Justice, Thresholds, and the Three Claims of Sufficientarianism*
2021; Wiley; Volume: 30; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/jopp.12258
ISSN1467-9760
Autores Tópico(s)Climate Change and Geoengineering
ResumoAccording to sufficientarianism, justice requires that everyone has enough.11 See Frankfurt 1987; Casal 2007; Shields 2012. This view has attracted considerable philosophical and societal support, and appeals to widely held intuitions about social policy and institutional design, such as that the state should meet the basic needs and ensure the basic freedoms of its citizens, and that it should provide them with sufficient levels of healthcare, education, safety, and other goods.22 For egalitarianism and sufficiency thresholds, see Waldron 1986; Nagel 1991; Rawls 2001; Temkin 2003a; O'Neill 2008; Rondel 2016; Scanlon 2018. For prioritarianism and sufficiency thresholds, see Brown 2005, 2007; Benbaji 2006. For luck egalitarianism and sufficiency thresholds, see Barry 2006; Segall 2010. For relational egalitarianism and sufficiency thresholds, see Anderson 1999, pp. 318–19; 2008, pp. 265–6. For libertarianism and sufficiency thresholds, see Hayek 2001, pp. 124–5; Freiman 2012; Wendt 2019. For republicanism and sufficiency thresholds, see Pettit 2012; Peterson 2020. Sufficientarianism is also prominent in social policy and institutional design. For example, on sufficiency thresholds in healthcare, see Buchanan 1984; Fabre 2006; Powers and Faden 2006; Alvarez 2007; Ram-Tiktin 2012. On sufficiency thresholds in education, see White 1994, 2016; Curren 1995; Gutmann 2001; Anderson 2007; Satz 2007; Cudd 2015; Shields 2015; Tooley 2017. On sufficiency thresholds in climate ethics and intergenerational justice, see Shue 1993; Rawls 2001, pp. 159–60; Page 2007; Rendall 2011. And yet sufficientarianism has been subjected to sustained criticism.33 I elaborate on those objections in Section IV. This weakens the prospects for sufficientarianism in theories of distributive justice. And it puts pressure on widespread sufficientarian policies such as poverty-relief programmes. In light of this, this article revisits sufficientarianism and reappraises the standard critiques against it. Ever since Paula Casal's 2007 canonical article on sufficientarianism, there has been a remarkable level of agreement among proponents and critics about how the view must be characterized.44 For example, see Casal 2007; Huseby 2010, 2019; Shields 2012, 2019; Axelsen and Nielsen 2015; Segall 2016; Fourie and Rid 2017. Whether it is defended or criticized, sufficientarianism is defined as combining two out of three sufficientarian theses. These are the positive thesis that it is morally valuable to have enough; and either the negative thesis, which states that once people have enough, no further distributive criteria apply, or the shift thesis, which states that once they have enough, there is a shift in our reasons for benefiting them further.55 More accurately, the negative thesis is a specification of the shift thesis. I leave that issue aside here. See Shields 2017, p. 211. However, this characterization of sufficientarianism suffers from two flaws. First, it fails to sufficiently appreciate both the distinctiveness and the non-distinctiveness of sufficientarianism as a distributive principle. Second, it leaves sufficientarianism unnecessarily vulnerable to common objections. For these reasons, sufficientarianism is best understood and defended by characterizing it along different lines. In this article, I propose a novel characterization of sufficientarianism. In a nutshell, sufficientarianism says that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits below some threshold over benefits above that threshold. More precisely, sufficientarianism combines three claims: (1) a priority claim that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges; (2) a continuum claim that at least two of those ranges are on one continuum; and (3) a deficiency claim that the lower a range on a continuum, the more priority it has. This novel characterization of sufficientarianism sheds new light on two long-standing philosophical debates. The first debate concerns the distinctiveness of sufficientarianism as a distributive principle. For instance, sufficientarianism shares a commitment to the priority claim with some important rival views. This similarity does not come to the surface if sufficientarianism is defined by drawing on the traditional sufficientarian theses. This issue concerning when sufficientarianism is not distinctive from its rivals is pivotal for the second debate, that about the common objections to sufficientarianism. Many of those objections say, in one way or another, that sufficientarianism fetishizes thresholds. However, although that is said almost exclusively about sufficientarianism, I will argue that such fetishism arises because of the priority claim. But many non-sufficientarian views also endorse this claim. By examining how such views endorse the priority claim, yet avoid worries about fetishism, we can recast sufficientarianism in a different light. In particular, sufficientarians can argue that sufficiency thresholds are part of the most plausible conception of justice, even if such thresholds are not grounded in certain facts about the world or human nature. I develop and defend my characterization of sufficientarianism as follows. In Section II, I argue that sufficientarianism combines the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim. In Section III, I discuss three objections to this characterization. In Section IV, I introduce five common objections to sufficientarianism. I then defend sufficientarianism in the subsequent sections: Section V deals with objections concerning indifference, absolutism, and responsibility, Section VI with the no-threshold objection, and Section VII with the arbitrariness objection. In Section VIII, I conclude by setting out the implications for sufficientarian theories of distributive justice. I will refer to the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim as the 'three claims of sufficientarianism'. In the following two sections, I offer three reasons for why these claims are necessary and sufficient to define sufficientarianism. First, everyone who defends a sufficiency threshold is committed to those claims. Second, all non-sufficientarian views reject at least one of those claims. Third, these claims are entailed by the traditional sufficientarian theses. Thresholds play a pivotal role in sufficientarianism. However, sufficientarianism is commonly defined without examining its thresholds. To illustrate, Harry Frankfurt famously argued that someone has enough when that person 'is content, or that it is reasonable for him to be content, with having no more money than he has',66 Frankfurt 1987, p. 37. and that 'if everyone had enough, it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others'.77 Ibid., p. 21. Traditionally, Frankfurt's view has been interpreted as saying that it is morally valuable to have an amount of money that someone is content with or should be content with ('positive thesis'), and that once people have that amount of money, no further distributive criteria apply ('negative thesis').88 E.g. Casal 2007, pp. 298–9. However, this characterization of Frankfurt's view pays little attention to the threshold it entails. But precisely because Frankfurt's sufficientarian view predates the introduction of the traditional sufficientarian theses, his writing is particularly suited to recharacterizing sufficientarianism. I will therefore draw on his account in what follows. The continuum claim. At least two of the ranges that are relevant from the standpoint of justice are on one continuum.1111 The continuum claim says that at least two of the ranges that are relevant from the standpoint of justice are on one continuum. This qualification is important for three reasons. First, some sufficientarians argue that sufficiency is required in more than one metric and, therefore, in more than one continuum. Second, some sufficientarians argue that sufficiency is required on one continuum, but not on another. I return to these points in Section III. Third, some sufficientarians argue that there are more than two ranges on one continuum; e.g. Benbaji 2005, 2006; Huseby 2010, 2020. The continuum claim is not unique to sufficientarianism, because other views could endorse it on purely instrumental grounds. For example, strict egalitarianism holds that the overall moral value of changes in the distribution of the metric of justice is a function of whether such changes increase or decrease distributive equality. And prioritarianism holds that the moral value of benefits for an individual is greater the lower their current level and the greater the size of the benefit as measured by the relevant metric. Such views could say that it is instrumentally valuable for people to move towards a specific range on a continuum, namely if that optimally promotes equality or priority. Unlike egalitarianism and prioritarianism, however, sufficientarianism distinguishes between different ranges on non-instrumental grounds.1212 On instrumental and non-instrumental sufficiency thresholds, see Shields 2012, p. 106. For instance, Frankfurt says that benefits for people who should not be content with the amount of money they have matter more than benefits for people who should be content with what they have. More generally, benefits for people who do not have enough matter more, morally speaking, than benefits for those who have enough. The priority claim. We have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges. According to sufficientarianism, whether someone has enough influences how benefits should be prioritized.1313 The priority claim does not specify exactly what it means to give people below the threshold priority. There are at least two versions of this idea. According to the first interpretation, benefits for people below the threshold have priority over benefits for people above it. According to the second interpretation, benefits that lift people above the threshold have priority over benefits for people which do not lift them above the threshold. Elsewhere, I argue that sufficientarians must commit to both those interpretations and that they should specify which of them has priority in cases of conflict (i.e. whether we should move someone over the threshold or benefit someone who is far worse off without moving them over the threshold). But the priority claim itself is also compatible with endorsing one of the interpretations while rejecting the other. For discussion, see Timmer (forthcoming), sect. V. I thank an anonymous reviewer for urging me to clarify this point. Such priority can be lexical ('absolute') or non-lexical ('weighted'). Lexical priority asserts the priority of benefits in one range over benefits in another range, no matter the size of the possible benefits or the number of beneficiaries.1414 Dale Dorsey (2008, p. 437), for example, defends lexical priority when he says that 'the state of affairs with more rather than fewer individuals obtaining the basic minimum is, no matter the arrangements below and above the minimum, [better]'. See also Frankfurt 1987, p. 31; Roemer 2004, pp. 273–4, 278–9; Page 2007, p. 11. Non-lexical priority says that giving priority to benefits in one range over benefits in another must be weighed against other concerns. For example, perhaps deficiencies must be eliminated except when they are due to someone's own fault or choice. Or such deficiencies must be eliminated unless doing so has significant levelling-down consequences above the threshold.1515 For example, Christopher Freiman (2012, p. 37) suggests that 'sufficiently large gains in other values can outweigh gains in sufficiency (which receives extra weight)'. The priority claim is not unique to sufficientarianism either. Consider John Rawls's theory of justice as fairness. Rawls states that social primary goods must be distributed equally, unless an unequal distribution is to everyone's advantage.1616 See Rawls 1999, p. 54. Rawls does defend some thresholds, but I will leave that aside for now. See Rawls 2001, pp. 130–1. This principle is supplemented with a system of priority between different metrics, which I will refer to as 'basic liberties', 'equal opportunity', and 'resources'. According to Rawls, equalizing basic liberties takes lexical priority over equal opportunity, which in turn takes lexical priority over fairness in the distribution of resources. Rawls endorses the priority claim that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges. But whereas sufficientarians hold that the good provided is the same in both ranges, Rawls says that the good provided is different in those ranges. The range(s) in the first continuum concerns basic liberties, whereas the range(s) in the second, separate continuum is concerned with equal opportunity. Finally, the range(s) in the third, separate continuum is concerned with resources. These continua do not and cannot overlap. Therefore, Rawlsian views reject the continuum claim.1717 More precisely, they either reject the continuum claim or they endorse it, just as strict egalitarianism or prioritarianism can endorse that claim, but deny that the ranges specified in the continuum claim are the same as those in the priority claim. Instead, they endorse a continua claim that the ranges that are relevant from the standpoint of justice are on different continua. In fact, any theory of justice which says that benefits in certain metrics have priority over benefits in other metrics, such as Rawlsian views and pluralist views, endorse that claim. The deficiency claim. The lower a range on a continuum, the more priority it has. The deficiency claim says that the range that should have priority is the range below the threshold.1818 I formulate the deficiency claim in terms of 'lower ranges' rather than 'the lowest range'. This is because some sufficientarians argue that justice is concerned with multiple thresholds on one continuum. They prioritize benefits in specific ranges depending on how low that range is compared to the other ranges. For multi-threshold sufficientarianism, see, e.g., Benbaji 2005, 2006; Huseby 2010, 2019, 2020. This sets sufficientarianism apart from views which say that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in the range above some threshold.1919 Though the deficiency claim is important for my characterization of sufficientarianism, it does little to distinguish sufficientarianism from its plausible rivals. We can imagine a view which posits non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits above the threshold. Such reversed sufficientarianism endorses the continuum claim and the priority claim and says that we must prioritize benefits above the threshold instead of below it. Such a view, which rejects the deficiency claim, must say that because someone is not deprived of some good, they should have priority. But I fail to see what type of reasons could justify this. It is certainly true that some sufficientarian views, such as those which say that the number of people above the threshold should be maximized, may have seemingly non-sufficientarian implications. For instance, if sufficiency cannot be achieved, they may prioritize benefits above the threshold over benefits below it (for example, they would benefit someone well above the threshold rather than prolong the life of a dying patient by one minute). But even then, the idea of deficiency guides the line of reasoning behind this claim. Only if people cannot get above some critical threshold should benefits in the range above that threshold have priority. In sum, by making explicit what claims sufficientarians must endorse in virtue of defending a sufficiency threshold, we can recharacterize sufficientarianism as combining the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim. Sufficientarianism says that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges, that at least two of those ranges are on one continuum, and that the lower a range is on a continuum, the more priority benefits in that range have. This characterization sheds new light on the distinctiveness of sufficientarianism. Some of its rivals, such as egalitarianism and prioritarianism, endorse the continuum claim, but reject the priority claim. Others, such as Rawlsian views and certain pluralist views, endorse the priority claim, but reject the continuum claim. Yet these similarities and differences remain hidden in the traditional sufficientarian theses. Many Rawlsian and pluralist views, for example, reject all the traditional sufficientarian theses. But they do endorse the priority claim. This is a crucial insight. I will argue that such non-sufficientarian views are vulnerable to the same objections as sufficientarianism if those objections target the priority claim. Furthermore, this suggests that sufficientarians can recast and strengthen their view by exploring how non-sufficientarians who endorse the priority claim deal with objections pertaining to that claim. I have argued that all and only sufficientarians endorse the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim. However, one might raise three objections to this characterization: namely that the traditional sufficientarian theses articulate a different distributive principle from those three claims, that the claims are not sufficient for a view to be distinctively sufficientarian, and, finally, that those claims are not necessary for a view to be a sufficientarian view.2020 I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising these objections. Let me discuss them in turn. My characterization of sufficientarianism aims to capture the same view as the traditional sufficientarian theses. One might object that it does not succeed in this respect, because the traditional sufficientarian theses may be taken to articulate a different distributive principle from the continuum, the priority, or the deficiency claims. However, the traditional sufficientarian theses implicitly endorse those three claims. First, the positive thesis states that it is morally valuable to have enough of some good(s).2121 See Casal 2007, pp. 298–9; Shields 2012, pp. 105–7. This entails all three claims. It entails the continuum claim because the good one can have 'enough' or 'not enough' of is the same above and below the threshold. And it entails the priority claim and the deficiency claim because benefits in the range below the threshold, which deal with deficiency, have priority over benefits in the range above it. Second, the negative thesis states that once people have enough, no further distributive criteria apply.2222 See Casal 2007, pp. 299–303; Shields 2012, pp. 102–5. This thesis assumes the continuum claim, because it requires that there are at least two ranges of the same good on one continuum, where in the range above the threshold no distributive criteria apply. Third, the shift thesis says that once people have enough, there is a shift in our reasons for benefiting them further.2323 See Shields 2012, pp. 108–11, 115–16. This shift relies on the idea that there is a morally significant difference between the ranges above and below the threshold, which again assumes all three claims. Therefore, all sufficientarian views which draw on the traditional sufficientarian theses implicitly endorse the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim. The second objection to my characterization of sufficientarianism, which is that it is not sufficient to define a distinctively sufficientarian view, can be raised in three different ways. First, some sufficientarians hold that sufficientarianism must include the negative thesis.2424 E.g. Axelsen and Nielsen 2015, pp. 407–8; Nielsen 2017. According to my characterization of sufficientarianism, however, the negative thesis is only distinctive for specific conceptions of sufficientarianism. The three claims are compatible with many 'range principles'. A range principle could state, for example, that within a range above or below the threshold, the distribution should be egalitarian, prioritarian, maximin, utilitarian, track justice in transactions, follow a relational conception of justice, and so forth. One possible range principle that sufficientarian views can endorse is that justice specifies no distributive criteria above the threshold. But this objection rightly points out that the three claims of sufficientarianism are compatible with any type of range principle and do not imply a commitment to the negative thesis. Second, one might object that the proposed characterization qualifies any view which draws on a sufficiency threshold, such as a poverty threshold or social minimum, as a sufficientarian view. That significantly broadens the scope of sufficientarianism compared to how the view is commonly interpreted. It implies, for example, that pluralist luck egalitarians, such as Larry Temkin, are sufficientarians when they say that 'the urgency of great suffering or need may play a greater role in explaining the priority we typically give to those suffering or in great need than appeals to prioritarianism or egalitarianism'.2525 Temkin 2003a, p. 65. However, this definition of sufficientarianism may be too broad, since pluralist luck egalitarianism is commonly regarded as a rival of sufficientarianism. However, I do not think this objection shows that the characterization is flawed. If it includes views such as Temkin's luck egalitarianism and other assumed rivals of sufficientarianism, this only means that the debate between sufficientarianism and such views is not about sufficiency thresholds, but about what the most plausible theory of justice is in other respects. If anything, then, the proposed characterization clarifies rather than obscures where the conflict between such views really lies. Moreover, because Temkin allows for distinctively sufficientarian concerns to play a role in his theory, objections about, say, the arbitrariness of sufficiency thresholds or the priority for benefits below such thresholds threaten his view as well. Hence, defending a sufficiency threshold that plays only a minor role in one's theory of justice does not make one a non-sufficientarian. It simply makes one a sufficientarian who believes that the ideal of sufficiency should play a minor role in conceptualizing justice. Third, it may seem that prioritarianism could be presented as a sufficientarian view, on the grounds that it could endorse the continuum claim and specifies a priority rule. However, prioritarianism does not claim that there are different ranges between which benefits should be weighted differently on non-instrumental grounds. Instead, it holds that the moral value of benefits for an individual is greater the lower an individual's current level on the range and the greater the size of the benefit as measured by the relevant metric. Therefore, prioritarianism rejects the priority claim and does not count as a sufficientarian view. The third objection to the proposed characterization of sufficientarianism is that the combination of the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim excludes some of the prominent sufficientarian views. If there are sufficientarian views which reject them, then these three claims cannot be necessary for a distinctively sufficientarian view. For instance, sufficientarians like Martha Nussbaum or David Axelsen and Lasse Nielsen may seem to reject the continuum claim, because they say that justice is concerned with different capabilities.2626 Nussbaum 2013; Axelsen and Nielsen 2015. And Nussbaum seems to reject the priority claim, by defending different capabilities which are incommensurable and between which no priority rules can be specified. However, the proposed characterization does not rule out such sufficientarian views. Consider as an example Nussbaum's view, which says that 'a decent political order must secure to all citizens at least a threshold level of … ten Central Capabilities'.2727 Nussbaum 2013, p. 33. These capabilities include, among others, life, bodily health, emotions, play, and control over one's environment. What I suggest here is that, for each of those individual capabilities, Nussbaum holds that there are two ranges on one continuum that are demarcated by a threshold. For instance, there is a range indicating 'enough play' and a range indicating 'not enough play' on a single continuum of levels of 'play'. And there is a range indicating 'having control over one's environment' and a range indicating that such control is lacking on a single continuum of levels of 'control over one's environment'. Rather than rejecting the continuum claim, then, Nussbaum's view entails a commitment to a variety of continua and claims that sufficiency is required in each of them. Subsequently, one might argue that Nussbaum rejects the priority claim by saying that capabilities are incommensurable. She holds that if 'people are below the threshold on any one of the capabilities, that is a failure of basic justice, no matter how high up they are on all the others'.2828 Nussbaum 2006, p. 167. However, incommensurability does not violate the priority claim. Consider the following example.2929 I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this example. Suppose we compare Rich, Poor, and Superpoor with respect to incommensurable capabilities α and β. Suppose, furthermore, that justice requires sufficiency in α and β. Rich is safely above the sufficiency threshold for both α and β. However, Poor and Superpoor suffer from different deficiencies. Poor is lacking α, whereas Superpoor is lacking β. If so, benefits for Poor in α have priority over benefits for Rich in α. This is because Poor is below the sufficiency threshold, whereas Rich is not. For the same reason, benefits for Superpoor in β have priority over benefits for Rich in β. However, because of the incommensurability of capabilities α and β, what Nussbaum's view does not specify is whether we should prioritize benefiting Poor in α or benefiting Superpoor in β. Since the view does not specify which of those capabilities has priority, it offers no guidance on how we must deal with such situations. But such guidance is not absent because the view rejects the priority claim—after all, it agrees that benefits in the range below the sufficiency threshold in α (or β) have priority over benefits in the range above that sufficiency threshold. Rather, what incommensurability entails is that we cannot specify priority rules that guide conflicts between different continua. To deal with such conflicts, then, Nussbaum must endorse additional claims to the three sufficientarian claims; but she does not reject those claims.3030 Nussbaum (2000, pp. 1024–5) suggests that if capabilities conflict, a cost–benefit analysis might be necessary, even though it would not fully capture the incommensurability of those capabilities. In sum, sufficientarianism combines the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim. It says that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges; that at least two of those ranges are on one continuum; and that the lower a range on a continuum, the more priority it has. These three claims are necessary and sufficient for any distinctively sufficientarian view. In the following sections, I reappraise five objections to sufficientarianism in light of the continuum claim, the priority claim, and the deficiency claim. These objections are that sufficientarianism is objectionably indifferent to certain inequalities (the 'indifference objection'), neglects individual responsibility (the 'responsibility objection'), fetishizes threshold-crossing benefits (the 'absolutism objection'), relies on non-existent thresholds (the 'no-threshold objection'), and that its thresholds are arbitrary (the 'arbitrariness objection'). These five objections have been addressed in the literature, some more extensively than others. Yet there is no unified discussion of these objections that draws on the conceptual anatomy of sufficientarianism. I will argue that by revisiting the objections in light of the three claims of sufficientarianism, we can reassess their merit, strengthen sufficientarianism, and give a more robust justification for sufficiency thresholds in social policy and institutional design. I will introduce the objections, and then discuss them in detail in subsequent sections. [S]uppose that [while providing] every patient with enough medicine, food, comfort, and so forth, a hospital receives a fantastic donation, which includes spare rooms for visitors, delicious meals, and the best in world cinema. If its administrators then arbitrarily decide to devote all those luxuries to just a few fortunate beneficiaries, their decision would be unfair.3232 Casal 2007, p. 307. However, sufficientarianism seems committed to accepting such a decision as fair, since everyone already has enough. Consequently, sufficientarianism fails to capture morally significant inequalities once people have secured enough. aiding better-off Smith (because doing so would lift him above the sufficiency threshold) over aiding worse-off Jones, who, unfortunately for him, could only be lifted to just below the sufficiency threshold. This might be desirable for all sorts of reasons, but is nevertheless in conflict with our intuitions concerning distributive justice.3434 Segall 2013, p. 137, n. 10. Hence, sufficientarianism favours threshold-crossing benefits over all other benefits—and such fetishism, critics argue, is objectionable. The responsibility objection holds that sufficientarianism is obj
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