Egalitarian justice and interpersonal comparison

European Journal of Political Research35: 445–464, 1999.© 1999Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

445

Egalitarian justice and interpersonal comparison

MATTHEW CLAYTON1 & ANDREW WILLIAMS 2

1Department of Government, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK;2Department of Philosophyand Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Abstract. This paper surveys the strengths and weaknesses of three widely-discussed egal-itarian standards of interpersonal comparison:welfare, resource, and capability. We arguethat welfare egalitarianism is beset by numerous serious problems, and should be rejected.Capability and resourcist standards conform with egalitarian convictions more closely, buteach faces distinctive problems. We itemise a set of desiderata which a fully adequate accountof interpersonal comparison would satisfy. We conclude that the choice between capabilityand resourcist standards turns on the relative importance of such an account being able toaccommodatereasonable pluralismand identify inequality in apublicly verifiablemanner.

Introduction

Within contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy, it is increasinglycommon to distinguish betweenstrict egalitarianandprioritarian principlesof distributive justice.1 Under conditions where no individual is more de-serving than any other, strict egalitarians claim that it is unjust for someindividuals to be worse off than others. Prioritarians do not endorse such acomparative view of justice, but claim only that the reasons to benefit in-dividuals diminish in moral weight as those individuals become better off.Ceteris paribus, both views favor giving priority to the interests of the leastadvantaged, but they do so for very different reasons: strict egalitarians aimto reduce inequality as such, whilst prioritarians aim to satisfy more urgentindividual claims. These aims are quite different in principle, though theymay often converge in practice. Perhaps the most important difference is thatstrict egalitarianism implies that, in at least some cases, an equal distributionis, in one important respect, morally superior to an unequal distribution inwhich everyoneis better off. Thus, unlike prioritarians, strict egalitariansseem committed to the view thatlevelling downis, in one respect, desir-able. For those who find such a view counter-intuitive shifting from strictegalitarian to prioritarian principles may have considerable appeal.2

This article, however, is not directly concerned with the dispute betweenstrict egalitarians and prioritarians. Instead, it discusses a common task facedby both parties – henceforth referred to as ‘egalitarians’ – namely, the need to

446 MATTHEW CLAYTON & ANDREW WILLIAMS

formulate a standard of interpersonal comparison which specifies the condi-tions under which some individuals are worse off than others. Such standardsare employed by strict egalitarians to establish whether inequality exists,whilst they enable prioritarians to identify those disadvantaged individualswhose claims are morally most urgent. The paper briefly surveys the strengthsand weaknesses of three of the most widely discussed standards:welfare,resourceand capability. It argues there are weighty reasons to disregardwelfare within interpersonal comparison. It also attempts to identify variousdifficulties which beset the two main alternatives to welfarist standards aswell as diagnose their appeal. Thus, in the space available, we simply aim tonarrow the range of tenable positions rather than provide a compelling casefor one particular view.

Attainment and access

Defending a plausible standard of comparison, or what Cohen callsa cur-rency of egalitarian justice, involves addressing various issues.3 For illustra-tion of one issue, suppose two individuals have access to the same goods butone achieves fewer goods due to factors for which he is morally responsiblebecause, for example, they lay within his control. In asking whether an in-equality exists, or whether priority should now be attached to benefiting oneindividual rather than the other, should our standard of comparison focus onattainmentor only onaccess? Most of those who defend egalitarianism as aconception ofjustice, rather than requirement of beneficence or community,favor the latter position. They emphasize that in opposing onlyinvoluntaryinequalities their view escapes the familiar right-wing criticism that egalitari-anism is blind to personal responsibility.4 It can, for example, distinguish theclaims of the involuntarily unemployed from those who have chosen not towork. There is, however, a price to be paid for avoiding such a criticism. Ima-gine that Cautious Carl and Daring Dan could both lead equally secure lives,but Dan becomes paralyzed in some risky sport, for which he is uninsured.It appears that access egalitarianism does not require that Carl finance healthcare or a mobility allowance for Dan. Yet many think that justice, and notmerely charity, demands at least some publicly-funded redistribution even incases where individuals bring disaster upon themselves.

Those egalitarians who wish to defend that conviction can do so in at leasttwo ways. They might initially attempt to do so solely on egalitarian grounds.However, it seems they must then reject an exclusive focus upon access indeciding when one individual is worse off than another. Unfortunately, theright-wing objection to egalitarianism, which the focus on access had de-fused, then recurs. To show that egalitarianism is immune to that objection,

EGALITARIAN JUSTICE AND INTERPERSONAL COMPARISON 447

its advocates might concede that egalitarian principles do not support com-pensating Dan. However, they might add, this shows only that a plausibleconception of distributive justice must supplement egalitarian principles withnon-egalitarian requirements, such as aprinciple of sufficiency, requiring thateach individual reach some decent social minimum.5 Such a pluralist viewwould grant that individuals may forfeit their entitlement to equality by mak-ing choices for which they can be held responsible. But it would deny thatindividuals can relinquish all their entitlements in a similar manner. It mightregard some minimal entitlements as inalienable, or as alienable only througha repeated series of voluntary choices.

Access versus attainment, however, is not the only important problemaddressed within the currency debate. There is another even more complexproblem, which we shall refer to asSen’s Question, after the author of theclassic essay ‘Equality of What?’.6 It concerns the specific goods, or aspectsof advantage, a plausible standard of interpersonal comparison should focusupon. Addressing it, we shall ask what dimensions of people’s lives shouldbe compared when determining whether one person is worse-off than an-other. For example, should interpersonal comparison be conducted in termsof wealth and income, or a wider set of resources, or the extent to whichpeople are satisfied with their lives, or certain opportunities to acquire or docertain things in life, or something else again?

A simple proposal

Sen’s Question has received several competing answers. It is common to dis-tinguish welfare, resources and capability as the main competitors, thoughhybrid views combine various elements and are common.7 One way to un-derstand the range of answers, and their accompanying difficulties, is to beginwith a deliberately simple resourcist form of interpersonal comparison.8 Con-sider the claim that justice requires strict equality in the distribution ofwealth,construed as what Ronald Dworkin termsimpersonal resources, such as nat-ural assets or manufactured goods. On this view no individual should be ableto acquire resources which possess a higher market value than those availableto any other individual.

Various problems might beset such a proposal. Apart from those con-cerning the proposal’s effects on productive incentives, which we set aside,perhaps the most obvious problems originate from its narrowly economicstandard of comparison. Why on earth, a critic might ask, should egalitariansfocus simply on wealth? After all, as Sen himself has frequently argued, thatproposal appears doubly defective. First, it is obviouslyincompleteinsofar asit can treat two individuals as equally well off even if one has a severe physical


disability the other lacks. Many, however, are convinced that justice requiresredress, or some form of compensation, for at least some disabilities, even iftheir victims are no worse off than others in purely financial terms. Second,the simple proposal appears strikinglysuperficial. In our personal decision-making we care about wealth insofar as it enables us to improve the qualityof our lives. Surely then when distributing wealth to others we should careabout it in a similar derivative manner? We should focus ultimately upon theextent to which they attain, or can achieve, what they care about or, perhaps,what they have reason to care about.

The anti-welfarist dilemma

A number of competing answers to Sen’s Question can be construed asattempts to avoid one, or both, of these worries. Consider first welfaristaccounts of interpersonal comparison. These focus upon the fulfillment ofindividuals’ personal preferences, or what they would desire were they fullyinformed and concerned ultimately only with their own well-being. In givinga central role to subjective satisfaction rather than financial standing, suchmetrics at least appear to escape the charge of superficiality.9 They soon,however, encounter their own distinctive problems.Anti-welfarists(Dworkin,Rawls, Scanlon) argue that welfare is completelyirrelevant, whilst hybrid-welfarists(G.A. Cohen) argue that welfare, like impersonal resources, is anincompletemetric. To sample just a few of their arguments, we shall initiallyconsider the problems ofmalformed, expensive, andcheaptastes.

The first such problem arises because some individuals might exhibitthe same level of preference satisfaction as others because sub-consciouspsychological processes have tailored their preferences to their modestcircumstances.10 It therefore seems quite unjust to treat such individuals as noworse off than others merely because they show similar levels of satisfaction.Any plausible welfarist metric requires an account ofauthenticpreferenceformation in order to escape worries about malformed tastes. Without suchan account welfarist metrics themselves risk incompleteness. Note that thisproblem also applies to resourcist views insofar as they rely upon preferenceinformation in order to identify inequalities. Thus, the malformed tastes prob-lem is not peculiar to welfarism; nor is it insuperable, provided an adequateaccount of preference-authenticity can be devised.11

In contrast, the problems relating to expensive and cheap tastes presentdistinctive objections to welfarist metrics which, when taken together, weshall refer to as theanti-welfarist dilemma. For brilliant illustration of thedilemma consider Dworkin’s characters, Louis and Jude.12 In arguing againstwelfare egalitarianism Dworkin initially supposes that equality of attained


welfare has been achieved with an equal distribution of resources. Now, Louisacquires a taste for the high-life which is more expensive to satisfy relative tohis earlier ambitions. Most importantly, Louis’ new tastes are more expensiveto satisfy compared to others’ ambitions, which have remained unchanged.Louis will now enjoy the same welfare as others only if he has a larger shareof resources than they possess. Since this is the case, welfare egalitarians maywell recommend a redistribution of resources from others to Louis. However,this recommendation strikes many people as unjust. They accept that, whileLouis is entitled to acquire more expensive tastes, he is not entitled to moreresources than others merely because his ambitions are more costly to attain.

The response of some welfare egalitarians to the case of Louis is to shiftfrom a metric of attainment to one of access. Our reluctance to subsidiseLouis’ expensive tastes is appropriate, they argue, only because he acquiredthem voluntarily, or in a manner for which he can be held responsible.13 Werethe acquisition of his new tastes, or the high cost of satisfying them, notLouis’ responsibility, then he would have less access to welfare than othersand, therefore, be entitled to more resources.

Dworkin anticipates this kind of welfarist reply to the expensive tastesproblem by introducing a counter-example to such a modified welfare egal-itarianism. The case involves Jude, whose initial tastes are sufficiently cheaprelative to others’ tastes that equality of access to welfare is achieved althoughJude has less than an equal share of resources. Jude then chooses, in the sameresponsible manner that Louis chooses, a lifestyle which is more expensivethan before, and then requests an equal share of resources. Dworkin doubtsthat anyone would reject Jude’s request. Yet a consistent application of themodified welfarist view demands that that the requests of Louis and Judeshouldbothbe denied. Welfarism implies that Jude, like Louis, is not entitledto more resources than before, because he can be held responsible for therelative welfare deficit he suffers with his new preferences.14 However, thismodified view is impaled on the horns of a dilemma which arises out of themarked difference in our responses to the cases of Louis and Jude. Thus,welfarist metrics must either pander to individuals with expensive tastes orpenalise those with cheap tastes. Yet neither of these proposals conform withour convictions about equality.

Dworkin concludes that to make sense of our convictions about thesecases we must assume an entitlement to an equal share of resource, whichis less that Louis demands, yet all that Jude demands. Thus the anti-welfaristdilemma suggests that welfare should play no role whatsoever in egalitarianinterpersonal comparison.

The force of the anti-welfarist dilemma remains the subject of debate.15

Welfarists can, for example, attempt to rebut the problem of cheap tastes by


arguing that our reluctance to penalise an individual with cheap tastes restsupon an assumption that she is a victim of adaptive preference formation,whose initial inexpensive ambitions were malformed because she enjoyedfewer resources than others. Where that assumption holds, equality of oppor-tunity for welfare does not recommend withholding resources from her, andso lacks the counterintuitive implications its critics allege. However, wherethe assumption is false, and the individual is authentically endowed withinexpensive ambitions, welfarism does recommend withholding resources.But to do so is unobjectionable, welfarists claim, since it would be unjust toignore her good fortune in being able to convert resources into utility moreeffectively than others.

Many opponents of welfarism, however, will remain unconvinced by sucha rebuttal. By suggesting that an individual’s tastes are malformed unlessshe possesses an equal share of resources, the rebuttal risks collapsing thedistinction between resource and welfare egalitarianism. More importantly,resourcists will reject the suggestion that it is permissible to penalise in-dividuals with inexpensive ambitions provided those ambitions are not theproduct of adaptive preference formation. Many find it counterintuitive to doso regardless of the origins of the initial preferences. Their positive responseto Jude’s request, for example, does not presume that his modest ambitionswere the product of his circumstances. They also find it implausible to treatbeing endowed with cheap tastes as, in itself, an instance ofgoodfortune.

Such treatment might make sense if the success of an individual’s lifedepended upon the extent to which she has satisfied preferences, regardlessof the content of those preferences. On reflection, however, few of us endorsesuch an account of personal well-being. It seems implausible to think thatour lives would always have gone better had we cared less about the lossof our loved ones or the failure of our projects. Furthermore, given suchconvictions, it seems implausible to treat as good fortune the existence ofan inexpensive preference which the bearer comes eventually to regret. Yetwelfare egalitarian principles deny Jude as many resources as others even ifhe himself comes to regard his previous modest ambitions as a piece ofbadluck. Under such conditions, the problem of cheap tastes, and the generalantiwelfarist dilemma, seems especially difficult to escape.

Further problems

Even if welfarists could overcome these difficulties, there are further reasonsto doubt the relevance of welfare when making interpersonal comparisons.Perhaps the two most prominent arguments appeal, respectively, to the valueof publicity and the nature of personal well-being. Expressing the former,


Rawls invokes the need for ‘a practicable public basis of interpersonal com-parisons based on objective features of citizens social circumstances open toview’.16 Welfarist metrics, he argues, cannot satisfy that need because indi-viduals’ differing opportunities for preference satisfaction are insufficientlyverifiable. Since justice must been seen in order to be done, interpersonalcomparison should instead proceed on the more epistemically accessiblebasis supplied by an index ofsocial primary goods.17

Expressing the latter anti-welfarist argument, Scanlon claims that ‘thestrength of a person’s preferences, insofar as this is taken to be independ-ent of value judgments about what there is reason to prefer, lacks sufficientconnection with the idea of what is good for a person – what makes his orher life better’.18 According to this type of objection, the welfarist view ofwell-being inverts the normal relationship between desire and well-being.19

Thus, the mere fact that an individual prefers a particular state of affairs doesnot normally establish that its existence improves the quality of her life. In-stead preferences are based upon evaluative judgements about which statesare worthy of desire. The personal value of a state therefore depends uponsuch ideals being sound rather than merely the presence of a preference.

This latter type of objection rests on two bases. First, it denies an accountof well-being as subjective satisfaction. Second, it assumes that a metric ofindividual advantage must be connected directly to a sound conception ofwell-being. However, this latter assumption might be questioned, both byresourcists20 as well as some welfarists,21 and we return to the difficultiesit generates in the next section.

Before doing so, it is worth considering a third, and less well known,objection to welfarist metrics, which focuses upon our attitude to the trans-mission of relatively expensive ambitions. Though he does not develop it indetail, the objection is suggested by Scanlon’s remark that ‘a public standardof justice requiring government policy to be aimed at raising individual levelsof satisfaction is an open invitation to unwelcome government intervention inthe formation of individuals’ values and preferences’.22

Consider individuals who have authentic though expensive religious am-bitions as a result of their parents’ successful attempts to inculcate their owndemanding religious values in their children. Suppose those parents couldhave chosen to transmit less expensive ambitions, but instead teach their chil-dren to believe that the success of their lives depends upon the fulfillment ofvarious onerous religious requirements, such as regular prayer and periodicpilgrimage. They take credit for their educational achievements, and wouldhave accepted blame had they acted otherwise. Thus, the parents believe thatthey can be held morally responsible for the treatment of their children. Sup-pose also that, as a result, their children face significantly less opportunity


for, or access to, welfare than their less devout contemporaries. Under suchconditions, it is possible to argue that welfare egalitarianism has a number ofcounterintuitive implications.

Note first that a pure welfarist metric seems to imply that the children’seducation has setback their morally relevant interests in one important re-spect. Many, however, fail to see any harm whatsoever in reducing anotherindividual’s opportunity for welfare as such. They react very differently tovariants on the previous case in which parents have affected other dimensionsof their children’s lives. Suppose the parents’ religion had instead movedthem to act in ways which seriously impaired their children’s health, literacyor education compared with that of other children. In these cases, the extentto which there exists an inequality, which calls for prevention or redress, isfar more readily apparent than in cases involving a mere loss of welfare.

Nevertheless, this initial observation is not decisive against all welfaristmetrics. A hybrid-welfarist might counter-assert that in the initial examplethe children’s interests have been setback in one respect, and that the variantat best shows only that there are other ways in which they can also be harmed.Thus, opportunity for welfare is still relevant to interpersonal comparison,though perhaps not uniquely so.

Even if this response is adequate, further related problems remain. Grantedfor the sake of argument that a religious education which induces expensiveambitions is, in one respect, harmful, the question arises whether parentsshould be permitted to transmit their values in this way. After all, manyassume that there are egalitarian reasons to require them not to jeopardisetheir children’s basic capabilities. Assuming opportunity for welfare has acomparable role in interpersonal comparison, we shall therefore ask whetherthere are similar reasons to require them not to inculcate relatively expensiveambitions in their children. We shall argue that a welfarist might consistentlyrespond to this question in two ways, each of which is embarrassing.

First, welfarists might concede that political institutions should indeedprotect children from parents who attempt to influence their children in wayswhich jeopardise their opportunity for welfare. The government might, forexample, discourage welfare-jeopardising forms of education by publicly-funded campaigns, the withdrawal of certain legal powers or subsidies, theimposition of taxes, or even enforceable legal requirements. If, like Cohen,the welfarist accepts that the demands of justice extend beyond a society’slegal structure, she might also endorse an educational ethos characterisedby non-enforceable moral requirements which regulate the transmission ofparental values.23 Many will reject these supposedly justice-inspired limita-tions on parental liberty, and deny that they could be supported by a soundconception of egalitarian justice.


Let us assume then that welfarists would not require parents to refrainfrom transmitting expensive ambitions. Their second response might attemptto ensure that the costs of financing their children’s expensive ambitions areborne by parents rather than the wider society.24 After all, assuming theirchildren are entitled to an equal opportunity for welfare, it does not follow thatthe costs of its provision should fall equally upon parents and non-parents.Since parents, we have assumed, freely chose to impart expensive ambitionsto their children, they arguably have the primary responsibility to financetheir satisfaction. However, in the case of expensive tastes, many will findsuch a conclusion strikingly counter-intuitive. Yet welfarists appear drivento the bizarre view that it is a requirement of justice to penalise parents forencouraging demanding aspirations in their offspring.

Capabilities

Even if the previous arguments all fail and welfare is relevant to interpersonalcomparison, it might not be the only relevant consideration. We now turnto the most influential version of this less radical objection to pure welfariststandards. To understand the criticism, recall the claim that it is unfair todisregard an individual’s disability even if she is as wealthy as others. Someargue it is also unfair to do so even if her welfare is as high.25 They appeal tothe common conviction that certain disabilities can, in themselves, be groundsfor entitlement. For that reason no welfare metric can be plausible unless italso incorporates information about goods other than preference satisfaction.The resulting focus upon what Sen has termed individualfunctioning andcapability, is one of the main rivals to both pure welfarist and resourcist ac-counts of interpersonal comparison. It has gained many adherents, and playsan important role in measuring poverty in developing countries.26

Like welfarist proposals, capability metrics are a natural response to theearlier charge of superficiality. Yet, unlike such proposals, they do not fo-cus only upon what specified individuals care about, but instead employ aless subjective account of what others might call individualneeds. Sen, forexample, refers not only to being happy, but also to functions such as escap-ing morbidity, mortality, and malnutrition, as well as achieving self-respectand participating in community life.27 According to their critics, however,capability accounts have their own peculiar problems. For example, somecritics claim that without appealing to perfectionist ideals of personal well-being it is impossible to explain why certain capabilities have moral relevancewhilst others do not, or to establish the relative importance of differingcapabilities.28 Those ideals, they suggest, give content to the capability ap-proach by identifying the manner in which differing functions impact upon an


individual’s quality of life. Welfarists, who are frequently sceptical about thevalidity of any perfectionist ideals, might reject the capability approach forthat reason.29 Other anti-perfectionist critics, however, grant that such idealsmay well be acceptable guides to personal conduct but still question their rolewithin political morality.

Rawlsian anti-perfectionists, for instance, claim that the protection ofbasic civil liberties is inevitably accompanied by deep divisions over whatmakes life worth living, even amongstreasonableindividuals, who acceptthe fundamental values of liberal democracy. They assume that an adequateconception of justice must be capable of winning the allegiance of thoseindividuals, and so might object to capability metrics which rely upon perfec-tionist assumptions unable to pass that test. Anti-perfectionists may, however,remain committed to a capability account of interpersonal comparison thatis suitably liberated from perfectionism. Thus, some argue that ideal-basedcapability metrics can be constructed which are acceptable to reasonablepeople.

Rawls himself claims that his list of primary goods is justified by meansof an ideal-based account of citizens’ needs rather than simply an empiricaldescription of the content of preferences.30 These needs are twofold. Eachindividual has an interest in developing and deploying a sense of justice andthe mental and physical capacity to form, revise, and rationally to pursue aconception of the good life. More recently, he also stresses that the relevantideal is a ‘political’ conception of person’s capacities and interests, which canbe endorsed by individuals who hold competing conceptions of well-being.31

In a similar ecumenical spirit, Scanlon suggests that we may be able to agreethat we have relevant interests in being able to engage in abstractly describedactivities, involving religion, career or family, whilst disagreeing profoundlyabout which specific activities should be pursued.32

The welfarist and anti-perfectionist objections to the capability approachraise long-standing questions within moral and political philosophy. Thus,the criticisms canvassed so far are likely to remain the subject of debate. Thesame may be true of a less familiar resourcist objection. It suggests capabilitymetrics sometimes give implausible results because they are blind to individu-als’ own attitudes to their disabilities. To understand that suggestion, considerthe following objection to welfarism, and then how it might be generalised tothe capability view.

Imagine some individuals experience feelings of intense guilt which resultin them enjoying considerably lower levels of welfare than others. Neverthe-less, because they regard those feelings as the appropriate response to theirown failings, they much prefer their presence to their absence. Scanlon illus-


trates this type of objection with the example of a guilt-ridden believer, whichhe describes as follows:

What religion a particular person belongs to is a contingent matter: Imight have grown up in circumstances in which it would never haveoccurred to me to be a Catholic (or never have occurred to me not to beone). Such differences in religious belief are one thing that can producedifferences in utility level, and someone who regarded equality of wel-fare as the standard of interpersonal justification would have to regardthese differences as being grounds for compensation: compensation forhaving acquired a particularly onerous or guilt-inducing religion or oneparticularly unsuited to one’s own personal strengths and weaknesses.

Denying that such compensation is justifiable, he objects,

This strikes me as distinctly odd. Quite apart from the fact that it mightdestroy the point of religious burdens to have them lightened by socialcompensation, the idea that these burdens are grounds for compensation(a form of bad luck) is incompatible with regarding them as mattersof belief and conviction whichone values and adheres to because onethinks them right.33

Scanlon’s objection has considerable appeal. Indeed, even some of thosedrawn to welfarism appear to express sympathy for the view that individualswho do not regard their luck as misfortune are not relevantly worse off thanothers, and so cannot claim compensation.34 There appears then to be a casefor revising welfarist metrics to accommodate such convictions.

If that case is sound, it is seems possible to generalize the objection tocertain capability metrics. After all, any disability which could be thoughtrelevant to interpersonal comparison might be welcomed by some individu-als. For example, even if most women would regret being infertile, somemight welcome liberation from involuntary conception. Where a disabilityis welcomed should we accept the individual’s own apparent judgment thatit does not constitute a disadvantage? If so, we deny that capabilities alwaysmatter in themselves and come closer to the welfarist view that their relevanceis conditional upon individual valuation. If not, we allow that individuals maylegitimately claim compensation for conditions about which they themselvesare perfectly happy.

Since accepting the latter conclusion seems quite counter-intuitive, wemight revise Sen’s view by developing anattitude-sensitivevariant of thecapability view. Such a view would accept that whether a capability defi-cit constitutes a disadvantage depends upon the attitude of the individualconcerned: should she welcome the deficit it does not make her worse off.


Alternatively, we might instead return to resourcism, and ask whether any ofits more sophisticated variants provide an acceptable alternative. In answer-ing that question, the natural starting point is Rawls’s social primary goodsmetric.

Resources

Rawls now grants that, under realistic circumstances, his list of social primarygoods is an incomplete metric. His solution is to suggest that the list shouldbe supplemented by an account of those capabilities essential to be a ‘nor-mally cooperating member of society’.35 Unfortunately, it is difficult toassess Rawls’s resource-capability hybrid since its details are left unspecified.Rawls’s solution also appears open to the type of objection often directed atsufficiency principles. His attribution to individuals of an interest in being anormally cooperating member invokes a capability-resource threshold belowwhich no one should fall. However, his view is silent about the justice ofinequalities in capabilities above the relevant threshold. Yet inequalities ofthis kind may remain morally relevant even after that point. After all, thedifference principle is itself premised upon the importance of inequalitiesin earning potential between normal cooperators, and aims to ensure theywork to everyone’s benefit. Why then shouldn’t other differences in personalendowment themselves also be regarded as important?

In the absence of an answer, it might be worth considering alternativeresourcist proposals, of which Dworkin’s is the leading example. Like Rawls,Dworkin denies the need to make interpersonal welfare comparisons betweenindividuals who differ in their personal endowment. Yet, despite this affinity,their two views exhibit important philosophical differences. For example, noninterpersonally-comparable welfare information plays an important role inDworkin’s view. Thus, the requirement that nobody prefer any other indi-vidual’s endowment to her own is fundamental to his defence of an equaldistribution of impersonal resources. Thisenvy test, as economists have mis-leadingly dubbed it, can naturally be extended to circumstances in whichindividuals vary in their personal resources.36 The resourcist can claim thatpersonal resources are unequal where some prefer the opportunities whichothers’ physical and mental capabilities confer upon them. Dworkin employssuch a claim in explaining why, under realistic conditions, justice demandsmore than an equal distribution of wealth.37

Although Dworkin conceives inequalities in impersonal and personal re-sources similarly, his response to them is dissimilar. In the former case,impersonal resources can be redistributed until each individual’s share hasthe same competitive value. However, Dworkin rejects radical proposals to


redistribute personal resources or to distribute impersonal resources untileach individual’s comprehensive endowment, encompassing both types ofresource, has the same value. Instead he defends compensatory redistributionwhich mimics the operation of a fair insurance market where each individualfaces the same risk of suffering bad luck.38 He concedes that his proposal doesnot fully satisfy the envy test. It does, nevertheless, escape objections to theforcible transfer of bodily parts and theslavery of the talented.39 Like its com-petitors, Dworkin’s proposal is open to objections. Many, for example, focusupon alleged deficiencies in his account of the insurance market’s operation.40

Space constraints preclude a fuller examination of these debates. We shallinstead conclude our discussion of resourcism by analysing the appeal andalleged drawbacks of the envy test.

First, unlike the simple resourcist proposal discussed earlier, the test is notsimilarly vulnerable to the charge of incompleteness. So long as individuals’personal as well as impersonal resources are taken into consideration, it canexplain the widespread conviction that unwillingly disabled individuals aredisadvantaged. Second, judgements about the ways in which resources con-tribute to quality of life play an important role in applying the test insofaras individuals’ preferences over holdings are based upon such judgements.Thus, the test also avoids at least some of the superficiality which besets thesimple proposal. Third, it is important to note that the test does so in a waywhich eschews reliance upon a single authoritative account of the reasons forwhich resources are valuable. For unlike many welfarist and capability views,the test provides an account of interpersonal comparison which does not reston the truth of contested claims about personal well-being. Instead individualsthemselves decide what is to count as a valuable resource or opportunity, andwhat is to count as a limitation or a handicap. Because of the widespreaddisagreement about the nature of personal well-being characteristic of ourpluralistic societies, many liberals will applaud this feature. Fourth, the testaccords with the conviction that individuals are not entitled to compensationfor disabilities they do not themselves regard as limiting. For if a person hasa disability she authentically values, and cannot in good faith claim that sheprefers the circumstances of others who to lack the disability, the test impliesshe has no legitimate claim for compensation.

As the previous remarks suggest, opponents of perfectionist and welfaristmetrics should be drawn to the envy test because it enables interpersonalcomparison to shun appeal to ideals without succumbing to the anti-welfaristdilemma. But those unmoved by such considerations may fail to see theappeal of the test, or may find it counter-intuitive. They might claim thatthe existence of envy is neither necessary nor sufficient for inequality.


For illustration, consider two cases which involve variation in reproductiveendowments.

Suppose it is more personally costly, in a host of ways, for women than formen to beget children. In those respects, it is more burdensome for womento exercise their distinctive procreative capability to bear children. Many wo-men, however, attach great value to child-bearing. Though they might preferits costs to be reduced, they do not regret being born with their reproductiveendowment rather than the masculine alternative.41 Under such conditionsenvy over differing reproductive endowments appears to be absent. Never-theless, many are convinced that justice to women demands that they shouldreceive redress, or compensation, for having to bear so high a burden inexercising their procreative capability. For that reason they regard envy asunnecessary for distributive injustice. Now consider a less familiar, thoughnot completely unrealistic, scenario. Imagine a man regrets that he is unableto bear children and would prefer to have been born with a female reproduct-ive endowment. Even so, unless this aspiring mother can appeal to somethingmore than his mere preference for an alternative endowment, many deny thathe is the victim of any morally relevant inequality. If such a denial is sound,then unredressed envy does not even suffice for injustice.

These two cases suggest that individuals can be more needy than otherseven if they do not prefer their resources, and they can be less needy yet stillprefer others’ resources. Under such conditions the claims of envy elimin-ation and of need diverge, and further argument is required to assess theirrespective force.

Conclusion

We have reviewed three of the leading types of account of interpersonal com-parison in recent egalitarian thought. Each faces objections of more or lessforce. We shall conclude by drawing out of our discussion certain desideratathat a fully adequate account would satisfy, and employ them to summarisethe strengths and weakness of the three accounts. Those desiderata can beroughly described as follows:

1. The Fairness Requirement:assuming that preferences are authentic, it isunjust to pander to individuals with expensive tastes or penalise thosewith cheap tastes.

2. The Attitudinal Requirement:assuming that preferences are authentic, anindividual cannot be regarded as worse off in virtue of lacking a goodwhich she prefers not to possess.


3. The Pluralist Requirement:a plausible standard of interpersonal compar-ison should be widely acceptable given reasonable pluralism concerningpersonal well-being.

4. The Verification Requirement:because justice must be seen to be done,standards of interpersonal comparison should verifiably mark individualsas better off, worse off, or no worse off than others.

Plainly, any set of desiderata placed on an adequate account of interpersonalcomparison will be disputed. Nevertheless, we take these to be plausible, andwidely-affirmed requirements within the literature we have been reviewing.If they are accepted, we conclude that welfarism must be rejected, thoughthe choice between resourcism and some capability view is more difficult tomake.

We have established that welfarism faces difficulties in satisfying anyof the four requirements. The anti-welfarist dilemma arises because wel-fare egalitarians cannot meet the requirement not to finance expensive tasteswithout also penalising those with cheap tastes. Second, we have seen thatif welfare is constituted by preference-satisfaction then an individual with alow degree of preference-satisfaction is badly off according to the welfaristeven if she is not prepared to exchange her preferences for ones more easilysatisfied. Such an individual clearly rejects the pursuit of welfare as a goal ofher life. Given this fact, welfarists must either explain why others should beconcerned for her welfare or revise their account to incorporate the relevanceof the individual’s own assessment of her level of advantage. One explanationof the former kind is that the individual’s rejection of welfare as a personalgoal is mistaken. However, that would violate the third, pluralist, requirementthat a standard of interpersonal comparison must be acceptable to reasonablepersons: it is implausible to claim that the rejection of welfarism as an accountof well-being is unreasonable. Finally, the welfarist view violates the verific-ation requirement, because the nature of individuals’ preferences, and theirsatisfaction, cannot publicly be assessed with a sufficient degree of accuracy.

Attempting to establish the overall merits of capability and resource met-rics in light of our four desiderata is less conclusive. Capability metrics neednot accord any role to relative levels of preference satisfaction and, we havesuggested, might be revised take into account whether the absence of a cap-ability matters to individuals. So, such metrics could satisfy the first twodesiderata, the Fairness and Attitudinal Requirements. They also stand wellin relation to the Verification Requirement because there are well-establishedtechniques for measuring standard capabilities, such as morbidity, mortality,and literacy. Finally, the Pluralist Requirement demands that capability met-rics must not rely upon contested claims about what makes an individual’s lifego well. Advocates of capability metrics, following Rawls’s and Scanlon’s


lead, might attempt to meet this demand by explaining the importance ofcapabilities by appeal to widely endorsed claims about human need. So, weconclude that the overall appeal of the capability view rests, to a large extent,on whether these attempts succeed.

The envy test, underlying resourcist metrics, is at least as successful withrespect to the Fairness and Attitudinal Requirements. Arguably it accom-modates pluralism more effectively than the capability view. In relying uponinformation about individuals’ preferences to evaluate resource holdings, itavoids reliance on either a partial or complete conception of well-being,agreement upon which may be absent. However, satisfying the Pluralist Re-quirement in this way comes at a price. Because of problems in establishingthe content and authenticity of individuals’ desires, its dependence on inform-ation about preferences severely impairs the envy test’s capacity to satisfy theVerification Requirement. If our account is sound, it is possible that neithercapability nor resourcist metrics are fully adequate. The choice betweenthem turns in part on the relative importance of the twin facts of reasonablepluralism and limited information.42

Notes

1. See, for example, Parfit (1995, 1998). For an earlier path-breaking analysis, see Raz(1986: ch. 9).

2. For a powerful strict egalitarian rejoinder to the levelling down objection, see Temkin(1993: ch. 9).

3. See Cohen (1989: 904–944).4. This is one central theme in recent egalitarian thought. Describing Ronald Dworkin’s

critique of welfare egalitarianism and defence of resource egalitarianism, G. A. Cohenwrites that ‘Dworkin has, in effect, performed for egalitarianism the considerable serviceof incorporating within it the most powerful idea in the arsenal of the anti-egalitarianright: the idea of choice and responsibility’; see Cohen (1989: 933) and Dworkin (1981a,b). For two important attempts to show how, contrary to Dworkin, welfarist conceptions ofequality can also accommodate personal responsibility, see Arneson (1989) and Roemer(1998).

5. Though sufficiency principles are capable of combination with egalitarian and priorit-arian principles, many of their advocates present them as an alternative; see, for example,Frankfurt (1989).

6. See Sen (1980).7. For example, in Cohen (1989), G. A. Cohen defendsaccess to advantage, which combines

all three elements. Rawls’s view, discussed later, can be understood as combining resourceand capability concerns.

8. Few resourcists recommend such a proposal, though Hillel Steiner’sleft-libertarianismonce came close to endorsing it before its inclusion of children’s genetic informationwithin the common pool of resources. See, for example, Steiner (1992). Other resourcistsfocus upon goods additional to wealth. Thus, Rawls initially proposed a list ofsocial


primary goods, which include ‘basic liberties’, ‘freedom of movement and free choiceof occupation against a background of diverse opportunities’, ‘powers and prerogativesof offices or responsibility in the political and economic institutions of the basic struc-ture’ and ‘the social bases of self-respect’, as well as ‘income and wealth’. See Rawls(1993: 181). As discussed later, Rawls also now regards a ‘normal’ set of capabilities asrelevant. Dworkin focuses upon two types of resource,personaland impersonal. As heexplains, ‘Personal resources are qualities of mind and body that affect peoples successin achieving their plans and projects; physical and mental health, strength, and talent.Impersonal resources are parts of the environment that can be owned and transferred:land, raw materials, houses, television sets and computers and various legal rights andinterests in these’. See Dworkin (1990: section IV, 37).

9. Some argue this appearance is illusory, and that we do not pursue preference satisfac-tion in itself any more than we pursue wealth accumulation. We defer discussion of thisobjection to welfarism until the next section.

10. On the importance ofadaptive preference formation, see Elster (1982).11. For a resource egalitarian attempt to do so, see the discussion of the Principle of

Authenticity in Dworkin (1987: 36–37).12. See Dworkin (1981a: section VIII).13. However, for anti-welfarist doubts about the plausibility of regarding tastes as voluntary

see Dworkin (1990: section VI, 107).14. Arneson’s equality of opportunity for welfare appears to deny that individuals with cheap

tastes who initially enjoy equal access to welfare but then willingly cultivate more ex-pensive tastes are entitled to any more resources to finance their new ambitions. Cohen’sequality of access to advantage grants them more resources than Arneson’s metric since itincludes a resource as well as a welfare component. However, it still denies them as manyresources as others enjoy, even if they do not themselves regard their greater capacity toconvert resources into welfare as a piece of good fortune.

15. For further discussion of the problem of cheap tastes, see Arneson (1990: 183–185).16. See Rawls (1993: 181).17. For further discussion of the role of publicity in Rawls’s thought, its intrinsic value, and

relevance to distributive ethics, see Williams (1998: especially section VII).18. See Scanlon (1991: 38). For the most recent statement of Scanlon’s view of well-being

and its relationship to desire, Scanlon (1998: ch. 3).19. For further discussion of welfarist accounts of well-being, and defence of the perfectionist

alternative, see Griffin (1991) and Raz (1986: ch. 12).20. See Dworkin (1990).21. Scanlon himself makes this point on behalf of welfarists, even though he regards

welfarism as an implausible metric of interpersonal comparison; see Scanlon (1991:26–27).

22. See Scanlon (1988: Lec. 2, Sec. 6) and Darwall (1995: 88).23. For an important discussion of the scope of justice, see Cohen (1997).24. For further discussion of egalitarian justice and parental responsibility, see Steiner (1998)

and Casal & Williams (1995).25. For Sen’s classic statement, see Darwall (1995: section 4, 327).26. See Crocker (1995) and United Nations Development Programme (1997).27. See Sen (1993: 36–37).


28. For the most sophisticated perfectionist account of well-being and its role in politicalmorality, see Raz (1986).

29. See Arneson (1989: section V).30. See Rawls (1982).31. See Rawls (1993: ch. V).32. See Scanlon (1991: 39).33. See Scanlon (1989: 116–117), italics added. For further discussion, see Roemer (1996:

248–250, 275–276).34. Thus, G. A. Cohen, writes that ‘the Scanlon example shows that some of the costs of

unchosen commitments . . . are also not bad luck: they are not bad luck when they areso intrinsically connectedwith . . . commitments that their bearer would not chose to bewithout them’, see Cohen (1989: 937).

35. See Rawls (1993: section 3), where Rawls conjectures that ‘a sufficiently flexible indexcan be devised in that it gives judgments as just or fair as those of any political conceptionwe can work out’ and adds that ‘as Sen urges, any such index will consider basic capab-ilities, and its aim will be to restore citizens to their proper role as normal cooperatingmembers of society’ (p. 186). For application to the case of health, Rawls refers to Rawls(1982: 168), and Norman Daniels’s work on health care. See Daniels (1996: ch. 9), andfor more general anti-welfarist discussion of interpersonal comparison (ch. 10).

36. Note the test has little to do with envy as a psychological phenomenon. For furtherdiscussion see Dworkin (1981b: 285–286), and the excellent survey in Arnsperger (1994).

37. See Dworkin (1981b: 292–293).38. See Dworkin (1981b: section III) and Dworkin (1993: 883–898).39. For the latter objection, see Dworkin (1981b: 311–312).40. See Roemer (1994). For further objections, and an alternative resource egalitarian

proposal to Dworkin’s, termedundominated diversity, see P. van Parijs (1995: ch. 3).41. Because bearing the relevant costs is not in itself valuable to the women concerned, they

differ from the guilt-ridden individuals previously mentioned.42. For comments or helpful discussion, we thank P. Casal, J. Burley, C. Farrelly, A. Mason,

P. Vallentyne, P. van Parijs, and participants in a seminar onEquality and its CriticsatYale’s Ethics, Politics and Economics Program.

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Address for correspondence:Matthew Clayton, Department of Government, Brunel Univer-sity, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UKPhone: +44 1895-274000; Fax: +44 1895-812595

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