关系平等主义与道德不平等

IF 2.9 1区 哲学 Q1 ETHICS Journal of Political Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-03-29 DOI:10.1111/jopp.12299
Andreas Bengtson, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
{"title":"关系平等主义与道德不平等","authors":"Andreas Bengtson,&nbsp;Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen","doi":"10.1111/jopp.12299","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>When discussing theories of justice, most philosophers take the moral equality of human beings as their starting point. As Will Kymlicka says, in all contemporary plausible theories of justice, moral equality constitutes an “egalitarian plateau”.1 Arguably, the most prominent novel theory of justice in recent years is relational egalitarianism—a theory on which justice requires people to relate as equals. Relational egalitarians are no exception to Kymlicka's claim. They too start from the idea of moral equality. As one of us previously put it, “as a matter of fact, we are one another's moral equals and in relating as equals we honour that fact, and this is what grounds the ideal of relational egalitarianism”.2</p><p>In this article, we will assume that not all human beings are moral equals. This is an assumption, not an assertion, on our part. It is motivated partly by the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph, and partly by the nature of the present inquiry: to wit, examining what, if anything, relational egalitarianism implies when it comes to relationships between moral unequals. Must moral unequals relate as moral equals?4 Or as unequals? Or in some third way? We will show that relational egalitarianism has much to say about such relationships. And we will show that what it has to say is plausible.</p><p>Before proceeding, we need to defend our line of inquiry in view of the following skeptical challenge. For its supporters, what grounds relational egalitarianism is the fact—so they claim—that people <i>are</i> moral equals. For instance, this seems to be what the following passage from Kolodny implies: “Insofar as we are to have ongoing social relations with other moral equals, we have reason to relate to them as social equals”.5 Hence, to ask what relational egalitarians are committed to saying about social relations in a—in their view—hypothetical situation, where people are not moral equals, is to ask a moot question. It is like asking what a utilitarian is committed to, as regards the right thing to do, if welfare is not valuable. The question makes no sense, because the notion that welfare <i>has</i> value is built into, and therefore presupposed by, utilitarianism. Similarly, the notion that people are moral equals is presupposed by relational egalitarianism.6</p><p>While this challenge makes sense, we think that, ultimately, we are asking a perfectly justifiable question, and one we have the resources to answer. First, Kolodny's remark is most naturally taken to mean that moral equals must relate as social and political equals given that, more generally, the way people relate, socially and politically, should fit the way they relate in terms of moral status. If this is correct, Kolodny's view is underpinned by a general commitment to some kind of <i>fittingness</i>; and this general commitment, surely, has implications for the question of how moral unequals should relate, even if Kolodny thinks that people are not moral unequals, and thus even if the implications in question do not materialize in the real world.7 Admittedly, as a matter of logic, one can consistently hold both that if people are moral equals, that justifies certain claims about how they should relate socially and politically <i>and</i> that if they are moral unequals, that does not justify any claims about how they should relate socially and politically. However, such a view seems arbitrary. Why would moral status have implications for how we ought to relate only in cases where people's moral statuses are equal? So the view is not especially plausible. This implausibility is reflected in the complaint: “They treated us as if we were animals”. The complaint assumes, precisely, that people and non-human animals do not enjoy the same high moral status, and that the bad treatment complained about would have been justified (or at least less unjustified) had there been a difference in the moral status of the wrongdoers and the victims of the sort that exists between people and non-human animals.</p><p>Second, for reasons brought out in our first response, we believe the analogy with utilitarianism is misleading. Consider a utilitarian who believes that morality requires us to do what realizes the greatest amount of value, and who treats welfare, understood as preference satisfaction, as the only value. Surely, utilitarians of this kind are committed to a view about what morality requires agents to do if what is of value is not welfare as preference satisfaction, but, say, that people's level of welfare match their level of moral desert (as Kant thought would be ideal). That is, they are committed to the view that, morally, we should act so as to maximize the overall fit between levels of welfare and levels of moral desert.</p><p>Similarly, in the light of forceful challenges such as those put forward by Arneson, McMahan, and Singer, relational egalitarians should be open to the possibility that people are not moral equals. They should recognize the value of exploring what, if anything, their view commits them to, as regards how we should relate socially and politically, if they are mistaken and not all human beings are moral equals.</p><p>Exploring the issue of how moral unequals are required to relate in the relational egalitarian framework is important for several reasons. First, it helps to develop relational egalitarianism as a theory of justice—a theory which still leaves many questions unanswered, because it is relatively young. As we will show, our discussion helps to shed light on the place of children and non-human animals—individuals that are arguably not moral equals of persons—in relational egalitarianism. Second, the exploration will show that relational egalitarian objections to paradigmatic relational inequalities—such as discrimination, racism, and sexism—can be constructed, even if not all human beings are moral equals. That means that the plausibility of relational egalitarianism does not stand or fall with the idea that all humans are moral equals.9 This result is important, given the dilemma Arneson describes above. Third, the exploration illuminates the important point that relational egalitarianism is a large family of theories that differ along many different dimensions, including their responses to the question of how moral unequals should relate.</p><p>The article is structured as follows. In Section II, we introduce relational egalitarianism and distinguish two forms: deontic and telic relational egalitarianism. We further distinguish two accounts of deontic relational egalitarianism and explain that these provide different accounts of how moral unequals should relate. We show, moreover, that the least demanding conception of deontic relational egalitarianism provides plausible answers to the question of how moral unequals should relate.10 In Section III, we turn to telic relational egalitarianism. We show that the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians explaining why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply to relationships between moral unequals as well: these reasons are not tied to people with equal moral status. We explore further implications of these arguments in Section IV in relation to the place of children and non-human animals in relational egalitarianism—something about which relational egalitarians have not said much. We provide a relational egalitarian explanation of why adult-adult paternalism may be regarded as more objectionable than parent–child paternalism. Additionally, we respond to a concern which may arise when the claims of people who are moral unequals are being discussed. Section V concludes and presents the main takeaway point of the article: that, fortunately, our commitment to relational, social, and political equality is not hostage to the philosophical discussion about whether all people are moral equals.</p><p>The relational egalitarian theory of justice requires people to relate as equals.11 It has received much attention in recent years as a result of relational egalitarians' trenchant criticisms of distributive theories of justice. On these theories, justice is ultimately a matter of distributions.12 Distributive theorists, relational egalitarians argue, fail to see that, ultimately, justice is not about distributions. A given distribution in a society may accord with distributivist requirements of justice, but still not realize justice because, for example, racism and sexism are prevalent in the society. What ultimately matters with justice is, instead, whether relations are suitably egalitarian. Justice requires that people relate to each other as equals.13 For X and Y to relate as equals, relational egalitarians argue, they must (1) <i>regard</i> each other as equals; and (2) <i>treat</i> each other as equals.14</p><p>Derek Parfit famously distinguished between telic and deontic egalitarianism. According to the first, “it is in itself bad if some people are worse off than others”.15 This is an axiological view. According to the second, “it is not in itself bad if some people are worse off than others … What is unjust, and therefore bad, is not strictly the state of affairs, but the way in which it was produced”.16 Whereas in telic egalitarianism, inequality is bad, in deontic egalitarianism, inequality is unjust.17 These views are different. To see why, imagine a case in which an inequality is unavoidable. Thus, suppose the inequality was created by a natural disaster, such as an earthquake. Since, in this case, the inequality has not come about through anyone's wrongdoing, it is not unjust on the deontic view. According to the telic view, on the other hand, the inequality is in itself bad even though it is unavoidable.18</p><p>So, telic relational egalitarianism says it is (dis)valuable that people relate as (un)equals, whereas deontic relational egalitarianism says that people ought to (not) relate as (un)equals. Lippert-Rasmussen refers to Christian Schemmel and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of deontic relational egalitarians.20 Anderson says that “[Relational] egalitarians base claims to social and political equality on the fact of universal moral equality”.21 Schemmel says, “the objection to [inegalitarian] relationships is not merely that they are, in some sense, bad for people, but that they constitute unjust treatment”.22 Telic relational egalitarians include Martin O'Neill, who says, “The existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare.”23</p><p>To relate as moral equals has to do with interests and agency. If we are to relate as moral equals, our interests must be given equal weight and our agency must be equally respected—in a fundamental sense for both.25 If X treats Y in a racist manner, X treats Y's interests as if they are less important, in a fundamental sense, than the interests of non-Y people. X and Y thereby fail to relate as moral equals, and that is unjust on narrow deontic relational egalitarianism.</p><p>Of course, it is not enough merely to claim that moral unequals, or some, or many of them, must relate as moral equals. We also need an explanation of <i>why</i> moral unequals, despite being moral unequals, must relate as moral equals. Perhaps the justification for narrow deontic relational egalitarianism can also be used to show why, as broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes, moral unequals must relate as moral equals. Lippert-Rasmussen offers an explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals with reference to fairness.27 On his interpretation of fairness, “it is unfair if people are differently situated if the fact that they are differently situated does not reflect their differential exercise of responsibility”.28 This explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals looks promising. It certainly seems unfair, and therefore unjust, for a black person to be treated in a racist manner by a white person given that they are moral equals.29 But can fairness also explain why moral unequals must relate as moral equals? Can we say that it is <i>unfair</i> if moral unequals, or some, or many of them, relate as moral unequals?</p><p>These cognitive and volitional abilities come in degrees. To be a rational agent is to possess them at a certain given level.</p><p>On this account of moral status, moral unequals possess rational agency to different degrees. Now, let us suppose that both X and Y have moral status, but that X has higher moral status than Y in virtue of possessing rational agency capacity to a higher degree. One fairness-based argument for the view that it is unjust if X and Y relate as moral unequals runs as follows. Suppose X's possession of a higher degree of the capacity for rational agency than Y is due to nature and nurture—for example, X is bright, and their parents have raised them in a way that has been conducive to their achieving a high level of rational agency. In this case, the differences in the capacity for rational agency between X and Y are not due to their differential exercise of responsibility. Thus, if Y relates as an inferior to X because X has the higher moral status, the fact that X is differently situated (for example, in that Y should treat X's interests as more important than their own in a fundamental sense) does not reflect X's and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. And since being differently situated when this does not reflect differential exercise of responsibility is unfair, it is unjust that X and Y relate as moral unequals despite their being moral unequals.</p><p>A significant challenge to this argument is that it only goes through if X and Y's differing capacities for rational agency are not due to their differing exercises of responsibility.33 This is a challenge, because it seems highly likely that the abilities constituting the capacity for rational agency can be affected by the exercise of responsibility. For instance, one of the components of rational agency is the ability to “deliberate and make choices”. It seems reasonable to assume that the more one deliberates, the better one becomes at deliberating. If X decides to devote a considerable amount of their time to deliberating and Y does not because they would rather do something else, we may expect that, over time, X will become better than Y at deliberating and making choices.34 And if that is the case, and all else is equal, X will at that point have a greater capacity for rational agency than Y, and thus, at least on some views, higher moral status than Y. In this case, their possession of unequal degrees of the capacity for rational agency is a result of X and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. So, it would be unfair if they were not differently situated: that is, if they did not relate as moral unequals. It follows that fairness can ground broad deontic relational egalitarianism only if we assume that human beings are not responsible for their degree of the capacity for rational agency (and, more generally, are not responsible for their full or partial possession of the property, or properties, grounding moral status). If they are so responsible—which they seem to be, at least to some degree—it would be unfair for moral unequals to relate as moral equals.</p><p>This account of deontic relational egalitarianism is not egalitarian “all the way down”, in the sense that it denies that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We therefore refer to it as deontic relational <i>justice</i>. But it is still egalitarian in the sense that moral equals must, as relational egalitarians prescribe, relate as moral equals. When it comes to moral unequals, the account only applies to entities with <i>sufficient</i> moral standing.35 It does not say anything about, say, rocks, assuming they have no moral standing at all. The account does not say, for instance, that a human being and a rock must relate as moral sufficients. But where entities with sufficient, but unequal, moral standing are concerned, the account says that they must relate as moral sufficients.36</p><p>If, in a marriage, one party's interests always trump the other's, the parties fail to relate as moral equals. If they are moral equals, this is unjust. Moral unequals, on the other hand, do not have to grant each other's interests the same weight in their collective decisions.</p><p>Arguably, to relate as moral sufficients, the marital parties do not have to satisfy the Egalitarian Deliberative Constraint in their dealings with each other. It suffices that they have a standing disposition to treat each other's interests as playing a role which is somehow fitting given their relative moral statuses.39 But it is a long way from acknowledging this to saying that “anything goes, morally speaking”. Importantly, by adopting deontic relational justice, relational egalitarians will be able to object to most of the types of relational inequality to which they would want to object, even if some human beings are moral unequals. As Lippert-Rasmussen posits, the possession of “‘sufficient moral standing’ means that there is, in some sense, a sufficient number of sufficiently important things that one cannot do, morally speaking, to that individual and which this individual is permitted to do.”40</p><p>Arguably, two of the sufficiently important things one cannot do to individuals with sufficient moral standing are discriminate against or dominate them. Suppose a two-year-old child and one of her parents are not moral equals, but they both have sufficient moral standing.41 We take it that we would find the relational inequality which would result from the parent treating the child in a sexist manner objectionable, because the parent thereby fails to treat the child as a being with sufficient moral standing (we would reach the same verdict, we take it, in cases of domination and racism as well). Similarly, if a normally functioning adult treats a person with Down syndrome in a sexist manner, they fail to treat them as a human being with sufficient moral standing.</p><p>We can imagine cases where the gap in moral standing between two human beings is even smaller. Suppose an adult, Bert, has a very slightly higher moral standing than another adult, Carl. If Bert discriminates against Carl, it is hard to see how he could be treating Carl as a being with sufficient moral standing. Importantly, these ways of treating others—discrimination, domination, racist and sexist treatment—are paradigmatic relational inequalities.42 This shows that even if human beings are moral unequals,43 relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, are not barred from objecting to paradigmatic relational inequalities.44</p><p>At this point, one might have a serious concern about our exploration of the idea that, even if people are moral sufficients, the standard relational egalitarian objection to paradigmatic relational inequalities stands. In explaining the importance of this article's main question—how should people relate, according to relational egalitarianism, if they are not moral equals?—we noted that, in the philosophical literature, there are forceful challenges to the notion of basic moral equality, citing among other things Arneson's continuity question: if moral status results from rational capacities, why is the moral status of people not a scalar matter in such a way that those with greater rational capacities have greater moral status? The concern is that at least some of these challenges also cast doubt on the threshold notion of moral sufficients, and motivate a continuous, graduated view of individual moral status instead.45</p><p>In response, we note, first, that this concern is not about the truth of our main claim (that even if we are not moral equals, we should, from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, relate as sufficients), but its importance. We are not arguing that people are moral sufficients (or moral incommensurables). We are arguing that <i>if they are</i>, it remains the case that they should not relate in the inegalitarian ways (for example, involving discrimination or domination) that relational egalitarians think moral equals should avoid. This can be true, even if the continuity challenge gives us good reason to think that people are not moral sufficients.</p><p>Second, and much more importantly, we think the present challenge suggests we should extend the scope of our robustness claim beyond people being moral sufficients or moral incommensurables. Suppose moral status is very much a scalar thing, and that people therefore vary in their moral status beyond the variation involved in the claim that they, or most of them, are moral sufficients. Even so, it will still be the case that discrimination and domination—the sorts of inegalitarian relations that relational egalitarians object to—are wrong when they occur in relations between moral unequals—at least, it will be, if those with inferior moral status have sufficiently high status (which might simply be <i>some</i> moral status). Even if animals, say, have lower moral status than human beings, it is still wrong to dominate them; and even if children have lower moral standing than adults, it is wrong to treat a child in a sexist manner.</p><p>In claiming this, we do not have to assume that the wrongness of domination and discrimination is a binary, as opposed to a scalar, matter—that there are no degrees of their wrongness. It may be that discrimination is worse when the person subjected to it has higher moral standing than when the sufferer has lower standing, other things being equal. But this is compatible with discrimination still being wrong when directed at an individual with a lower moral standing. If that is correct, the present challenge points in the direction of an even more ambitious, and for that reason even more interesting, claim than the main claim regarding robustness that we defend in this article.</p><p>In this section, we have explored what deontic relational egalitarianism implies in situations involving moral unequals. Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We saw that fairness can explain why that is so if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. Deontic relational justice avoids relying on this assumption by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients. If X and Y relate as moral sufficients, there are ways in which they must not treat each other: for example, neither can treat the other in a racist or sexist way.46 This shows that relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, put themselves in a position to object to discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism even if human beings are not moral equals (at least, as long as the involved parties have a sufficient moral standing).</p><p>We will explore two questions: (1) is it bad if moral unequals relate as moral unequals? (2) is it good if moral unequals relate as moral equals? In answering these questions, we propose to look at the reasons relational egalitarians have provided for holding that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good. We will explore whether these reasons read across successfully to relationships between moral unequals.</p><p>Two caveats: first, we devote more space to the reasons why inegalitarian relationships are bad than we do to the reasons why egalitarian ones are good. This is not because we believe the latter are unimportant—they clearly are important. It is because we wish to investigate whether the reasons that relational egalitarians have <i>themselves</i> given to explain the value implications of (in)egalitarian relationships tell us anything about relationships between moral unequals. It so happens that these reasons have tended to be constructed around the idea that inegalitarian relationships are bad, rather than the idea that egalitarian relationships are good.</p><p>Second, relational egalitarians have argued that relational inequality is intrinsically bad in various ways. It might be suggested that, at most, they have shown relational inequality to be reliably instrumentally bad: that is, bad not in itself, but in virtue of its effects, and that, accordingly, the arguments do not amount to sound arguments in favor of telic relational egalitarianism.48 In response, we note first that (as we occasionally indicate below) we share the suspicion manifested in this response. However, we shall refrain from going deeper into this matter, since ultimately it pertains not to whether inegalitarian relations are bad, but rather to the way in which, according to relational egalitarians, they are so. Our main concern is to ask whether the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians themselves for thinking that inegalitarian relationships between moral equals are intrinsically bad apply to inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals as well. It is <i>not</i> to examine whether relational egalitarians are correct in seeing (at least many of) their arguments as arguments for telic egalitarianism (though we suspect they are not), as opposed to arguments for unequal relations being bad in virtue of their consequences.</p><p>With these caveats entered, we turn to examine the specific reasons relational egalitarians have given for holding that unequal relationships are (as they believe, intrinsically) bad. Do these reasons read across to relationships between moral unequals?</p><p>T. M. Scanlon has claimed that inegalitarian relationships are bad because “it is an evil for people to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior”.49 He explains that this is an evil because it leads to stigmatizing differences in status, with “damage to individuals' sense of self-worth”.50 In a racist society, the inequality between a black person and a white person may lead the former to devalue their self-worth.51 Is it <i>only</i> an evil for a person to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior, in a way which leads to damage to that person's self-worth if the people involved are moral equals? It seems not.</p><p>Suppose that Higher and Lower are moral unequals: Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, although Lower still has sufficient moral standing. Suppose now that they relate as moral unequals—for example, they both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's agency, and they both treat it as such. Even if that were so, the inegalitarian relationship could still lead Lower to devalue their self-worth more than they should given their differences in moral status.52 Suppose Lower undervalues their self-worth relative to their moral standing. Suppose, further, that they do so to the extent that they believe their own interests have no importance at all in decisions about their and Higher's collective affairs. Lower comes to feel excessively inferior, morally speaking. In this kind of case, inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad, because they lead the morally inferior individuals to devalue their self-worth in such a way that that they fail to acknowledge, to a suitable degree, the moral value they have in virtue of having sufficient moral standing. Although there may in general be a higher risk of inegalitarian relationships between moral equals leading to damage to self-worth, the risk is there in inegalitarian relationships as well.</p><p>Another reason inegalitarian relationships are bad, according to Scanlon, is that they may do “damage to the bonds between people”.53 As he explains, in this case—as opposed to in the case of damage to self-worth—the loss is suffered by both inferior and superior. An inegalitarian relationship between moral unequals may also lead to damage to the bonds between people. The relationship between Higher and Lower, if it is inegalitarian, with Higher being treated by both as superior to Lower, may damage the bond between them. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that if they had looked past the slight inequality in moral status between them and related as equals instead, the bond between them, and the relationship, might have been stronger. The point is not that it necessarily would, but that we can easily see how it could have been. It is important to remember that, in this context, saying that an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals is bad is not to say that it is (therefore) unjust. Things may be bad but not unjust—for example, the fact that Higher and Lower are not equally aesthetically pleasing may be bad, but not an injustice.54 Thus, it is not a criticism of this argument that it is unjust that moral unequals relate as moral equals. What is being argued is merely that, just as an inegalitarian relationship between two moral equals may do damage to the bond between them, an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals may do damage to the bond between them.</p><p>This stance can be challenged by appealing to a moralized concept of causation. It might be said that damage to bonds between people (whether moral equals or not) results only when they are psychologically disposed in certain ways. Because, ex hypothesi, Higher in our example should morally relate to Lower as a superior in view of Higher's superior moral status, any damage to their bonds results (in the moralized sense of “results”) <i>not</i> from their relating as unequals, but from the psychological dispositions which they have, and in the absence of which unequal relations between them would not have resulted in a damage to their bonds.55 We accept the terminological aspect of this challenge. That is, we agree that there is a moralized sense of “results” in which the damage to bonds in our case of Higher and Lower results from their psychological dispositions and not from their unequal relations. However, we think that, for the purpose of assessing the (extrinsic) badness of unequal relations, we should not be interested only in what counts as the bad effects of unequal relations on a narrow, moralized conception of “results”. In a similar way, when assessing the badness of an act of justified self-defense, we should not disregard the harm to the attacker (which might be disproportionate), even though, on a moralized conception of causation, we might say that the harm to the attacker “results from” their unjust aggression and not from the act of self-defense.</p><p>A third kind of reason relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad is that these relationships lead to less protection of the inferior's interests than an egalitarian relationship would. As Anderson says, “To be subject to another's command threatens one's interests, as those in command are liable to serve themselves at the expense of their sub-ordinates”.56 One interest that will be threatened is one's interest in freedom. It seems fair to say that there is a strong empirical relationship between relational equality and option-freedom57 (such that the more inegalitarian the relationship is, the less option-freedom the inferior member will have).58 This seems to be the case irrespective of whether it is an inegalitarian relationship between moral equals or moral unequals. Whether the master and his slave are moral equals or unequals, the master has the same degree of control over his slave—and thus the same degree of control over how much option-freedom the slave should have.59 Again, this is not about what degree of option-freedom a person with a particular moral status deserves, or ought to have. The question is: could the fact that a relationship between moral unequals is inegalitarian lead to less option-freedom for the subordinate member of that relationship than would have been available to them had the relationship been egalitarian instead? As far as we can see, the answer is yes.</p><p>Fourth, there are costs tied exclusively to being a superior. These also help to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad. As Scheffler explains, the patterns of deference and privilege in inegalitarian relationships “distort people's attitudes toward themselves, undermining the self-respect of some and encouraging the insidious sense of superiority in others”.60 This, as Scheffler's remarks illustrate, is the reverse of the first reason we discussed. In other words, just as an inegalitarian relationship may lead the inferior member to devalue their self-worth, it may also lead the superior member to overvalue their self-worth and, thus, be bad for that reason.61 Bearing this in mind, suppose once again that Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who still has sufficient moral standing. Assume once more that they relate as moral unequals: that is, both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's and both treat it as such. Within these assumptions, an inegalitarian relationship may still lead Higher to overvalue their self-worth—to value it more highly than is appropriate given their differences in moral status. For example, it may mean that Higher, in overvaluing their self-worth, believe that their interests are the only relevant ones in deciding collective affairs involving both Lower and themselves. It may mean they come to feel excessively superior, morally speaking.</p><p>Finally, inegalitarian relations have been held to be bad because they create, or involve, servility and deferential behavior.62 Intuitively, inferior status may indeed lead a person to be servile and to show deference. After all, by being servile and deferring to their master—and ensuring, in general, that they do not disappoint their master—the slave stands the best chance of avoiding punishment, or so they might reasonably believe. Indeed, in inegalitarian relationships there is pressure for the inferior to ingratiate themselves with their superior.63 Pressure to ingratiate also seems to be present in relationships between people with unequal moral standing.64 For instance, a parent may have higher moral standing than their child, so that their relationship is an inegalitarian one obtaining between moral unequals. Even so, there may still be pressure for the child to ingratiate themselves with their parent—for example, not to do things that may upset their parent and potentially lead to their being grounded.</p><p>In short, then, it seems that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad can very often be invoked to explain why inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad. They do not, it seems, have a close connection with the moral status of the parties to the relationship, and for this reason they are translatable to cases involving moral unequals.</p><p>Let us turn to relational egalitarians' explanation of why egalitarian relationships are good.65 We want to focus on just one such reason.66 Some relational egalitarians argue that egalitarian relationships are impersonally good.67 Martin O'Neill is arguably the most prominent advocate of this view. He says, “the existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare”.68 For instance, even if it is the case in a sexist society that an inegalitarian marriage would be better for the parties to it than an egalitarian one, the egalitarian marriage would still be impersonally valuable. But if we believe that egalitarian relationships between moral equals are impersonally valuable, it seems hard to deny that egalitarian relationships between moral unequals could also be impersonally valuable (even if not to the same extent). After all, the difference in moral standing may be very small.</p><p>Suppose that, in one case, A and B have equal moral standing and relate as equals and that, in another case, C has a slightly lower moral standing than D, but they relate as equals. What might explain the fact that A and B's egalitarian relationship is impersonally valuable, but C and D's is not? Clearly, A and B's relationship might have higher impersonal value than C and D's relationship. But it is a large step from this to saying that the relationship between C and D has no impersonal value at all,69 especially given, first, that A and B's relationship is impersonally valuable and, second, that the difference in moral standing between C and D is very small.</p><p>We have seen that relational egalitarianism is not silent in cases where human beings are moral unequals. Depending on how they take people to acquire the properties grounding moral status, deontic relational egalitarians can plausibly support either broad deontic relational egalitarianism or deontic relational justice. The reasons telic relational egalitarians have offered to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply, at least to some extent, if not to the same extent, to relationships between moral unequals. In this section, we consider what this implies for relational egalitarianism.</p><p>These remarks suggest that relational egalitarians judge parent–child and adult–adult paternalism differently: an adult treating another adult paternalistically is objectionable, a parent treating their child paternalistically is not—or, at least, is less objectionable. Relational egalitarians who take this line must explain this difference.71</p><p>The arguments presented in this article may provide the necessary explanation, if we assume that parents and their children are not moral equals. This seems reasonable, the more so where infants and small children are concerned. But it also seems reasonable to suppose that young children have sufficient moral standing that there are things one owes to them not to do to them.72 Remember that deontic relational justice is the view that moral equals must relate as moral equals and that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients.</p><p>According to Anderson, when A treats B paternalistically, A and B fail to relate as equals because the paternalizer, A, is in effect telling the paternalizee, B, that he is “too stupid to run his own life”.73 If this is right, it explains why adult–adult paternalism is objectionable (assuming adults are moral equals). Adult–adult paternalism is objectionable, because moral equals must relate as moral equals, and when an adult treats another adult paternalistically, they fail to relate in this way. In cases of parent–child paternalism involving an infant or toddler, the parent is not treating a moral equal in a paternalistic manner. They are treating a moral unequal in a paternalistic manner. It may be that paternalism is more objectionable when it is directed at someone you should relate to as an equal than when it is directed at someone you should relate to as a sufficient. If so, there is a difference between adult–adult and parent–child paternalism. Whether this argument ultimately succeeds, the point is that our reflections on the implications of relational egalitarianism for moral unequals are useful in determining the place of children in relational egalitarianism.</p><p>In fact, the relevance of this discussion of paternalism extends beyond the place of children in relational egalitarianism. If it is true that paternalism is more objectionable when directed against someone you should relate to as an equal than someone you should relate to as a sufficient, relational egalitarians need to be more attentive and nuanced in their judgments of paternalism between adults (for example, more attentive than Anderson is in her remarks above). As we mentioned earlier, recent philosophical discussions have cast doubt on the moral equality of human beings. If these philosophers are right, and some adults are not moral equals, cases of adult–adult paternalism will not always, and automatically, be equally objectionable. Objecting to paternalism may be a more intricate matter than relational egalitarians have assumed.74</p><p>With some exceptions, people and philosophers alike believe that humans and non-human animals are not moral equals. Although non-human animals (or certain types of them) are now usually accorded moral standing, that standing is set lower than the moral standing of human beings, essentially because animals are not sentient in the way that the latter are, or can be.75 Given this, our discussion may also help to show how the relational egalitarian should view the relationship between human beings and non-human animals.76 Arguably, human beings should not relate to non-human animals as if they are their moral equals. But insofar as some non-human animals, such as bonobos, have sufficient moral standing, human beings should relate to them as moral sufficients. Thus, it will be unjust for human beings to ignore the interests of non-human animals when making decisions that concern both human beings and non-human animals. The exploitation of non-human animals may also be unjust.77 Anderson claims that exploitation violates relational inequality.78 If, as seems plausible, in some cases of exploitation the exploiter and exploitee fail to relate as sufficients, relational egalitarians supporting deontic relational justice may be in a position to object, for that very reason, to some exploitative relations between humans and non-human animals. Thus, our discussion may also help to locate the appropriate place of non-human animals in relational egalitarianism.</p><p>We would like to end by looking at a worry that might arise when the way in which moral unequals are required to relate is being discussed. To see the worry, imagine the following. Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who has sufficient moral standing. Higher's standing is inferior to that of Superior<sub>1</sub>, and Lower's standing is inferior to that of Superior<sub>2</sub>, and they are both inferior to the same degree. The interests Higher and Lower have in having their standing raised in their relationships are equally strong. For some reason, we can only raise the standing of either Higher or Lower, but not both, and we must raise the standing of one of them. In this case, it seems that Higher's claim is stronger, all else being equal, than Lower's, because Higher has higher moral standing than Lower.</p><p>Some may find this result disturbing.79 We have two responses. First, if this is a valid objection to relational egalitarianism, it is also a valid objection to other prominent theories of justice, including distributive theories of justice such as luck egalitarianism.80 This is because the objection arises from the assumption that some human beings are moral unequals together with the further assumption that, where all else is equal, the higher the moral standing of an entity, the weightier their claim on us.81 These assumptions explain why the claims of humans are stronger than those of cockroaches (the latter do not have claims since they lack moral standing). Their denial would lead to a highly implausible theory of justice. Second, this also helps us to see why the case of Higher and Lower, and their superiors, does not present a valid objection to relational egalitarianism. If it were a valid objection, it would be an objection to the notion that some human beings are moral unequals, not to relational egalitarianism. For, if all human beings were moral equals, relational egalitarianism would not entail that we should prioritize any one person's claims over anyone else's. Instead, a fair decision procedure, such as a lottery giving each the same chance of having her standing raised, would have to be used. Thus, if one finds the implications of the case of Lower, Higher and the superiors disturbing, the most suitable response is to try to find a good reason to think that all human beings are moral equals.</p><p>In this article, noting that recent philosophical discussions of moral equality have shown how difficult it is to establish that human beings are moral equals, we have taken as a starting point the assumption that not all human beings are moral equals; some are unequals. We then investigated what, if anything, relational egalitarianism—a theory of justice according to which justice requires equal relations between moral equals—has to say about relationships involving moral unequals. We distinguished deontic from telic relational egalitarianism. We then distinguished two deontic theories: broad deontic relational egalitarianism and deontic relational justice.</p><p>Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as equals. We argued that fairness may explain why that is the case if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. The problem with that tack is that it is plausible that, at least to some degree, people <i>are</i> responsible for those properties. Deontic relational justice avoids this problem by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients (not moral equals). Relational egalitarians who adopt this weaker requirement are still able to object to cases of discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism in relationships involving moral unequals (as long as the involved parties have sufficient moral standing). In relation to telic relational egalitarianism, we argued that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships good are not tied to moral status; they also apply, perhaps to a lesser extent, to relationships between moral unequals. Thus, both deontic and telic relational egalitarianism deliver plausible judgments, even if we assume that some human beings are not the moral equals of others.</p><p>The main effect of our arguments, and one that we consider very fortunate, is to detach the view that we should relate as moral equals from the view that all people are in fact moral equals. The former does not require the latter. Thus, the idea that we should relate as moral equals is not hostage to the fortunes of the highly contested notion that all human beings have equal moral status.</p><p>Andreas Bengtson thanks the Independent Research Fund Denmark (1027-00002B) and both authors thank the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF144) for financial support for work on this article.</p><p>There are no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.</p><p>The authors declare human ethics approval was not needed for this study.</p>","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jopp.12299","citationCount":"3","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals\",\"authors\":\"Andreas Bengtson,&nbsp;Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/jopp.12299\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>When discussing theories of justice, most philosophers take the moral equality of human beings as their starting point. As Will Kymlicka says, in all contemporary plausible theories of justice, moral equality constitutes an “egalitarian plateau”.1 Arguably, the most prominent novel theory of justice in recent years is relational egalitarianism—a theory on which justice requires people to relate as equals. Relational egalitarians are no exception to Kymlicka's claim. They too start from the idea of moral equality. As one of us previously put it, “as a matter of fact, we are one another's moral equals and in relating as equals we honour that fact, and this is what grounds the ideal of relational egalitarianism”.2</p><p>In this article, we will assume that not all human beings are moral equals. This is an assumption, not an assertion, on our part. It is motivated partly by the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph, and partly by the nature of the present inquiry: to wit, examining what, if anything, relational egalitarianism implies when it comes to relationships between moral unequals. Must moral unequals relate as moral equals?4 Or as unequals? Or in some third way? We will show that relational egalitarianism has much to say about such relationships. And we will show that what it has to say is plausible.</p><p>Before proceeding, we need to defend our line of inquiry in view of the following skeptical challenge. For its supporters, what grounds relational egalitarianism is the fact—so they claim—that people <i>are</i> moral equals. For instance, this seems to be what the following passage from Kolodny implies: “Insofar as we are to have ongoing social relations with other moral equals, we have reason to relate to them as social equals”.5 Hence, to ask what relational egalitarians are committed to saying about social relations in a—in their view—hypothetical situation, where people are not moral equals, is to ask a moot question. It is like asking what a utilitarian is committed to, as regards the right thing to do, if welfare is not valuable. The question makes no sense, because the notion that welfare <i>has</i> value is built into, and therefore presupposed by, utilitarianism. Similarly, the notion that people are moral equals is presupposed by relational egalitarianism.6</p><p>While this challenge makes sense, we think that, ultimately, we are asking a perfectly justifiable question, and one we have the resources to answer. First, Kolodny's remark is most naturally taken to mean that moral equals must relate as social and political equals given that, more generally, the way people relate, socially and politically, should fit the way they relate in terms of moral status. If this is correct, Kolodny's view is underpinned by a general commitment to some kind of <i>fittingness</i>; and this general commitment, surely, has implications for the question of how moral unequals should relate, even if Kolodny thinks that people are not moral unequals, and thus even if the implications in question do not materialize in the real world.7 Admittedly, as a matter of logic, one can consistently hold both that if people are moral equals, that justifies certain claims about how they should relate socially and politically <i>and</i> that if they are moral unequals, that does not justify any claims about how they should relate socially and politically. However, such a view seems arbitrary. Why would moral status have implications for how we ought to relate only in cases where people's moral statuses are equal? So the view is not especially plausible. This implausibility is reflected in the complaint: “They treated us as if we were animals”. The complaint assumes, precisely, that people and non-human animals do not enjoy the same high moral status, and that the bad treatment complained about would have been justified (or at least less unjustified) had there been a difference in the moral status of the wrongdoers and the victims of the sort that exists between people and non-human animals.</p><p>Second, for reasons brought out in our first response, we believe the analogy with utilitarianism is misleading. Consider a utilitarian who believes that morality requires us to do what realizes the greatest amount of value, and who treats welfare, understood as preference satisfaction, as the only value. Surely, utilitarians of this kind are committed to a view about what morality requires agents to do if what is of value is not welfare as preference satisfaction, but, say, that people's level of welfare match their level of moral desert (as Kant thought would be ideal). That is, they are committed to the view that, morally, we should act so as to maximize the overall fit between levels of welfare and levels of moral desert.</p><p>Similarly, in the light of forceful challenges such as those put forward by Arneson, McMahan, and Singer, relational egalitarians should be open to the possibility that people are not moral equals. They should recognize the value of exploring what, if anything, their view commits them to, as regards how we should relate socially and politically, if they are mistaken and not all human beings are moral equals.</p><p>Exploring the issue of how moral unequals are required to relate in the relational egalitarian framework is important for several reasons. First, it helps to develop relational egalitarianism as a theory of justice—a theory which still leaves many questions unanswered, because it is relatively young. As we will show, our discussion helps to shed light on the place of children and non-human animals—individuals that are arguably not moral equals of persons—in relational egalitarianism. Second, the exploration will show that relational egalitarian objections to paradigmatic relational inequalities—such as discrimination, racism, and sexism—can be constructed, even if not all human beings are moral equals. That means that the plausibility of relational egalitarianism does not stand or fall with the idea that all humans are moral equals.9 This result is important, given the dilemma Arneson describes above. Third, the exploration illuminates the important point that relational egalitarianism is a large family of theories that differ along many different dimensions, including their responses to the question of how moral unequals should relate.</p><p>The article is structured as follows. In Section II, we introduce relational egalitarianism and distinguish two forms: deontic and telic relational egalitarianism. We further distinguish two accounts of deontic relational egalitarianism and explain that these provide different accounts of how moral unequals should relate. We show, moreover, that the least demanding conception of deontic relational egalitarianism provides plausible answers to the question of how moral unequals should relate.10 In Section III, we turn to telic relational egalitarianism. We show that the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians explaining why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply to relationships between moral unequals as well: these reasons are not tied to people with equal moral status. We explore further implications of these arguments in Section IV in relation to the place of children and non-human animals in relational egalitarianism—something about which relational egalitarians have not said much. We provide a relational egalitarian explanation of why adult-adult paternalism may be regarded as more objectionable than parent–child paternalism. Additionally, we respond to a concern which may arise when the claims of people who are moral unequals are being discussed. Section V concludes and presents the main takeaway point of the article: that, fortunately, our commitment to relational, social, and political equality is not hostage to the philosophical discussion about whether all people are moral equals.</p><p>The relational egalitarian theory of justice requires people to relate as equals.11 It has received much attention in recent years as a result of relational egalitarians' trenchant criticisms of distributive theories of justice. On these theories, justice is ultimately a matter of distributions.12 Distributive theorists, relational egalitarians argue, fail to see that, ultimately, justice is not about distributions. A given distribution in a society may accord with distributivist requirements of justice, but still not realize justice because, for example, racism and sexism are prevalent in the society. What ultimately matters with justice is, instead, whether relations are suitably egalitarian. Justice requires that people relate to each other as equals.13 For X and Y to relate as equals, relational egalitarians argue, they must (1) <i>regard</i> each other as equals; and (2) <i>treat</i> each other as equals.14</p><p>Derek Parfit famously distinguished between telic and deontic egalitarianism. According to the first, “it is in itself bad if some people are worse off than others”.15 This is an axiological view. According to the second, “it is not in itself bad if some people are worse off than others … What is unjust, and therefore bad, is not strictly the state of affairs, but the way in which it was produced”.16 Whereas in telic egalitarianism, inequality is bad, in deontic egalitarianism, inequality is unjust.17 These views are different. To see why, imagine a case in which an inequality is unavoidable. Thus, suppose the inequality was created by a natural disaster, such as an earthquake. Since, in this case, the inequality has not come about through anyone's wrongdoing, it is not unjust on the deontic view. According to the telic view, on the other hand, the inequality is in itself bad even though it is unavoidable.18</p><p>So, telic relational egalitarianism says it is (dis)valuable that people relate as (un)equals, whereas deontic relational egalitarianism says that people ought to (not) relate as (un)equals. Lippert-Rasmussen refers to Christian Schemmel and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of deontic relational egalitarians.20 Anderson says that “[Relational] egalitarians base claims to social and political equality on the fact of universal moral equality”.21 Schemmel says, “the objection to [inegalitarian] relationships is not merely that they are, in some sense, bad for people, but that they constitute unjust treatment”.22 Telic relational egalitarians include Martin O'Neill, who says, “The existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare.”23</p><p>To relate as moral equals has to do with interests and agency. If we are to relate as moral equals, our interests must be given equal weight and our agency must be equally respected—in a fundamental sense for both.25 If X treats Y in a racist manner, X treats Y's interests as if they are less important, in a fundamental sense, than the interests of non-Y people. X and Y thereby fail to relate as moral equals, and that is unjust on narrow deontic relational egalitarianism.</p><p>Of course, it is not enough merely to claim that moral unequals, or some, or many of them, must relate as moral equals. We also need an explanation of <i>why</i> moral unequals, despite being moral unequals, must relate as moral equals. Perhaps the justification for narrow deontic relational egalitarianism can also be used to show why, as broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes, moral unequals must relate as moral equals. Lippert-Rasmussen offers an explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals with reference to fairness.27 On his interpretation of fairness, “it is unfair if people are differently situated if the fact that they are differently situated does not reflect their differential exercise of responsibility”.28 This explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals looks promising. It certainly seems unfair, and therefore unjust, for a black person to be treated in a racist manner by a white person given that they are moral equals.29 But can fairness also explain why moral unequals must relate as moral equals? Can we say that it is <i>unfair</i> if moral unequals, or some, or many of them, relate as moral unequals?</p><p>These cognitive and volitional abilities come in degrees. To be a rational agent is to possess them at a certain given level.</p><p>On this account of moral status, moral unequals possess rational agency to different degrees. Now, let us suppose that both X and Y have moral status, but that X has higher moral status than Y in virtue of possessing rational agency capacity to a higher degree. One fairness-based argument for the view that it is unjust if X and Y relate as moral unequals runs as follows. Suppose X's possession of a higher degree of the capacity for rational agency than Y is due to nature and nurture—for example, X is bright, and their parents have raised them in a way that has been conducive to their achieving a high level of rational agency. In this case, the differences in the capacity for rational agency between X and Y are not due to their differential exercise of responsibility. Thus, if Y relates as an inferior to X because X has the higher moral status, the fact that X is differently situated (for example, in that Y should treat X's interests as more important than their own in a fundamental sense) does not reflect X's and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. And since being differently situated when this does not reflect differential exercise of responsibility is unfair, it is unjust that X and Y relate as moral unequals despite their being moral unequals.</p><p>A significant challenge to this argument is that it only goes through if X and Y's differing capacities for rational agency are not due to their differing exercises of responsibility.33 This is a challenge, because it seems highly likely that the abilities constituting the capacity for rational agency can be affected by the exercise of responsibility. For instance, one of the components of rational agency is the ability to “deliberate and make choices”. It seems reasonable to assume that the more one deliberates, the better one becomes at deliberating. If X decides to devote a considerable amount of their time to deliberating and Y does not because they would rather do something else, we may expect that, over time, X will become better than Y at deliberating and making choices.34 And if that is the case, and all else is equal, X will at that point have a greater capacity for rational agency than Y, and thus, at least on some views, higher moral status than Y. In this case, their possession of unequal degrees of the capacity for rational agency is a result of X and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. So, it would be unfair if they were not differently situated: that is, if they did not relate as moral unequals. It follows that fairness can ground broad deontic relational egalitarianism only if we assume that human beings are not responsible for their degree of the capacity for rational agency (and, more generally, are not responsible for their full or partial possession of the property, or properties, grounding moral status). If they are so responsible—which they seem to be, at least to some degree—it would be unfair for moral unequals to relate as moral equals.</p><p>This account of deontic relational egalitarianism is not egalitarian “all the way down”, in the sense that it denies that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We therefore refer to it as deontic relational <i>justice</i>. But it is still egalitarian in the sense that moral equals must, as relational egalitarians prescribe, relate as moral equals. When it comes to moral unequals, the account only applies to entities with <i>sufficient</i> moral standing.35 It does not say anything about, say, rocks, assuming they have no moral standing at all. The account does not say, for instance, that a human being and a rock must relate as moral sufficients. But where entities with sufficient, but unequal, moral standing are concerned, the account says that they must relate as moral sufficients.36</p><p>If, in a marriage, one party's interests always trump the other's, the parties fail to relate as moral equals. If they are moral equals, this is unjust. Moral unequals, on the other hand, do not have to grant each other's interests the same weight in their collective decisions.</p><p>Arguably, to relate as moral sufficients, the marital parties do not have to satisfy the Egalitarian Deliberative Constraint in their dealings with each other. It suffices that they have a standing disposition to treat each other's interests as playing a role which is somehow fitting given their relative moral statuses.39 But it is a long way from acknowledging this to saying that “anything goes, morally speaking”. Importantly, by adopting deontic relational justice, relational egalitarians will be able to object to most of the types of relational inequality to which they would want to object, even if some human beings are moral unequals. As Lippert-Rasmussen posits, the possession of “‘sufficient moral standing’ means that there is, in some sense, a sufficient number of sufficiently important things that one cannot do, morally speaking, to that individual and which this individual is permitted to do.”40</p><p>Arguably, two of the sufficiently important things one cannot do to individuals with sufficient moral standing are discriminate against or dominate them. Suppose a two-year-old child and one of her parents are not moral equals, but they both have sufficient moral standing.41 We take it that we would find the relational inequality which would result from the parent treating the child in a sexist manner objectionable, because the parent thereby fails to treat the child as a being with sufficient moral standing (we would reach the same verdict, we take it, in cases of domination and racism as well). Similarly, if a normally functioning adult treats a person with Down syndrome in a sexist manner, they fail to treat them as a human being with sufficient moral standing.</p><p>We can imagine cases where the gap in moral standing between two human beings is even smaller. Suppose an adult, Bert, has a very slightly higher moral standing than another adult, Carl. If Bert discriminates against Carl, it is hard to see how he could be treating Carl as a being with sufficient moral standing. Importantly, these ways of treating others—discrimination, domination, racist and sexist treatment—are paradigmatic relational inequalities.42 This shows that even if human beings are moral unequals,43 relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, are not barred from objecting to paradigmatic relational inequalities.44</p><p>At this point, one might have a serious concern about our exploration of the idea that, even if people are moral sufficients, the standard relational egalitarian objection to paradigmatic relational inequalities stands. In explaining the importance of this article's main question—how should people relate, according to relational egalitarianism, if they are not moral equals?—we noted that, in the philosophical literature, there are forceful challenges to the notion of basic moral equality, citing among other things Arneson's continuity question: if moral status results from rational capacities, why is the moral status of people not a scalar matter in such a way that those with greater rational capacities have greater moral status? The concern is that at least some of these challenges also cast doubt on the threshold notion of moral sufficients, and motivate a continuous, graduated view of individual moral status instead.45</p><p>In response, we note, first, that this concern is not about the truth of our main claim (that even if we are not moral equals, we should, from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, relate as sufficients), but its importance. We are not arguing that people are moral sufficients (or moral incommensurables). We are arguing that <i>if they are</i>, it remains the case that they should not relate in the inegalitarian ways (for example, involving discrimination or domination) that relational egalitarians think moral equals should avoid. This can be true, even if the continuity challenge gives us good reason to think that people are not moral sufficients.</p><p>Second, and much more importantly, we think the present challenge suggests we should extend the scope of our robustness claim beyond people being moral sufficients or moral incommensurables. Suppose moral status is very much a scalar thing, and that people therefore vary in their moral status beyond the variation involved in the claim that they, or most of them, are moral sufficients. Even so, it will still be the case that discrimination and domination—the sorts of inegalitarian relations that relational egalitarians object to—are wrong when they occur in relations between moral unequals—at least, it will be, if those with inferior moral status have sufficiently high status (which might simply be <i>some</i> moral status). Even if animals, say, have lower moral status than human beings, it is still wrong to dominate them; and even if children have lower moral standing than adults, it is wrong to treat a child in a sexist manner.</p><p>In claiming this, we do not have to assume that the wrongness of domination and discrimination is a binary, as opposed to a scalar, matter—that there are no degrees of their wrongness. It may be that discrimination is worse when the person subjected to it has higher moral standing than when the sufferer has lower standing, other things being equal. But this is compatible with discrimination still being wrong when directed at an individual with a lower moral standing. If that is correct, the present challenge points in the direction of an even more ambitious, and for that reason even more interesting, claim than the main claim regarding robustness that we defend in this article.</p><p>In this section, we have explored what deontic relational egalitarianism implies in situations involving moral unequals. Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We saw that fairness can explain why that is so if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. Deontic relational justice avoids relying on this assumption by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients. If X and Y relate as moral sufficients, there are ways in which they must not treat each other: for example, neither can treat the other in a racist or sexist way.46 This shows that relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, put themselves in a position to object to discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism even if human beings are not moral equals (at least, as long as the involved parties have a sufficient moral standing).</p><p>We will explore two questions: (1) is it bad if moral unequals relate as moral unequals? (2) is it good if moral unequals relate as moral equals? In answering these questions, we propose to look at the reasons relational egalitarians have provided for holding that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good. We will explore whether these reasons read across successfully to relationships between moral unequals.</p><p>Two caveats: first, we devote more space to the reasons why inegalitarian relationships are bad than we do to the reasons why egalitarian ones are good. This is not because we believe the latter are unimportant—they clearly are important. It is because we wish to investigate whether the reasons that relational egalitarians have <i>themselves</i> given to explain the value implications of (in)egalitarian relationships tell us anything about relationships between moral unequals. It so happens that these reasons have tended to be constructed around the idea that inegalitarian relationships are bad, rather than the idea that egalitarian relationships are good.</p><p>Second, relational egalitarians have argued that relational inequality is intrinsically bad in various ways. It might be suggested that, at most, they have shown relational inequality to be reliably instrumentally bad: that is, bad not in itself, but in virtue of its effects, and that, accordingly, the arguments do not amount to sound arguments in favor of telic relational egalitarianism.48 In response, we note first that (as we occasionally indicate below) we share the suspicion manifested in this response. However, we shall refrain from going deeper into this matter, since ultimately it pertains not to whether inegalitarian relations are bad, but rather to the way in which, according to relational egalitarians, they are so. Our main concern is to ask whether the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians themselves for thinking that inegalitarian relationships between moral equals are intrinsically bad apply to inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals as well. It is <i>not</i> to examine whether relational egalitarians are correct in seeing (at least many of) their arguments as arguments for telic egalitarianism (though we suspect they are not), as opposed to arguments for unequal relations being bad in virtue of their consequences.</p><p>With these caveats entered, we turn to examine the specific reasons relational egalitarians have given for holding that unequal relationships are (as they believe, intrinsically) bad. Do these reasons read across to relationships between moral unequals?</p><p>T. M. Scanlon has claimed that inegalitarian relationships are bad because “it is an evil for people to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior”.49 He explains that this is an evil because it leads to stigmatizing differences in status, with “damage to individuals' sense of self-worth”.50 In a racist society, the inequality between a black person and a white person may lead the former to devalue their self-worth.51 Is it <i>only</i> an evil for a person to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior, in a way which leads to damage to that person's self-worth if the people involved are moral equals? It seems not.</p><p>Suppose that Higher and Lower are moral unequals: Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, although Lower still has sufficient moral standing. Suppose now that they relate as moral unequals—for example, they both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's agency, and they both treat it as such. Even if that were so, the inegalitarian relationship could still lead Lower to devalue their self-worth more than they should given their differences in moral status.52 Suppose Lower undervalues their self-worth relative to their moral standing. Suppose, further, that they do so to the extent that they believe their own interests have no importance at all in decisions about their and Higher's collective affairs. Lower comes to feel excessively inferior, morally speaking. In this kind of case, inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad, because they lead the morally inferior individuals to devalue their self-worth in such a way that that they fail to acknowledge, to a suitable degree, the moral value they have in virtue of having sufficient moral standing. Although there may in general be a higher risk of inegalitarian relationships between moral equals leading to damage to self-worth, the risk is there in inegalitarian relationships as well.</p><p>Another reason inegalitarian relationships are bad, according to Scanlon, is that they may do “damage to the bonds between people”.53 As he explains, in this case—as opposed to in the case of damage to self-worth—the loss is suffered by both inferior and superior. An inegalitarian relationship between moral unequals may also lead to damage to the bonds between people. The relationship between Higher and Lower, if it is inegalitarian, with Higher being treated by both as superior to Lower, may damage the bond between them. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that if they had looked past the slight inequality in moral status between them and related as equals instead, the bond between them, and the relationship, might have been stronger. The point is not that it necessarily would, but that we can easily see how it could have been. It is important to remember that, in this context, saying that an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals is bad is not to say that it is (therefore) unjust. Things may be bad but not unjust—for example, the fact that Higher and Lower are not equally aesthetically pleasing may be bad, but not an injustice.54 Thus, it is not a criticism of this argument that it is unjust that moral unequals relate as moral equals. What is being argued is merely that, just as an inegalitarian relationship between two moral equals may do damage to the bond between them, an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals may do damage to the bond between them.</p><p>This stance can be challenged by appealing to a moralized concept of causation. It might be said that damage to bonds between people (whether moral equals or not) results only when they are psychologically disposed in certain ways. Because, ex hypothesi, Higher in our example should morally relate to Lower as a superior in view of Higher's superior moral status, any damage to their bonds results (in the moralized sense of “results”) <i>not</i> from their relating as unequals, but from the psychological dispositions which they have, and in the absence of which unequal relations between them would not have resulted in a damage to their bonds.55 We accept the terminological aspect of this challenge. That is, we agree that there is a moralized sense of “results” in which the damage to bonds in our case of Higher and Lower results from their psychological dispositions and not from their unequal relations. However, we think that, for the purpose of assessing the (extrinsic) badness of unequal relations, we should not be interested only in what counts as the bad effects of unequal relations on a narrow, moralized conception of “results”. In a similar way, when assessing the badness of an act of justified self-defense, we should not disregard the harm to the attacker (which might be disproportionate), even though, on a moralized conception of causation, we might say that the harm to the attacker “results from” their unjust aggression and not from the act of self-defense.</p><p>A third kind of reason relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad is that these relationships lead to less protection of the inferior's interests than an egalitarian relationship would. As Anderson says, “To be subject to another's command threatens one's interests, as those in command are liable to serve themselves at the expense of their sub-ordinates”.56 One interest that will be threatened is one's interest in freedom. It seems fair to say that there is a strong empirical relationship between relational equality and option-freedom57 (such that the more inegalitarian the relationship is, the less option-freedom the inferior member will have).58 This seems to be the case irrespective of whether it is an inegalitarian relationship between moral equals or moral unequals. Whether the master and his slave are moral equals or unequals, the master has the same degree of control over his slave—and thus the same degree of control over how much option-freedom the slave should have.59 Again, this is not about what degree of option-freedom a person with a particular moral status deserves, or ought to have. The question is: could the fact that a relationship between moral unequals is inegalitarian lead to less option-freedom for the subordinate member of that relationship than would have been available to them had the relationship been egalitarian instead? As far as we can see, the answer is yes.</p><p>Fourth, there are costs tied exclusively to being a superior. These also help to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad. As Scheffler explains, the patterns of deference and privilege in inegalitarian relationships “distort people's attitudes toward themselves, undermining the self-respect of some and encouraging the insidious sense of superiority in others”.60 This, as Scheffler's remarks illustrate, is the reverse of the first reason we discussed. In other words, just as an inegalitarian relationship may lead the inferior member to devalue their self-worth, it may also lead the superior member to overvalue their self-worth and, thus, be bad for that reason.61 Bearing this in mind, suppose once again that Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who still has sufficient moral standing. Assume once more that they relate as moral unequals: that is, both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's and both treat it as such. Within these assumptions, an inegalitarian relationship may still lead Higher to overvalue their self-worth—to value it more highly than is appropriate given their differences in moral status. For example, it may mean that Higher, in overvaluing their self-worth, believe that their interests are the only relevant ones in deciding collective affairs involving both Lower and themselves. It may mean they come to feel excessively superior, morally speaking.</p><p>Finally, inegalitarian relations have been held to be bad because they create, or involve, servility and deferential behavior.62 Intuitively, inferior status may indeed lead a person to be servile and to show deference. After all, by being servile and deferring to their master—and ensuring, in general, that they do not disappoint their master—the slave stands the best chance of avoiding punishment, or so they might reasonably believe. Indeed, in inegalitarian relationships there is pressure for the inferior to ingratiate themselves with their superior.63 Pressure to ingratiate also seems to be present in relationships between people with unequal moral standing.64 For instance, a parent may have higher moral standing than their child, so that their relationship is an inegalitarian one obtaining between moral unequals. Even so, there may still be pressure for the child to ingratiate themselves with their parent—for example, not to do things that may upset their parent and potentially lead to their being grounded.</p><p>In short, then, it seems that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad can very often be invoked to explain why inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad. They do not, it seems, have a close connection with the moral status of the parties to the relationship, and for this reason they are translatable to cases involving moral unequals.</p><p>Let us turn to relational egalitarians' explanation of why egalitarian relationships are good.65 We want to focus on just one such reason.66 Some relational egalitarians argue that egalitarian relationships are impersonally good.67 Martin O'Neill is arguably the most prominent advocate of this view. He says, “the existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare”.68 For instance, even if it is the case in a sexist society that an inegalitarian marriage would be better for the parties to it than an egalitarian one, the egalitarian marriage would still be impersonally valuable. But if we believe that egalitarian relationships between moral equals are impersonally valuable, it seems hard to deny that egalitarian relationships between moral unequals could also be impersonally valuable (even if not to the same extent). After all, the difference in moral standing may be very small.</p><p>Suppose that, in one case, A and B have equal moral standing and relate as equals and that, in another case, C has a slightly lower moral standing than D, but they relate as equals. What might explain the fact that A and B's egalitarian relationship is impersonally valuable, but C and D's is not? Clearly, A and B's relationship might have higher impersonal value than C and D's relationship. But it is a large step from this to saying that the relationship between C and D has no impersonal value at all,69 especially given, first, that A and B's relationship is impersonally valuable and, second, that the difference in moral standing between C and D is very small.</p><p>We have seen that relational egalitarianism is not silent in cases where human beings are moral unequals. Depending on how they take people to acquire the properties grounding moral status, deontic relational egalitarians can plausibly support either broad deontic relational egalitarianism or deontic relational justice. The reasons telic relational egalitarians have offered to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply, at least to some extent, if not to the same extent, to relationships between moral unequals. In this section, we consider what this implies for relational egalitarianism.</p><p>These remarks suggest that relational egalitarians judge parent–child and adult–adult paternalism differently: an adult treating another adult paternalistically is objectionable, a parent treating their child paternalistically is not—or, at least, is less objectionable. Relational egalitarians who take this line must explain this difference.71</p><p>The arguments presented in this article may provide the necessary explanation, if we assume that parents and their children are not moral equals. This seems reasonable, the more so where infants and small children are concerned. But it also seems reasonable to suppose that young children have sufficient moral standing that there are things one owes to them not to do to them.72 Remember that deontic relational justice is the view that moral equals must relate as moral equals and that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients.</p><p>According to Anderson, when A treats B paternalistically, A and B fail to relate as equals because the paternalizer, A, is in effect telling the paternalizee, B, that he is “too stupid to run his own life”.73 If this is right, it explains why adult–adult paternalism is objectionable (assuming adults are moral equals). Adult–adult paternalism is objectionable, because moral equals must relate as moral equals, and when an adult treats another adult paternalistically, they fail to relate in this way. In cases of parent–child paternalism involving an infant or toddler, the parent is not treating a moral equal in a paternalistic manner. They are treating a moral unequal in a paternalistic manner. It may be that paternalism is more objectionable when it is directed at someone you should relate to as an equal than when it is directed at someone you should relate to as a sufficient. If so, there is a difference between adult–adult and parent–child paternalism. Whether this argument ultimately succeeds, the point is that our reflections on the implications of relational egalitarianism for moral unequals are useful in determining the place of children in relational egalitarianism.</p><p>In fact, the relevance of this discussion of paternalism extends beyond the place of children in relational egalitarianism. If it is true that paternalism is more objectionable when directed against someone you should relate to as an equal than someone you should relate to as a sufficient, relational egalitarians need to be more attentive and nuanced in their judgments of paternalism between adults (for example, more attentive than Anderson is in her remarks above). As we mentioned earlier, recent philosophical discussions have cast doubt on the moral equality of human beings. If these philosophers are right, and some adults are not moral equals, cases of adult–adult paternalism will not always, and automatically, be equally objectionable. Objecting to paternalism may be a more intricate matter than relational egalitarians have assumed.74</p><p>With some exceptions, people and philosophers alike believe that humans and non-human animals are not moral equals. Although non-human animals (or certain types of them) are now usually accorded moral standing, that standing is set lower than the moral standing of human beings, essentially because animals are not sentient in the way that the latter are, or can be.75 Given this, our discussion may also help to show how the relational egalitarian should view the relationship between human beings and non-human animals.76 Arguably, human beings should not relate to non-human animals as if they are their moral equals. But insofar as some non-human animals, such as bonobos, have sufficient moral standing, human beings should relate to them as moral sufficients. Thus, it will be unjust for human beings to ignore the interests of non-human animals when making decisions that concern both human beings and non-human animals. The exploitation of non-human animals may also be unjust.77 Anderson claims that exploitation violates relational inequality.78 If, as seems plausible, in some cases of exploitation the exploiter and exploitee fail to relate as sufficients, relational egalitarians supporting deontic relational justice may be in a position to object, for that very reason, to some exploitative relations between humans and non-human animals. Thus, our discussion may also help to locate the appropriate place of non-human animals in relational egalitarianism.</p><p>We would like to end by looking at a worry that might arise when the way in which moral unequals are required to relate is being discussed. To see the worry, imagine the following. Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who has sufficient moral standing. Higher's standing is inferior to that of Superior<sub>1</sub>, and Lower's standing is inferior to that of Superior<sub>2</sub>, and they are both inferior to the same degree. The interests Higher and Lower have in having their standing raised in their relationships are equally strong. For some reason, we can only raise the standing of either Higher or Lower, but not both, and we must raise the standing of one of them. In this case, it seems that Higher's claim is stronger, all else being equal, than Lower's, because Higher has higher moral standing than Lower.</p><p>Some may find this result disturbing.79 We have two responses. First, if this is a valid objection to relational egalitarianism, it is also a valid objection to other prominent theories of justice, including distributive theories of justice such as luck egalitarianism.80 This is because the objection arises from the assumption that some human beings are moral unequals together with the further assumption that, where all else is equal, the higher the moral standing of an entity, the weightier their claim on us.81 These assumptions explain why the claims of humans are stronger than those of cockroaches (the latter do not have claims since they lack moral standing). Their denial would lead to a highly implausible theory of justice. Second, this also helps us to see why the case of Higher and Lower, and their superiors, does not present a valid objection to relational egalitarianism. If it were a valid objection, it would be an objection to the notion that some human beings are moral unequals, not to relational egalitarianism. For, if all human beings were moral equals, relational egalitarianism would not entail that we should prioritize any one person's claims over anyone else's. Instead, a fair decision procedure, such as a lottery giving each the same chance of having her standing raised, would have to be used. Thus, if one finds the implications of the case of Lower, Higher and the superiors disturbing, the most suitable response is to try to find a good reason to think that all human beings are moral equals.</p><p>In this article, noting that recent philosophical discussions of moral equality have shown how difficult it is to establish that human beings are moral equals, we have taken as a starting point the assumption that not all human beings are moral equals; some are unequals. We then investigated what, if anything, relational egalitarianism—a theory of justice according to which justice requires equal relations between moral equals—has to say about relationships involving moral unequals. We distinguished deontic from telic relational egalitarianism. We then distinguished two deontic theories: broad deontic relational egalitarianism and deontic relational justice.</p><p>Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as equals. We argued that fairness may explain why that is the case if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. The problem with that tack is that it is plausible that, at least to some degree, people <i>are</i> responsible for those properties. Deontic relational justice avoids this problem by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients (not moral equals). Relational egalitarians who adopt this weaker requirement are still able to object to cases of discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism in relationships involving moral unequals (as long as the involved parties have sufficient moral standing). In relation to telic relational egalitarianism, we argued that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships good are not tied to moral status; they also apply, perhaps to a lesser extent, to relationships between moral unequals. Thus, both deontic and telic relational egalitarianism deliver plausible judgments, even if we assume that some human beings are not the moral equals of others.</p><p>The main effect of our arguments, and one that we consider very fortunate, is to detach the view that we should relate as moral equals from the view that all people are in fact moral equals. The former does not require the latter. Thus, the idea that we should relate as moral equals is not hostage to the fortunes of the highly contested notion that all human beings have equal moral status.</p><p>Andreas Bengtson thanks the Independent Research Fund Denmark (1027-00002B) and both authors thank the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF144) for financial support for work on this article.</p><p>There are no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.</p><p>The authors declare human ethics approval was not needed for this study.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":47624,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Political Philosophy\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":2.9000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-03-29\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jopp.12299\",\"citationCount\":\"3\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Political Philosophy\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jopp.12299\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"哲学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"ETHICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Political Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jopp.12299","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3

摘要

在讨论正义理论时,大多数哲学家都以人的道德平等为出发点。正如Will Kymlicka所说,在所有当代看似合理的正义理论中,道德平等构成了一个“平等主义平台”。1可以说,近年来最突出的新正义理论是关系平等主义——一种正义要求人们平等相处的理论。关系平等主义者也不例外Kymlicka的主张。他们也从道德平等的理念出发。正如我们中的一个人之前所说,“事实上,我们在道德上是平等的,在平等的关系中,我们尊重这一事实,这就是关系平等主义理想的基础”。2在这篇文章中,我们将假设并非所有人都是道德平等的。这是我们的假设,而不是断言。它的动机部分是上一段提到的挑战,部分是本次调查的性质:也就是说,当涉及到道德不平等之间的关系时,研究关系平等主义意味着什么。道德上的不平等必须与道德上的平等相联系吗?4还是无与伦比?还是以第三种方式?我们将证明,关系平等主义对这种关系有很多话要说。我们将证明它所说的是合理的。在继续之前,鉴于以下质疑,我们需要捍卫我们的调查路线。对于它的支持者来说,关系平等主义的基础是——他们声称——人们在道德上是平等的。例如,这似乎是科洛德尼的以下一段话所暗示的:“只要我们要与其他道德平等的人建立持续的社会关系,我们就有理由将他们视为社会平等者”,就是问一个没有意义的问题。这就像在问一个功利主义者,如果福利没有价值,他们会致力于做什么正确的事情。这个问题毫无意义,因为福利有价值的概念是建立在功利主义中的,因此是以功利主义为前提的。同样,人们在道德上平等的概念是由关系平等主义预设的。6虽然这一挑战是有道理的,但我们认为,最终,我们提出的是一个完全合理的问题,一个我们有资源回答的问题。首先,科洛德尼的话很自然地被认为是指道德平等必须与社会和政治平等相联系,因为更普遍地说,人们在社会和政治上的联系方式应该符合他们在道德地位方面的联系方式。如果这是正确的,那么Kolodny的观点是基于对某种适合性的普遍承诺;当然,这种普遍的承诺对道德不平等应该如何联系的问题有影响,即使科洛德尼认为人们不是道德不平等者,因此即使这些影响在现实世界中没有实现。7诚然,从逻辑上讲,人们可以一致地认为,如果人们在道德上是平等的,这证明了他们应该如何在社会和政治上建立联系的某些说法是合理的,如果他们在道德上是不平等的,那就不能证明他们应该如何与社会和政治建立联系。然而,这种观点似乎是武断的。为什么只有在人们的道德地位平等的情况下,道德地位才会影响我们应该如何联系?因此,这种观点并不特别合理。这种难以置信的态度反映在投诉中:“他们把我们当作动物对待”。投诉准确地假设,人和非人类动物不享有同样高的道德地位,如果人和非动物之间存在的那种作恶者和受害者的道德地位存在差异,那么所投诉的恶劣待遇是合理的(或者至少不那么不合理)。其次,由于我们第一次回应中提出的原因,我们认为与功利主义的类比是误导性的。想想一个功利主义者,他认为道德要求我们做能实现最大价值的事情,并将福利视为唯一的价值,即偏好满足。当然,这类功利主义者致力于一种观点,即如果有价值的不是作为偏好满足的福利,而是人们的福利水平与他们的道德沙漠水平相匹配(康德认为这是理想的),那么道德需要代理人做什么。也就是说,他们致力于这样一种观点,即在道德上,我们应该采取行动,最大限度地实现福利水平和道德沙漠水平之间的整体匹配。同样,鉴于Arneson、McMahan和Singer提出的强有力的挑战,关系平等主义者应该对人们在道德上不平等的可能性持开放态度。 在这篇文章中,我们注意到最近关于道德平等的哲学讨论表明,建立人类道德平等是多么困难,我们以并非所有人都是道德平等的假设为出发点;有些是无与伦比的。然后,我们调查了关系平等主义——一种正义理论,根据该理论,正义需要道德平等者之间的平等关系——对涉及道德不平等的关系有何看法。我们区分了道义主义和意识形态的关系平等主义。然后,我们区分了两种道义理论:广义道义关系平等主义和道义关系正义。广义的道义关系平等主义规定,道德上的不平等必须以平等的方式联系起来。我们认为,如果人们不对基于道德地位的财产或财产负责,那么公平可以解释为什么会出现这种情况。这种策略的问题在于,至少在某种程度上,人们对这些财产负有责任是合理的。道德关系正义通过规定道德上的不平等者,假设他们有足够的道德地位,必须作为道德上的足够者(而不是道德上的平等者)来联系,从而避免了这个问题。采用这一较弱要求的关系平等主义者仍然能够反对涉及道德不平等的关系中的歧视、统治、种族主义和性别歧视案件(只要相关方有足够的道德地位)。关于telic关系平等主义,我们认为关系平等主义者认为不平等关系是坏的,平等关系好的原因与道德地位无关;它们也适用于道德不平等者之间的关系,也许程度较低。因此,即使我们假设一些人在道德上与其他人不平等,道义和意识形态的关系平等主义都会做出合理的判断。我们的论点的主要影响,也是我们认为非常幸运的一个论点,是将我们应该作为道德平等者的观点与所有人实际上都是道德平等的观点分离开来。前者不需要后者。因此,我们应该以道德平等的身份相处,这一观点并不受制于所有人都有平等道德地位这一备受争议的概念的命运。Andreas Bengtson感谢丹麦独立研究基金(1027-00002B),两位作者都感谢丹麦国家研究基金会(DNRF144)对本文工作的财政支持。本条不存在潜在的利益冲突。作者宣称这项研究不需要人类伦理的批准。 他们应该认识到,如果他们错了,而且并非所有人都是道德平等的,那么探索他们的观点对他们的承诺,以及我们应该如何在社会和政治上建立联系的价值。探讨道德不平等如何在关系平等主义框架中相互联系的问题很重要,原因有几个。首先,它有助于将关系平等主义发展为一种正义理论——这一理论仍有许多问题没有得到解答,因为它相对年轻。正如我们将要展示的那样,我们的讨论有助于阐明儿童和非人类动物——可以说在道德上与人不平等的个体——在关系平等主义中的地位。其次,这项探索将表明,即使不是所有人都是道德平等的,也可以构建关系平等主义者对典型关系不平等的反对,如歧视、种族主义和性别歧视。这意味着关系平等主义的合理性与所有人在道德上平等的观点不一致。9鉴于Arneson上述的困境,这一结果很重要。第三,这一探索阐明了一个重要的观点,即关系平等主义是一个庞大的理论家族,在许多不同的维度上存在差异,包括他们对道德不平等应该如何联系的问题的回应。这篇文章的结构如下。在第二节中,我们介绍了关系平等主义,并区分了两种形式:道义主义和特利主义关系平等主义。我们进一步区分了道德关系平等主义的两种说法,并解释说,这两种说法对道德不平等应该如何联系提供了不同的说法。此外,我们还表明,道德关系平等主义这一要求最低的概念为道德不平等应该如何联系的问题提供了合理的答案。10在第三节中,我们转向了道德关系平等论。我们发现,关系平等主义者提出的解释为什么不平等关系不好,平等关系好的原因也适用于道德不平等者之间的关系:这些原因与具有平等道德地位的人无关。我们在第四节中探讨了这些论点对儿童和非人类动物在关系平等主义中的地位的进一步影响——关系平等主义者对此没有太多论述。我们提供了一个关系平等主义的解释,解释为什么成人家长式作风可能被认为比亲子家长式作风更令人反感。此外,我们还回应了在讨论道德不平等者的主张时可能出现的担忧。第五节总结并提出了文章的主要观点:幸运的是,我们对关系、社会和政治平等的承诺并没有受制于关于所有人是否在道德上平等的哲学讨论。关系平等主义的正义理论要求人们平等相处。11近年来,由于关系平等主义者对分配正义理论的尖锐批评,该理论受到了广泛关注。根据这些理论,正义最终是一个分配问题。12关系平等主义者认为,分配论者没有意识到,正义最终与分配无关。社会中的特定分配可能符合分配主义者对正义的要求,但仍然不能实现正义,因为例如,种族主义和性别歧视在社会中普遍存在。相反,与正义相关的最终问题是,关系是否适当地平等。正义要求人们平等地相互联系。13关系平等主义者认为,为了让X和Y平等地联系,他们必须(1)平等地看待彼此;和(2)平等对待彼此。14德雷克·帕菲特在特利克平等主义和道义平等主义之间有着著名的区别。根据第一种观点,“如果有些人的境况比其他人差,那本身就是糟糕的”。15这是一种价值论观点。根据第二种观点,“如果有些人的境况比其他人差,那本身并不坏……不公正的,因此也不坏的,不是严格意义上的事态,而是它的产生方式”。要了解原因,请想象一个不平等不可避免的情况。因此,假设这种不平等是由自然灾害造成的,比如地震。既然在这种情况下,不平等不是通过任何人的不当行为产生的,那么从道义的角度来看,这并不不公平。另一方面,根据telic的观点,不平等本身就是糟糕的,尽管它是不可避免的。18因此,telic关系平等主义认为人们以(不)平等的方式联系是(不)有价值的,而道义关系平等主义则认为人们应该(不)以(非)平等的形式联系。 Lippert Rasmussen提到Christian Schemmel和Elizabeth Anderson是道德关系平等主义的例子。20 Anderson说“(关系)平等主义者将社会和政治平等的主张建立在普遍道德平等的事实之上”。21 Schemmel说,“反对[不平等的]关系不仅是因为它们在某种意义上对人们不利,而且它们构成了不公正的待遇”。22 Telic关系平等主义者包括Martin O'Neill,他说,“这类社会关系(平等主义社会关系)的存在本身就应该被视为具有内在价值,独立于这种关系可能对个人福利产生的积极影响。”23道德上的平等关系与利益和能动性有关。如果我们要在道德上平等相处,我们的利益必须得到同等重视,我们的代理机构必须得到同等尊重——从根本上来说,这两者都是如此。25如果X以种族主义的方式对待Y,X对待Y的利益,从根本上说,就好像它们不如非Y人的利益重要。因此,X和Y在道德上无法平等相处,这在狭隘的道义关系平等主义中是不公正的。当然,仅仅声称道德上的不平等,或者其中的一些或许多,必须作为道德上的平等来联系是不够的。我们还需要解释为什么道德不平等,尽管是道德不平等的,但必须作为道德平等来联系。也许狭义的义务关系平等主义的理由也可以用来证明为什么,正如广义的义务关系平均主义所规定的那样,道德上的不平等必须与道德上的平等联系在一起。Lippert Rasmussen解释了为什么道德平等必须与公平相关。27关于他对公平的解释,“如果人们的处境不同,而事实上他们的处境不同并不能反映他们不同的责任行使,那么这是不公平的”。28这种解释为什么道德平等必须与道德平等相联系,看起来很有希望。考虑到黑人在道德上是平等的,白人以种族主义的方式对待黑人似乎是不公平的,因此也是不公平的。29但公平也能解释为什么道德上的不平等必须与道德上的平等联系在一起吗?如果道德上的不平等,或者其中一些或许多与道德上的平等有关,我们能说这是不公平的吗?这些认知能力和意志能力是不同程度的。成为一个理性的代理人就是在一定的水平上拥有它们。由于道德地位的原因,道德不平等者在不同程度上具有理性能动性。现在,让我们假设X和Y都有道德地位,但X由于具有更高程度的理性代理能力而比Y具有更高的道德地位。一个基于公平的论点认为,如果X和Y作为道德不平等的人存在联系,那就是不公正的。假设X拥有比Y更高程度的理性代理能力是由于天性和后天培养——例如,X很聪明,他们的父母以有助于他们实现高水平理性代理的方式抚养他们。在这种情况下,X和Y之间理性代理能力的差异并不是由于他们行使责任的不同。因此,如果Y因为X具有更高的道德地位而被认为是X的下级,那么X的处境不同(例如,在根本意义上,Y应该将X的利益视为比他们自己的利益更重要)这一事实并不能反映X和Y对责任的不同行使。由于当这不反映责任的不同行使时,处于不同的位置是不公平的,因此,尽管X和Y在道德上是不平等的,但他们被视为道德上的不平等也是不公平的。对这一论点的一个重大挑战是,只有当X和Y的理性代理能力不同不是由于他们行使责任的不同时,这一论点才成立。33这是一个挑战,因为构成理性代理能力的能力似乎极有可能受到行使责任的影响。例如,理性代理的组成部分之一是“深思熟虑和做出选择”的能力。似乎有理由认为,一个人考虑得越多,就越善于考虑。如果X决定花相当多的时间进行审议,而Y因为他们更愿意做其他事情而没有这样做,我们可以预期,随着时间的推移,X在审议和做出选择方面会比Y更好。34如果是这样,并且所有其他因素都相等,那么X在这一点上将比Y有更大的理性代理能力,因此,至少在某些观点上,在这种情况下,他们拥有不平等程度的理性代理能力是X和Y不同行使责任的结果。因此,如果他们没有不同的处境,那将是不公平的:也就是说,如果他们不是道德上的不平等者。 因此,只有当我们假设人类对其理性代理能力的程度不负责任(更普遍地说,对其全部或部分拥有作为道德地位基础的财产不负责任),公平才能奠定广泛的道义关系平等主义的基础。如果他们如此负责——至少在某种程度上,他们似乎是这样——那么道德上的不平等与道德上的平等是不公平的。这种对道义关系平等主义的解释“一直以来”都不是平等主义的,因为它否认道德上的不平等必须与道德上的平等联系在一起。因此,我们称之为道义关系正义。但它仍然是平等主义的,因为正如关系平等主义者所规定的那样,道德平等必须作为道德平等而存在。当谈到道德不平等时,这种说法只适用于具有足够道德地位的实体。35它没有说任何关于石头的事情,比如说石头,假设它们根本没有道德地位。例如,这篇报道并没有说一个人和一块石头必须作为道德上的足够物来联系。但是,当涉及到道德地位足够但不平等的实体时,该账户表示,它们必须作为道德上的足够者来联系。36如果在婚姻中,一方的利益总是胜过另一方的,那么双方就不能作为道德上平等的人来联系。如果他们在道德上是平等的,这是不公正的。另一方面,道德上的不平等者不必在集体决策中给予彼此利益同等的权重。可以说,为了作为道德上的充分联系,婚姻双方在相互交往中不必满足平等主义的故意约束。考虑到他们相对的道德地位,他们有一种长期的倾向,将彼此的利益视为扮演一个在某种程度上合适的角色,这就足够了。39但从承认这一点到说“从道德上讲,一切都会发生”,还有很长的路要走。重要的是,通过采用道义上的关系正义,关系平等主义者将能够反对他们想要反对的大多数类型的关系不平等,即使有些人在道德上是不平等的。正如Lippert Rasmussen所言,拥有“充分的道德地位”意味着,在某种意义上,有足够多的足够重要的事情,从道德上讲,一个人不能对这个人做,这个人可以做。”40可以说,一个人不能对有足够道德地位的人做的两件足够重要的事情是歧视或支配他们。假设一个两岁的孩子和她的父母之一在道德上不平等,但他们都有足够的道德标准。41我们认为,父母以性别歧视的方式对待孩子会导致关系不平等,这是令人反感的,因为父母因此未能将孩子视为具有足够道德地位的人(我们认为,在统治和种族主义的情况下,我们也会得出同样的结论)。同样,如果一个功能正常的成年人以性别歧视的方式对待唐氏综合症患者,他们就不能把他们当作一个有足够道德地位的人来对待。我们可以想象两个人在道德地位上的差距更小的情况。假设一个成年人伯特的道德地位比另一个成年人卡尔略高。如果伯特歧视卡尔,很难想象他会把卡尔当作一个有足够道德地位的人。重要的是,这些对待他人的方式——歧视、统治、种族主义和性别歧视待遇——都是典型的关系不平等。42这表明,即使人类在道德上是不平等的,43关系平等主义者通过采用道义上的关系正义,也不被禁止反对典型的关系不等式。44在这一点上,人们可能会对我们的探索感到严重担忧,即即使人们在道德上足够,对典型关系不平等的标准关系平等主义反对仍然存在。在解释本文主要问题的重要性时——根据关系平等主义,如果人们在道德上不平等,他们应该如何联系--我们注意到,在哲学文献中,对基本道德平等的概念提出了有力的挑战,并引用了Arneson的连续性问题:如果道德地位是由理性能力产生的,那么为什么人们的道德地位不是一个标量问题,因为理性能力越强,道德地位就越高?令人担忧的是,至少其中一些挑战也让人们对道德足够者的门槛概念产生了怀疑,并激发了对个人道德地位的持续、渐进的看法。 45作为回应,我们注意到,首先,这种担忧不是关于我们主要主张的真实性(即即使我们在道德上不平等,从关系平等主义的角度来看,我们也应该作为足够的人来联系),而是它的重要性。我们并不是说人是道德上的足够者(或道德上的不可通约者)。我们认为,如果他们是,那么他们仍然不应该以关系平等主义者认为道德平等应该避免的不平等的方式(例如,涉及歧视或统治)进行联系。这可能是真的,即使连续性挑战让我们有充分的理由认为人们在道德上不够。其次,更重要的是,我们认为目前的挑战表明,我们应该将我们的稳健性主张的范围扩大到道德上足够或道德上不可通约的人之外。假设道德地位在很大程度上是一个标量的东西,因此,人们的道德地位的变化超出了他们或他们中的大多数人是道德合格者的说法所涉及的变化。即便如此,当歧视和统治发生在道德不平等者之间的关系中时,歧视和统治——关系平等主义者反对的那种不平等的关系——仍然是错误的——至少,如果那些道德地位较低的人有足够高的地位(可能只是某种道德地位),就会是错误的。即使动物的道德地位比人类低,支配它们仍然是错误的;即使儿童的道德地位低于成年人,以性别歧视的方式对待儿童也是错误的。在声称这一点时,我们不必假设统治和歧视的错误性是二元的,而不是标量的——它们没有错误的程度。在其他条件相同的情况下,当受到歧视的人的道德地位较高时,歧视可能比受害者的道德地位较低时更严重。但这与针对道德地位较低的个人的歧视仍然是错误的是一致的。如果这是正确的,那么目前的挑战指向了一个比我们在本文中捍卫的关于稳健性的主要主张更雄心勃勃、更有趣的主张。在本节中,我们探讨了道德关系平等主义在涉及道德不平等的情况下意味着什么。广义的道义关系平等主义规定,道德上的不平等必须与道德上的平等相联系。我们看到,如果人们不对基于道德地位的财产或财产负责,那么公平可以解释为什么会这样。道德关系正义通过规定道德上的不平等者,假设他们有足够的道德地位,必须作为道德上的足够者来联系,从而避免了依赖这一假设。如果X和Y是道德上足够的人,那么他们就不能以某些方式对待对方:例如,他们都不能以种族主义或性别歧视的方式对待对方。46这表明,关系平等主义者通过采用道义上的关系正义,使自己处于反对歧视、统治、种族主义的地位,以及性别歧视,即使人类在道德上不平等(至少,只要相关方有足够的道德地位)。我们将探讨两个问题:(1)如果道德不平等与道德不平等联系在一起,那糟糕吗?(2) 如果道德上的不平等与道德上的平等相联系,那好吗?在回答这些问题时,我们建议看看关系平等主义者认为不平等关系是坏的,平等关系是好的原因。我们将探讨这些原因是否能成功地理解道德不平等之间的关系。有两点需要注意:首先,我们对不平等关系不好的原因比平等关系好的原因投入了更多的空间。这并不是因为我们认为后者不重要——它们显然很重要。这是因为我们希望调查关系平等主义者自己解释平等主义关系的价值含义的原因是否告诉了我们道德不平等之间的关系。碰巧的是,这些原因往往是围绕着不平等关系不好的想法构建的,而不是平等关系好的想法。其次,关系平等主义者认为,关系不平等在本质上是不好的。有人可能会认为,他们充其量已经证明关系不平等在工具上是可靠的坏的:也就是说,不是因为它本身是坏的,而是因为它的影响,因此,这些论点并不等于支持telic关系平等主义的合理论点。48作为回应,我们首先注意到(正如我们在下文中偶尔指出的),我们与这一回应中表现出的怀疑是一致的。 因为,根据假设,在我们的例子中,鉴于高等学校优越的道德地位,高等学校应该在道德上与作为高等学校的低等学校联系起来,对他们之间的联系的任何损害(在“结果”的道德意义上)都不是由于他们作为不平等学校的联系,而是由于他们的心理倾向,如果没有这些,他们之间的不平等关系就不会损害他们的纽带。55我们接受这一挑战的术语方面。也就是说,我们同意存在一种道德化的“结果”感,在我们的“高”和“低”案例中,对纽带的损害是由它们的心理倾向造成的,而不是由它们的不平等关系造成的。然而,我们认为,为了评估不平等关系的(外在的)不良性,我们不应该只关心不平等关系对狭隘的、道德化的“结果”概念的不良影响。同样,在评估正当自卫行为的恶劣程度时,我们不应该忽视对攻击者的伤害(这可能是不相称的),即使在道德化的因果关系概念上,我们可以说,对攻击者的伤害“源于”他们的不公正侵略,而不是自卫行为。关系平等主义者认为不公正关系不好的第三种原因是,与平等主义关系相比,这些关系对弱者利益的保护更少。正如Anderson所说,“服从他人的指挥会威胁到一个人的利益,因为那些指挥者可能会以牺牲他们的下属为代价为自己服务”。56一个将受到威胁的利益是一个人对自由的利益。可以公平地说,关系平等和选择自由之间存在着强烈的经验关系57(因此,这种关系越不平等,下级成员的选择自由就越少)。58无论道德平等还是道德不平等之间是不平等的关系,情况似乎都是如此。无论主人和他的奴隶在道德上是平等的还是不平等的,主人对他的奴隶都有同样程度的控制权,因此对奴隶应该拥有多少选择自由也有同样的控制权。问题是:道德不平等者之间的关系是不平等的,这一事实会不会导致这种关系中的从属成员的选择自由比他们在这种关系是平等的情况下所能获得的更少?就我们所见,答案是肯定的。第四,成本完全与成为上级有关。这些也有助于解释为什么不平等的关系是糟糕的。正如谢夫勒所解释的那样,不平等关系中的尊重和特权模式“扭曲了人们对自己的态度,破坏了一些人的自尊,助长了其他人潜在的优越感”。60正如谢夫ler的言论所表明的那样,这与我们讨论的第一个原因相反。换言之,正如不平等的关系可能会导致下级成员贬低他们的自我价值一样,它也可能导致上级成员高估自己的自我价值,从而对这个原因不利。61考虑到这一点,再次假设Higher比Lower有更高的道德地位,Lower仍然有足够的道德地位。再次假设他们在道德上是不平等的:也就是说,双方都认为Higher的代理比Lower的代理更重要,并都这样对待它。在这些假设中,一种不平等的关系仍然可能导致Higher高估他们的自我价值——考虑到他们道德地位的差异,他们对自我价值的估价过高。例如,这可能意味着Higher高估了他们的自我价值,认为在决定涉及Lower和他们自己的集体事务时,他们的利益是唯一相关的。从道义上讲,这可能意味着他们会觉得自己过于优越。最后,不平等的关系被认为是糟糕的,因为它们创造或涉及卑躬屈膝和顺从的行为。62直觉上,低下的地位确实可能导致一个人卑躬屈膝并表现出顺从。毕竟,通过对主人卑躬屈膝和顺从,并确保他们不会让主人失望,奴隶最有可能避免惩罚,或者他们可以合理地相信这一点。事实上,在不平等的关系中,劣势者有讨好优势者的压力。63讨好的压力似乎也存在于道德地位不平等的人之间的关系中。64例如,父母的道德地位可能比孩子高,因此他们的关系是在道德不平等之间获得的不平等关系。 即便如此,孩子仍可能面临讨好父母的压力——例如,不要做可能让父母感到不安并可能导致他们被禁足的事情。简言之,关系平等主义者认为不平等关系不好的理由似乎经常被用来解释为什么道德不平等者之间的不平等关系是不好的。它们似乎与关系各方的道德地位没有密切联系,因此它们可以翻译成涉及道德不平等的案件。让我们转向关系平等主义者对平等主义关系为什么好的解释。65我们只想关注其中一个原因。66一些关系平等主义认为平等主义关系在客观上是好的。67马丁·奥尼尔可以说是这一观点的最突出倡导者。他说,“这种社会关系(平等主义社会关系)的存在本身就应该被视为具有内在价值,独立于这种关系可能对个人福利产生的积极影响”,平等的婚姻在客观上仍然是有价值的。但是,如果我们相信道德平等者之间的平等关系在客观上是有价值的,那么似乎很难否认道德不平等者之间平等关系也可能在客观上有价值(即使程度不同)。毕竟,道德地位的差异可能很小。假设在一种情况下,A和B的道德地位相等,关系平等;在另一种情况中,C的道德地位略低于D,但关系平等。什么可以解释A和B的平等主义关系在客观上是有价值的,而C和D的关系不是?显然,A和B的关系可能比C和D的关系具有更高的非个人价值。但从这一点到说C和D之间的关系根本没有客观价值,这是一大步,69特别是考虑到,首先,a和B的关系是客观价值的,其次,C和D在道德地位上的差异很小。我们已经看到,在人类道德不平等的情况下,关系平等主义并不是沉默的。根据他们如何带人们获得基于道德地位的属性,道义关系平等主义者可以合理地支持广泛的道义关系平等论或道义关系正义。telic关系平等主义者解释为什么不平等关系是坏的,平等关系是好的,至少在某种程度上,如果不是同样的程度,也适用于道德不平等之间的关系。在本节中,我们将考虑这对关系平等主义意味着什么。这些言论表明,关系平等主义者对父母-孩子和成人-成人家长式作风的判断是不同的:一个成年人用家长式作风对待另一个成年人是令人反感的,一个父母用家长式态度对待自己的孩子不是——或者至少不那么令人反感。走这条线的关系平等主义者必须解释这种差异。71如果我们假设父母和他们的孩子在道德上不平等,本文中提出的论点可能会提供必要的解释。这似乎是合理的,尤其是在婴儿和幼儿方面。但是,假设年幼的孩子有足够的道德地位,认为有一些事情是欠他们的,而不是对他们做,这似乎也是合理的。72记住,道义关系正义是一种观点,即道德平等者必须作为道德平等者来联系,而道德不平等者,假设他们有足够的道义地位,就必须作为道德足够者来联系。根据Anderson的说法,当A以家长式的方式对待B时,A和B就不能平等相处,因为家长式的人A实际上是在告诉家长式的B,他“太愚蠢了,无法管理自己的生活”。73如果这是对的,这就解释了为什么成人家长式是令人反感的(假设成年人在道德上是平等的)。成人-成人家长式作风是令人反感的,因为道德平等必须像道德平等一样联系在一起,而当一个成年人以家长式作风对待另一个成年人时,他们就不能以这种方式联系在一起。在涉及婴儿或学步儿童的父母-孩子家长式作风的情况下,父母没有以家长式的方式对待道德平等的人。他们以家长式的方式对待道德上的不平等。家长式作风针对的是你应该以平等身份与之相处的人,而不是针对你应该以充分身份与之交往的人,这可能更令人反感。如果是这样的话,成人家长制和亲子家长制是有区别的。 无论这一论点最终是否成功,关键是我们对关系平等主义对道德不平等的影响的思考有助于确定儿童在关系平等主义中的地位。事实上,这种关于家长式作风的讨论的相关性超出了儿童在关系平等主义中的地位。如果家长式作风在针对一个你应该以平等身份与之相处的人时比针对一个与你应该以充分身份与之交往的人时更令人反感,那么关系平等主义者在判断成年人之间的家长式作风时需要更加专注和细致(例如,比Anderson在上面的言论中更专注)。正如我们前面提到的,最近的哲学讨论使人们对人类的道德平等产生了怀疑。如果这些哲学家是对的,而一些成年人在道德上并不平等,那么成年人家长式作风的案例就不会总是同样令人反感。反对家长式作风可能比关系平等主义者所认为的更为复杂。74除了一些例外,人们和哲学家都认为人类和非人类动物在道德上是不平等的。尽管非人类动物(或某些类型的动物)现在通常被赋予道德地位,但这种地位被设定为低于人类的道德地位,主要是因为动物不像人类那样有感知能力,或者可能没有感知能力。75有鉴于此,我们的讨论也可能有助于展示关系平等主义者应该如何看待人类和非人类动物之间的关系。76可以说,人类不应该把与非人类动物的关系视为道德上的平等。但只要一些非人类动物,如倭黑猩猩,有足够的道德地位,人类就应该把它们当作道德上的合格者。因此,人类在做出既涉及人类又涉及非人类动物的决策时,忽视非人类动物利益是不公平的。对非人类动物的剥削也可能是不公正的。77 Anderson声称,剥削违反了关系不平等。78如果在某些剥削案件中,剥削者和被剥削者之间的关系似乎是合理的,那么支持道义关系正义的关系平等主义者可能会因为这个原因而反对,人类和非人类动物之间的一些剥削关系。因此,我们的讨论也可能有助于在关系平等主义中定位非人类动物的适当位置。最后,我们想看看在讨论道德不平等的关系时可能出现的担忧。要了解担忧,请想象以下内容。高的人比低的人有更高的道德地位,后者有足够的道德地位。较高者的地位不如上级1,较低者的地位低于上级2,两者都处于同等程度的劣势。上级和下级在提高关系地位方面的利益同样强烈。出于某种原因,我们只能提高较高或较低的地位,但不能同时提高两者的地位,我们必须提高其中一个的地位。在这种情况下,似乎Higher的主张比Lower的主张更有力,在其他方面都是平等的,因为Higher比Lower有更高的道德地位。有些人可能会觉得这个结果令人不安。79我们有两种反应。首先,如果这是对关系平等主义的有效反对,那么它也是对其他突出的正义理论的有效反对。包括运气平等主义等正义分配理论,一个实体的道德地位越高,它们对我们的要求就越重。81这些假设解释了为什么人类的要求比蟑螂的要求更强(蟑螂没有要求,因为它们缺乏道德地位)。他们的否认将导致一种极不可信的正义理论。其次,这也有助于我们理解为什么上级和下级及其上级的情况并没有对关系平等主义提出有效的反对意见。如果这是一个有效的反对意见,那就是反对某些人在道德上是不平等的,而不是关系平等主义。因为,如果所有人在道德上都是平等的,那么关系平等主义就不会意味着我们应该优先考虑任何一个人的主张而不是其他人的主张。相反,必须使用公平的决策程序,比如彩票,让每个人都有同样的机会提高自己的地位。因此,如果一个人发现下级、上级和上级的情况令人不安,那么最合适的回应就是试图找到一个好的理由,认为所有人在道德上都是平等的。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

When discussing theories of justice, most philosophers take the moral equality of human beings as their starting point. As Will Kymlicka says, in all contemporary plausible theories of justice, moral equality constitutes an “egalitarian plateau”.1 Arguably, the most prominent novel theory of justice in recent years is relational egalitarianism—a theory on which justice requires people to relate as equals. Relational egalitarians are no exception to Kymlicka's claim. They too start from the idea of moral equality. As one of us previously put it, “as a matter of fact, we are one another's moral equals and in relating as equals we honour that fact, and this is what grounds the ideal of relational egalitarianism”.2

In this article, we will assume that not all human beings are moral equals. This is an assumption, not an assertion, on our part. It is motivated partly by the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph, and partly by the nature of the present inquiry: to wit, examining what, if anything, relational egalitarianism implies when it comes to relationships between moral unequals. Must moral unequals relate as moral equals?4 Or as unequals? Or in some third way? We will show that relational egalitarianism has much to say about such relationships. And we will show that what it has to say is plausible.

Before proceeding, we need to defend our line of inquiry in view of the following skeptical challenge. For its supporters, what grounds relational egalitarianism is the fact—so they claim—that people are moral equals. For instance, this seems to be what the following passage from Kolodny implies: “Insofar as we are to have ongoing social relations with other moral equals, we have reason to relate to them as social equals”.5 Hence, to ask what relational egalitarians are committed to saying about social relations in a—in their view—hypothetical situation, where people are not moral equals, is to ask a moot question. It is like asking what a utilitarian is committed to, as regards the right thing to do, if welfare is not valuable. The question makes no sense, because the notion that welfare has value is built into, and therefore presupposed by, utilitarianism. Similarly, the notion that people are moral equals is presupposed by relational egalitarianism.6

While this challenge makes sense, we think that, ultimately, we are asking a perfectly justifiable question, and one we have the resources to answer. First, Kolodny's remark is most naturally taken to mean that moral equals must relate as social and political equals given that, more generally, the way people relate, socially and politically, should fit the way they relate in terms of moral status. If this is correct, Kolodny's view is underpinned by a general commitment to some kind of fittingness; and this general commitment, surely, has implications for the question of how moral unequals should relate, even if Kolodny thinks that people are not moral unequals, and thus even if the implications in question do not materialize in the real world.7 Admittedly, as a matter of logic, one can consistently hold both that if people are moral equals, that justifies certain claims about how they should relate socially and politically and that if they are moral unequals, that does not justify any claims about how they should relate socially and politically. However, such a view seems arbitrary. Why would moral status have implications for how we ought to relate only in cases where people's moral statuses are equal? So the view is not especially plausible. This implausibility is reflected in the complaint: “They treated us as if we were animals”. The complaint assumes, precisely, that people and non-human animals do not enjoy the same high moral status, and that the bad treatment complained about would have been justified (or at least less unjustified) had there been a difference in the moral status of the wrongdoers and the victims of the sort that exists between people and non-human animals.

Second, for reasons brought out in our first response, we believe the analogy with utilitarianism is misleading. Consider a utilitarian who believes that morality requires us to do what realizes the greatest amount of value, and who treats welfare, understood as preference satisfaction, as the only value. Surely, utilitarians of this kind are committed to a view about what morality requires agents to do if what is of value is not welfare as preference satisfaction, but, say, that people's level of welfare match their level of moral desert (as Kant thought would be ideal). That is, they are committed to the view that, morally, we should act so as to maximize the overall fit between levels of welfare and levels of moral desert.

Similarly, in the light of forceful challenges such as those put forward by Arneson, McMahan, and Singer, relational egalitarians should be open to the possibility that people are not moral equals. They should recognize the value of exploring what, if anything, their view commits them to, as regards how we should relate socially and politically, if they are mistaken and not all human beings are moral equals.

Exploring the issue of how moral unequals are required to relate in the relational egalitarian framework is important for several reasons. First, it helps to develop relational egalitarianism as a theory of justice—a theory which still leaves many questions unanswered, because it is relatively young. As we will show, our discussion helps to shed light on the place of children and non-human animals—individuals that are arguably not moral equals of persons—in relational egalitarianism. Second, the exploration will show that relational egalitarian objections to paradigmatic relational inequalities—such as discrimination, racism, and sexism—can be constructed, even if not all human beings are moral equals. That means that the plausibility of relational egalitarianism does not stand or fall with the idea that all humans are moral equals.9 This result is important, given the dilemma Arneson describes above. Third, the exploration illuminates the important point that relational egalitarianism is a large family of theories that differ along many different dimensions, including their responses to the question of how moral unequals should relate.

The article is structured as follows. In Section II, we introduce relational egalitarianism and distinguish two forms: deontic and telic relational egalitarianism. We further distinguish two accounts of deontic relational egalitarianism and explain that these provide different accounts of how moral unequals should relate. We show, moreover, that the least demanding conception of deontic relational egalitarianism provides plausible answers to the question of how moral unequals should relate.10 In Section III, we turn to telic relational egalitarianism. We show that the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians explaining why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply to relationships between moral unequals as well: these reasons are not tied to people with equal moral status. We explore further implications of these arguments in Section IV in relation to the place of children and non-human animals in relational egalitarianism—something about which relational egalitarians have not said much. We provide a relational egalitarian explanation of why adult-adult paternalism may be regarded as more objectionable than parent–child paternalism. Additionally, we respond to a concern which may arise when the claims of people who are moral unequals are being discussed. Section V concludes and presents the main takeaway point of the article: that, fortunately, our commitment to relational, social, and political equality is not hostage to the philosophical discussion about whether all people are moral equals.

The relational egalitarian theory of justice requires people to relate as equals.11 It has received much attention in recent years as a result of relational egalitarians' trenchant criticisms of distributive theories of justice. On these theories, justice is ultimately a matter of distributions.12 Distributive theorists, relational egalitarians argue, fail to see that, ultimately, justice is not about distributions. A given distribution in a society may accord with distributivist requirements of justice, but still not realize justice because, for example, racism and sexism are prevalent in the society. What ultimately matters with justice is, instead, whether relations are suitably egalitarian. Justice requires that people relate to each other as equals.13 For X and Y to relate as equals, relational egalitarians argue, they must (1) regard each other as equals; and (2) treat each other as equals.14

Derek Parfit famously distinguished between telic and deontic egalitarianism. According to the first, “it is in itself bad if some people are worse off than others”.15 This is an axiological view. According to the second, “it is not in itself bad if some people are worse off than others … What is unjust, and therefore bad, is not strictly the state of affairs, but the way in which it was produced”.16 Whereas in telic egalitarianism, inequality is bad, in deontic egalitarianism, inequality is unjust.17 These views are different. To see why, imagine a case in which an inequality is unavoidable. Thus, suppose the inequality was created by a natural disaster, such as an earthquake. Since, in this case, the inequality has not come about through anyone's wrongdoing, it is not unjust on the deontic view. According to the telic view, on the other hand, the inequality is in itself bad even though it is unavoidable.18

So, telic relational egalitarianism says it is (dis)valuable that people relate as (un)equals, whereas deontic relational egalitarianism says that people ought to (not) relate as (un)equals. Lippert-Rasmussen refers to Christian Schemmel and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of deontic relational egalitarians.20 Anderson says that “[Relational] egalitarians base claims to social and political equality on the fact of universal moral equality”.21 Schemmel says, “the objection to [inegalitarian] relationships is not merely that they are, in some sense, bad for people, but that they constitute unjust treatment”.22 Telic relational egalitarians include Martin O'Neill, who says, “The existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare.”23

To relate as moral equals has to do with interests and agency. If we are to relate as moral equals, our interests must be given equal weight and our agency must be equally respected—in a fundamental sense for both.25 If X treats Y in a racist manner, X treats Y's interests as if they are less important, in a fundamental sense, than the interests of non-Y people. X and Y thereby fail to relate as moral equals, and that is unjust on narrow deontic relational egalitarianism.

Of course, it is not enough merely to claim that moral unequals, or some, or many of them, must relate as moral equals. We also need an explanation of why moral unequals, despite being moral unequals, must relate as moral equals. Perhaps the justification for narrow deontic relational egalitarianism can also be used to show why, as broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes, moral unequals must relate as moral equals. Lippert-Rasmussen offers an explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals with reference to fairness.27 On his interpretation of fairness, “it is unfair if people are differently situated if the fact that they are differently situated does not reflect their differential exercise of responsibility”.28 This explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals looks promising. It certainly seems unfair, and therefore unjust, for a black person to be treated in a racist manner by a white person given that they are moral equals.29 But can fairness also explain why moral unequals must relate as moral equals? Can we say that it is unfair if moral unequals, or some, or many of them, relate as moral unequals?

These cognitive and volitional abilities come in degrees. To be a rational agent is to possess them at a certain given level.

On this account of moral status, moral unequals possess rational agency to different degrees. Now, let us suppose that both X and Y have moral status, but that X has higher moral status than Y in virtue of possessing rational agency capacity to a higher degree. One fairness-based argument for the view that it is unjust if X and Y relate as moral unequals runs as follows. Suppose X's possession of a higher degree of the capacity for rational agency than Y is due to nature and nurture—for example, X is bright, and their parents have raised them in a way that has been conducive to their achieving a high level of rational agency. In this case, the differences in the capacity for rational agency between X and Y are not due to their differential exercise of responsibility. Thus, if Y relates as an inferior to X because X has the higher moral status, the fact that X is differently situated (for example, in that Y should treat X's interests as more important than their own in a fundamental sense) does not reflect X's and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. And since being differently situated when this does not reflect differential exercise of responsibility is unfair, it is unjust that X and Y relate as moral unequals despite their being moral unequals.

A significant challenge to this argument is that it only goes through if X and Y's differing capacities for rational agency are not due to their differing exercises of responsibility.33 This is a challenge, because it seems highly likely that the abilities constituting the capacity for rational agency can be affected by the exercise of responsibility. For instance, one of the components of rational agency is the ability to “deliberate and make choices”. It seems reasonable to assume that the more one deliberates, the better one becomes at deliberating. If X decides to devote a considerable amount of their time to deliberating and Y does not because they would rather do something else, we may expect that, over time, X will become better than Y at deliberating and making choices.34 And if that is the case, and all else is equal, X will at that point have a greater capacity for rational agency than Y, and thus, at least on some views, higher moral status than Y. In this case, their possession of unequal degrees of the capacity for rational agency is a result of X and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. So, it would be unfair if they were not differently situated: that is, if they did not relate as moral unequals. It follows that fairness can ground broad deontic relational egalitarianism only if we assume that human beings are not responsible for their degree of the capacity for rational agency (and, more generally, are not responsible for their full or partial possession of the property, or properties, grounding moral status). If they are so responsible—which they seem to be, at least to some degree—it would be unfair for moral unequals to relate as moral equals.

This account of deontic relational egalitarianism is not egalitarian “all the way down”, in the sense that it denies that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We therefore refer to it as deontic relational justice. But it is still egalitarian in the sense that moral equals must, as relational egalitarians prescribe, relate as moral equals. When it comes to moral unequals, the account only applies to entities with sufficient moral standing.35 It does not say anything about, say, rocks, assuming they have no moral standing at all. The account does not say, for instance, that a human being and a rock must relate as moral sufficients. But where entities with sufficient, but unequal, moral standing are concerned, the account says that they must relate as moral sufficients.36

If, in a marriage, one party's interests always trump the other's, the parties fail to relate as moral equals. If they are moral equals, this is unjust. Moral unequals, on the other hand, do not have to grant each other's interests the same weight in their collective decisions.

Arguably, to relate as moral sufficients, the marital parties do not have to satisfy the Egalitarian Deliberative Constraint in their dealings with each other. It suffices that they have a standing disposition to treat each other's interests as playing a role which is somehow fitting given their relative moral statuses.39 But it is a long way from acknowledging this to saying that “anything goes, morally speaking”. Importantly, by adopting deontic relational justice, relational egalitarians will be able to object to most of the types of relational inequality to which they would want to object, even if some human beings are moral unequals. As Lippert-Rasmussen posits, the possession of “‘sufficient moral standing’ means that there is, in some sense, a sufficient number of sufficiently important things that one cannot do, morally speaking, to that individual and which this individual is permitted to do.”40

Arguably, two of the sufficiently important things one cannot do to individuals with sufficient moral standing are discriminate against or dominate them. Suppose a two-year-old child and one of her parents are not moral equals, but they both have sufficient moral standing.41 We take it that we would find the relational inequality which would result from the parent treating the child in a sexist manner objectionable, because the parent thereby fails to treat the child as a being with sufficient moral standing (we would reach the same verdict, we take it, in cases of domination and racism as well). Similarly, if a normally functioning adult treats a person with Down syndrome in a sexist manner, they fail to treat them as a human being with sufficient moral standing.

We can imagine cases where the gap in moral standing between two human beings is even smaller. Suppose an adult, Bert, has a very slightly higher moral standing than another adult, Carl. If Bert discriminates against Carl, it is hard to see how he could be treating Carl as a being with sufficient moral standing. Importantly, these ways of treating others—discrimination, domination, racist and sexist treatment—are paradigmatic relational inequalities.42 This shows that even if human beings are moral unequals,43 relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, are not barred from objecting to paradigmatic relational inequalities.44

At this point, one might have a serious concern about our exploration of the idea that, even if people are moral sufficients, the standard relational egalitarian objection to paradigmatic relational inequalities stands. In explaining the importance of this article's main question—how should people relate, according to relational egalitarianism, if they are not moral equals?—we noted that, in the philosophical literature, there are forceful challenges to the notion of basic moral equality, citing among other things Arneson's continuity question: if moral status results from rational capacities, why is the moral status of people not a scalar matter in such a way that those with greater rational capacities have greater moral status? The concern is that at least some of these challenges also cast doubt on the threshold notion of moral sufficients, and motivate a continuous, graduated view of individual moral status instead.45

In response, we note, first, that this concern is not about the truth of our main claim (that even if we are not moral equals, we should, from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, relate as sufficients), but its importance. We are not arguing that people are moral sufficients (or moral incommensurables). We are arguing that if they are, it remains the case that they should not relate in the inegalitarian ways (for example, involving discrimination or domination) that relational egalitarians think moral equals should avoid. This can be true, even if the continuity challenge gives us good reason to think that people are not moral sufficients.

Second, and much more importantly, we think the present challenge suggests we should extend the scope of our robustness claim beyond people being moral sufficients or moral incommensurables. Suppose moral status is very much a scalar thing, and that people therefore vary in their moral status beyond the variation involved in the claim that they, or most of them, are moral sufficients. Even so, it will still be the case that discrimination and domination—the sorts of inegalitarian relations that relational egalitarians object to—are wrong when they occur in relations between moral unequals—at least, it will be, if those with inferior moral status have sufficiently high status (which might simply be some moral status). Even if animals, say, have lower moral status than human beings, it is still wrong to dominate them; and even if children have lower moral standing than adults, it is wrong to treat a child in a sexist manner.

In claiming this, we do not have to assume that the wrongness of domination and discrimination is a binary, as opposed to a scalar, matter—that there are no degrees of their wrongness. It may be that discrimination is worse when the person subjected to it has higher moral standing than when the sufferer has lower standing, other things being equal. But this is compatible with discrimination still being wrong when directed at an individual with a lower moral standing. If that is correct, the present challenge points in the direction of an even more ambitious, and for that reason even more interesting, claim than the main claim regarding robustness that we defend in this article.

In this section, we have explored what deontic relational egalitarianism implies in situations involving moral unequals. Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We saw that fairness can explain why that is so if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. Deontic relational justice avoids relying on this assumption by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients. If X and Y relate as moral sufficients, there are ways in which they must not treat each other: for example, neither can treat the other in a racist or sexist way.46 This shows that relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, put themselves in a position to object to discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism even if human beings are not moral equals (at least, as long as the involved parties have a sufficient moral standing).

We will explore two questions: (1) is it bad if moral unequals relate as moral unequals? (2) is it good if moral unequals relate as moral equals? In answering these questions, we propose to look at the reasons relational egalitarians have provided for holding that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good. We will explore whether these reasons read across successfully to relationships between moral unequals.

Two caveats: first, we devote more space to the reasons why inegalitarian relationships are bad than we do to the reasons why egalitarian ones are good. This is not because we believe the latter are unimportant—they clearly are important. It is because we wish to investigate whether the reasons that relational egalitarians have themselves given to explain the value implications of (in)egalitarian relationships tell us anything about relationships between moral unequals. It so happens that these reasons have tended to be constructed around the idea that inegalitarian relationships are bad, rather than the idea that egalitarian relationships are good.

Second, relational egalitarians have argued that relational inequality is intrinsically bad in various ways. It might be suggested that, at most, they have shown relational inequality to be reliably instrumentally bad: that is, bad not in itself, but in virtue of its effects, and that, accordingly, the arguments do not amount to sound arguments in favor of telic relational egalitarianism.48 In response, we note first that (as we occasionally indicate below) we share the suspicion manifested in this response. However, we shall refrain from going deeper into this matter, since ultimately it pertains not to whether inegalitarian relations are bad, but rather to the way in which, according to relational egalitarians, they are so. Our main concern is to ask whether the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians themselves for thinking that inegalitarian relationships between moral equals are intrinsically bad apply to inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals as well. It is not to examine whether relational egalitarians are correct in seeing (at least many of) their arguments as arguments for telic egalitarianism (though we suspect they are not), as opposed to arguments for unequal relations being bad in virtue of their consequences.

With these caveats entered, we turn to examine the specific reasons relational egalitarians have given for holding that unequal relationships are (as they believe, intrinsically) bad. Do these reasons read across to relationships between moral unequals?

T. M. Scanlon has claimed that inegalitarian relationships are bad because “it is an evil for people to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior”.49 He explains that this is an evil because it leads to stigmatizing differences in status, with “damage to individuals' sense of self-worth”.50 In a racist society, the inequality between a black person and a white person may lead the former to devalue their self-worth.51 Is it only an evil for a person to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior, in a way which leads to damage to that person's self-worth if the people involved are moral equals? It seems not.

Suppose that Higher and Lower are moral unequals: Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, although Lower still has sufficient moral standing. Suppose now that they relate as moral unequals—for example, they both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's agency, and they both treat it as such. Even if that were so, the inegalitarian relationship could still lead Lower to devalue their self-worth more than they should given their differences in moral status.52 Suppose Lower undervalues their self-worth relative to their moral standing. Suppose, further, that they do so to the extent that they believe their own interests have no importance at all in decisions about their and Higher's collective affairs. Lower comes to feel excessively inferior, morally speaking. In this kind of case, inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad, because they lead the morally inferior individuals to devalue their self-worth in such a way that that they fail to acknowledge, to a suitable degree, the moral value they have in virtue of having sufficient moral standing. Although there may in general be a higher risk of inegalitarian relationships between moral equals leading to damage to self-worth, the risk is there in inegalitarian relationships as well.

Another reason inegalitarian relationships are bad, according to Scanlon, is that they may do “damage to the bonds between people”.53 As he explains, in this case—as opposed to in the case of damage to self-worth—the loss is suffered by both inferior and superior. An inegalitarian relationship between moral unequals may also lead to damage to the bonds between people. The relationship between Higher and Lower, if it is inegalitarian, with Higher being treated by both as superior to Lower, may damage the bond between them. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that if they had looked past the slight inequality in moral status between them and related as equals instead, the bond between them, and the relationship, might have been stronger. The point is not that it necessarily would, but that we can easily see how it could have been. It is important to remember that, in this context, saying that an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals is bad is not to say that it is (therefore) unjust. Things may be bad but not unjust—for example, the fact that Higher and Lower are not equally aesthetically pleasing may be bad, but not an injustice.54 Thus, it is not a criticism of this argument that it is unjust that moral unequals relate as moral equals. What is being argued is merely that, just as an inegalitarian relationship between two moral equals may do damage to the bond between them, an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals may do damage to the bond between them.

This stance can be challenged by appealing to a moralized concept of causation. It might be said that damage to bonds between people (whether moral equals or not) results only when they are psychologically disposed in certain ways. Because, ex hypothesi, Higher in our example should morally relate to Lower as a superior in view of Higher's superior moral status, any damage to their bonds results (in the moralized sense of “results”) not from their relating as unequals, but from the psychological dispositions which they have, and in the absence of which unequal relations between them would not have resulted in a damage to their bonds.55 We accept the terminological aspect of this challenge. That is, we agree that there is a moralized sense of “results” in which the damage to bonds in our case of Higher and Lower results from their psychological dispositions and not from their unequal relations. However, we think that, for the purpose of assessing the (extrinsic) badness of unequal relations, we should not be interested only in what counts as the bad effects of unequal relations on a narrow, moralized conception of “results”. In a similar way, when assessing the badness of an act of justified self-defense, we should not disregard the harm to the attacker (which might be disproportionate), even though, on a moralized conception of causation, we might say that the harm to the attacker “results from” their unjust aggression and not from the act of self-defense.

A third kind of reason relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad is that these relationships lead to less protection of the inferior's interests than an egalitarian relationship would. As Anderson says, “To be subject to another's command threatens one's interests, as those in command are liable to serve themselves at the expense of their sub-ordinates”.56 One interest that will be threatened is one's interest in freedom. It seems fair to say that there is a strong empirical relationship between relational equality and option-freedom57 (such that the more inegalitarian the relationship is, the less option-freedom the inferior member will have).58 This seems to be the case irrespective of whether it is an inegalitarian relationship between moral equals or moral unequals. Whether the master and his slave are moral equals or unequals, the master has the same degree of control over his slave—and thus the same degree of control over how much option-freedom the slave should have.59 Again, this is not about what degree of option-freedom a person with a particular moral status deserves, or ought to have. The question is: could the fact that a relationship between moral unequals is inegalitarian lead to less option-freedom for the subordinate member of that relationship than would have been available to them had the relationship been egalitarian instead? As far as we can see, the answer is yes.

Fourth, there are costs tied exclusively to being a superior. These also help to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad. As Scheffler explains, the patterns of deference and privilege in inegalitarian relationships “distort people's attitudes toward themselves, undermining the self-respect of some and encouraging the insidious sense of superiority in others”.60 This, as Scheffler's remarks illustrate, is the reverse of the first reason we discussed. In other words, just as an inegalitarian relationship may lead the inferior member to devalue their self-worth, it may also lead the superior member to overvalue their self-worth and, thus, be bad for that reason.61 Bearing this in mind, suppose once again that Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who still has sufficient moral standing. Assume once more that they relate as moral unequals: that is, both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's and both treat it as such. Within these assumptions, an inegalitarian relationship may still lead Higher to overvalue their self-worth—to value it more highly than is appropriate given their differences in moral status. For example, it may mean that Higher, in overvaluing their self-worth, believe that their interests are the only relevant ones in deciding collective affairs involving both Lower and themselves. It may mean they come to feel excessively superior, morally speaking.

Finally, inegalitarian relations have been held to be bad because they create, or involve, servility and deferential behavior.62 Intuitively, inferior status may indeed lead a person to be servile and to show deference. After all, by being servile and deferring to their master—and ensuring, in general, that they do not disappoint their master—the slave stands the best chance of avoiding punishment, or so they might reasonably believe. Indeed, in inegalitarian relationships there is pressure for the inferior to ingratiate themselves with their superior.63 Pressure to ingratiate also seems to be present in relationships between people with unequal moral standing.64 For instance, a parent may have higher moral standing than their child, so that their relationship is an inegalitarian one obtaining between moral unequals. Even so, there may still be pressure for the child to ingratiate themselves with their parent—for example, not to do things that may upset their parent and potentially lead to their being grounded.

In short, then, it seems that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad can very often be invoked to explain why inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad. They do not, it seems, have a close connection with the moral status of the parties to the relationship, and for this reason they are translatable to cases involving moral unequals.

Let us turn to relational egalitarians' explanation of why egalitarian relationships are good.65 We want to focus on just one such reason.66 Some relational egalitarians argue that egalitarian relationships are impersonally good.67 Martin O'Neill is arguably the most prominent advocate of this view. He says, “the existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare”.68 For instance, even if it is the case in a sexist society that an inegalitarian marriage would be better for the parties to it than an egalitarian one, the egalitarian marriage would still be impersonally valuable. But if we believe that egalitarian relationships between moral equals are impersonally valuable, it seems hard to deny that egalitarian relationships between moral unequals could also be impersonally valuable (even if not to the same extent). After all, the difference in moral standing may be very small.

Suppose that, in one case, A and B have equal moral standing and relate as equals and that, in another case, C has a slightly lower moral standing than D, but they relate as equals. What might explain the fact that A and B's egalitarian relationship is impersonally valuable, but C and D's is not? Clearly, A and B's relationship might have higher impersonal value than C and D's relationship. But it is a large step from this to saying that the relationship between C and D has no impersonal value at all,69 especially given, first, that A and B's relationship is impersonally valuable and, second, that the difference in moral standing between C and D is very small.

We have seen that relational egalitarianism is not silent in cases where human beings are moral unequals. Depending on how they take people to acquire the properties grounding moral status, deontic relational egalitarians can plausibly support either broad deontic relational egalitarianism or deontic relational justice. The reasons telic relational egalitarians have offered to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply, at least to some extent, if not to the same extent, to relationships between moral unequals. In this section, we consider what this implies for relational egalitarianism.

These remarks suggest that relational egalitarians judge parent–child and adult–adult paternalism differently: an adult treating another adult paternalistically is objectionable, a parent treating their child paternalistically is not—or, at least, is less objectionable. Relational egalitarians who take this line must explain this difference.71

The arguments presented in this article may provide the necessary explanation, if we assume that parents and their children are not moral equals. This seems reasonable, the more so where infants and small children are concerned. But it also seems reasonable to suppose that young children have sufficient moral standing that there are things one owes to them not to do to them.72 Remember that deontic relational justice is the view that moral equals must relate as moral equals and that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients.

According to Anderson, when A treats B paternalistically, A and B fail to relate as equals because the paternalizer, A, is in effect telling the paternalizee, B, that he is “too stupid to run his own life”.73 If this is right, it explains why adult–adult paternalism is objectionable (assuming adults are moral equals). Adult–adult paternalism is objectionable, because moral equals must relate as moral equals, and when an adult treats another adult paternalistically, they fail to relate in this way. In cases of parent–child paternalism involving an infant or toddler, the parent is not treating a moral equal in a paternalistic manner. They are treating a moral unequal in a paternalistic manner. It may be that paternalism is more objectionable when it is directed at someone you should relate to as an equal than when it is directed at someone you should relate to as a sufficient. If so, there is a difference between adult–adult and parent–child paternalism. Whether this argument ultimately succeeds, the point is that our reflections on the implications of relational egalitarianism for moral unequals are useful in determining the place of children in relational egalitarianism.

In fact, the relevance of this discussion of paternalism extends beyond the place of children in relational egalitarianism. If it is true that paternalism is more objectionable when directed against someone you should relate to as an equal than someone you should relate to as a sufficient, relational egalitarians need to be more attentive and nuanced in their judgments of paternalism between adults (for example, more attentive than Anderson is in her remarks above). As we mentioned earlier, recent philosophical discussions have cast doubt on the moral equality of human beings. If these philosophers are right, and some adults are not moral equals, cases of adult–adult paternalism will not always, and automatically, be equally objectionable. Objecting to paternalism may be a more intricate matter than relational egalitarians have assumed.74

With some exceptions, people and philosophers alike believe that humans and non-human animals are not moral equals. Although non-human animals (or certain types of them) are now usually accorded moral standing, that standing is set lower than the moral standing of human beings, essentially because animals are not sentient in the way that the latter are, or can be.75 Given this, our discussion may also help to show how the relational egalitarian should view the relationship between human beings and non-human animals.76 Arguably, human beings should not relate to non-human animals as if they are their moral equals. But insofar as some non-human animals, such as bonobos, have sufficient moral standing, human beings should relate to them as moral sufficients. Thus, it will be unjust for human beings to ignore the interests of non-human animals when making decisions that concern both human beings and non-human animals. The exploitation of non-human animals may also be unjust.77 Anderson claims that exploitation violates relational inequality.78 If, as seems plausible, in some cases of exploitation the exploiter and exploitee fail to relate as sufficients, relational egalitarians supporting deontic relational justice may be in a position to object, for that very reason, to some exploitative relations between humans and non-human animals. Thus, our discussion may also help to locate the appropriate place of non-human animals in relational egalitarianism.

We would like to end by looking at a worry that might arise when the way in which moral unequals are required to relate is being discussed. To see the worry, imagine the following. Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who has sufficient moral standing. Higher's standing is inferior to that of Superior1, and Lower's standing is inferior to that of Superior2, and they are both inferior to the same degree. The interests Higher and Lower have in having their standing raised in their relationships are equally strong. For some reason, we can only raise the standing of either Higher or Lower, but not both, and we must raise the standing of one of them. In this case, it seems that Higher's claim is stronger, all else being equal, than Lower's, because Higher has higher moral standing than Lower.

Some may find this result disturbing.79 We have two responses. First, if this is a valid objection to relational egalitarianism, it is also a valid objection to other prominent theories of justice, including distributive theories of justice such as luck egalitarianism.80 This is because the objection arises from the assumption that some human beings are moral unequals together with the further assumption that, where all else is equal, the higher the moral standing of an entity, the weightier their claim on us.81 These assumptions explain why the claims of humans are stronger than those of cockroaches (the latter do not have claims since they lack moral standing). Their denial would lead to a highly implausible theory of justice. Second, this also helps us to see why the case of Higher and Lower, and their superiors, does not present a valid objection to relational egalitarianism. If it were a valid objection, it would be an objection to the notion that some human beings are moral unequals, not to relational egalitarianism. For, if all human beings were moral equals, relational egalitarianism would not entail that we should prioritize any one person's claims over anyone else's. Instead, a fair decision procedure, such as a lottery giving each the same chance of having her standing raised, would have to be used. Thus, if one finds the implications of the case of Lower, Higher and the superiors disturbing, the most suitable response is to try to find a good reason to think that all human beings are moral equals.

In this article, noting that recent philosophical discussions of moral equality have shown how difficult it is to establish that human beings are moral equals, we have taken as a starting point the assumption that not all human beings are moral equals; some are unequals. We then investigated what, if anything, relational egalitarianism—a theory of justice according to which justice requires equal relations between moral equals—has to say about relationships involving moral unequals. We distinguished deontic from telic relational egalitarianism. We then distinguished two deontic theories: broad deontic relational egalitarianism and deontic relational justice.

Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as equals. We argued that fairness may explain why that is the case if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. The problem with that tack is that it is plausible that, at least to some degree, people are responsible for those properties. Deontic relational justice avoids this problem by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients (not moral equals). Relational egalitarians who adopt this weaker requirement are still able to object to cases of discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism in relationships involving moral unequals (as long as the involved parties have sufficient moral standing). In relation to telic relational egalitarianism, we argued that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships good are not tied to moral status; they also apply, perhaps to a lesser extent, to relationships between moral unequals. Thus, both deontic and telic relational egalitarianism deliver plausible judgments, even if we assume that some human beings are not the moral equals of others.

The main effect of our arguments, and one that we consider very fortunate, is to detach the view that we should relate as moral equals from the view that all people are in fact moral equals. The former does not require the latter. Thus, the idea that we should relate as moral equals is not hostage to the fortunes of the highly contested notion that all human beings have equal moral status.

Andreas Bengtson thanks the Independent Research Fund Denmark (1027-00002B) and both authors thank the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF144) for financial support for work on this article.

There are no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

The authors declare human ethics approval was not needed for this study.

求助全文
通过发布文献求助,成功后即可免费获取论文全文。 去求助
来源期刊
CiteScore
4.10
自引率
5.60%
发文量
17
期刊介绍: The Journal of Political Philosophy is an international journal devoted to the study of theoretical issues arising out of moral, legal and political life. It welcomes, and hopes to foster, work cutting across a variety of disciplinary concerns, among them philosophy, sociology, history, economics and political science. The journal encourages new approaches, including (but not limited to): feminism; environmentalism; critical theory, post-modernism and analytical Marxism; social and public choice theory; law and economics, critical legal studies and critical race studies; and game theoretic, socio-biological and anthropological approaches to politics. It also welcomes work in the history of political thought which builds to a larger philosophical point and work in the philosophy of the social sciences and applied ethics with broader political implications. Featuring a distinguished editorial board from major centres of thought from around the globe, the journal draws equally upon the work of non-philosophers and philosophers and provides a forum of debate between disparate factions who usually keep to their own separate journals.
期刊最新文献
Evaluating International Agreements: The Voluntarist Reply and Its Limits Issue Information The Journal of Political Philosophy Index, Volume 31 (2023) The challenge of policing minorities in a liberal society Noncompliance and the Demands of Public Reason
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1