Abstract
Oppression can be unjust from a luck egalitarian point of view even when it is the consequence of choices for which it is reasonable to hold persons responsible. This is for two reasons. First, people who have not been oppressed are unlikely to anticipate the ways in which their choices may lead them into oppressive conditions. Facts about systematic phenomena (like oppression) are often beyond the epistemic reach of persons who are not currently subject to such conditions, even when they possess adequate information about the particular consequences of their choices. Second, people may be (much) less responsible for remaining in oppressive conditions, even if they are responsible for entering circumstances of oppression. Oppression that results from a person’s choice may cause or contribute to dramatic changes in that person, and these changes may be sufficient to undermine the person’s responsibility for the results of her earlier choice.
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Notes
Fifteen years ago, John Roemer wrote that “this new articulation of responsibility in the theory of distributive justice, and of egalitarian theory in particular, is the signal achievement in the field in the last 15 years,” (1996, p. 309). The terms “luck egalitarianism” and “equality of fortune” were coined by Elizabeth Anderson (1999). One explanation for the popularity of luck egalitarianism is that it invokes an ideal of personal responsibility, to which political conservatives and moderates are committed, to justify egalitarian social programs to which political liberals are committed. See Scheffler (2001), especially chapter one.
Dworkin has since rejected the luck egalitarian mantle (2003), though the centrality of the luck/choice principle in his account of distributive justice is sufficient to include his view within the family of luck egalitarian theories. Other early luck egalitarians include Nagel (1991); Rakowski (1991); Temkin (1993), and Van Parijs (1997). Among more recent advocates and defenders of luck egalitarianism are Knight (2009); Segall (2010); Tan (2008), and Voigt (2007).
Among the intra-luck-egalitarian disagreements is a debate about whether the currency of distributive justice is resources (Dworkin 1981), welfare (Arneson 1989), or advantage (Cohen 1989). Other differences concern the location of the cut between circumstances of luck and circumstances of choice. For example, see the debate between Cohen and Dworkin (Burley 2004). There is also a disagreement about whether the subject of distributive justice is the basic structure of society or some combination of individual persons and an institutional basic structure. On this debate see Tan (2004, 2008) and Cohen (2008).
For example, Scheffler says that “the basic reason [equality] matters to us is because we believe that there is something valuable about human relationships that are, in certain crucial respects at least, unstructured by differences of rank, power, or status,” (2005, p. 17).
Also see Voigt (2007), for a broader discussion of the available responses to the harshness objection.
Concern about the way in which unchosen background inequalities shape persons’ choices was present in early luck egalitarian work (Cohen 1989; Arneson 1989) Other attempts to defend equal initial life options, and to show how luck egalitarians are sensitive to the way in which unchosen background inequalities undermine responsibility, include Barry (2006); Vallentyne (2002), and Roemer (1996).
Luck egalitarians have many possible strategies to account for the injustice of non-material inequalities. Those committed to equality of resources might identify the social bases of self-respect and access to positions of power and privilege among the resources to be distributed. Luck egalitarians who are committed to equality of (opportunity for) welfare can also ground support for non-material inequalities, but they will have to rely upon a sufficiently objective account of welfare in order to do so. Finally, luck egalitarians who are committed to a more general equalisandum, according to which access to advantages should be equalized, may include the avoidance of exploitation (and other oppressive conditions) among the advantages to which one ought to have equal access.
Anderson claims that “egalitarians should not rest content with merely equalizing opportunities ex ante, while remaining indifferent to the drastic inequalities generated by unregulated markets ex post. Some outcomes are so bad that they are objectionable even if they are the consequence of voluntary choice” (2008, p. 257).
Anderson writes that luck egalitarianism “imposes no constraints on the structure of opportunities generated by free markets. Nothing would prevent people, even those whose gambles were prudent, but who suffered from bad option luck, from subjection to…oppression,” (1999, p. 298). See also Fleurbaey (1995).
Importantly, the claim that luck egalitarians can be concerned about some of the disadvantages that result from causal chains initiated by genuine choices is not motivated by a commitment to forgiveness. For example, we need not endorse Marc Fleurbaey’s claim that distributive justice is consistent with forgiveness for unfortunate distributive consequences for which we are responsible (2005). Instead, I have relied upon the (orthodox) luck egalitarian claim that disadvantages for which we are not responsible are unjust.
I will argue that persons who are oppressed as a result of their membership in groups they choose to join are (not very) responsible for their oppression. It is a separate question when and whether the victims of oppression have a responsibility to resist their oppression. See Cudd (2006); Hay (2005).
For discussion of the “luck/choice principle,” see Tan (2008, pp. 665-7).
For the purposes of this paper, I adopt the claim made by Kok-Chor Tan (and other luck egalitarians) that luck egalitarianism is restricted to the domain of distributive equality, i.e., that luck egalitarianism is consistent with a social minimum and principles political justice, and that these other ideas need not be grounded in the luck/choice principle, (2008, pp. 669-71).
Also see Cohen (1989, p. 307).
Of course, the details of Dworkin’s option luck/brute luck divide are different from the details of Cohen and Arneson’s choice/luck cuts. However, the centrality of the luck/choice principle in all three accounts is sufficient for the purposes of this paper.
See Sangiovanni (2007), for an account of how democratic egalitarians invoke the luck-choice principle.
For example, they are two of the five faces of oppression identified by Young (1990)
Tan can make three responses. First, he can deny that marginalization and powerlessness are forms of oppression. However, this would require the embrace of a revisionist conception of oppression. Second, he can deny that people are able to be responsible for the sorts of choices that initiate and maintain such oppressive conditions. While some efforts have been made in this direction (as I discuss in section one of the paper), it still seems as if luck egalitarianism will tolerate forms of oppression that arise from choices made from equal starting positions and that are above the social minimum. Third, he can claim that other considerations, including principles of political justice, prevent oppression. However, it is unclear what is meant by ‘political justice’ in this context. If it means the protection of the basic political liberties (e.g., Rawls’s first principle of justice), then political justice may be consistent with much oppression. However, if ‘political justice’ refers to something with more robust distributive consequences, like those that democratic egalitarians derive from the political idea of equal citizenship, then it is unclear what is supposed to be distinctive about the luck egalitarian version of distributive justice.
Barry’s views on this matter are not entirely clear. Consider the example that Barry gives of a person who chooses to become a member of an oppressed religious group. Barry claims that such oppression is unjust because the convert does not choose for members of her new religion to be oppressed. However, what Barry might mean is that such oppression is unjust because it violates some other principles of justice (e.g., freedom of conscience and speech), and that people cannot be responsible for becoming subject to such injustices. On this interpretation, the luck/choice principle is not the explanation for why such oppression is unjust. Instead, religious persecution would be unjust because it consists of the violation of other principles of justice, and not because we are not responsible for the ways in which structural forces affect our holdings. On either interpretation, Barry fails to rescue luck egalitarianism from the objection that it tolerates choice-based oppression
See Arneson, who claims that luck egalitarianism ought to be tempered by a priority for the worst-off: “The point of equality I would say is to improve people’s life prospects, tilting in favor of those who are worse off, and in favor of those who have done as well as could be reasonably expected with the cards that fate has dealt them,” (2000, p. 349). While Arneson claims to be a pluralist about the grounds of egalitarian concern, it is unclear how much of his prioritarianism could be accounted for with (non-egalitarian) humanitarian considerations. That is, Arneson may be a pluralist about (distributive) justice, but not about distributive equality. Similarly, Cohen might seem to a pluralist about the grounds of egalitarian concern, but this is less obvious that it may appear to be. For example, Cohen thinks that a ‘personal prerogative’ may justify deviations from distributive equality, but he denies that such considerations (like other non-egalitarian principles of justice or of implementation) inform the demands of distributive equality (2008, pp. 387-93). It is beyond the scope of this paper to evaluate the different positions luck egalitarians and democratic egalitarians embrace concerning the relationship between distributive equality and distributive justice and the relationship between equality, justice, and other considerations. See Cohen (2008); Freeman (2009).
Of course, it may not always be possible for luck egalitarians to avoid egalitarian pluralism. However, this is consistent with a commitment to attempt to ground egalitarian concern in the luck/choice principle whenever it is possible to do so.
I restrict talk about adequate options to the context of choices regarding occupation for three reasons. First, choices about one’s occupation are often the most consequential choices one makes from the point of view of one’s distributive shares. For example, Rawls says “[t]he primary social goods that vary in their distribution are the rights and prerogatives of authority, and income and wealth” (1999, p. 80). In market economies, these goods vary in their distribution primarily based upon persons’ differential employment. Second, one’s exposure to oppression often depends upon one’s occupation. According to Young, exploitation and marginalization are forms of oppression that appear exclusively (or at least primarily) with respect to employment. Furthermore, powerlessness and violence are common among workers who are oppressed (1990). Third, I focus on choices regarding occupation as a matter of parsimony, in light of the fact that occupation-related choices provide a sufficient set of cases from which to defend this paper’s argument. Of course, choices about housing, leisure, family life, etc., are also consequential for oppression.
Of course, the different distributive outcomes must not, themselves, involve inadequate sets of options.
Does the view presented here have the (perverse) consequence that persons cannot be responsible (or must become less responsible) for ways of life that require the permanent renunciation of all alternative ways of living? For example, will luck egalitarianism prevent persons from becoming (or remaining) Benedictine monks, who vow stability to a particular monastery for life (Fry 1981)? No. It is possible for a person to renounce all alternative ways of life, even while some such options remain available to that person. No one prevents disaffected Benedictines from leaving the monastery to become teachers, parish priests, or day-laborers. In ordinary circumstances, these options are always available. Of course, a person who leaves a monastery may not possess the same options he had when he entered the monastery (e.g., a millionaire who gives away his money before taking his vows may be unable to become a millionaire again). However, the unavailability of some options is compatible with the possession of adequate options. Furthermore, luck egalitarianism may make some lifestyles unavailable, such as voluntary slavery. However, a society that honors the basic political liberties will prohibit such lifestyles, too.
Two things follow from this account of the distinct consequences of different options. First, similarity among the short-term consequences of one’s options is insufficient to undermine genuine choice. This is because there may be differences in the long-term consequences of one’s options, and one’s short-term options may open pathways to different long-term consequences. Second, similarity among the long-term consequences of one’s options is insufficient to undermine genuine choice. Differences in the distributive consequences of the (relatively short-term) sequences of choices by which one arrives at similar long-term consequences may be sufficiently robust to be consistent with genuine choice. Depending on one’s time scale, this is obviously true, since ‘in the long run,’ we will all be dead, and death is likely to be the same for us all.
Of course, it is likely that people who lack adequate options also lack high quality options. However, this is not because the adequacy of one’s options depends upon their quality. Instead, it is because people whose circumstances provide them with high quality options are likely to possess resources (e.g., money, power) that make adequate options available to them. It is possible, however unlikely, that one might face inadequate options, even if all of one’s options had lucrative consequences.
Inadequate options may be different from each other in some ways, while remaining sufficiently similar to remain inadequate. For example, a person who faces a choice between becoming a poor beggar or a relatively well-off prostitute likely faces inadequate options, even if she would make more money (in the short term) as a prostitute than as a beggar. This is because similarities between these two options overwhelm the differences. Both options include similar degrees of humiliation and degradation, subjection to the arbitrary violence of strangers and authority figures, risk of premature death, loss of self-esteem and self-respect, and marginalization from the formal labor market. Again, the worry here is not that these options are bad (their badness may make them a focus of humanitarian considerations), but that they are insufficiently distinct to make one’s choice between them consequential.
To clarify: The argument here does not rely upon the claim that people are responsible only for the desirable consequences of their choices, and that they are not responsible for the undesirable consequences of their choices. Rather, the argument in this section relies upon the claim that people are not responsible for those consequences of their choices that it would be unreasonable to expect them to anticipate.
This is not to suggest that all persons who do not complete a university degree program are condemned to such circumstances. However, for the sake of this example, I assume that Jack is condemned to such circumstances.
In response to skepticism about whether entry level retail workers can be oppressed, consider the way in which Wal-Mart treats its employees. Many stores have practiced a night hours ‘lock-in’, so that third shift employees cannot leave the building until a manager returns in the morning (Greenhouse 2004). More generally, Wal-Mart has a policy of permanently shuttering stores and store departments whenever workers threaten to unionize (Neumark et al. 2008; Fishman 2006).
For more about the epistemological blinders caused by privilege, especially as regards knowledge of oppression and the experiences of the oppressed, see the work of standpoint epistemologists (Wylie 2003).
See Moody-Adams (1992), for discussion of how oppression may undermine self-respect.
For example, in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke develops a conception of personal identity that relies upon memory, and he invokes this conception of personal identity when making claims about personal responsibility ([1690] 1979).
So, for example, Thomas Reid’s claim that continuity of overlapping psychological connections are sufficient for personal identity need not challenge the view I advance ([1788] 1983). For the same reason, accounts of personal identity that rely solely upon the sameness of the biological organism (e.g., DeGrazia (2005) and Olson (1997)) need not present a challenge to my view.
This example is not meant to imply that existing drug laws are just or that most contemporary drug felons possessed adequate options surrounding their choices to distribute illegal drugs.
Here, I am not interested in questions about the criminal law, but in the consequences for distributive justice of one’s choices, criminal or otherwise.
Natalie J. Sokoloff and Amanda Burgess-Proctor observe that American women (especially American women of color) face overwhelming burdens to workforce re-entry after felony drug convictions. They write: “In all states, former offenders are restricted from working as beauticians and nurses; and in most from child care, education, and home health care…jobs which are heavily Black and female. Thus, the very jobs requiring little formal education or training to which poor women of color with limited employment options otherwise might gravitate are unavailable to women with felony drug convictions” (2010).
Admittedly, it is a consequence of my view that some persons who continue to face adequate options throughout their lives are entitled to compensation. This is the case if particular choices from their early lives have – by themselves (or at least mostly by themselves) – affected one’s holdings in later life in ways that could not be corrected by later choices. However, the frequency and severity of such life-long consequential choices is likely to be far less for persons who maintain adequate options over the length of their lives, than it would be for persons who faced life-long inadequate options.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful for helpful feedback from Amanda Burgess-Proctor, Simon Cushing, Samuel Freeman, Fritz McDonald, Shawn Murphy and Kok-Chor Tan. I also thank an editor and two anonymous referees of this journal for their suggestions and comments.
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Navin, M. Luck and Oppression. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 14, 533–547 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-010-9260-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-010-9260-9