Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cajp20 Download by: [Ritsumeikan University], [Akira Inoue] Date: 11 April 2016, At: 19:08 Australian Journal of Political Science ISSN: 1036-1146 (Print) 1363-030X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cajp20 Inequalities, responsibility and rational capacities: A defence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism Akira Inoue To cite this article: Akira Inoue (2016) Inequalities, responsibility and rational capacities: A defence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, Australian Journal of Political Science, 51:1, 86-101, DOI: 10.1080/10361146.2015.1114585 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2015.1114585 Published online: 06 Feb 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 53 View related articles View Crossmark data
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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cajp20
Inequalities, responsibility and rational capacities:A defence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism
Akira Inoue
To cite this article: Akira Inoue (2016) Inequalities, responsibility and rational capacities: Adefence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, Australian Journal of Political Science, 51:1,86-101, DOI: 10.1080/10361146.2015.1114585
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2015.1114585
Inequalities, responsibility and rational capacities: A defenceof responsibility-sensitive egalitarianismAkira Inoue
Ritsumeikan University
ABSTRACTThis article aims to defend responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism byarguing for the rational capacities-based principle of responsibilityas a plausible conception of an agent’s responsibility forinequalities caused by his or her choice in responsibility-sensitiveegalitarianism. I show that the rational capacities-based principleof responsibility is not only philosophically defensible as aconception of genuine choice, but also promising enough to wardoff two common worries which cast doubt on responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism (qua luck egalitarianism): first, the rationalcapacities-based principle of responsibility allows the assignmentof differential degrees of responsibility to rational agents inproportional terms, which may make it echo the adverse effects oftheir childhood environments. Second, its proportional construalessentially allows that nobody possesses a full degree of rationalcapacities. This enables responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism torefute the harshness objection.
Many contemporary egalitarian philosophers consider responsibility to be a coreconcept that significantly justifies inequalities in distributive justice (Arneson 1989;1990; Cohen 1989; Rakowski 1991; Roemer 1998; Dworkin 2000). These responsibil-ity-sensitive egalitarians adhere to a conception of responsibility in terms of genuinechoice: choice that is made voluntarily and therefore insensitive to circumstantialeffects such as natural and social endowments. Since the influence of circumstancesis called ‘luck’ in an ordinary sense, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism has beenoften regarded as ‘luck egalitarianism’.1 Luck egalitarians start with the Dworkinian dis-tinction between brute luck and option luck: brute luck comprises risks that befallpeople through no choice of their own, or in a totally unexpected manner. This is dif-ferentiated from option luck, which is a matter of deliberate and calculated risks takenwith relevant information (Dworkin 1991: 73).2 With the distinction between genuinechoice (option luck) and circumstance (brute luck) in hand, responsibility-sensitive ega-litarianism (qua luck egalitarianism) holds that individuals are held responsible for theunequal consequences of their own choices. Thus, the resultant inequalities are morallyacceptable.
This core conception is intuitively appealing. On the one hand, inequalities that are theresult of individuals’ choices are those for which they are responsible and so acceptable tous, while those influenced by circumstances are those for which they are not responsibleand so unacceptable to us. On the other hand, it avoids an egalitarian moral hazard: thesituation in which people may not be concerned with the consequences of their ownchoices. This is particularly important in the defence of the egalitarian philosophy as apolitical theory because, in the politics of major developed countries after the 1980s, theredistributive system has been subject to trenchant criticism. Specifically, it was suggestedthat the system in question provides social security even for the lazy poor and therebygives wrong incentives to them, even with worsening financial conditions (Matravers2007: 5–9).
Recently, however, this appeal to genuine choice and responsibility has been challengedin various ways. The fiercest challenge was posed by Samuel Scheffler (2010: 175–235; seealso Fleurbaey 2001). His arguments cast doubt on the plausibility of responsibility-sensitiveegalitarianism that has recourse to the conception of genuine choice. As noted above,genuine choice is defined as that which is voluntarily made in contrast to circumstancesor brute luck. As Scheffler says, however, ‘in any ordinary sense of voluntary, people’s volun-tary choices are routinely influenced by unchosen features of their personalities, tempera-ments, and the social contexts in which they find themselves’ (2010: 187). This obviousfact, Scheffler believes, pushes responsibility-sensitive egalitarians to tacitly rely on somemetaphysical account of choice (and luck), in ways that state the conditions in which anagent is capable of making a genuine choice. Two philosophical alternatives are available.One is metaphysical libertarianism, which sees genuine choice as possible only if it isfollowed by setting our will in a manner that is not predetermined. This is an undoubtedlycontroversial position,3 but another more reasonable position may be that of compatibilism,according to which genuine choice can be made in the causal network of our world. Sincecompatibilist accounts of genuine choice ‘enjoy no exemption from the normal causalorder’, however, it is unclear why any compatibilist conception of genuine choice ‘shouldmatter so much – why such fateful political and economic consequence should turn onthe presence or absence of genuine choice’ (Scheffler 2010: 218). Scheffler thereby concludesthat in neither way can responsibility-sensitive egalitarians plausibly appeal to the notion ofgenuine choice.4
In this article, I provide and defend a compatibilist account of genuine choice, andtherefore responsibility, through an appeal to the notion of rational capacities. Through-out the article, I show that the rational capacities-based conception of responsibility is notonly metaphysically uncontroversial, but also a promising conception that gives a reason-able account for genuine choice and so functions as a plausible indicator of which inequal-ity is acceptable or not. Moreover, we can see a twofold strength of the rational capacities-based conception of responsibility. First, we can avoid naïve arguments based on thedichotomy of an agent being either fully responsible or not at all, and instead appeal tothe degree to which an agent is responsible for the unequal consequences of his or herown choice. This rough-proportional trait of the principle of responsibility is importantin ways that render the principle reflective of the differential environmental influencesthat not only affect skill formation in childhood but also persist through adulthood.Second, we can reasonably claim that there is pressure to alleviate any resulting inequality,on the grounds that we cannot hold people completely responsible for being worse off,
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based on the fact that nobody’s capacities are fully rational. This renders responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism that adopts the rational capacities-based conception of responsi-bility immune to the harshness objection, which has been regarded as a serious objectionto luck egalitarianism.
This article proceeds as follows: as a preliminary step, I explain the relevance of myfocus on responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism as an ideal theory, and follow with the rel-evant argument that it need not be luck egalitarianism. Following the preliminary argu-ments, I propose the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility and thendemonstrate its philosophical plausibility by appealing to the Frankfurt-type case. Next,I argue that responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism which embraces the proposed principleof responsibility is a promising political theory, by responding to two questions which cor-respond to the two common worries concerning responsibility-sensitive views of egalitar-ian justice.
Background
Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism as an ideal theory
My article focuses on responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism as an ideal theory. John Rawls(1971: 245–48) introduced the concept of ideal theory to confine his focus on perfectjustice. The adjective ‘ideal’ arguably has several definitions (Steplowska and Swift 2012;Valentini 2012), but I interpret ideal theory to mean that the core conception of justicecovering our society is worked out ‘under realistic, though reasonably favorable, con-ditions’ (Rawls 1971: 245; 2001: 13). It presumes that people strictly comply with thecore conception, and that any implementation problems are targets of non-ideal theory(Rawls 1971: 246–47; 2001: 13).
Yet, what are realistic, though reasonably favourable, conditions? Following Rawls’(slightly ambiguous) argument, we can say that the conditions in question echo thegeneral facts about human society (Rawls 1971: 137). They include basic understandingsof (scientifically proven) facts about human beings and the general knowledge of socialstructures, either private or public. They are backgrounds of any relevant conception ofjustice because, otherwise, justice cannot function sensibly and effectively, and thus in astable manner in our society. In short, justice in ideal theory can be reasonably constructedas a conception of perfect justice without being influenced by any implementation pro-blems such as difficulties concerning information collection to track each person’sresponsibility.5
In this context, I present the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility as acore conception of justice in responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. Before this explora-tion, I make some general remarks about the concept of responsibility supporting anyideal theory of justice. Construing responsibility as a principle of justice involves morespecific assumptions; in other words, when we hold people responsible for certain statesof affairs, we first assume some general facts about socio-economic structures, privateor public, as important facts about human society. There are two important assumptionsthat must be noted as to those facts for the ascription of responsibility. First, opportunitiesreflecting such structures must be generally open to people in their life paths. Second, atleast some of these opportunities are reasonably accessible to people in their social settings,
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such that they can desire to pursue them in light of the relevant beliefs about them. I arguein detail the mechanism of belief–desire sets below, but I claim here that the presumptionabout some reasonably accessible opportunities is a significant source of reasons to whichpeople are normally responsive,6 such that the outcomes of these opportunities are signifi-cant and distinctive to them.7
Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism need not be luck egalitarianism
It is important to note that the two assumptions described above do not require respon-sibility-sensitive egalitarianism to adopt the two luck egalitarian requirements. First, theseassumptions do not require that to be responsible, all people ought to have effectivelyequivalent arrays of options. In particular, the assumption about some reasonably acces-sible opportunities does not demand that to be responsible, an individual’s situation oughtto be such that he or she can lead any life in light of his or her own preferences that werereasonably formed in the same way as those of other members. This equal-opportunityrequirement is seen as one of the classical luck egalitarian components that aim tonullify the overall effects of brute luck (Arneson 1989; 1990; Cohen 1989), but this evi-dently demanding requirement need not be satisfied in responsibility-sensitiveegalitarianism.
Nor do the two specific assumptions require opportunities that entail the explicit andspecifically expected consequences in light of a pattern of outcomes with probabilities. Ourassumptions allow that general facts about human society largely determine the reasonablerangeof expected consequences that individuals candesire bypursuing their accessible oppor-tunities. For one,market society, themain general structure of our society, renders it plausibletopresume thatmany if not allfluctuations in themarket are reasonably expectable in advanceof any choice. When people choose among their opportunity sets in the market, they areexpected to take uncertainty of this sort into account to a reasonable extent. In making achoice, no one can ignore the effects of other people’s choices in the market. Nor canpeople neglect changes in their tastes and technological conditions. This shows that thereasonably expected consequences of a choice are not simply calculated by a pattern of out-comes with probabilities. The extent to which consequences are reasonably expectable relieson social structures (private or public), and that urges us to presume that people are respon-sible for the consequences that they could reasonably expect to obtain through their ownchoice, even in cases where the probability of their occurrence is very low.8
This presumption influences responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism in a differentmanner than it does luck egalitarianism. To illustrate this, let us examine a recent luck ega-litarian argument: luck egalitarianism has an egalitarian implication, such that option luckis rarely present in the real world. Individuals do not have pertinent information about therisks involved in making a decision, so the actual outcome of a choice is often differentfrom the rationally expected one. For example, unemployment almost always entails anunexpected element that is not a matter of deliberate and calculated risks. This highlightsthat inequalities resulting from chosen acts rarely reflect option luck; the outcomes aremostly affected by brute luck and so corrected (Barry 2006: 97–98; Knight 2009: 139–40; Segall 2010: 62).9
However, this luck egalitarian argument is questionable for three reasons. First, actualoutcomes often differ from rationally expected ones even if people are fully informed
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about the risks in market society. Second, if inequalities stem rarely from option luck,people’s responsibility plays no substantial role in differentiating the treatment of inequal-ities within the luck egalitarian justice. Third, most importantly, if almost all choices are amatter of brute luck and so the resulting inequalities should be appeased, people wouldhave few incentives to choose responsibly. This may not avoid the moral-hazard situationin egalitarian society, which originally motivated egalitarian philosophers to use thenotions of responsibility and choice. As a result, luck egalitarianism cannot give respon-sibility and choice relevant roles in any way that provides a guiding force for people’sdecisions as a principle of justice. This runs counter to the purpose of responsibility-sen-sitive egalitarianism.
Given that responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is established in light of the generalfacts about human society of a market society kind, it should allow that the principle ofresponsibility holds people responsible for the consequences that they could reasonablyexpect to obtain through their own choice, even in cases where they are not rationallyexpected in light of the normal pattern of outcomes with probability. It might seemthat this claim is anti-egalitarian in such a way as to hold many people responsible forbeing extremely worse off in market society. For example, it might victimise the worseoff as a result of an unforeseeable financial meltdown. However, I show that this wouldnot be the case, for two reasons. First, the rational capacities-based principle of responsi-bility allows for its rough-proportional construal, according to which no one has fullrational capacities. Second, the principle in question need not be the sole principle of mor-ality and justice. Other principles, such as the benevolence-based principle, can guaranteeall people a basic set of needs in the moral pluralist framework.
The rational capacities-based principle of responsibility
A proposal
In general, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism supports the claim that inequalitiesresulting from people’s choices are morally acceptable, on grounds that an agent’sgenuine choice entails his or her responsibility for the consequences of the choice. Thiscentrality of choice in determining responsibility has two obvious problems. First, theclaim in question allows that people’s choice be treated as providing an all-things-con-sidered justification for the resultant inequalities. Second, more importantly, it does notspecify the precise conditions under which an agent can make a genuine choice. This is,I think, a main cause to invite Scheffler’s objection that the notion of genuine choice isneither philosophically implausible nor philosophically deep enough to justify theunequal consequences. Given these two problems, it is easy to conclude that responsibil-ity-sensitive egalitarianism is untenable.
However, we can propose a compatibilist principle of responsibility that involves theprecise conditions under which people can make a genuine choice, with the help of thestandard conception of practical rationality:
The rational capacities-based principle of responsibility: Inequalities are morally acceptableonly if people are responsible for the unequal consequences that they could reasonablyexpect to obtain through their own choice in cases where they have rational capacities forthe choice.
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This simply formulated principle of responsibility has two significant implications thatenable us to avoid a naïve interpretation. First, this principle does not address a sufficientcondition that justifies inequalities. So the rational capacities-based principle of responsi-bility is a core principle of justice, but this may not be the only moral principle in respon-sibility-sensitive egalitarianism. I argue for the importance of this implication held by thisproposed principle later on. Here we should note another, more important, implication:that whether or not an agent has rational capacities for choice can be regarded as theprecise condition – or, more precisely, consisting of the precise conditions – underwhich an agent can make a genuine choice. I argue that this principle can promisinglyevade Scheffler’s challenge if we focus on those subtleties.
What do rational capacities mean precisely? In moral philosophy, the notion of rationalcapacities is something of a platitude (Fischer 1994; Fischer and Ravizza 1998; Smith 1994:Ch. 5; 1997; 2003; Wallace 1996; Wolf 1990). An agent’s possession of rational capacities isa minimum requirement for taking responsible action in a compatibilist sense. In otherwords, no authentic, autonomous, free actions can be taken unless the agent has rationalcapacities. To clarify this, the three practical reasoning-related conditions that an agentwho has rational capacities can satisfy are as follows:
(1) The agent has the capacity to form relevant beliefs about what he or she can chooseand would obtain;
(2) The agent has the capacity for self-control of desires in accordance with the relevantbeliefs;
(3) The agent has the capacity to choose an act through his or her own deliberativeprocess in light of the relevant belief–desire sets.
Let me explain each of these three conditions. Condition (1) assumes that there areimportant facts in the real world that guarantee the relevance of belief formation.Obviously, these include general facts about human society, that is, facts abouthumans and social structures that generally provide people with opportunities topursue their own life paths in a reasonable manner. Consider the case of Ben, a heavysmoker, who is aware of his inclination for cigarette smoking. Suppose he cannot formrelevant beliefs about the consequences of continuing to smoke because of his cognitiveinsensitivity (e.g., through brainwashing) to the harmful effects on his health by smokingand also to extensive social support that would help him to quit smoking. It then seemscounterintuitive to hold Ben responsible for being worse off through tobacco smoking.Under condition (1), we can treat him as a person who is not responsible for thatconsequence.
Similarly, given that the agent’s beliefs are relevantly formed, we should not holdthe agent responsible for being worse off through his or her own choices unless thedesires are conditional on these beliefs. In this case, the agent’s desires are insensitiveto the increasing credence to his or her beliefs under the impact of relevant facts. Evenif the agent has pertinent beliefs about each opportunity, he or she may be susceptibleto strong cravings. Consider Campbell, a wonderfully knowledgeable but veryaddicted, unwilling smoker. Not only does he hold the relevant belief that he mightbecome far worse off if he continues smoking, but he also knows that his cravingfor cigarettes is uncontrollable, even in the presence of that belief. If we attempt to
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attribute to him the responsibility for being worse off through continuing to smoke,Campbell may complain, ‘Why am I being punished? I can’t control my desires!’Under condition (2), he need not complain, since we can determine that he is notresponsible, provided that his desperate desire to smoke is not attuned to his relevantbelief.
The above two conditions might seem to be enough for the agent to be considered tohave rational capacities (Davidson 1980: 208–44). But there is good reason that con-dition (3) is also necessary. Condition (3) requires that the truly responsible agent beable to choose an act through his or her own deliberative process in light of relevantbeliefs and desires of various strengths. It simply means that there is an independentstage of decision after deliberation over the possible options.10 This requirement doesnot imply that the agent can ignore his or her dispositions in the motivational mechan-ism (Haji 1998: 76–79; Mele 1995: 47–56). This stage is significant because without it, thenotion of choice has no significant application: the agent becomes a mere servant of hisor her dispositional states that result in the most rational choice. To demonstrate this,suppose there is a deliberation that predominantly governs a certain choice, such thatone would make the same decision in any logically possible scenario. In this case, thedeliberation is not deemed intrinsically responsive to reasons, even in cases where thereasons are endorsed by the relevant belief–desire sets. It is easy to confirm this by recog-nising the fact that our decisions are often subject to emotional strain, fatigue and weak-ness of will. To be plausible, possession of rational capacities should not exclude suchdisturbing psychological and physiological influences on the agent that may frequentlyresult in an imprudent choice in reality. In other words, to be responsible, all that isrequired is that the agent has a deliberative capacity of weak responsiveness (so thathe or she may fail to respond) to the reasons given by the relevant belief–desire sets(Fischer 1994: 164–75; Fischer and Ravizza 1998: 41–54).
The Frankfurt-type case
To confirm the plausibility of the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility, it isimportant to demonstrate that this view is compatibilist. In other words, causal determin-ism is no longer a serious threat to the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility.Consider the following case:
The conspiracy of the tobacco industry: Black is a neuroscientist employed by the tobaccoindustry. In some way or other, he can make precise judgments about whether smokerswill decide to stop smoking and, moreover, has the ability to cause them to decide to continuesmoking by manipulating their brain states. Black does not want to intervene unnecessarily: ifsmokers do not decide to quit smoking, he does nothing. He would manipulate them not toquit just in case they intended to do so.11
Consider Emilka. Like Campbell, she is a wonderfully knowledgeable individual andalso a heavy smoker. But unlike Campbell, Emilka possesses the capacity to control herdesire for cigarettes in accordance with relevant beliefs about how continuing to smokewill influence her well-being. Suppose that Emilka is thinking about quitting smoking,but does not actually intend to do so (perhaps by virtue of her weakness of will) and con-tinues to smoke. In the end, she suffers a severe illness due to her smoking. Intuitively, we
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want to claim that she is responsible for that outcome on grounds that she has chosensmoking. However, she could not have acted otherwise because of Black’s presence.Can the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility endorse our intuition thatEmilka is responsible for being worse off, even though she could not have acted otherwise?
Yes, it can. This is because the rational capacities-based principle of responsibilitydoes not require that Emilka could have acted otherwise in an outright sense, but thatshe possess rational capacities for choosing among certain reasonable opportunities inour society. The significant difference is that in the latter sense, unlike the formersense in which the availability of alternative sequences simpliciter is required, we canabstract those capacities away from the presence of Black. Regardless of whether ornot Black intervenes, Emilka has rational capacities to stop smoking for three reasons.First, she can hold, and actually has, a pertinent belief about the harmful healtheffects of smoking. Second, her desire is sensitive to such a belief. Third, she continuedto smoke after engaging in deliberation that was weakly responsive to the reasons givenby the relevant belief–desire sets. Even if, unbeknownst to her, Black would have causedher to continue smoking had she made up her mind to stop, it remains true that she hasrational capacities for making a choice out of her reasonably accessible options, insofaras the above three conditions are met. Our principle can plausibly hold that Emilka isresponsible for being worse off.
These arguments for the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility, I believe,demonstrate that we can reasonably use the notion of genuine choice in considering thejustification for inequalities in terms of justice. Since the rational capacities-based principleof responsibility is a compatibilist conception, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism neednot bite the bullet in philosophically controversial debates on free will. More importantly,it does elucidate the precise conditions on which an agent’s choice is genuine, even thoughthey are arguably embedded in the normal causal network. Hence, responsibility-sensitiveegalitarianism can defuse Scheffler’s objection as long as it adopts the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility.
Proportionality and harshness
I have thus far articulated the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility thataccounts for the precise conditions under which people can make a genuine choice.In what follows, I demonstrate that responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is defensibleas a promising political theory, provided that it embraces the proposed principle. Tothis end, let me address two questions that correspond to the two common concernsabout responsibility-sensitive views of egalitarian justice.
First question: how does one include the adverse circumstantial effects onrational capacities?
The rational capacities-based principle of responsibility denotes that an agent is respon-sible for the worse off consequences that he or she could reasonably expect to obtain incases where he or she has rational capacities for the choice. Even among agents whosecapacities are rational enough to be responsive to reasons in accordance with their relevantbelief–desire sets, however, there are differences in how effectively they can respond to
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those reasons. This seems significant since the agents have different backgrounds, some ofwhich may negatively influence their capacities, such as poor inherent or social circum-stances. Is it fair then to ascribe to people the same degree of responsibility, simply onthe grounds that they possess rational capacities?
To see the problem clearly, imagine another heavy smoker, Geoff. He has rationalcapacities for smoking cessation, but continues to smoke. Like Emilka, he appears to beresponsible for being worse off. However, Geoff grew up in a squalid slum (where it isnatural to smoke heavily), whereas Emilka has a good family background and is well-educated. As empirical studies conclusively show (Cunha, Heckman and Lochner 2006;Goodman, Sibieta and Washbook 2009), children from disadvantaged backgrounds tendto have poorer cognitive abilities (e.g., IQ) and non-cognitive skills (e.g., patience, tempera-ment and time preference) than the more advantaged in their childhood. With regard toformation of life skills, the earlier the age, the more influential their family backgroundsare (Cunha, Heckman and Lochner 2006: 709–29).12 Given the reasonable presumptionthat the formed abilities and skills and rational capacities are associated, it may well bethat in Geoff’s case, the decision to quit smoking through social support of any kind isless effectively responsive to reasons endorsed by his relevant belief–desire sets than inEmilka’s case. Should we then not say more about these different background conditionssince they may have different effects on the formation of two people’s rational capacities?
We can deal with this problem by appealing to a rough-proportional idea of responsi-bility: the less an agent’s rational capacities are, roughly, the less proportionately he or sheis responsible for being worse off, other things being equal. We can avoid an all-or-nothingway of ascribing responsibility by using this proportional construal that reflects the factthat there are degrees of rational capacities. Endorsed by the empirical evidence men-tioned above and reasonable presumption, the varying degrees of rational capacitiesmirror particular factors that determine differences in adverse environments that influ-ence greatly a child’s cognitive abilities and non-cognitive skills at the earliest stages. Itis therefore reasonable to regard Geoff as less responsible for being worse off comparedto Emilka, even though their capacities are rational enough to regard them as responsibleagents. This trait of the proportional construal can be called a responsibility-reflecting roleof proportionality. (There is another significant role of the proportional construal that Iargue below.)
One might wonder how we measure the proportional element of rational capacities inlight of which we hold people responsible for the consequences of their own choice in prac-tical applications.13 This question arises due to the fact that my argument has not thus farprovided any hint of how we capture rational capacities themselves. As mentioned above,this article aims to construct a relevant conception of justice in ideal theory, not a policy-oriented conception of justice that inevitably involves the question of how to measurepeople’s rational capacities. On the latter argument, there is a need to collect relevant infor-mation about each person, such as sex, class and ethnicity, in order to implement theresponsibility-sensitive egalitarian scheme. Yet, one might claim that a well-known theoryof proportional responsibility has been proposed as a non-ideal conception of justice: thatis, Roemer’s (1998) equality of opportunity algorism. I address below Roemer’s view interms of whether it is indeed a promising theory of non-ideal justice.
Roemer suggests that all people are partitioned into types – groups of individuals in apopulation with a certain set of circumstances – roughly based on the following observable
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data: occupation, ethnicity, gender, parents’ occupations and parents’ income level. Giventhat effort is defined as a chosen action for increasing the degree to which people acquire avaluable objective (e.g., some educational achievement), we can observe the frequency dis-tribution of effort levels that differs among types. The point of this observation is that evenin cases where the level of effort exerted by two people is the same, the degree of theirefforts may differ sharply with respect to the difference in distribution of effort levelsacross types. For instance, the median level of effort in Type 1 is 5, while it is 10 inType 2, and hence assuming the two people can be divided into a Type 1-agent and aType 2-agent, we can say that the former made a larger effort than the latter. Roemertakes equal-opportunity policy to guarantee that ‘those who apply equal degrees ofeffort end up with equal achievement, regardless of their circumstances’ (1998: 12) andthen asserts that people ‘should be held accountable for their degrees of effort but nottheir levels of effort’ (1998: 18).
On Roemer’s argument, any non-trivial difficulty in altering the centile-based rank froma person’s effort level at a lower type (Type 1) to the effort level of someone else at a highertype (Type 2) represents the (adverse) effects of their respective circumstances. It thus mightseem that this ingenious argument can be used for singling out people’s rational capacities inproportional terms. Surely, if Roemer’s theory provided a plausible measure of proportionalresponsibility, it could be used as a feasible way of assigning responsibility to people in termsof their rational capacities because collecting observable data concerning a set of circum-stances appears not so demanding.
There is a serious problem with this measurement, however.14 Roemer’s non-idealtheory-based proposal assumes a monotonic relationship between responsibility and the(range of) expected consequences of a choice. Otherwise, equalising achievements interms of degrees of effort that people of different types exert would not make sense. Itis not always reasonable to presume a monotonic relationship in non-ideal circumstances.Such a relationship can plausibly apply in limited spheres or dimensions, such as therelationship between certain features of individual efforts in school and some educationalachievements in a certain period of school and/or a course of study. It is also difficult toknow precisely in which spheres and dimensions a monotonic relationship between effortsin school and wage-earning ability holds under consecutive changes in our tastes and tech-nological conditions in market society. With them in hand, it would not be plausible to useRoemer’s proposal of proportional responsibility as a measurement of rational capacitiesin proportional terms.
Second question: how shall we respond to the harshness objection?
The rational capacities-based principle of responsibility seems unduly harsh in thatrational agents may bear full responsibility for the worse off consequences that theycould reasonably expect to obtain through their own choice in cases where they haverational capacities for the choice. For instance, they may be left unaided even in casesin which they are extremely worse off through their own choice on grounds that theyhave rational capacities for the choice. Can responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism thatcomprises the proposed principle refute this harshness objection?
This harshness objection has beset luck egalitarians since the appearance of ElizabethAnderson’s critical arguments on luck egalitarianism. According to Anderson (1999:
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295–98; see also Fleurbaey 1995: 175–78), luck egalitarians justify no public assistance tothe victims of bad option luck, such as a negligent, uninsured motorcycle rider who isseverely injured in a terrible accident. If this objection were to apply in cases where therational capacities-based principle of responsibility is adopted, then responsibility-sensi-tive egalitarianism embracing it would be challenged in practice.
However, this would not be the case if we appreciated the other significant role of pro-portionality. Recall the rough-proportional idea of responsibility: we can ascribe agents adegree of responsibility based on the degree of rational capacities, other things beingequal, even in cases in which they have rational capacities for the choice. This rough-pro-portional idea of responsibility diminishes the range of inequalities for which individualsare responsible because it is extremely unlikely that, when they are worse off as the resultof a choice, the responsibility should be fully attributed to them. No one has perfect rationalcapacities. If the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility is applied roughly inproportion to people’s rational capacities, it allows that our capacities are not fully rational.This constitutes a justification for not holding people fully responsible for the consequencesof their own choices. According to the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility,this inequality-appeasing role of proportionality mitigates extreme inequalities.
This implication of proportionality should be taken more seriously, because it has beenignored by philosophers (including Anderson) who accuse responsibility-sensitive egalitar-ianism (qua luck egalitarianism) of not caring about the responsibly worse off (Anderson1999; Fleurbaey 1995; Fried 2003). There are no such grounds for the harshness objectionagainst the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility, as long as we include therough-proportional idea of responsibility. Note that the idea that no agents possessperfect rational capacities is empirically endorsed. For example, behavioural economicshas demonstrated powerfully that the capacity of ordinary people to frame rationally thechoice opportunities and outcomes is that of a less than fully rational agent, by using psycho-logical experiments on people’s inconsistent attitudes towards options with which they arepresented (Kahneman and Tversky 2000; Sunstein 2000). Observations of this sort, I take it,reinforce responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism that adopts the rational capacities-basedprinciple of responsibility in proportional terms, since the remaining irrationality on anyagent’s part in the non-responsible sense has a normative implication for the alleviationof inequalities on grounds that all people are not fully responsible. Thus, the harshnessobjection does not itself overthrow responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism.
It might be argued that even if the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility isused in proportional terms, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism cannot avoid the harshnessobjection. There is no guarantee that it directs us to always care for the worse off; there mightbe an undeniable possibility that some agents possess almost full rational capacities. Nor mayit be the case that the extent of the residual irrationality in capacities for choice is not sufficientfor helping the worse off. In response, recall that responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism is anideal theory: it is constructed in light of the general facts about human society, including basicunderstandings of (scientifically proven) facts about human beings. This characteristic of idealtheory defuses the worry about the possibility of providing no assistance to the worse off;responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism must take into account the irrationality of ordinaryhuman beings as part of its theoretical background.
Still, there is admittedly a logical possibility that some people are equipped with perfectrational capacities. Recall that the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility allows
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that there may be the other moral principle in responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism: theproposed principle need not be taken to provide an all-things-considered judgement onthe resultant inequalities. Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism can reasonably incorporatethe benevolence-based principle of morality, which guarantees all people a basic set of objec-tively defined needs. To assert this, of course, responsibility-sensitive egalitarians should takeon the task of justifying this moral pluralist framework under which the benevolence-basedprinciple of morality can be reconciled with the rational capacities-based principle ofresponsibility. This task is beyond the scope of the article, but let me briefly note a primeadvantage of this pluralist reconciliation.15 The proportional construal of the rationalcapacities-based principle of responsibility combined with the benevolence-based principleof morality can address the harshness objection more sensibly than the common egalitarianarguments for merely responding to claims of the needy. The combined principles candemonstrate that the responsibility of the needy differs in degrees even though their basicneeds ought to be met. This duality of claims based on two different principles can reason-ably appreciate our moral antipathy against a morally hazardous situation in which theneedy are simply supplied with the necessary resources, no matter how responsible theyare for falling into a dire situation. It may favour assistance of the needy under the conditionthat they would take charge of their journey out of a desperate situation. This is, I think, aplausible element of the combined principles in responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism.16
Concluding remarks
This article argued for the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility as a plaus-ible conception of an agent’s responsibility for the consequences of his or her choices indefence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. I showed that the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility is not only philosophically defensible as a conceptionof genuine choice, but also convincing enough to ward off two common concerns thatcast doubt on responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism (qua luck egalitarianism). First, therational capacities-based principle of responsibility allows the assignment of differentdegrees of responsibility to rational agents in proportional terms. This can make it echothe adverse effects of the environment from one’s childhood. Second, its proportional con-strual essentially allows that nobody possesses a full degree of rational capacities. Thisenables responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism to refute the harshness objection.
Admittedly, there is a need to elaborate on the concerns for a fuller defence of respon-sibility-sensitive egalitarianism, especially when it comes to justifying the pluralist frame-work under which the benevolence-based principle of morality is fully compatible with therational capacities-based principle of responsibility. However, that is another project foranother day.
Notes
1. Responsibility-sensitive egalitarians, such as Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Eric Rakowski,John Roemer and Ronald Dworkin, are often regarded as luck egalitarians. There are alsomore articulated versions of luck egalitarianism (Barry 2006; Knight 2009; Segall 2010; Tan2012).
2. Recently, the relevance of this distinction involving the particular contents of luck has beenquestioned (Fleurbaey 2001; Lippert-Rasmussen 2001; Sandbu 2004; Vallentyne 2002).
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3. This does not mean that metaphysical libertarianism is utterly implausible. As a matter of fact,this position is held by many philosophers: not only classical incompatibilists who argue thatdeterminism is not compatible with alternative possibilities, but also recent libertarian theoristssuch as Timothy O’Connor, who presents ‘a sui generis form of causation by an agent that isirreducible … to event causal processes within the agent’ (1995: 7; see also Kane 2002: 9–12,22–26). Moreover, some political philosophers commit themselves to this position (Otsuka1998; see also note 4).
4. As a luck egalitarian who raises the metaphysical case for luck egalitarianism, Carl Knight(2009: 180–84) objects to Scheffler’s challenge, to the effect that luck egalitarianism is atleast no worse than other versions of egalitarianism, if metaphysical libertarianism or compa-tibilism is true. My argument differs from Knight’s claim, for my claim is that the relevantlyconstrued compatibilist conception of responsibility can give a plausible account forgenuine choice. This is, I take it, a more direct way of responding to Scheffler’s challenge,since my argument takes for granted Scheffler’s claim that metaphysical libertarianism is anundoubtedly controversial position (though it is far from asserting that metaphysical libertar-ianism is implausible; see note 3).
5. This does not mean that justice in ideal theory must be constructed by the Rawlsian procedureof moral justification for a conception of justice. We need not accept his social-contract frame-work that accommodates the idea of original position, which has been subject to many criti-cisms as methods of moral justification (Daniels 1975). This means that a theory can beideal if it stands mainly (but not ‘only’) in circumstances that can be described as generalfacts about human society.
6. Here, the presumption about some reasonably accessible opportunities does not require thatall people can choose the opportunities at no differential cost. Rather, it assumes that peoplehave some reasonably accessible opportunities only if the cost of choosing the opportunitiesis not prohibitively high. Obviously, this assumption applies even in cases where peoplehave different tastes and skills. This is one of the background assumptions in the idealtheory of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, but the rational capacities-based principleof responsibility, a core principle of justice therein, is sensitive to the differing degrees ofrational capacities, and therefore, to their circumstantial effects as well. This is arguedbelow.
7. This echoes the notion that people may not be motivated to choose among options unless theyfind them valuable and distinctive. For a discussion on this point, see Dowding (2010: 77–78,84).
8. This argument fits well with Dowding’s claim (2010: 76–77) that the reward structure largelydetermines how lucky and unlucky the differential outcomes are, although I want to avoidusing the concept of luck due to the troublesome implications of luck egalitarianism. Seemy argument below.
9. However, the recent luck egalitarians admit that the proposed way of demonstrating that luckegalitarianism is not anti-egalitarian – thus not unduly harsh – is not decisive, because in autopian society where brute luck has little presence, some people could pursue reckless activi-ties and be responsible for worsening their situation. Their conclusive suggestion is that luckegalitarianism can be reasonably combined with a different egalitarian consideration that guar-antees basic needs or capabilities (Barry 2006: 99–101; Knight 2009: Ch. 6; Segall 2010: Ch. 4).As I argue below, this pluralist egalitarian justice seems plausible, but it is essential to see howresponsibility and choice play substantial roles within the luck egalitarian justice as part of thedefence of luck egalitarianism.
10. This does not conflict with the view of seeing such choice as a certain disposition (see Bratman1987: Ch. 2; Wallace 1996: 127–36, Ch. 6; 1999: 239). Following Blackburn (1998: 252–56) andSetiya (2007: 16ff), we can say that it is mistaken to think – as many Kantians implicitly orexplicitly presume – that a truly responsible agent can objectify or justify his or her beliefsand desires of various sorts. This is because my argument admits that no one is immune tothese dispositional states. From this fact, however, it does not follow that there is no indepen-dent conception of choosing an act.
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11. Obviously enough, this case originally comes from Harry Frankfurt (1969), but is moreinspired by its adaptation by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (1999: 486).
12. Some economists of education (Jerrim and Vignoles 2013) find some of the empirical resultsunconvincing, but there seems to be a reasonable consensus on empirical evidence that the ear-liest years are critical in terms of children’s cognitive development (Cunha, Heckman andLochner 2006: 700–03).
13. I owe this point to an anonymous reviewer.14. For critical discussions of Roemer’s equality of opportunity measurement, see Risse (2002),
Hurley (2003: Ch. 7), Fleurbaey (2008: 217–21) and Dowding (2010: 86–88). My criticismbelow echoes Mark Fleubaey’s worry about Roemer’s responsibility category that presumes amonotonic relationship between responsibility and well-being.
15. The luck egalitarian literature provides a number of rigorous arguments for the pluralist frame-work (Barry 2006: 98–101; Knight 2009; Segall 2010: 64–72; Tan 2012: 119–26). This would, Ibelieve, pave the way for this pluralist justification of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism.
16. This element is not held as an internal principle in Anderson’s (1999: 313–14) famous con-ception of democratic equality, which aims to secure people’s basic capabilities necessary fortheir democratic participation in society (see Arneson 2000: 346–49; Sobel 1999). In thisrespect, the combined principles in responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism seem more plausiblethan democratic egalitarianism.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the 8th Oxford Philosophy Graduate Conference,University of Oxford, 6 November 2004. I am grateful to all of the audiences for valuable discussion,particularly to John Broome, Sune Holm, Hirose Iwao, and Susan Wolf. I would also like to thankRichard Arneson, Ben Blumson, Geoff Brennan, Campbell Brown, Jacek Brzozowski, PhilippeChuard, Daniel Cohen, Bob Goodin, Nien-hê Hsieh, Richard Joyce, Sue Mendus, Yujin Nagasawa,John O’Dea, Wlodek Rabinowicz, James Rice, Jensen Sass, Michael Smith, David Sobel, Nic South-wood, Kim Sterelny, Shiu-Hwa Tsu, Lea Ypi, and the two anonymous referees for helpful commentsand useful suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI [grant numbers 15K02022 and 26285002].
Notes on contributors
Akira Inoue is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy, in the Graduate School of Core Ethicsand Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University. He is currently working on the theory of distributivejustice and the conceptual analysis of freedom and democracy. He has published in Law and Phil-osophy, Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy and Public Health Ethics.
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