Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

Abstract

When discussing theories of justice, most philosophers take the moral equality of human beings as their starting point. As Will Kymlicka says, in all contemporary plausible theories of justice, moral equality constitutes an “egalitarian plateau”.1 Arguably, the most prominent novel theory of justice in recent years is relational egalitarianism—a theory on which justice requires people to relate as equals. Relational egalitarians are no exception to Kymlicka's claim. They too start from the idea of moral equality. As one of us previously put it, “as a matter of fact, we are one another's moral equals and in relating as equals we honour that fact, and this is what grounds the ideal of relational egalitarianism”.2 Either the proposed basis [the property, or properties, proposed to ground equal moral status] will turn out to vary by degree, and variations above the claimed threshold that establishes equality will give rise to inequality of moral considerability, or the proposed basis will turn out to be one that applies in an all-or-nothing fashion, and then it will turn out that the basis proposed as justifying equal moral considerability is too flimsy or insubstantial to do this justifying work.3 In this article, we will assume that not all human beings are moral equals. This is an assumption, not an assertion, on our part. It is motivated partly by the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph, and partly by the nature of the present inquiry: to wit, examining what, if anything, relational egalitarianism implies when it comes to relationships between moral unequals. Must moral unequals relate as moral equals?4 Or as unequals? Or in some third way? We will show that relational egalitarianism has much to say about such relationships. And we will show that what it has to say is plausible. Before proceeding, we need to defend our line of inquiry in view of the following skeptical challenge. For its supporters, what grounds relational egalitarianism is the fact—so they claim—that people are moral equals. For instance, this seems to be what the following passage from Kolodny implies: “Insofar as we are to have ongoing social relations with other moral equals, we have reason to relate to them as social equals”.5 Hence, to ask what relational egalitarians are committed to saying about social relations in a—in their view—hypothetical situation, where people are not moral equals, is to ask a moot question. It is like asking what a utilitarian is committed to, as regards the right thing to do, if welfare is not valuable. The question makes no sense, because the notion that welfare has value is built into, and therefore presupposed by, utilitarianism. Similarly, the notion that people are moral equals is presupposed by relational egalitarianism.6 While this challenge makes sense, we think that, ultimately, we are asking a perfectly justifiable question, and one we have the resources to answer. First, Kolodny's remark is most naturally taken to mean that moral equals must relate as social and political equals given that, more generally, the way people relate, socially and politically, should fit the way they relate in terms of moral status. If this is correct, Kolodny's view is underpinned by a general commitment to some kind of fittingness; and this general commitment, surely, has implications for the question of how moral unequals should relate, even if Kolodny thinks that people are not moral unequals, and thus even if the implications in question do not materialize in the real world.7 Admittedly, as a matter of logic, one can consistently hold both that if people are moral equals, that justifies certain claims about how they should relate socially and politically and that if they are moral unequals, that does not justify any claims about how they should relate socially and politically. However, such a view seems arbitrary. Why would moral status have implications for how we ought to relate only in cases where people's moral statuses are equal? So the view is not especially plausible. This implausibility is reflected in the complaint: “They treated us as if we were animals”. The complaint assumes, precisely, that people and non-human animals do not enjoy the same high moral status, and that the bad treatment complained about would have been justified (or at least less unjustified) had there been a difference in the moral status of the wrongdoers and the victims of the sort that exists between people and non-human animals. Second, for reasons brought out in our first response, we believe the analogy with utilitarianism is misleading. Consider a utilitarian who believes that morality requires us to do what realizes the greatest amount of value, and who treats welfare, understood as preference satisfaction, as the only value. Surely, utilitarians of this kind are committed to a view about what morality requires agents to do if what is of value is not welfare as preference satisfaction, but, say, that people's level of welfare match their level of moral desert (as Kant thought would be ideal). That is, they are committed to the view that, morally, we should act so as to maximize the overall fit between levels of welfare and levels of moral desert. [E]ven those who do deny the existence of desert may find our investigation of some interest. For even if they are convinced that desert would only exist if this or that metaphysical condition is met, and even if they believe that the requisite conditions are not, in fact, met, presumably they are themselves open to the possibility that their favored metaphysical views on the relevant issues might be somehow mistaken. Thus it seems epistemically possible, if nothing more, that desert claims might turn out to be legitimate after all. Accordingly, there may be some value in getting clear about the nature of desert—what it would be like, if only it were real—even if one is skeptical about whether anyone really does deserve anything.8 Similarly, in the light of forceful challenges such as those put forward by Arneson, McMahan, and Singer, relational egalitarians should be open to the possibility that people are not moral equals. They should recognize the value of exploring what, if anything, their view commits them to, as regards how we should relate socially and politically, if they are mistaken and not all human beings are moral equals. Exploring the issue of how moral unequals are required to relate in the relational egalitarian framework is important for several reasons. First, it helps to develop relational egalitarianism as a theory of justice—a theory which still leaves many questions unanswered, because it is relatively young. As we will show, our discussion helps to shed light on the place of children and non-human animals—individuals that are arguably not moral equals of persons—in relational egalitarianism. Second, the exploration will show that relational egalitarian objections to paradigmatic relational inequalities—such as discrimination, racism, and sexism—can be constructed, even if not all human beings are moral equals. That means that the plausibility of relational egalitarianism does not stand or fall with the idea that all humans are moral equals.9 This result is important, given the dilemma Arneson describes above. Third, the exploration illuminates the important point that relational egalitarianism is a large family of theories that differ along many different dimensions, including their responses to the question of how moral unequals should relate. The article is structured as follows. In Section II, we introduce relational egalitarianism and distinguish two forms: deontic and telic relational egalitarianism. We further distinguish two accounts of deontic relational egalitarianism and explain that these provide different accounts of how moral unequals should relate. We show, moreover, that the least demanding conception of deontic relational egalitarianism provides plausible answers to the question of how moral unequals should relate.10 In Section III, we turn to telic relational egalitarianism. We show that the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians explaining why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply to relationships between moral unequals as well: these reasons are not tied to people with equal moral status. We explore further implications of these arguments in Section IV in relation to the place of children and non-human animals in relational egalitarianism—something about which relational egalitarians have not said much. We provide a relational egalitarian explanation of why adult-adult paternalism may be regarded as more objectionable than parent–child paternalism. Additionally, we respond to a concern which may arise when the claims of people who are moral unequals are being discussed. Section V concludes and presents the main takeaway point of the article: that, fortunately, our commitment to relational, social, and political equality is not hostage to the philosophical discussion about whether all people are moral equals. The relational egalitarian theory of justice requires people to relate as equals.11 It has received much attention in recent years as a result of relational egalitarians' trenchant criticisms of distributive theories of justice. On these theories, justice is ultimately a matter of distributions.12 Distributive theorists, relational egalitarians argue, fail to see that, ultimately, justice is not about distributions. A given distribution in a society may accord with distributivist requirements of justice, but still not realize justice because, for example, racism and sexism are prevalent in the society. What ultimately matters with justice is, instead, whether relations are suitably egalitarian. Justice requires that people relate to each other as equals.13 For X and Y to relate as equals, relational egalitarians argue, they must (1) regard each other as equals; and (2) treat each other as equals.14 Derek Parfit famously distinguished between telic and deontic egalitarianism. According to the first, “it is in itself bad if some people are worse off than others”.15 This is an axiological view. According to the second, “it is not in itself bad if some people are worse off than others … What is unjust, and therefore bad, is not strictly the state of affairs, but the way in which it was produced”.16 Whereas in telic egalitarianism, inequality is bad, in deontic egalitarianism, inequality is unjust.17 These views are different. To see why, imagine a case in which an inequality is unavoidable. Thus, suppose the inequality was created by a natural disaster, such as an earthquake. Since, in this case, the inequality has not come about through anyone's wrongdoing, it is not unjust on the deontic view. According to the telic view, on the other hand, the inequality is in itself bad even though it is unavoidable.18 Telic Relational Egalitarianism. It is, in itself, good (bad) if egalitarian (inegalitarian) relationships between people exist. Deontic Relational Egalitarianism. It is morally required that people relate as equals, not unequals. So, telic relational egalitarianism says it is (dis)valuable that people relate as (un)equals, whereas deontic relational egalitarianism says that people ought to (not) relate as (un)equals. Lippert-Rasmussen refers to Christian Schemmel and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of deontic relational egalitarians.20 Anderson says that “[Relational] egalitarians base claims to social and political equality on the fact of universal moral equality”.21 Schemmel says, “the objection to [inegalitarian] relationships is not merely that they are, in some sense, bad for people, but that they constitute unjust treatment”.22 Telic relational egalitarians include Martin O'Neill, who says, “The existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare.”23 Narrow Deontic Relational Egalitarianism. Moral equals must relate as moral equals. To relate as moral equals has to do with interests and agency. If we are to relate as moral equals, our interests must be given equal weight and our agency must be equally respected—in a fundamental sense for both.25 If X treats Y in a racist manner, X treats Y's interests as if they are less important, in a fundamental sense, than the interests of non-Y people. X and Y thereby fail to relate as moral equals, and that is unjust on narrow deontic relational egalitarianism. Broad Deontic Relational Egalitarianism. Moral equals must relate as moral equals and (many) moral unequals must relate as moral equals.26 Of course, it is not enough merely to claim that moral unequals, or some, or many of them, must relate as moral equals. We also need an explanation of why moral unequals, despite being moral unequals, must relate as moral equals. Perhaps the justification for narrow deontic relational egalitarianism can also be used to show why, as broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes, moral unequals must relate as moral equals. Lippert-Rasmussen offers an explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals with reference to fairness.27 On his interpretation of fairness, “it is unfair if people are differently situated if the fact that they are differently situated does not reflect their differential exercise of responsibility”.28 This explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals looks promising. It certainly seems unfair, and therefore unjust, for a black person to be treated in a racist manner by a white person given that they are moral equals.29 But can fairness also explain why moral unequals must relate as moral equals? Can we say that it is unfair if moral unequals, or some, or many of them, relate as moral unequals? identify available courses of action she might take, discern reasons for and against the options, weigh and assess the reasons she discerns, deliberate and make choices, carry out the action chosen, and do all this not simply for a single decision problem at a time but with respect to long-term plans of action and projects she might undertake.32 These cognitive and volitional abilities come in degrees. To be a rational agent is to possess them at a certain given level. On this account of moral status, moral unequals possess rational agency to different degrees. Now, let us suppose that both X and Y have moral status, but that X has higher moral status than Y in virtue of possessing rational agency capacity to a higher degree. One fairness-based argument for the view that it is unjust if X and Y relate as moral unequals runs as follows. Suppose X's possession of a higher degree of the capacity for rational agency than Y is due to nature and nurture—for example, X is bright, and their parents have raised them in a way that has been conducive to their achieving a high level of rational agency. In this case, the differences in the capacity for rational agency between X and Y are not due to their differential exercise of responsibility. Thus, if Y relates as an inferior to X because X has the higher moral status, the fact that X is differently situated (for example, in that Y should treat X's interests as more important than their own in a fundamental sense) does not reflect X's and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. And since being differently situated when this does not reflect differential exercise of responsibility is unfair, it is unjust that X and Y relate as moral unequals despite their being moral unequals. A significant challenge to this argument is that it only goes through if X and Y's differing capacities for rational agency are not due to their differing exercises of responsibility.33 This is a challenge, because it seems highly likely that the abilities constituting the capacity for rational agency can be affected by the exercise of responsibility. For instance, one of the components of rational agency is the ability to “deliberate and make choices”. It seems reasonable to assume that the more one deliberates, the better one becomes at deliberating. If X decides to devote a considerable amount of their time to deliberating and Y does not because they would rather do something else, we may expect that, over time, X will become better than Y at deliberating and making choices.34 And if that is the case, and all else is equal, X will at that point have a greater capacity for rational agency than Y, and thus, at least on some views, higher moral status than Y. In this case, their possession of unequal degrees of the capacity for rational agency is a result of X and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. So, it would be unfair if they were not differently situated: that is, if they did not relate as moral unequals. It follows that fairness can ground broad deontic relational egalitarianism only if we assume that human beings are not responsible for their degree of the capacity for rational agency (and, more generally, are not responsible for their full or partial possession of the property, or properties, grounding moral status). If they are so responsible—which they seem to be, at least to some degree—it would be unfair for moral unequals to relate as moral equals. Deontic Relational Justice. Moral equals must relate as moral equals, and moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients. This account of deontic relational egalitarianism is not egalitarian “all the way down”, in the sense that it denies that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We therefore refer to it as deontic relational justice. But it is still egalitarian in the sense that moral equals must, as relational egalitarians prescribe, relate as moral equals. When it comes to moral unequals, the account only applies to entities with sufficient moral standing.35 It does not say anything about, say, rocks, assuming they have no moral standing at all. The account does not say, for instance, that a human being and a rock must relate as moral sufficients. But where entities with sufficient, but unequal, moral standing are concerned, the account says that they must relate as moral sufficients.36 The Egalitarian Deliberative Constraint (EDC). If you and I have an egalitarian relationship, then I have a standing disposition to treat your strong interests as playing just as significant a role as mine in constraining our decisions and influencing what we will do. And you have a reciprocal disposition with regard to my interests. In addition, both of us normally act on these dispositions. This means that each of our equally important interests constrains our joint decisions to the same extent.38 If, in a marriage, one party's interests always trump the other's, the parties fail to relate as moral equals. If they are moral equals, this is unjust. Moral unequals, on the other hand, do not have to grant each other's interests the same weight in their collective decisions. Arguably, to relate as moral sufficients, the marital parties do not have to satisfy the Egalitarian Deliberative Constraint in their dealings with each other. It suffices that they have a standing disposition to treat each other's interests as playing a role which is somehow fitting given their relative moral statuses.39 But it is a long way from acknowledging this to saying that “anything goes, morally speaking”. Importantly, by adopting deontic relational justice, relational egalitarians will be able to object to most of the types of relational inequality to which they would want to object, even if some human beings are moral unequals. As Lippert-Rasmussen posits, the possession of “‘sufficient moral standing’ means that there is, in some sense, a sufficient number of sufficiently important things that one cannot do, morally speaking, to that individual and which this individual is permitted to do.”40 Arguably, two of the sufficiently important things one cannot do to individuals with sufficient moral standing are discriminate against or dominate them. Suppose a two-year-old child and one of her parents are not moral equals, but they both have sufficient moral standing.41 We take it that we would find the relational inequality which would result from the parent treating the child in a sexist manner objectionable, because the parent thereby fails to treat the child as a being with sufficient moral standing (we would reach the same verdict, we take it, in cases of domination and racism as well). Similarly, if a normally functioning adult treats a person with Down syndrome in a sexist manner, they fail to treat them as a human being with sufficient moral standing. We can imagine cases where the gap in moral standing between two human beings is even smaller. Suppose an adult, Bert, has a very slightly higher moral standing than another adult, Carl. If Bert discriminates against Carl, it is hard to see how he could be treating Carl as a being with sufficient moral standing. Importantly, these ways of treating others—discrimination, domination, racist and sexist treatment—are paradigmatic relational inequalities.42 This shows that even if human beings are moral unequals,43 relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, are not barred from objecting to paradigmatic relational inequalities.44 At this point, one might have a serious concern about our exploration of the idea that, even if people are moral sufficients, the standard relational egalitarian objection to paradigmatic relational inequalities stands. In explaining the importance of this article's main question—how should people relate, according to relational egalitarianism, if they are not moral equals?—we noted that, in the philosophical literature, there are forceful challenges to the notion of basic moral equality, citing among other things Arneson's continuity question: if moral status results from rational capacities, why is the moral status of people not a scalar matter in such a way that those with greater rational capacities have greater moral status? The concern is that at least some of these challenges also cast doubt on the threshold notion of moral sufficients, and motivate a continuous, graduated view of individual moral status instead.45 In response, we note, first, that this concern is not about the truth of our main claim (that even if we are not moral equals, we should, from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, relate as sufficients), but its importance. We are not arguing that people are moral sufficients (or moral incommensurables). We are arguing that if they are, it remains the case that they should not relate in the inegalitarian ways (for example, involving discrimination or domination) that relational egalitarians think moral equals should avoid. This can be true, even if the continuity challenge gives us good reason to think that people are not moral sufficients. Second, and much more importantly, we think the present challenge suggests we should extend the scope of our robustness claim beyond people being moral sufficients or moral incommensurables. Suppose moral status is very much a scalar thing, and that people therefore vary in their moral status beyond the variation involved in the claim that they, or most of them, are moral sufficients. Even so, it will still be the case that discrimination and domination—the sorts of inegalitarian relations that relational egalitarians object to—are wrong when they occur in relations between moral unequals—at least, it will be, if those with inferior moral status have sufficiently high status (which might simply be some moral status). Even if animals, say, have lower moral status than human beings, it is still wrong to dominate them; and even if children have lower moral standing than adults, it is wrong to treat a child in a sexist manner. In claiming this, we do not have to assume that the wrongness of domination and discrimination is a binary, as opposed to a scalar, matter—that there are no degrees of their wrongness. It may be that discrimination is worse when the person subjected to it has higher moral standing than when the sufferer has lower standing, other things being equal. But this is compatible with discrimination still being wrong when directed at an individual with a lower moral standing. If that is correct, the present challenge points in the direction of an even more ambitious, and for that reason even more interesting, claim than the main claim regarding robustness that we defend in this article. In this section, we have explored what deontic relational egalitarianism implies in situations involving moral unequals. Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We saw that fairness can explain why that is so if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. Deontic relational justice avoids relying on this assumption by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients. If X and Y relate as moral sufficients, there are ways in which they must not treat each other: for example, neither can treat the other in a racist or sexist way.46 This shows that relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, put themselves in a position to object to discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism even if human beings are not moral equals (at least, as long as the involved parties have a sufficient moral standing). Telic Relational Egalitarianism. It is, in itself, good (bad) if egalitarian (inegalitarian) relationships between people exist.47 We will explore two questions: (1) is it bad if moral unequals relate as moral unequals? (2) is it good if moral unequals relate as moral equals? In answering these questions, we propose to look at the reasons relational egalitarians have provided for holding that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good. We will explore whether these reasons read across successfully to relationships between moral unequals. Two caveats: first, we devote more space to the reasons why inegalitarian relationships are bad than we do to the reasons why egalitarian ones are good. This is not because we believe the latter are unimportant—they clearly are important. It is because we wish to investigate whether the reasons that relational egalitarians have themselves given to explain the value implications of (in)egalitarian relationships tell us anything about relationships between moral unequals. It so happens that these reasons have tended to be constructed around the idea that inegalitarian relationships are bad, rather than the idea that egalitarian relationships are good. Second, relational egalitarians have argued that relational inequality is intrinsically bad in various ways. It might be suggested that, at most, they have shown relational inequality to be reliably instrumentally bad: that is, bad not in itself, but in virtue of its effects, and that, accordingly, the arguments do not amount to sound arguments in favor of telic relational egalitarianism.48 In response, we note first that (as we occasionally indicate below) we share the suspicion manifested in this response. However, we shall refrain from going deeper into this matter, since ultimately it pertains not to whether inegalitarian relations are bad, but rather to the way in which, according to relational egalitarians, they are so. Our main concern is to ask whether the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians themselves for thinking that inegalitarian relationships between moral equals are intrinsically bad apply to inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals as well. It is not to examine whether relational egalitarians are correct in seeing (at least many of) their arguments as arguments for telic egalitarianism (though we suspect they are not), as opposed to arguments for unequal relations being bad in virtue of their consequences. With these caveats entered, we turn to examine the specific reasons relational egalitarians have given for holding that unequal relationships are (as they believe, intrinsically) bad. Do these reasons read across to relationships between moral unequals? T. M. Scanlon has claimed that inegalitarian relationships are bad because “it is an evil for people to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior”.49 He explains that this is an evil because it leads to stigmatizing differences in status, with “damage to individuals' sense of self-worth”.50 In a racist society, the inequality between a black person and a white person may lead the former to devalue their self-worth.51 Is it only an evil for a person to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior, in a way which leads to damage to that person's self-worth if the people involved are moral equals? It seems not. Suppose that Higher and Lower are moral unequals: Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, although Lower still has sufficient moral standing. Suppose now that they relate as moral unequals—for example, they both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's agency, and they both treat it as such. Even if that were so, the inegalitarian relationship could still lead Lower to devalue their self-worth more than they should given their differences in moral status.52 Suppose Lower undervalues their self-worth relative to their moral standing. Suppose, further, that they do so to the extent that they believe their own interests have no importance at all in decisions about their and Higher's collective affairs. Lower comes to feel excessively inferior, morally speaking. In this kind of case, inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad, because they lead the morally inferior individuals to de