According
to people such as Robert Nozick we are only required to contribute to
society to help provide basic infrastructure and policing. But are we
also obliged to help to provide some form of welfare for the less
well-off members of society?
Robert
Nozick is a philosopher who suggested that a just society is purely
based upon transfers and acquisitions. This means that so long as the
way people originally acquired goods, that were previously unowned,
is just and that the trades between people since there were just then
all future transactions are just no matter the consequences. This is
to suggest that the original acquisition of land or material goods,
if acquired justly, allow people to deserve and have earned their own
property. As a result of this, within Nozick's view, people who have
earned their goods fairly through their own work or acquisition
should not have to give any of their money away in taxes for anything
that doesn't directly aid them. This means that welfare in the form
of education, health and benefits for others is not just to come out
of your money to be given to others who haven't earned it themselves
fairly. These things, if needed to be privately paid for is then fair
as you are paying for your own care, and deservedly so as each
individual is fully responsible for themselves.
This
seems like a fair system because each is able to look out for
themselves and the money that is personally owned isn't being taken
away from them unjustly. However, most societies do not follow this
way of thinking and do have a certain level of welfare for others.
While self-sufficiency seems fair, it is actually unjust in the sense
that certain members of society are unable to support themselves in
the same way, this however is through no fault of their own. As a
result, Nozick's view has it's problems because of the certain
assumptions it makes such; as assuming that each member of the
society involved has an equal opportunity.
Arneson's
view highly counters Nozicks view, due to these assumptions he makes
on the individuals in society. Arneson makes the claim that there are
various reasons as to why one might not have work or be wealthy in
society and it is not always down to self-sufficiency. It is
important to note that there are many variables involved in why
certain people are like they are so as to not be able to work or just
not want to find work. In order to make this distinction, however, it
is important to first of all rule out any reasons where luck is
involved. This is because people who have issues based in luck (e.g.
born into a certain family, or born with crippling disabilities,
etc.) is not of the concern of morality as it is not their fault.
Therefore the question of political issues means luck is morally
irrelevant and doesn't concern these problems. Other issues not
involved in luck, however, but of situational problems (e.g. mental
illness, lack of education despite trying hard, etc.) are still rife
and work as very viable reasons for their lack of 'success' in
material goods or work.
One
assumption Nozick makes is that everyone is able to be successful,
even if their skills are inadequate. This is not true because people
may be unable to find work due to having disabilities. People with
disabilities are not always able to be helped, and so depriving them
of their welfare would be incredibly immoral; these have the same
rights as others but find it impossible to earn money through work
self-sufficiently. The same goes for people who must care for others
with disabilities – which often is a full time job in itself. To
then make carers work, as well as care, strips them of their lives
and remains an unjust thing to do. So with society encompassing all
the people within it, things like taxes to give to others who are in
need of it is far less unjust than letting certain people have too
much money and others suffer because of it.
Furthermore,
Nozick's views work on the assumption that everyone has equal
opportunity to get into work or learn to be a skilled worker and be
responsible for themselves. This, also, is not true because of the
different variables involved. It is possible that certain people, who
cannot find jobs, do have potentially useful skills that are not
useful in the current society. This is because a society's need for
trade skills comes mainly in supply and demand and when certain
skills are not wanted, they are no longer useful; as a result this
forces everyone to pick certain skills that are useful at the time.
For example, if someone happens to be a skilled fisherman, but there
is no demand for fish where he lives, he will struggle to get any
good work or be able to put his skills to use. The objection here is
that people need to adapt to the time and change their skills
dependant on what is needed – but this is not particularly a just
system as people shouldn't be made to carry out work they are not
happy doing. This creates unhappiness in society, and as a result,
they do not work as well – or to a lower standard. It is therefore
unjust to deny these people the welfare of education, health or an
income while they try to find work because it is not their fault that
they cannot earn more or become more self-sufficient. These people
deserve the welfare in order to get help accommodating their skills
so that they can put back into society themselves.
The
major objection to Arneson would be that allowing welfare creates a
large unemployed rate of people who just 'sponge' off of the welfare
– so that capable workers are not being put to use and people don't
wish to work. Arneson's view, however, tackles this problem by adding
the suggestion that because people need welfare, they'll also need an
incentive to work. By tackling Nozick's assumption Arneson tries to
keep in line with making people comfortable and happy with their
lifestyle while also earning money because of it. Because of this, a
balance needs to be drawn between working hard and earning money. So
while welfare is necessary, it is more beneficial for the person who
is able to work to actually work. This means that the welfare needs
to be set at a level where people who need it could live comfortably,
whilst people finding and gaining work involves a higher source of
income. This is because Arneson suggests that not supporting one's
self in certain welfare societies would seem like a wiser option;
when the welfare given would be a higher source of income than the
lowest paid work that they would achieve. This does not, however,
require welfare to be denied, just that wages should be accommodated
to create an incentive for work.
As
an objection to Arneson - and as an alternative suggestion – it
could be that the people unable to work could be pinpointed by means
of an interview or reaching a set standard. The suggestion here is
that people who cannot work can fill a certain criteria that everyone
needs to be tested with that justifies them getting welfare due to
not working. This however is impossible, in a practical sense, due to
the amount of variables involved in the reasons why someone could not
work. No matter how many professionals works on the interview in
order to find the criteria, there will always be people who won't
match the criteria properly. On top of this, the costs of carrying
out the research and creating a kind of questionnaire to find the
criteria for all disabilities would be cost efficient, this is
because there would be likely too much money going into the research
than actually being saved by taking people off benefits. So this
becomes so much of an impractical way of dealing with people who
cannot work. As a result, Arneson's idea of allowing welfare but
making it less of an incentive to people who want a higher income and
lots of nice material goods seems to be the most just; it allows
people to make their own life choices and nobody suffers too much at
anyone else's expense.
Nozick's
view that it would be just to promote mainly the idea of
self-sufficiency an success, suggesting that it would be unjust to
accept the idea that taxation could relieve them of what they deserve
to aid others, seems like a strong argument. However, it does not
give us reason to deny welfare for the less well off members of
society because the view is based upon assumptions that are simply
wrong. Welfare could be just in being given to all who do not feel
they can work or are simply looking for work; but rewards for
self-sufficiency in society should be much more favourable to the
individual. This means that people are allowed their liberty of
wishing not to do anything or being able to live whilst not being
able to work – but it is highly beneficial to strive for
self-sufficiency. As a result, this view makes a just society because
taxation of people earning significantly more than others lowers the
chance of mass suffering due to overly harsh societal rules. Welfare
benefits people to the extent that it can help people who need it and
could even aid people to become more successful, creating a more
justified view without incorrect assumptions.
Refrences:
- Nozick, Robert (1974): Anarchy, Sate and Utopia. Basic Books, New York.
- Arneson, R. J. (1997), Egalitarianism and the Undeserving Poor. Journal of Political Philosophy, 5:327–350. doi: 10.1111/1467-9760.00037
- Cohen, G. A. (1995) Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Cambridge Books Online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521270.006
- Frankel Paul, Ellen, Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Jeffrey Paul (eds.), (2004) Natural Rights Liberalism from Locke to Nozick, Cambridge University Press
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