Preliminary Draft
Ronald F. White, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Mount St. Joseph University
(To be presented at
the International Political Science Association Congress, July 26, 2016 to be
held at Poznan, Poland)
Abstract
The cornerstone of “welfare liberalism”
is the core belief that social justice requires that government limit (Rawls)
or even eliminate (Marx) “social distance” between the “most-advantaged” and
“least-disadvantaged” individuals and/or nations. Distance is usually measured
in terms of the intra-group (and/or inter-group) distribution of “social
goods.” While social redistribution relies on voluntary moral exchange whereby
the most-advantaged willingly share their social goods (directly or indirectly)
with the least-advantaged; political redistribution is executed, coercively, by
political regimes via tax code. For Rawls, the justification for social and
political redistribution of social goods is the Difference Principle. With a
few exceptions, classical liberals
who support redistribution, favor voluntary social redistribution, while most welfare liberals also accept political
redistribution. Until recent years, there has been very little research on the
“nature” of social distance and the social and/or political origins of
redistribution. Contemporary Evolutionary Leadership Theory (ELT) and
Evolutionary Ethics (EET) provide important insight into the biological origins
of both social distance and redistribution. In this presentation I will argue,
based on ELT that “social distance” in
its various manifestations is the product of a growing mismatch between our
modular brains and human culture; most notably, the cultural evolution of leader-follower
relationships within stationary, large-scale, political regimes.
Introduction
There is a longstanding
philosophical debate going back to the ancient Greeks that questions the descriptive facts and prescriptive values associated with human
“inequality.” What is inequality? Do some political regimes create more and/or
less inequality than others? Is a certain degree of inequality necessarily bad?
If so, what (if anything) can be done to correct it? If a certain degree of
inequality in “good” how much? In this essay, I would like to focus on one
dimension of the twentieth-century debate over inequality as viewed through the
lens of social contract theory. I’ll focus on John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, Political
Liberalism (1971), and The Law of
Peoples (1999); not because I think Rawls got it right, but because much of
the subsequent debate over redistribution revolves around his Neo-Kantian
social contract theory. First, I’ll identify a cluster of Rawlsian terms, and then,
I’ll discuss how ELT and EET might elucidate the Rawlsian framework and perhaps,
provide a foundation for more effective
and efficient redistributive
policies.
As a preliminary observation, it is
important to emphasize that Rawls is a political philosopher and that Welfare
Liberalism and/or Political Liberalism are political theories. Over the years,
he dutifully responded to criticism from both Libertarians and Communitarians,
and attempted to clarify and/or meet a host of objections. Therefore, despite
his pronouncements, Rawls’ political philosophy, itself, evolved. (Wenar, 1995)
Although he insisted that the kernel of his neo-Kantian approach remained
intact, many of his basic concepts underwent subtle, but often profound
refinements. The most important Rawlsian refinement was his shift from
intra-group dynamics (Rawls, 1971) to global inter-group dynamics (Rawls, 1991).
I won’t do much with the Rawls’ intellectual development over time. In the
following essay I’ll try to focus on the redistribution of social goods via Rawls’
Difference Principle as represented in his three major works. (Rawls, 1971;
1993, and 1999).
The Rawlsian Framework
Since the late twentieth century,
the philosophical debate over access to social goods (by individuals and groups
of individuals) has been shaped by the territory staked out by John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (Rawls, 1971).
Basically, Rawls revived a Kantian form of Social Contract Theory, which sought
to forge a rational foundation for both personal liberty and the redistribution
of social goods. Rawls argued, hypothetically, that if
rationally-self-interested individuals, including the “most advantaged” and the
“least advantaged,” sat together at a bargaining table, without knowledge of their
own socioeconomic status (under a “veil of ignorance”), they would ultimately
agree upon two timelessly universal principles of justice: the Equal Liberty Principle (the “most
advantaged” and the “least advantaged” ought to be afforded the same set of
basic liberties) and the Difference
Principle (the “most advantaged” would willingly agree to contribute to the
well-being of the “least advantaged”). The logical relationship between the
Equal Liberty Principle and the Difference Principle has long been a bone of
contention. (Narveson, 2003 and 2008) In Rawls’ later works, he attempted to
apply both principles to international relations; most-advantaged v. least-advantaged
“Peoples.” (Rawls 1999)
Much of the subsequent debate over
Rawls’ justification for his two principles of justice can be traced to his
approach to social contract theory; especially, his distinction between two
hypothetical (and ambiguously defined)
stages of social agreement: the original
position (how autonomous, rationally self-interested humans would have
lived their lives in the absence of a social contract); and, the hypothetical
contents of that subsequent social
contract (what autonomous, rationally self-interested humans (and/or
peoples) would contractually agree upon, via an “over-lapping consensus,” if
they got together and forged a collective agreement via that original
position).
Since the eighteenth century, the
Western Liberal conceptual framework for distinguishing between equality and inequality
has been measured in terms of distributive justice in terms of access and/or possession
of “social goods.” There are many competing definitions of “social goods.” Most
scholars agree that (in general) social goods refer to the “good things” in
life that become available to us (as individuals and groups) as the result of cooperation
within and between social and/or political groups. Scholars rarely explore
“social bads” or the bad things in life that also emerge out cooperation.
(Kellerman, 2004) Rawls often focused on
the equality of access to primary goods;
or “things which it is supposed a rational man wants whatever else he
wants…rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth.” (p.92)
But he also viewed primary goods in more abstract terms; as the necessary
conditions or prerequisites to other goods desired by the human species. They
are usually identified as human needs
(food, clothing, and shelter) which are pre-requisite (necessary) for the
attainment of other goods, or wants, that comprise the “good life.” Over time,
the list of proposed human needs has tendency to proliferate. Peter Corning
identified fourteen “primary needs domains.” (Corning, 2011) Ambiguity
surrounding the concepts of “primary goods” and “social goods” ultimately obscures
exactly what kinds of “goods” are (or ought to be) subject to redistribution.
(Goetze, 2007)
Rawls hypothesized that in that “original
position” (state of nature) social goods would have been (or might have been) distributed
unequally on the basis of Darwinian evolution, or what he called the “natural
lottery;” whereby competitive advantage and disadvantage would have been distributed
based on Darwinian chance variation and natural selection, without regard for
justice as fairness (merit, need, quality, or utility). In that “state of
nature” Rawls acknowledged the “natural” inevitability of a certain degree of
social distance between the “haves,” who often produce social goods (and
services); and the “have-nots,” who often seek to consume those social goods
(and services). But how much “advantage” (in terms of access to primary social
goods) ought to be afforded the producers? Rawls argued that given that our
natural advantages are acquired via genetic inheritance (from parents that we
did not select) we cannot claim unfettered ownership of social goods based on
“merit.” Hence, a degree of redistribution of primary goods is morally and rationally
justified, based on the amoral “natural lottery.” After all, neither the
“haves” nor the “have nots” would have deserved their current endowment of “advantages”
and/or “disadvantages.” As a consequence of that hypothetical bargaining
session, Rawls argued that those rational bargainers would eventually arrive at
an “overlapping consensus” on the Difference Principle; and that both the most
and least- advantaged would benefit from a limited degree of social distance
between the producers and the consumers of social goods (and services). But how
much social distance is necessary and/or morally acceptable?
Ultimately, the Rawlsian puzzle was
how to incentivize the production of social goods over the long-run, by allowing
the most advantaged to benefit from producing those goods, without creating a
sociopolitical environment where social distance between the “haves” and the
“have nots” is socially accepted, but limited. So the long-term goal of Rawlsian
redistribution is not to achieve social equality but to prevent “the rich from
getting richer and the poor from getting poorer.” Rawls’ Difference Principle,
therefore, was intended to provide rational self-interested arguments that
might convince the rationally self-interested “haves” (producers) and the
rational “have-nots” (consumers) to voluntarily cooperate in redistribution.
But in the real world, this raises two
justice-related challenges: First, how do political leaders rationally
convince the “haves” to be satisfied with less than they already possess? Second, how does a regime (or “Peoples”)
rationally convince the “have-nots” to be satisfied with more than they possess
in the “state of nature,” but less than what the “haves” possess? Most
political philosophers focus on the First
puzzle and ignore the Second. But even
if the Difference Principle is rationally acceptable to both the “haves” and
“have-nots,” then the key practical question would remain: “How might political
regimes develop effective and efficient redistributive public policies?”
Rawls wrote before there was much known
about the evolutionary history of the human species, social psychology, or
brain science. And, like most political philosophers of that era, he expended
little (if any) time and effort studying the social sciences or biology. His early
critics immediately attacked the ahistorical” and utopian basis for that
original position and Rawls’ insistence that the original contractors (haves
and have-nots) would willingly “bargain” under a hypothetical “veil of
ignorance.” (Wolf, 1977) Other critics questioned how those would-be “bargainers”
could negotiate without knowledge of their own advantages and disadvantages? Even if all rational bargainers ultimately
agreed on social redistribution, what could the rational bargainers do about
irrational bargainers who resist cooperative redistribution and/or rationally
self-interested “free-riders” who seek to reap the benefits of cooperative
redistribution, without paying the price?
In this essay, I shall argue that
in order to develop any redistributive public policy that is acceptable to both
the “haves” and the “have nots,” policymakers would have to know a lot more
about human nature than Rawls did; especially Evolutionary Social Psychology. SEE Part II.
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