IEP 511: Environmental Decision Making

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Week 5 Future generations, equality and sustainability

I. Classical Utilitarianism

The right action is that which has the consequences that maximises the well-being or happiness of affected agents i.e. the best action is that which produces the greatest improvement in well-being.

The theory makes three distinct claims that need to be distinguished:

1. It is welfarist: The only thing that is good in itself and not just a means to another good is the happiness or well-being of individuals.

2. It is consequentialist: whether an action is right or wrong is determined solely by its consequences.

3. It is an aggregative maximising approach: we choose the action that produces the greatest total amount of well-being.

Should maximising well-being be all that matters? What implications would this maximising approach have for the distribution of welfare and considerations of fairness and justice?

Example: The Narmada dam. Consider the following justification of the building the dam in Narmada that has left large numbers of indigenous peoples displaced from the homes:
‘Then there was the question of the oustees – the trauma of the oustees. Now this was also given. Earlier we had not mentioned that there is indirect loss, but mind there is indirect benefit also. As I pointed out in the report, benefit is in the sense that if a persons is uprooted from a place he suffers a trauma because of displacement, but at the same time, there are other people who gain because the water comes to them…In fact the beneficiaries are more than the sufferers. Therefore the quantum should at least be equal…’ (C. Alveres and R. Billorey Damming the Narmada p.88)

Question: If the sums came out right, would it be justifiable to knowingly cause intense suffering to a minority of already poor persons in order to increase the welfare of a larger population?

Problem for maximising approaches: They seem to be insufficiently sensitive to the distribution of benefits and suffering. Hence they are incompatible with concerns of justice and equality.

The first reading for this block is chapter 4 of Holland, Light and O'Neill Values and the Environment. (forthcoming) this is available from the discussion site.

Exercise

Re. section 1.3 of the reading. Develop an example of the Kaldor-Hicks compensation test apparently working and use it to test out the criticisms of willingness to pay and compensation strategies in general. Do remember to send your example and analysis to the discussion site.

II. Egalitarian components to utilitarianism

1. Equality in moral standing

Each sentient individual has equal moral standing.
In utilitarian calculations ‘each to count for one and none for more than one’ (Bentham).
All sentient beings matter equally in that we should give equal consideration to their interests. The race, sex, intelligence, or species of the individual should not matter.

a. Equality in standing in this sense does not as such entail equality in the distribution.

The claim that each sentient being counts equally does not entail the claim that welfare, well-being or resources should be distributed equally.
For the utilitarian, we give equal consideration to all interests in the sense that when we consider the total utility, each interest is given equal weight. Each being’s ‘suffering be counted equally with like suffering of any other being’ (Singer). However, this allows that where the total satisfaction of interests is maximised by allowing a few to suffer then there is no reason also to give special consideration to the interests of the few.
Neither of our examples is ruled out.

b. One response to the counter-examples is to reject the account of moral standing the utilitarian assumes.

Kantian view - to have moral standing is to possess certain interests which cannot be over-ridden for the purposes of maximising welfare. Equality in moral standing on this view involves recognition that a being is an end in itself and to be treated as such and hence not to be used merely as a means to other ends, including the maximisation of the general welfare. ‘Each person has an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override’ (Rawls).

2. Indirect utilitarian arguments for distributive equality in incomes

a. Argument from the diminishing marginal utility of income:

The richer a person is, the less additional utility he will get from a unit of income. An additional £1.00 for a wealthy person will have a smaller effect on his happiness that an additional £1.00 for a poorer person. Therefore, in general, a distribution of income from the rich to the poor will increase the total happiness. An egalitarian distribution of incomes will tend to increase total utility.

b. Problems with the argument:

i. This does not as such rule out distribution harms to minorities to improve the total welfare – see example above.
ii. The argument works only under very special assumptions, in particular, that everyone’s marginal utility schedule is the same. Without that assumption utilitarianism will have inegalitarian outcomes.
Sen’s example: Assume that Joe gets twice as much utility from a given level of income than Sarah because Sarah is handicapped – then the way to maximise total well-being would be to give a higher income to Joe than to Sarah. Even if income was divided equally Joe would be better off, and utilitarian will recommend giving more income to Joe!
(For those interested in the mathematics of the argument see A. Sen On Economic Inequality pp.15-18 and J. Broome Weighing Goods pp.175-177)

III. Consequentialism with egalitarianism

One response: reject the third purely maximising of utilitarianism. Maximising total utility is not the only thing that matter. An equal distribution also matters as end in itself.

Telic egalitarianism: We should promote equality because it is a good outcome in itself.
What is wrong with inequality is that it is a bad state of affairs as such.

Objections:

The 'levelling down' objection

One way to realise equality is to reduce the welfare of the better off until it is the same as the worse off. But this is at least sometimes counter-intuitive. For example, in what sense could it be better for all to blind rather than some blind and some not.
Reply: The telic egalitarian is not committed to saying that equality is the only thing that matters in itself, just that it is one of the things that matters.
It will allow that where equality is realised through creating a state of affairs in which none are better off and some worse, there is a respect in which resulting state is better, but this may be outweighed by other considerations.
There is a respect in which all blind is better than some blind and some not, but this is albeit one that outweighed by others – the total welfare falls too much.
Response: Is there any respect in which all blind is better than some blind?

The person effecting objection

Levelling down violates person effecting restrictions in ethics i.e. it violates the following slogan

The Slogan: One situation cannot be worse (or better) than another in any respect if there is no one for whom it is worse (or better) in any respect. (Temkin Inequality p.256)

Reply: There are good reasons to reject the slogan anyway.

Consider the non-identity problem

The non-identity problem. The choice between two policies, P1 and P2, say whether to deplete or conserve resources, or between high risk or low risk energy paths, will effect not just the state of well-being of future generations, but who will exist, their identity, S1 and S2. One of the policies, P1, might produce a much lower quality of life than the other. However, since the population S1 that is produced would not have existed where it not for P1, then, providing their life is worth living, they cannot be said to have been harmed, since they are not worse off than they would have been had they not existed. There is no specific person who is wronged or harmed.
Given this implication one may want to say that P1 is wrong even though no particular person is made worse off by it.

IV. Egalitarianism without consequentialism

A second response to the counter-examples to utilitarianism is to reject the consequentialist assumptions. What is wrong in the examples is that they involve acts of injustice.

Deontic egalitarianism: We should aim at equality because to do so is to perform the right or just action. What is objectionable about inequality is that it involves wrong-doing or acts of injustice.

Avoids the levelling down objection:
Inequalities that are not the result of wrong doing or injustice are not objectionable.

The second reading for this block is Derek Parfit's 1997 paper 'Equality and Priority' in Ratio 10:3 pp 202-21.
This is available on-line from the library. For students off campus you will need to use your athens log in and password, if you do not have one yet please contact the librarian Helen Clish h.clish@lancaster.ac.uk

V. Equality without egalitarianism

Third reading for this block.
For a useful overview of issues relating to equality go to the Stanford web pages on equality at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/

The priority view/extended humanitarianism: benefiting people matters more the worse off people are.

Extended humanitarians are not strictly speaking egalitarians: redistributions are defended in virtue the greater urgency of the claims of the less well off compared to those of the better off, not because equality as such is a good.

VI. Community, character and equality

Virtues-based egalitarianism

We should aim at equality because it is a constitutive condition of certain social virtues. What is objectionable about inequality is that it involves social vices.

Equality is a condition for a certain kind of community and human character. Living in relations of equality eliminates certain vices, such as, dependence, snobbery, servility and sycophancy, and promotes certain relationships and excellences of character such as self-respect, independence and fellowship.

Parfit: This isn’t really egalitarianism as such – it makes equality only of instrumental value – a means to community and good character.

Response:
To defend equality by appeal to the virtues it fosters is not necessarily to take equality to have merely instrumental value in the sense of being an external means to a distinct end: equality and the mutual recognition of equality are partially constitutive of many of the virtues to which appeal is made.

Suggested reading: for those particularly interested in following up this line of thought there are two further papers in the journal Ratio that are available on line through the library.

R. Norman 1997 ‘The Social Basis of Equality’ Ratio 10 (3), pp. 238-52

J. O’Neill ‘Chekhov and the Egalitarian’ Ratio 14 (2), pp. 165-170

VII. Equality of what?

We tend to use the word equality as a catch all term, but it needs to be considered what are we actualy talking about.

• welfare
• resources (Dworkin)
• liberty and in the distribution of primary goods (Rawls)
• opportunities of welfare (Arneson),
• access to advantage (Cohen),
• capabilities to functionings (Sen)
  

The fourth reading for this block is a paper by G.A. Cohen 1989 'On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice' in Ethics 99 pp 906-44.

Next week we are going to address the issue of future generations, equality and sustainability.