The case for Equality- A summary

Consent are considered to be of two types namely tacit and hypothetical. John Locke talks about how
consent is given tacitly by anyone who enjoys benefits of a government, even by travelling on the highway.
But tacit consent is a very vague form of consent. Immanuel Kant talks about hypothetical consent and how
a law is just when everybody conforms to it. But a hypothetical agreement is not equal to the moral work of a
real social contract. A Theory of Justice (1971), by John Rawls, is one of the most influential works in moral
and political philosophy written in the twentieth century. It is an attempt to formulate a philosophy of justice
and a theoretical program for establishing political structures designed to preserve social justice and
individual liberty. He says in reaction to the predominant theory of utilitarianism which positions justice as
something that provides the greatest good for the greatest numbers. Rawls believe that the two principles
of justice would emerge from the hypothetical contract. First of all, he reasons, we would not choose
utilitarianism. Behind the veil of ignorance, each of us would think, “For all I know, I might wind up being a
member of an oppressed minority”. The first principle bestows equal basic independence for all citizens,
such as freedom of speech and religion. This principle takes pre-dominance over considerations of social
utility and general prosperity. The second principle, deals with societal and economic equality. It permits only
those social and economic inequalities that work to the advantage of the least affluent representatives of
society.
The Moral Limits of Contracts- To cherish the moral force of Rawls’ hypothetical contract, it helps to pay heed to the
moral limits of actual contracts. Actual contracts are not self-reliant moral instruments. The mere fact that a deal has
been made between two persons doesn’t mean it will be fair. To acknowledge that contracts do not acknowledge
fairness on the terms they produce doesn’t mean we should violate our agreements whenever we want. We often
confound the moral work of consent with other origins of obligation. Actual contracts carry moral burden in as much as
they realize two ideals- autonomy and reciprocity. As discretionary acts, contracts express our autonomy; the
obligations they create carry weight because they are self-imposed, we take them freely upon ourselves. As
instruments of reciprocal benefit, contracts draw on the ideal of reciprocity; the obligation to fulfil them arises from the
duty to repay others for the benefits they provide us. In practise, autonomy and reciprocity are defectively realized. And
sometimes we can be obligated to repay a benefit simply on grounds of reciprocity, even in the absence of a contract.
This points to the moral limits of consent: In some cases, consent may not be enough to create a morally binding
obligation; in others, it may not be necessary.
When Consent is not enough: Baseball Cards and the Leaky Toilet- Two cases were considered that showed
consent alone is not enough. In the first case, when two brothers traded baseball cards involving voluntary exchanges
in an unfair manner. Secondly, the toilet repair scam was a kind of exploitation, in which an unscrupulous plumber took
advantage of an elderly woman. The facts of an agreement does not guarantee the fairness of the agreement, and
consent is not enough to create a binding moral claim. If the mutual benefit is not clear enough or not met, the moral
claims of reciprocity may hold even without an act of consent.
When Consent is not essential: Hume’s House and the Squeegee Men- David Hume wrote a scathing critique of
Locke’s idea of a social contract. He called it a “philosophical fiction which never had and never could have had reality.
Years later, Hume had an experience that put to the test his rejection of consent as the basis of obligation. The idea
that an obligation to repay a benefit can arise without consent is morally plausible in the case of Hume’s house
subletting. When it came to his house repairs, he didn’t like a purely benefit- based theory of obligation and the court
ordered him to pay. In 1980s and early 90s, “squeegee men” became an intimidating presence on New York City
streets, performing a service in absence of consent. They operated on benefit-based theory of obligation invoked by
Hume’s contractor.
Benefit or Consent? Sam’s Mobile Auto Repair- It is an example of confusion that can arise when consent based
and benefit-based aspects of obligation are not clearly distinguished. In this case, the contretemps with Sam the
repairman highlights a common confusion about consent. Sam inferred that, because I would have owed him, I
must(implicitly) have agreed to hire him, which is a mistake. It wrongly assumes that wherever there is an obligation,
there must be an agreement- some act of consent, according to Indian Contract Act, 1872. It overlooks the possibility
that obligation can arise without consent. Despite our tendency to read consent into every moral claim, it is hard to
make sense of our moral lives without acknowledging the independent weight of reciprocity.
Imagining the Perfect Contract- Imagine a contract among parties, equal in power and knowledge, rather than
unequal; identically situated, not differently situated. And imagining that the object of the contract was to govern our
lives together, to assign our rights and duties as citizens. A contract like this, would leave no room for coercion or
deception or other unfair advantages. The veil of ignorance ensures the equality of power and knowledge that the
original position requires. The veil of ignorance ensures that no can take advantage of a favourable bargaining position.
It is a pure form of an actual contract, and so a morally more powerful thing.
Two Principles of Justice- According to Rawls, in order to protect against religious persecution or racial
discrimination, we agree to a principle of equal basic liberties, including the right to liberty of conscience and freedom
of thought. We would not sacrifice our fundamental rights and liberties for social and economic benefits. Secondly,
according to Rawls, “the difference principle”:only those social and economic inequalities are permitted that work to the
benefit of the least advantaged members of society. It doesn’t rest entirely on the assumption that people in the
original position would be risk averse. Its main idea is that the distribution of income and opportunity should not be
based on factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view.
The Argument from Moral Arbitrariness- Rawls presents this argument by comparing several theories of justice,
beginning with feudal aristocracy. Market societies provide equality before the law. A free market with formal equality of
opportunity- corresponds to the libertarian theory of justice. Rawls concludes that the meritocratic conception of justice
is flawed just as the libertarian conception; both base distributive shares on factors that are morally arbitrary. He
argues, we can’t we satisfied short of a more egalitarian conception. It is one thing to remedy unequal educational
opportunities, but another to remedy unequal native endowments.
An Egalitarian Nightmare: It speaks of a man named Harrison Bergeron and how he was forced to wear different
handicaps in order to be equal to those who weren’t as good looking, intelligent as him. He defied the forces of
egalitarian tyranny. Rawls’ theory of justice, however, is not open to that objection. Rawl proposed an alternative
called the difference principle which corrects distribution of talent and endowments without handicapping the talented.
The difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common
asset and to share in the benefits of this distribution whatever it turns out to be. Those who have been favoured by
nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune only on terms that improve the situation of those who
have lost out. The basic structure of society can be arranged so that these contingencies work for the good of the
least fortunate. Rawls argues that each of the first three theories(Feudal or caste system, Libertarian, Meritocratic)
bases distributive shares on factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view—whether accident of birth, or social
and economic advantage, or natural talents and abilities. Only the difference principle(egalitarian) avoids basing the
distribution of income and wealth on these contingencies. But there are two objections to this conept of
egalitarianism. Objection 1: Incentives – If the talented can benefit from their talents only on terms that help the
least well off, then they might decide to work or develop their skills less. But according to Rawls the difference
principle permits income inequalities for the sake of incentives, provided the incentives are needed to improve the lot
of the least advantaged. t is important to notice that allowing wage differences for the sake of incentives is different
from saying that the successful have a privileged moral claim to the fruits of their labour. If Rawls is right, income
inequalities are just only insofar as they call forth efforts that ultimately help the disadvantaged. Objection 2: Effort –
Rawls rejects the meritocratic theory of justice on the grounds that people’s natural talents are not their own doing.
But it doesn’t elaborate on the hard work people devote to cultivating their talents. Rawls says that even effort may
be the product of a favourable upbringing. Like other factors in our success, effort is influenced by contingencies for
which we can claim no credit. Rawls also talks about how psychologists say that birth order has an influence on effort
and striving—such as the effort the students associate with getting into Harvard. The first-born reportedly have a
stronger work ethic, make more money, and achieve more conventional success than their younger siblings. The
claim that people deserve the rewards that come from effort and hard work is questionable for a further reason:
although proponents of meritocracy often invoke the virtues of effort, they don’t really believe that effort alone should
be the basis of income and wealth. He also talks about two construction workers- one who is strong and the other
one who is weak. Although the weak worker works very hard, it took him a week to do what his muscular co-worker
achieves, more or less effortlessly, in a day. No defender of meritocracy would say the weak but hard-working worker
deserves to be paid more, in virtue of his superior effort, than the strong one. So, despite the talk about effort, it’s
really contribution, or achievement, that the meritocrat believes is worthy of reward. Whether or not our work ethic is
our own doing, our contribution depends, at least in part, on natural talents for which we can claim no credit.
Rejecting Moral Desert- Rawls rejects moral desert as the basis for distributive justice on two grounds. First, his
talents that enable him to compete more successfully than others is not entirely his own doing. And a second
contingency is equally decisive: the qualities that a society happens to value at any given time also morally arbitrary.
While we would be entitled to less, we would no less worthy, no less deserving than others. So, while we are entitled
to the benefits that the rules of the game promise for the exercise of our talents, it is a mistake and a conceit to
suppose that we deserve in the first place a society values the qualities we have in abundance. In a meritocratic
society, most people think that worldly success reflects what we deserve; the idea is not easy to dislodge.

Is Life Unfair? Life is not fair. Milton Friedman acknowledged that those who grow up in wealthy families and attend
elite schools have an unfair advantage over those from less privileged backgrounds. He conceded that those who,
through no doing of their own, inherit talents and gifts have an unfair advantage over others. It is important to
recognise how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore. Rawls tells that we should reject the contention
that the ordering of institutions is always defective, because there is unjust distribution of natural talents and the
contingencies of social circumstances, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. There
are natural facts, and Rawls proposes that we deal with these facts by agreeing “to share one another’s fate,” and “to
avail ourselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstances only when doing so is for the common benefit.