limiting the scope of the discussion, for simplicity's sake, to resource allocation, one's fair share at any time is determined by first establishing the overall distribution of resources that would maximize well-being at that time. If one currently possesses more resources than one would in the optimal distribution, then one is obligated to give up the difference between her current share and her share in the optimal distribution. One's fair share at time t is determined, then, by looking from the state of affairs at t forward. Nothing that occurred in the past is relevant.
The problem of past noncompliance arises because it seems clear that the past noncompliance of some has implications for the fairness of the current distribution of demands. And since Murphy's rejection of the optimizing principle is based on his claim that its demands are distributed unfairly, at least with respect to those who do what would be their fair share under full compliance, it would seem devastating to his view if its demands were also distributed unfairly. But by ignoring the past Murphy's view does seem to contravene our ordinary conception of fairness, as I will attempt to show. Furthermore, a fair share view that does take past noncompliance into account, while it may do a bit better in respect of fairness, seems quite implausible for other reasons. And since Murphy has, I think, failed to articulate a view that is both plausible in itself and fair in its distribution of burdens, he hasn't succeeded in undermining the optimizing view.
Imagine that at time t I determine that I must sacrifice, say, $1000, and therefore make a donation in that amount, while nearly all others fail to sacrifice what they ought to. Then, at time t' (say, a month later) I receive my next paycheck, and once again calculate my obligation. Because both my past compliance and others' past noncompliance are not considered on Murphy's view, I must look only at the current distribution of resources. But others' past noncompliance at t means that what I'm obligated to do now, at t', is more than I would have had to do if they had done what they ought at t; and this seems clearly unfair. So Murphy's view does not cohere with our ordinary conception of fairness, which does take into account the extent to which we and others either have and have not complied in the past.
So if we wanted to preserve fairness we would have to adopt an account that does take past (non)compliance into account. But there's no good way to do this, as Murphy rightly points out. If someone at time t wrongly spends a great deal of money that he ought to donate to the poor on expensive dinners and traveling, he cannot be required to donate that same money to the poor at t', for the simple reason that he no longer has it. And if we tried to shift what would be, on Murphy's view, the obligations of past compliers to past noncompliers, the result would be a tremendous loss in overall well-being, and this is unacceptable since on Murphy's view our collective aim is precisely to promote well-being. We could give up on that aim altogether, and make fairness the centerpiece of our entire view, but this is presumably not something Murphy would want to do, nor do I think the result would be at all plausible.
posted by Brian Berkey at 2:52 AM
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18266847&postID=6835142952847641770&isPopup=true Comments:
I agree with your criticism of Murphy. I definitely seems like he ought to consider the noncompliance issue, especially having rejected the optimizing principle on the grounds that it’s unfair.
However, I think our commonsense conception of fairness really gets things wrong in this case. This discussion has focused on what is fair for the people who are in a position to give up money for redistribution to others (a group which probably includes nearly everyone writing and/or reading on the issue generally). Instead, I think the most important fairness consideration is that regarding those who are in a position to be the beneficiaries of such redistribution. For some reason, I doubt this is a point I need to argue with you, but – how is it fair that some people are born into hopeless poverty while others are born into the lap of luxury? It is of the utmost importance to first consider what will be fair to those who are currently suffering from a lack of the basic necessities of life, not what will be fair to those who might stand to “sacrifice” lattes, fancy SUVs and plasma televisions.
It is true that some will experience a loss of well-being as a result of both taking or not taking the noncompliance issue into account when calculating fair share. Either the compliers will end up picking up slack for noncompliers, or noncompliers will accrue a kind of moral debt too large to bear. And yet I seriously doubt that either of these cases would result in a loss of well-being comparable to the deficit of well-being which potential beneficiaries experience each and every day (largely through no fault of their own, because their starting places in life were not a matter under their control). Those who are in a position to give will remain much better situated than those who must depend upon the donations of others, since I trust that no donor would be required to give past the point of Peter Singer’s “comparable moral importance.”
As an afterthought, I will mention that I think the noncompliance/fairness issue can be adequately remedied by some particular forms of government which coercively collect large sums of money from the well-off by means of extremely heavy (or even 100%) inheritance taxes for the purposes of redistribution. This topic, however, is surely beyond the scope of my comment here. I'll have to write on it sometime.
Pam,
First, Murphy does consider the issue of past noncompliance, and he recognizes the problem that I mention. But he doesn't think that it undermines his view, mainly because he thinks that his fair share view is still the most plausible view out there, despite this and other problems. Basically he claims that every view that's been articulated has serious problems, and that the best we can do is decide which one is the least implausible, which he thinks is his view.
Now I think he's right that pretty much every view has some seemingly implausible elements, but I think the problems for his view make it less plausible than, for example, the optimizing view. His objection to the optimizing view is that it is unfair, but his own view would also impose demands, over time, that most people would consider unfair. So his view, if it does better at all, does just barely better than the optimizing principle in terms of conforming to the conception of fairness that most of us accept and care about. And since the optimizing principle does MUCH better in terms of requiring the promotion of well-being, I think that Murphy should endorse the optimizing principle, since his reason for endorsing the recalculation view (rather than the view that past noncompliance can result in greater future demands on the noncompliers) is that any alternative would reduce the extent to which well-being would be promoted.
Your point about the importance of considering what's fair to those who stand to benefit from beneficence alongside, or perhaps even prior to, considering what's fair to those who might be required to sacrifice, is one that I completely agree with (this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone).
Your last point raises issues about what sort of tax and redistribution scheme we should have, and though I think it would be much better if we had a severely progressive tax scheme, so long as we don't we will need to determine what we, the very fortunate of this world, are obligated to do in order to better the lives of others.
Brian,
Ok, so I missed the point a little. Please excuse my summer-atrophied brain & unfamiliarity with the primary material. I was under the (faulty) impression that Murphy was criticizing the optimizing view more than arguing for the recalculation view. I definitely agree with your criticism that Murphy's view is flawed both because it fails to maximize well-being (like the optimizing principle does) and because it doesn't properly resolve the fairness issue, either.
Just in general, I don't much like thinking of the best theory as being the least implausible one. I think that the main reason that the optimizing principle might seem implausible is because the well-off members of society frequently have distorted concepts of entitlement, fairness, etc. However, I suppose that, since we do currently lack a coercive redistribution scheme (like you pointed out), plausibility remains an important quality for an ethical theory to have because, if it is not persuasive, then more individuals in positions to give will fail to do so.
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