Current Philosophy

0008 Larry S. Temkin. "Inequality," Philosophy and Public Affairs 15:2 (Spring 1986), pp. 99-121.

Temkin takes a different approach to the subject of equality. Rather than asking whether equality is really desirable, or what kinds of inequality we want to avoid, he explores the ways in which we judge when one situation is worse than another with respect to inequality.

By way of preliminary comment, he observes that while he specifically discusses inequalities in the welfare of individuals, analogous arguments could be made for inequalities in opportunity, need satisfaction, and so forth. In addition, he emphasizes that he is evaluating levels of inequality, not merely measuring. He wants to know not when a situation is more unequal, but when it is worse on account of its inequality.

He does this by considering who has a legitimate complaint in an unequal situation, and how big a complaint each person has. Three alternatives emerge from Temkin's analysis:
  1. people have a complaint insofar as they fall below the average. because they are not getting their fair share;
  2. anyone who is worse off than the best off has a complaint, and his complaint is in proportion to his distance from the top; and
  3. complaints are relative to one's position vis-a-vis everyone in a better position.

Now let us imagine a situation which is changing over time. In the beginning, 999 people are exactly equal at a high level, with one person significantly worse off. In the middle of the time sequence, half the people are at the high level, half are at the low. Finally, in the end, only one person is left at the high level, with 999 tied for the bottom. Temkin asks, with respect to inequality, is this situation getting better or worse? And he finds that, given one's way of viewing inequality, the answer can vary.

It is getting better and better if you accept that complaints are to be measured by comparison to either the average or in comparison to all those who are better off. It also seems better from one intuitive position in that the original circumstances look gratuitously unequal: it is not necessary for a few to be badly off when the vast majority are well off.

It is getting worse and worse, however, if we look at the number of people who have complaints, or if, somewhat more in accord with our notions of fairness, we assign weights to people's complaints according to size.

It first gets worse, then better, if you look at the deviation from a perfectly equal situation. Near the beginning and the end of the sequence, there are very few deviations, perhaps negligibly few. But in the middle, there is a gross and pervasive inequality. Or, looking at it a bit differently, one could well feel that the middle world where a fairly large number of individuals have fairly large complaints is worse than either the initial situation where a very few have very large complaints or the final world where very many have very small complaints.

It is all equivalent under certain strained but conceivable circumstances. If we judge a person's complaint by his distance from the person who is best off, and if we imagine the three situations as describing societies whose principles and institutions are responsible for the size of the gap but not for the number of people at each level, then those principles and institutions might be judged equally just for all three.

Temkin does not conclude that these judgments are equally valid. Nor does he decide whether the idea of inequality is a largely inconsistent and limited concept that ought to be dropped or, conversely, that it is a rich concept that ought to be more fully developed. His one firm conclusion is that we need to come to grips with how we judge situations of inequality, perhaps revising our common-sense notions in the process.

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