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Larry S. Temkin Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press 1993. Pp. ix + 352.

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Larry S. Temkin Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press 1993. Pp. ix + 352.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Dennis McKerlie
Dennis McKerlie*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CanadaT2N 1N4
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Abstract

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Type
Critical Notice
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 623 - 636
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1995

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References

1 Larry Temkin provided helpful comments on a draft of this critical notice, although he is in no way responsible for the characterization of his views that it contains. I discussed the ideas in the critical notice with Tom Hurka and Risa Kawchuk, and learned much from both.

2 In fact only nine of Temkin's twelve aspects are formulated in terms of individual complaints. The exceptions are Gratuitousness, Social Inequality, and Deviation. My comments will focus on the aspects that are expressed by individual complaints.

3 In Diagram 2.6 on 51 the aspects that disagree with the ‘first worse then better' ordering of the Sequence involve either MP or BOP. In Diagram 3.5 on 57 Case II the aspects that pick C over D involve MP (using the figures in footnote 6 I think that MP & ATBO actually prefers C to D, and AP & ATBO prefers D rather than saying that there is a tie). In Diagram 3.8 on 63 Case III the aspects that prefer C to S involve BOP (in case II in the same diagram I think that AP & BOP prefers B to S). In Diagram 3.11 on 67 Case II the aspects that prefer B to S involve MP, and in case Ill the aspects that prefer S to C involve BOP.

4 Specifically I would appeal to comments Temkin makes on 78-80. Our confident judgments about some cases might be explained by the fact that in those cases an increase in inequality is visually obvious rather than by the fact that all of Temkin's aspects agree about them. And our hesitation about some other cases (Diagram 3.11 on p. 67 Case III, which Temkin cites on 69 to support BOP) might be explained by the fact that in these cases an increase in inequality is not visually obvious. In other words the hesitation is compatible with its being the case that we are thinking about equality in a single way, and not being pulled in different directions by the different aspects.

5 We might regard the sum total of the inequalities between the individuals in an outcome as a measure of how far the outcome departs from equality. Interpreted in this way AP & ATBO measures an outcome's deviation from perfect equality without postulating a particular equal distribution to be used as a standard, unlike DEVor AP & AVE.

6 I think that Deviation and Gratuitousness will also say that the outcome is worse, and Social Inequality need not say that it is better.

7 In fact adding extra people at the lowest level will reduce inequality according to MP & AVE (additional badly-off people will lower the average and so reduce the size of the largest individual complaint according to AVE). I owe this point, and others, to Risa Kawchuk.

8 Temkin's view of equality is reminiscent of negative utilitarianism. According to his individualistic view, inequality is treated as though it were a harm to an individual (the harm corresponds to the individual's complaint), like the pain a particular individual experiences. As in the case of negative utilitarianism, there is no positive value in the theory that can compensate for an increase in the size or number of individual complaints. Adding extra better-off people may create an outcome where a very large number of people are almost all perfectly equal, but on Temkin's view this cannot compensate for an increase in the size of the complaints of the small number of people who are not equal, any more than according to negative utilitarianism adding a large number of very happy people to an outcome could compensate for an increase in the pain experienced by a small number of unhappy people. The comparison makes me think that the individualistic view leaves out something important to our thinking about equality. One possibility is to suppose that equality has a non-individualistic aspect; another possibility is to suppose that equality between individuals might have a positive value that can compensate for the badness of inequality.

9 Temkin thinks that one question about equality has a definite and simple answer. Inequality between people at lower levels of welfare is worse than inequality between people at higher levels, even if the absolute size of the gap is the same in both cases (ch. 7). In defending his conclusion Temkin relies heavily on considering the ratios between different people's levels of welfare. If one person is at 5 and the other at 10 then the difference between them equals all of the worst-off person's welfare, but if the worst-off person is at 100 and the better-off person at 105 then the inequality only equals 5% of the worst-off person's welfare. But Temkin does not explain why the ratio is more important for judging how bad the inequality is than the absolute size of the gap between the people concerned. In an NBA season Shaquille O'Neal might make two three-point shots while Moses Malone makes one. The most salient comparison is not that O'Neal made twice as many three-point baskets as Malone, but rather that O'Neal made one more three-point shot than Malone. It may be different when we think about inequality, but Temkin does not explain why it is different.

10 Parfit, Derek Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1984)Google Scholar, Appendix I

11 Temkin does find other values that are genuinely parallel to equality and are also threatened by the slogan. He points out that the slogan also denies the value of a distribution between different people in accordance with their desert or merit (273-6). His example is persuasive, but it is ironic that he defends equality against an attack by appealing to the intuitive plausibility of a non-egalitarian distributive principle.

12 Using individual complaints in this way might require giving them more explanatory power than Temkin himself is inclined to give to them.