Conclusion

In summary, then, equal access to advantage is susceptible to a variety of

problems that give us reason not to embrace it as the appropriate metric of

egalitarian interpersonal comparison. As regards the problem of indexing,

because Cohen specifies advantage as some set of desirable states of the person

that one has access to in light of her resources, welfare and perhaps other things,

the ability to draw interpersonal comparisons requires the creation of an index of

those valuable states of the person and their relative worth so that each person’s

access to advantage score can be summed and compared against the scores of

others. Consistent with a subjective theory of value this will prove difficult, as

the number of valuable states of the person will be extensive whilst their value

will differ, sometimes greatly, between individuals. Add to this the fact that

acquiring the necessary information with respect to people’s value judgments is unfeasible, and a subjective index version of equal access to advantage is

implausible. If, on the other hand, the index is based on an objective theory of

value derived from a perfectionist theory of the good-life, equal access to

advantage becomes susceptible to the problem of perfectionism: equalizing

theory of the good-life conflicts with justificatory neutrality, because the list of

states of the person to which access is being equalized cannot be justified over an

alternative list without appeal to the relevant perfectionist theory. Those who

favor an objective list version of equal access to advantage, but who also believe

the state ought not act in order to help some ways of life over others, must

therefore provide a non-perfectionist explanation of from where their objective

list derives its value. Absent a satisfactory explanation equal access to advantage

remains susceptible to the problem of indexing.

As regards the problem of expensive tastes, we saw that in cases where

equal opportunity for welfare is achieved consistent with inequality of resources,

because Jude, in virtue of his cheap tastes, requires fewer resources than others

for it to obtain, equal opportunity for welfare counterintuitively denies Jude

compensation for his new voluntarily developed expensive taste, even though

compensation would still leave him with fewer resources than others because his

initial tastes were so cheaply satisfied. To know whether Jude qualifies for

compensation under equal access to advantage requires a solution to the problem

of indexing; otherwise Jude’s access to advantage score cannot be summed and

compared against the scores of others. Cohen compensates Jude only because he

makes a rough guess that for Jude to enjoy equal access to advantage the sum of

his resources and welfare (and perhaps other things) would be consistent with

granting him compensation for his new voluntarily developed expensive taste

whilst denying him equality of resources because of his otherwise cheap tastes.

As it shows equal opportunity for welfare to have implausible

to advantage, the case of Jude is another point against embracing equal access to

advantage; it supports a distributive principle that grants people their fair share of

resources, as opposed to one that compensates for expensive tastes in seeking to

realize equal opportunity for welfare or a resource-welfare hybrid such as

advantage. The appeal of the continuity test further strengthens the argument in

favor of denying compensation for expensive tastes, at least in most cases. For

although Cohen is right that the bearer of an expensive taste suffers from bad

price luck, as opposed to bad preference luck, this fact alone is insufficient

reason to compensate for expensive tastes. It ought additionally to be true that the

bearer of an expensive taste is able to claim in good-faith, as a consequence of

her bad price luck, that others are better off in terms of opportunities consistent

with her beliefs as to what makes for a valuable life. Otherwise, we somewhat

absurdly compensate people for expensive tastes even when they do not consider

themselves relevantly worse off as a result. That equal access to advantage

compensates for expensive tastes (when the claimant’s access to advantage score is not equal to that of others) regardless of whether the bearer’s claim to compensation passes the continuity test, is yet another reason, in addition to the

problem of indexing and the related problem of perfectionism, as to why we

ought not to embrace equal access to advantage.

With respect to my aim of clarifying and evaluating Cohen’s positive contribution to the question of what type of society we ought to seek, this chapter

has served to clarify and evaluate the first view I identify with his positive

contribution; namely, that the appropriate metric of egalitarian interpersonal

that the appropriate metric of egalitarian interpersonal comparison is not equal

access to advantage, but rather an alternative luck egalitarian principle of

equality of opportunity where opportunities are specified in terms of resources.

For reasons not discussed in this chapter, however, I do not fully embrace

Dworkin’s equality of resources, because whereas he is a deontic egalitarian, and not therefore committed to the claim that equality has non-instrumental value, I

argue in Chapter 3 that a luck egalitarian social state of affairs has non-

instrumental value (in addition to instrumental value).18 _{Moreover, in Chapter 4 I}

argue that luck egalitarianism ought to be constrained by a sufficiency

qualification. Before making these arguments, however, I now turn to clarifying

and evaluating the second view I identify with Cohen’s positive contribution to

the question of what type of society we ought to seek.

Chapter 2