Abstract
In this article we aim to reduce the force of the expensive tastes objection to equality of welfare by constructing a pluralist welfare egalitarian theory which is not defeated by it. In the first part, we argue that Cohen’s condition of responsibility-sensitiveness is not able to provide a satisfactory rebuttal of the expensive tastes objection for at least a class of theories of justice, namely those that adhere to a methodologically fact-sensitive view. In the second part, we explore the possibility of constructing a welfare egalitarian theory that gives weight to both equality and efficiency. We propose two alternatives, which integrate a utilitarian constraint and a Weak Pareto constraint on equality and show that both theories consistently differentiate between compensable and non-compensable expensive tastes, but should ultimately be rejected because of other unattractive implications. Finally, we develop a fairness-constrained theory of welfare egalitarianism and suggest that it can distinguish between compensable and non-compensable expensive tastes in both a conceptually consistent and a morally plausible manner, without generating decisive additional objections.
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Notes
For the purposes of the present article, we follow Arneson (2000) in using welfare and well-being interchangeably. Further, we interpret welfare as preference satisfaction (Arneson, 1989, p. 82). Since, as Arneson (2000, pp. 513–514) suggests, analyzing the expensive tastes objection under the ‘Objective List’ interpretation of welfare is sufficient to significantly reduce its force, we aim at providing the account of welfare egalitarianism that would be hardest hit if the expensive tastes objection is plausible. Finally, throughout the article we use a ‘comprehensive’ notion of welfare, whereby an individual’s actual conception about what constitutes her own welfare is taken into account, rather than relying on a ‘political’ (Otsuka, 2003, p. 110) or ‘true’ (Harsanyi, 1982, p. 55) notion of welfare, although the core arguments developed in the third and fourth sections of this article are unaffected by this choice.
We emphasize the fact that, in this article, we exclusively tackle the expensive tastes objection to welfare egalitarianism. It is highly possible that the pluralist theories discussed might fall prey to other objections raised against using welfare as the currency of distributive justice, such as the offensive tastes objection (Rawls, 1971, p. 27), the indeterminacy objection (Dworkin, 1981a, pp. 16–47) or others, but we are not at present concerned with them.
Specifically, as the expensiveness of a taste is a market-induced feature, showing that expensive tastes should be, in general, compensated because of justice-based considerations, also shows that the market might not be an adequate device to ground a conception of justice.
For an in-depth discussion of value pluralism see Carter (2002). In this article we adhere to the view that in theories of distributive justice, the site of value pluralism is within the theory of justice, and not that justice itself is just one value which needs to be weighed against others. This view is perhaps best expressed by Otsuka’s (2004, p. 164) statement that: ‘a just state of affairs [is] a feasible state of affairs in which a plurality of distinct and potentially conflicting values are in best balance relative to other feasible combinations, provided that this balance is good enough, where these values encompass such things as equality, utility, liberty, the satisfaction of needs, and respect for individuals as ends in themselves rather than mere means’. The values which we are primarily concerned here are equality, utility (efficiency) and fairness.
A more rigorous definition of an expensive taste can also be offered. As the central issue involved in defining expensive tastes is a below-average capacity of achieving welfare from the usage of resources, we can use the mathematical concept of a function in order to describe the process of resource-to-welfare conversion. Thus, we can define an expensive taste as any taste in which the slope of the function which maps resources into welfare for an individual is less steep than slopes of functions which characterize the same taste for other individuals. But defined in this manner, the label expensive tastes seems misplaced as it is impossible to define an objective benchmark for what a regular slope of the conversion function should be. As the numerical values which the slope can take are arranged on a continuous interval, it makes no sense to classify tastes as discrete categories, but only to classify them as more or less expensive than others. A function which maps resources into welfare can have a slope which is more or less skewed by comparison to others, but it would be implausible to assume that we can find a non-arbitrary slope which we could consider as standard and that all slope values lower than that would be expensive. So the difference between tastes cannot be a dichotomous one, as it is usually conceptualized, but one of degree. However, this reformulation of the definition of an expensive taste does not pose a fundamental problem for the major debates on the legitimacy of their compensation as a demand of justice. For instance, Arrow’s (1973) classical examples of tastes for plover eggs and pre-phylloxera claret are still more expensive than tastes for regular hen eggs and tap water. But it does help to further illuminate the structural characteristics of the concept as well as the radical split between the technical sense of the concept and its ordinary meaning, which should be helpful in removing any bias against the idea of compensating expensive tastes arising from its ordinary meaning.
As well as other luck egalitarians such as Arneson (1989) or Roemer (1993).
See the section ‘On the Dworkin-Cohen Debate’.
This does not imply that Cohen (2004, p. 19) is a welfare egalitarian, as the currency of justice which he explicitly condones is advantage, that is, a vector which ‘includes that [welfare], and resources, and need satisfaction, and, perhaps, other advantages’, but simply that the grounds for his rejection of welfare egalitarianism are not to be identified with the expensive tastes objection.
Alongside what Cohen (2004, p. 5) has termed the indeterminacy objection.
For other explanations of why people might choose to develop expensive tastes see Kaplow (2006).
It is worth noting that this idea is rejected by Cohen (1989, p. 924), who claims that the conceptual space of fair shares can be that of welfare opportunities as much as that of resources.
See for instance Dworkin’s (1981b, p. 302) statement that ‘we cannot say that the person whose tastes are expensive, for whatever reason, therefore has fewer resources at his command’.
Dworkin’s (2000, pp. 289–290) position in this regard is based on what he calls ‘ordinary people’s ethical experience’.
Aside from the cases where judgmental expensive tastes are cultivated precisely because of their expensiveness, that is, for ‘snobbish reasons’ (Cohen, 2004, p. 12).
See Hamlin and Stemplowska (2012, p. 51) for a brief exposition of the distinction between fact-sensitivity and fact-insensitivity in the context of the ideal/non-ideal theory debate.
As, standardly, efficiency considerations are brought to bear in the pluralist replies to some of the most popular anti-egalitarian critiques, such as the levelling down or bottomless pit objections.
The first argument deployed by Dworkin cannot be considered to pose a fundamental problem to the idea of complementing equality with an aggregate/average utility constraint, but only that in practice, a policy based on these two considerations might sometimes prove to be sub-optimal. While average/classical utilitarianism would seek to prevent the development of expensive tastes, it might be indeed the case that some expensive tastes will still be developed, but this does not amount to a failure of average/classical utilitarianism. In this case, the policy will assess whether compensation for the expensive tastes, once developed, will provide more aggregate or average utility. On a case-by-case basis, the answer might be either positive or negative and the policy will respond accordingly. Although both states of the world would be worse off than the initial state of the world where nobody had developed expensive tastes, average/classical utilitarianism would still be useful for adjudicating between the two possible states of the world which correspond to the development of expensive tastes. The second argument deployed by Dworkin falls outside the scope of the theoretical discussion of expensive tastes, and, in any case, affects his later considered position for compensating non-judgmental deliberately cultivated expensive tastes as much as it would affect an efficiency-constrained theory of welfare egalitarianism. For instance, how can we non-arbitrarily decide what it would mean to have a high appetite for sex, for which Dworkin (1981b, p. 303) states that compensation is warranted? Or how can we evaluate the degree of water sourness (Dworkin, 2000, p. 288) above which compensation is justifiable?
For instance, to use one of Dworkin’s (1981a, p. 239) cases, such a society might ban Hemingway’s works if it would lead to cultivating an expensive taste for bullfighting.
As Dworkin rightly points out, the development of expensive tastes might not be preventable even in a society which is publicly against compensation for expensive tastes.
The incorporation of the Strong Pareto Principle as an efficiency constraint would run into the same problems as a welfare egalitarian theory complemented by average/classical utilitarianism, as it would also have to maintain that we should prevent the individual from developing the expensive taste, as S6 is preferable to both S7 and S8. By contrast, the Weak Pareto Principle allows the move from S6 to S8, and therefore allows the development of expensive tastes (although it does not prescribe compensation for them).
Two crucial assumptions are needed for generalizing the scenario described above. The first one is that the level of resources in society is equivalent between the three states of the world. The second one is that other individuals in the society do not simultaneously develop less expensive tastes (in which case a resource drainage might not occur). These assumptions seem to be implicit in debates targeting the problem of expensive tastes and to our knowledge, no elaborate discussion on the justification of expensive tastes compensation in either the case of resource increase or decrease, or the case of concurring development of cheaper tastes have been proposed.
For instance, when the individuals without expensive tastes get the same amount of welfare from a higher amount of resources as from a lower one.
The status quo in this case does not entail any particular distribution.
We further submit that the specific type of collective good in question is a common good, as aside from non-excludability it is also characterized by rivalry in consumption (Ostrom and Ostrom, 1977, p. 12). First, as the principle of anonymity is embedded into the fabric of welfare egalitarianism, all individuals will benefit from the welfare distribution, regardless of the part which they play in aggregate welfare production. Second, as the addition of individuals to the society leads to a decrease of the individual amount of welfare available (because of egalitarian constraints), welfare is rivalrous in consumption. However, this particular claim bears no special weight in the discussion ensuing in this section, as free-riding behavior may arise in relation to any type of collective good.
As the authors discuss public goods instead of collective goods (which is a more general class, encompassing public, common and toll goods), we only extract and present the features relevant to all collective goods.
While there might be good arguments to reject this condition as a general one for characterizing a collective (or even a public) good, in a welfare egalitarian society the collective good in question satisfies even this strong property.
We make no attempt to address the problem of what it means to have an optimal or adequate level of welfare in a society, but assume that, all other things being equal, it is better that the level of welfare in a welfare egalitarian society is higher rather than lower. We take this latter position to be relatively uncontroversial.
Itself is a revised form of Hart’s (1955, p. 185) proposal concerning special rights as derived from the mutuality of restrictions.
We thank an anonymous reviewer for directing our attention to this issue.
Various criticisms may still target our favored proposal, and it is not within the scope of this article to engage in an altogether different debate on what the most appropriate theory of justice would be, all things considered. First of all, a policy of not compensating intentionally cultivated expensive tastes might itself be said to unfairly treat some of the individuals in the society. For instance, in a debate about minority rights, Brian Barry suggests that multicultural demands of special treatment can be interpreted as expensive tastes (1997, p. 5), which might lead to the idea that the special requirement of cultural minorities cannot be accommodated in a regime of fairness-constrained equality of welfare. However, Barry’s suggestion is not really followed through by his examples, for example, the case of humane slaughter or ‘if bus conductors have to wear caps as part of the uniform, religiously observant Sikhs will be unable to become bus conductors; and if motorcycle riders have to wear crash helmets, they will be unable to ride motor-cycles’ (1997, p. 4), since it seems that in such situations few to no additional resource expenses are required from the part of the other members of the society. It would seem that, on the contrary, in many instances, clearly questionable demands of special treatment (for example, the demand to practice female genital mutilation in order to preserve a sense of cultural identity, among other religious practices that Barry, 1997, p. 4 discusses) are precisely the ones that could burden general welfare. Second, others might straightforwardly deny that individual decisions about welfare should be influenced by the society they belong to. Third, in its most straightforward interpretation, fairness-constrained welfare egalitarianism does not appear to endorse compensation for cheap expensive tastes (see Dworkin, 1981a, pp. 239–240; Williams, 2002, pp. 379–380). Claiming that compensation for cheap expensive tastes is warranted, however, presupposes a commitment to the intrinsical valuation of resources, a position rejected by welfare egalitarians.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the audience at the 8th European Congress of Analytic Philosophy, the editors of the journal and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.
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Volacu, A., Dervis, OA. Pluralist welfare egalitarianism and the expensive tastes objection. Contemp Polit Theory 15, 285–303 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2015.67
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2015.67