How to Divide a Pie
“To each his or her due,” states a traditional definition of justice. To wit, justice is the fair and equitable allocation of power, resources and obligations in society. This is a useful beginning, but it begs the questions what’s fair and what’s equitable. How do we decide that some people deserve more or less pay, or welfare, or medical coverage? According to Sidgwick (1922), the cardinal question of justice is whether there are “any clear principles from which we may work out an ideally just distribution of rights and privileges, burdens and pains, among human beings as such” (p. 274).
Day in and day out, we struggle to allocate limited services, resources, and obligations in a fair way. Some philosophers have offered a useful way of thinking about distribution. They argue that it all depends on the situation, which makes sense, because it’s hard to come up with principles out of context. We all agree that fairness is a good principle, but it is an abstract one. What is fair in one situation may be unfair in another. Hence, we have to know the specific circumstances affecting people and society to determine the just way to act.
Facione, Scherer and Attig, social philosophers, have proposed two useful criteria for distributing resources in society: work and need. Depending on the circumstances, they claim, it may be fair to use one criterion but not the other. Let’s examine the two criteria. First, need. By virtue of our humanity, we all deserve to have our basic needs met: shelter, food, clothing, education, emotional nurturance and the like. We are all born equal, and we are all equally deserving of a basic standard of living. It follows from this premise that if I have a limited resource, and I have several people claiming it, I will distribute it first among those whose basic needs have not been met yet. If I still have some of it left after I fulfilled the basic needs of a person or a group, I can proceed to distribute it on another basis, like work or merit.
The second criterion for distributing resources is work. This criterion refers to time, ability, effort, and talent invested in a job. Work and merit reflect the fact that someone deserves something due to effort, intelligence, diligence, or a combination thereof. Assume for a moment that you and your co-worker have been asked to perform a job, but you work many more hours than your peer does and you end up doing a far superior job. Your partner, in turn, does very little and spends a lot of work time playing video games on the computer. Should the two of you receive the same compensation? Should your partner be equally rewarded? Assuming that the two of you have your basic needs met, it would make sense to reward the one who works so much harder. In this case, we’re not worrying about basic needs, because both of them are above subsistence level. Rather, we’re concerned with rewarding hard work or talent in a fair manner. It makes sense in this situation to reward the one who worked harder and delivered a better product.
Concerning the need criterion, Facione and colleagues argue that it is “reasonable to suggest that persons are strictly equal as persons. This means they all have some very basic human needs…On this criterion people are equally deserving of having these needs met” (Facione, Scherer, & Attig, 1978, p. 186). In essence, the criterion for distribution would be determined by the reigning social circumstances. Consider the following scenario:
(a) there is sufficient work so that there are jobs for all who need them, (b) the jobs available to each person include jobs that the person has the abilities to perform, and (c) the jobs pay well enough so that whenever a person takes one, it will enable him or her to earn enough so that his or her needs are met. (Facione, Scherer, & Attig, 1978, p. 190).
Under such circumstances, the winning criterion is clearly “work.” But consider now the following set of circumstances:
(a) It may be that there are fewer jobs than there are people who need them. (b) Persons may be unable to perform the jobs that are available owing to simple lack of ability….The lack of ability may be socially dependent in the sense that skills that people do have can become outmoded and no longer needed in a rapidly changing and technologically progressive society. Or it may be that in a nation as a whole there are sufficient jobs to match the abilities of the people, but the people with the abilities are not located where the jobs are….It could also be that some are denied opportunities to do the work for which they are qualified owing to various forms of job discrimination. (c) It may be that the jobs for which some people qualify, or that they are able to handle given their other responsibilities, simply do not pay well enough to meet their needs. The wages may be extremely low, or the work may be part-time or seasonal (pp. 190-91).
If any of the conditions set above obtain, the criterion of need must take precedence over the criterion of work.
We have millions of people in this country and around the world whose basic needs are not met. If we all agreed that we’re going to distribute common goods according to need, there would not be hungry children or homeless people in this country. The grim reality is that we’re not distributing sufficient food to the hungry or adequate housing to the homeless. Why? Some people argue that there just isn’t enough food or enough houses, or appropriate resources to afford health insurance to the uninsured. Others, in turn, argue that there is enough food and there are enough resources to provide health insurance, but that these resources are not distributed fairly. That is to say, some get a disproportionate amount of food, or pay, and others get a miniscule amount. The problem is not the amount of resources, for they exist, but rather the way they are distributed.
Take health expenditures for instance. The United States spends more on health per capita than any other country in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Why is that? The huge bureaucracy that exists in many private insurance companies is a serious cause of inflated prices. Besides, they all need to make a profit. As a result, they are eager to charge as much as possible. They are in business to make money. In other countries where health care is nationalized and provided by the government, bureaucracies are smaller, and the profit motive does not exist. As a result, the costs are lower and the countries can afford health care for everyone. In short, the argument that there aren’t enough resources to provide health care for all can and has been challenged.
Governments make decisions how to invest public money. Legislators decide whether to expand the military or cut welfare payments. They decide whether to cut taxes for the rich or invest in failing schools. The argument that there are not enough resources is not very solid at all. The question is what the priorities are and how the money is allocated.
Proponents of the merit argument, that people should receive resources based on their effort and/or talent alone, apply the principle of work indiscriminately. That is, without regard for context. They assume that all people have equal opportunities to advance, get jobs, get a degree, and make good choices for themselves and their children. In fact, people do not have the same opportunities in life. As a result, it would be unfair to distribute resources only according to merit or work. We agree that if we all had the same opportunities it would be fair to reward the ones who work harder, but we’re very far from achieving that situation of equality. The starting point of a child born to a single mother living on welfare is very different from the starting point of a child born to two parents who send him to private schools, feed him nutritious foods and take him to regular check-ups. The former does not have a computer; the latter may have two or three. The former does not participate in extracurricular activities; the latter does sports and is on the debate team. By the time they finish high school, if the former finishes at all, the latter would have accumulated a huge advantage over the years. Should we punish the child who grew up on welfare? Should we deprive him of medical insurance because his mother could not get a job? Is it justified to apply the principle of merit in this case? We’re not talking about giving the former a Cadillac and a vacation in the Bahamas; we’re talking about the basic human right of health care and nutritious foods in home and at school.
I too would be happy to apply the principle of reward for effort, but only after basic needs have been met. In many cases, recognition is well deserved, and we agree that dangerous and demanding jobs, for instance, require good remuneration. Fire fighters, teachers, day care providers -- they all deserve so much more than they currently receive. However, recognition for a job well done, or for effort, cannot become the only criterion for the distribution of basic resources. There are people who have not had opportunities to develop their skills or apply them. Recognition of effort is a solid argument for rewarding people, but only after basic needs have been met. Otherwise, we are punishing those kids who grow up without opportunities. And unless you have never driven through a public housing project, or visited a school in one of them, or read the papers, you would know that opportunities are not distributed equally in this country. Therefore, in talking about social justice, it’s essential to talk not only about the fair distribution of rewards or services, but also about a fair distribution of opportunities, for without opportunities there are no available means of achieving recognition or practicing one’s talents. So how do you divide a pie? It depends.
Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky is an award-winning academic and author. He is also a coach, consultant and a researcher. His latest book, co-authored with his wife, Dr. Ora Prilleltensky, is How People Matter: Why it Affects Health, Happiness, Love, Work, and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Press here to order.