On Equality
Typically when we talk about equality we're talking about economic equality, which is of course a very real issue. My main question is why does the discussion have to stop here.
Lets say we live in a world where everyone is hard-working, and we go by the idea "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." We eliminate inheritance, and all inheritances are divvied up equally among the population. Lets go even further and say this has all worked out well: Everyone has attained a decent standard of living, poverty is eliminated, and everyone more or less works full-time unless they're unable (in which case they would still receive a pension.)
So do we have equality? I'm not too sure. Some people are still taller, better-looking, more charismatic, smarter, etc. than others. And now those who are on the bottom can't even really get very rich to try to better their position, socially speaking. We still have disability in this world. The playing field may have been leveled in one sphere, but not others.
We could actually take steps to limit people's heights. It would involve limiting calories. It's also probably easier to make smart people dumb than dumb people smart, but why not try both simultaneously? You never really hear major social inequality of height, intelligence, or charisma in the world.
Lets say we live in a world where everyone is hard-working, and we go by the idea "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." We eliminate inheritance, and all inheritances are divvied up equally among the population. Lets go even further and say this has all worked out well: Everyone has attained a decent standard of living, poverty is eliminated, and everyone more or less works full-time unless they're unable (in which case they would still receive a pension.)
So do we have equality? I'm not too sure. Some people are still taller, better-looking, more charismatic, smarter, etc. than others. And now those who are on the bottom can't even really get very rich to try to better their position, socially speaking. We still have disability in this world. The playing field may have been leveled in one sphere, but not others.
We could actually take steps to limit people's heights. It would involve limiting calories. It's also probably easier to make smart people dumb than dumb people smart, but why not try both simultaneously? You never really hear major social inequality of height, intelligence, or charisma in the world.
Comments (45)
I think equality, as an ideal, should only apply in matters of law and justice. But outside of that I cannot see equality as anything worth striving for, and given your examples, even terrifying to consider.
Is this a joke?
If we truly value equality then why are we mostly stopping at economics? That's only one area of human life.
Not many want true equality in economics, that's called communism. Wanting to lessen economic inequality is more complex than "I love equality" and I'm pretty sure you're aware of that... People want that for different reasons than increasing equality and those reasons are motivations for people in many other areas but only the truly lost desire literal equality in wealth, they don't have a name for being more lost than that because it's so unusual.
I think you'd be surprised and I think you'd find a fair amount of support for this idea insofar as everyone is contributing and working hard.
EDIT: I think plenty of people just do value equality as well. Even as someone who's right-leaning the word doesn't disgust me.
I'd be surprised that there's a fair amount of support for communism? I fucking hope not.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
to here
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
?
For one thing, there is no such thing as abolishing 'inheritance'. The only in way in which inheritance would be abolished is if everybody's property vanished in a puff of smoke upon cessation of the heart. When people say that they are opposed to inheritance, what they really mean is that there is a particular group of people whom they want to be the sole inheritors, namely the State. It is like when people say that they are 'anti-gun'; what they mean is that they want a State monopoly on the means of deadly force. People who are 'anti-inheritance' want a State monopoly on inheritance.
Semantics aside, there is nothing whatsoever about a 100% inheritance tax that works towards the alleviation of poverty. Indeed, there is nothing about government which works towards the alleviation of poverty. Only productive activity does this, and government is destructive in its very essence. The practical effect of a 100% inheritance tax would be for everybody to spend their hard-earned money in high living. If they cannot bequeath it, then why would they hold onto it? Either that, or else they would make a deed of gift to their beloved objects - their children, say - and become dependent upon them in their dotage (this arrangement is typical of parents and children in China). The only way of preventing this is by means of still further State control. Surprise, surprise: a preoccupation with economic egalitarian gives rise to authoritarianism. It has to go this way, which is why it always does.
Beyond this, egalitarianism is subject to the 'levelling down' objection, as the OP observes.
Virgo, I don't actually support any if this. What I'm doing is I'm just granting the leftists this hypothetical to press on another issue.
I guess the distinction you're looking for is inequalities that derive from features of political organisation with regard to resource access and distribution and inequalities that derive from other means. Seeing as we're talking about politics, it isn't so surprising that (allegedly at least) politically based inequalities are of concern to "leftists"; an umbrella term for a political sympathy.
It doesn't. People also strive for equality of opportunity, that people should not be denied some opportunity they might otherwise autonomously take by virtue of some property not related to that particular liberty.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
That's because equality itself isn't a goal, human welfare is. It is considered (with no small amount of empirical support) that wealth equality leads to better welfare. Likewise equality of opportunity in the manner I described above.
The reason we're all appalled at the idea of equality of height or equality of intelligence is that we have no intuitive notion that such a project might further human welfare, nor is there any compelling empirical evidence that would encourage us to reject our intuition on the matter.
'Equality' as a rhetorical cry is just a convenient shorthand, you shouldn't read too much into it.
Are you really appalled by the idea of equality of height? Imagine if you could wave a magic wand and from here on out all the men would be 5'10 and all the women 5'4. I understand that the actual real life means to achieving this could be objectionable, but the goal itself is hardly something that makes someone recoil.
It would level the playing field if all men were the same height. That's where equality of opportunity comes in.
Except there is no magic wand, so equality of height would require some combination of eugenics, surgery, or malnutrition. Sounds rather appalling??
Exactly as @ZhouBoTong has already said really. The trouble with thought experiments like this is that they presume our rational thinking methods are un-embodied, something we can employ unconnected from the world we grew up in, and we can't. I think it is quite literally impossible to investigate, by way of thought experiment, how we would feel if we could wave a magic wand to make everyone the same height because we just don't live in a world where any such actions are possible without consequences. Deep in our psyche we expect consequences and recoil from such drastic intervention despite our efforts to restrict our thoughts to the data the thought experiment has provided. We're just not in that much control over what data gets input into our calculation.
Notwithstanding that, I think any push for equality has to be weighed against the consequent loss of diversity, which is something we also find appealing (within parameters). Money doesn't really make people behave in any particular way - rich people are not all of one kind - so wealth equality doesn't seem to reduce diversity at all. Likewise for equality of opportunity (the key being it is only the opportunities which are made equal, not what you do with them). Equality of height, intelligence etc. brings with it an incumbent loss of diversity which has to be weighed heavily against the gains. I think most people find that that loss so massively outweighs any gains the idea becomes repulsive.
Sure, but nature's inequalities manifest themselves in actual, everyday life whether it's a job hunt or promotions or social activity, etc. My main reason for this thread was just to point out that today's left seems to push for equality with, say, A, B, and C but they're not interested in X, Y, and Z which end up favoring/advocating for certain groups and basically ignoring others.
Ok, but we already agree that the goal itself is on the table.
We can go back and forth about the means... it's immaterial. Today we're making progress with genetic editing so hopefully we wouldn't need to resort to something as invasive as surgery.
IF the option were to present itself in a non-invasive manner (which could very well not be too far off) should we do it?
This is only the tip of the iceberg: consider further, is it fair that some men have a distribution of muscles that, say, gives them an advantage when it comes to sprinting?
Yes. Though nature only affords our societies with some of the differential, or enables/renders possible social costs which leverage distinctions in bodily properties, rather than playing a primary causal role for any of the social costs of having those bodily properties.
Having a certain height or skin colour can only be changed through interventions like eugenics; drown all babies that come out at less than a certain size or whose skin colour is not as desired, or otherwise prevent reproduction of those people, maybe kill all people under 1.2 meters tall on their 16th birthday. Things like average height of populations can increase over time through policies (or general collective action) that increase the availability of nutrition.
But, and this is a big but, the risks of differences height or differences in skin colour or disability (within a relevant sub-population) can only be addressed culturally and politically. You can't give poor people who can't walk back their leg function, but you can provide a safety net that allows them a wheelchair and make policies that require access ramps and elevators, and do what you can to aid their social and workplace integration.
It's really coming down to what the possibilities of political action are and which ones are most relevant; race, gender/sex and disability are differences between people which engender risks that both matter a lot and can practically be mitigated or stopped through intervention. Nose size, hand span, and whether you like marmite are not.
No. The goal is absolutely not on the table, as I've just explained above. What evidence have you got in support of such a ludicrous claim?
My "evidence" is the way that the ZBT phrased his response: He said there was no magic wand, and in order to reach the goal we'd have to do X, Y, and Z which are appalling. That's not dismissing the goal; that's dismissing the means.
I wasn't talking about ZBT, specifically. You were the one that raised the issue first, as if it were some kind of reductio argument against the left's pursuit of wealth equality, yet you've completely ignored the argument that equality is not the goal of the left and never has been, so your reductio argument fails. Ignoring arguments which undermine your position may well be a popular move here, but it's not a philosophically effective one.
Well I was responding to ZBT, that's why I linked his name.
I don't mean to make this a left vs. right thing. For some people equality IS a big value, so this point probably isn't aimed at you. I feel like you're viewing this as a person attack.
The issue I'm prodding about - as the discussion has evolved - is equality of opportunity or having a level playing field which I think a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum are cool with. As technology evolves and these issues enter into the realm of possibility, what does everyone think about addressing some of nature's inequalities?
But I've already explained that in what I thought were fairly straightforward terms. Did you read my initial response to you? Equality is never a goal on its own so it will always be weighed against other goals, one of which is maintaining a degree of diversity.
Every value needs to be weighed against other values. Equality is a value, and it's a value on both the left and the right but to different extents. Equality often takes the form of empowering or leveling the playing field for disadvantaged populations. Personally, I think it's a little cold and unempathetic to basically claim that you'd just like to preserve the struggles of these disadvantaged populations for the sake of "diversity."
People are against race-mixing for the purpose of preserving diversity. Of course that's not a stance that I attribute to you, but you can't just throw out "diversity" or some other competing value when I mention "equality" and deny that we even value equality.
Who said anything about 'just' preserving the struggles of the disadvantaged for the sake of diversity. That too would have to be weighed against other goals. The point is (again, repeating what I've already written) the ultimate goal is almost universally some variant of human well-being. We preserve diversity becauseof its contribution to well-being, we strive for equality because of its contribution to well-being. If people are struggling we should try to minimise their struggle, but if one method of doing so reduces well-being in some other area then no one but a dogmatic zealot would pursue such a course.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I'm not denying we value equality, I'm saying that we value it among other values with which it competes and we value it (along with those other principles) entirely because of its supposed contribution to well-being. The moment it no longer contributes to well-being, or conflicts with the ability of other goals to so contribute, we will go no further.
Why would gene editing resulting in height equality or fixing ugliness be antithetical to human well-being?
:up:
Nope. I was just explaining why it could be considered "appalling", nothing more.
You are way beyond a strawman here. Why stop at height? True equality would demand equality everywhere. Therefor all 7 billion humans would have to be the exact same person. Same name. Same sex. Same brain. Same job. Same spouse. Same kids. Same bowel movements. Etc. This is all the same type of nonsense as your equal height thing.
To be fair, I can admit there are some jokers out there seeking "total equality", but they are very rare despite what fox news says...I doubt you can find one on this site.
But who wants equality anyway, economic or otherwise?
Apart from equality of education, I , for one, do not.
Who would want to live in a world dominated by mediocrity?
Without inequality there is no motivation and without motivation there is no life.
Perhaps the Pareto distribution (20%/80%) is the natural order of things. So it would be natural. and perhaps unavoidable, that 20% of people will own 80% of the assets etc..
For example, the Pareto distribution would predict that 20% of the members of this forum would produce 80% of the posts, which, I suggest, is a far more accurate prediction than 50% of the members produce 50% of the posts.
1. Diversity is good for societies.
2. Massive medical/technological interventions which we think are fine at the time often turn out later to have negative consequences we didn't forsee, they should be used sparing and only when really beneficial (see 1).
Ok, and I could argue that fixing ugliness or equalizing height results in better lives for those people and levels the playing field in a number of areas. I feel we're kind of at a dead end here.
I get what you're saying here and it makes sense, but I do think there's a case to be made for say, humans inherently preferring more symmetrical faces.
We're at a point where we can use genetic editing to eliminate diseases or conditions prenatally in mice, but we're still a ways off from humans. It seems this is going to become a greater issue as technology advances and we already have companies like CRISPR working directly on this genome editing. I'm just saying it's not like the old days where we'd need to use very painful or brutal means to accomplish something like this.
Sure, but don't you believe the discussion could be broadened? Studies show the CEOs of fortunate 500 companies tend to be something like 3 inches taller than the average man, and that per every inch of height a man has it's an extra $800/year and that's not even digging into the inherent social respect given to height and romantic prospects. I think we can all agree that good-looking people are subject to preferable treatment and we could certain enact policies to at least aim to target this.
I'm just asking here whether you think the discussion ought to be broadened outside of the usual one on race, class, and gender (and sometimes disability which I think doesn't receive the same type of treatment as the others.)
Treating the height difference as if it's causing that difference in income is extremely bizarre. Imagine the social programs that would come of it:
"We demand genetic engineering for height so that our children can become CEOs! For too long have people who are shorter than CEOs not been CEOs, and we demand equality of opportunity for height!"
Sure, you could. But I didn't get the impression that you were seriously advocating it. I thought you were using it as a reductio absurdum argument against promoting equality in general. If so, then the very fact that you would have to argue the case answers your question for you. There's no reductio because the promotion of equality is argued for on a case by case basis, which is perfectly reasonable.
I'm not saying it's the sole trait, but I don't think it's a shocking or absurd hypothesis that height helps men climb dominance hierarchies. The same thing could be said for good-looks. It's one trait amount many that helps.
Yeah, that problem with good looks is a bummer. Luckily some people have found a great solution for this. These women look so same to me.
But seriously, our ideological drive towards equality, however benign the aims of it are, crashes with meritocracy. Everybody should understand that even a functioning meritocracy, however much there is social mobility and possibility for everyone to pursue one's own goals, is still inherently and categorically unequal.
The problem with the internet is that I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny and referencing Harrison Bergeron or if you're serious.
I always loved Harrison Bergeron. It was one of the inspirations for the thread, but the topic of the thread moved onto "what else should be included into intersectionality?" basically in a subtle attempt to boil intersectionality down to the individual.
Ah. That's what I get for not reading comments. But I wonder if the tactic of trying to reduce intersectionality to the individual is guilty of a Sorites paradox.
You're gonna have to explain that one to me.
I was just trying to broaden the discussion beyond the usual race, class, and gender topics. I don't see any harm in doing that. I mentioned height, charisma, and looks.
As is well known in this forum at least, my political position is that being born is being used by society. In a "free society" people can choose what they want, except not wanting to do any of life's basic premises (lest they die or have physically damaging experiences like hunger, illness, and pain). However, skipping this important point, I see two sides here. There is Rawls' Veil of Ignorance argument and the economic conservative argument of winners and losers.
The Veil of Ignorance (VOI) argument is ASSUMING that people have different abilities, circumstances, backgrouinds that may keep them from fully gaining status and wealth in the higher rungs of society.
On the other side, economic conservative argument assumes that people have an almost boundless potential for abilities, making the correct decisions economically, and that circumstances of one's background doesn't make much of a difference if one CHOOSES to be in the correct areas to make money. For example, if people value doctors and financial brokers, then that is where one should be to get the money. Not doing so is simply not choosing correctly.
The VOI would argue back that, there are barriers of class, circumstances and limited knowledge that would prevent one from gaining positions in the higher rung. The conservative would rebut that that this is false and that people simply have to make decisions that benefit them and they can climb the ladder.
So the main differences are that the philosophies have two glaringly opposing assumptions of one's abilities to gain ability and make decisions to bring themselves to a higher rung.
I think Veil of Ignorance wins out. Thus, public education should be accessible to anyone. If one wants to be a doctor, and has has the aptitude one should be able to get there with public assistance if they cannot afford it already. Also, there is just luck and markets. Some people are mediocre and talented only to an extent to do a job. That person can get a job that offers $100,00 salary. Another person, more talented in the same sector, due to markets and luck can get the same job for much less.
The $100,000 salary person if they are NOT working on the Veil of Ignorance, but conservative argument my say (ignorantly) that anyone can do what they did. They have just got lucky though, nothing more. The market does not bear that kind of job market salary for everyone.
I'm an economic conservative and this isn't what I believe. If someone argued this I'd think they were naive. Not everyone can be a doctor or a broker. Life is unfair no matter what kind of society you grow up in and not many people have that kind of "boundless potential." You need to make the best of what you've got, and if we're talking about climbing the economic ladder I believe from a pragmatic standpoint that'll often be done over the course of generations and gradually. Only a completely absurd person would declare that someone born poor and someone born into an affluent family have the same possibility to achieve, say, $5M or $10M net worth.
EDIT: Tagged.
Maybe I should have sought clarification first. When you mentioned "a subtle attempt to boil intersectionality down to the individual" did you mean something like show that the method of reasoning used by intersectionality advocates could be consistently applied (in a slippery slope sort of way) to individual traits--thus rendering the group identity politics, with which intersectionality is often packaged, absurd?
If this is what you meant then I guess I'm skeptical that group-level sets of traits don't exist (or that they collapse into individual traits). Or if "exists" is too loaded a term: I'm skeptical that groups of people don't have common sets of traits which could be discriminated against.
I should probably lay my cards on the table here too. I'm an independent, never voted Republican or Democrat. But my philosophy and sympathies are conservative.
I have a problem with how you don't and then do nuance what you say.
Consider this:
With this:
Regarding the first, I've never heard an economic conservative make this assumption. Can you give some examples?
Regarding the second, I have heard conservatives say that people living in the United States today have sufficient potential for economic success. And I don't take them to mean this in some strict logical sense, such that, if I were to outliers, like someone with Down's, it would disprove the claim. But I've never heard them claim that you just need to be "in the correct areas" in the narrow sense you imply by "doctors and financial brokers."
If "correct areas" simply means that there can be pursuits that are monetarily worthless (like "dance theory"--to censor a common joke by some on the right), then yes I've heard conservatives say that. But do you actually think they are wrong on this point?
If "correct areas" means some line of work that requires a high IQ (like doctor or scientist), then I've never heard any conservative claim this (with one caveat). In fact, they usually claim the opposite: anyone capable of working a full-time job at federal minimum wage can live comfortably.
The caveat would be that some conservatives (e.g., Charles Murray) have expressed concern over the economy moving in a direction where high skill or IQ is increasingly necessary. But then these sorts of conservatives wouldn't be your target either, since they are worried about this alleged trend.
What exactly is the rung here? It can't be occupation, right? Obviously a Rawlsian wouldn't suggest we allocate jobs at NASA to a proportional representation of people with Down's. Is it standard of living? If so, what's the Rawlsian standard for who gets to be at "the higher rung"?
I don't think that's accurate, from what I've said above. I would suggest that a bigger difference is that conservatives start with an assumption like each individual has a right to themselves, their labor, and the products thereof. Rawlsianism starts with different assumptions (cf. Nozick's critique).
I was just basically saying that the discussion on intersectionality which traditionally focuses on race, class, gender and sometimes disability could be broadened enormously. By only confining the conversation to those few factors we leave out other "oppressed" group traits. The reality is that basically everybody is oppressed on some front. I believe that even if we did have racial, gender, and economic justice we'd still have a very, very long way to go given none of nature's injustice have been "corrected." The world would still be ridiculously unfair.
Yes it's conservatives who have told me this. No, they are not talking outliers; they think that any able-bodied individual can educate their way to a higher rung in areas of the job market that are needed.
Quoting JohnRB
Again, I have heard conservatives who do say this.
Quoting JohnRB
The points I've heard are similar to this- go into X field that makes money (go where the money is). For example, it's your fault you didn't "choose" a highly sought after job (e.g. mechanical engineering, doctor, computer engineer, etc.). Again, the assumption is that everyone has the same aptitudes and that if they don't, then they will find something comparable (usually these people got seriously lucky in getting a good paying job and assume others can "just" do the same as them). Clearly, expectations of how markets operate are out of step with reality for these folks.
Quoting JohnRB
And who makes federal minimum wage in non-federal jobs? Not many low paying laborers do, unless their employers are forced by the state to comply accordingly. Rather, these people are just earning ends meet to often live in an undesirable area/ circumstances. Market forces, luck, and initial wealth do play a factor for these people. Hence, public goods like free education would obviously make sense in these cases.
Quoting JohnRB
I mean standard of living, not occupation. The whole point of the Veil of Ignorance is to pretend like one might be born into any aptitude, any background, any class, and is ignorant of where one might come from. What would be the fairest way to have the opportunities to move up if one were initially born into lesser means to survive?
Maslow's hierarchy would dictate one would probably first take care of making enough for food, shelter, warmth, etc. Then, one might want to be suitably educated to move on to something that can afford more than basic necessities. However, the balance of doing so is difficult to obtain without indebting oneself even further, and taking on more financial burdens.
Many aspire to be an Edison or a Buffet, but most people aren't. That's the problem with the "boundless opportunities" mentality- it doesn't fit what actually happens. A society that allows for those to have a satisfying enough life, but allows for Bill Gates types would be optimal. Keep dreaming, but you have to live everyday life and get by.
@Bitter Crank Have you met any of these conservatives? Anything you might want to add?
On paper we would think it works to alleviate the imbalance, and to a degree it does because even the poor of America are fat and rich, but eventually this system plateaus as well when people start to realize the competition also stifles innovation because it often hinders opportunity for the sake of victory, personal gain over another, or the financial upper hand at the cost of others.
We take advantage of each other for prosperity when in reality the prosperity could have been distributed to the bottom of the ladder (third world laborers etc) with more growth in mind for their personal existence.
We hog all of the resources. The entire chain works from the bottom up when it should work from both directions simultaneously.
We also steal from the earth and emit more chemicals than current biology is prepared to sustain, endangering all of us in order to win the competition.
We need to reinvent success to mean who can help biology sustain existence the most, not who can grab the most stuff.