Can inequality ever be justified?
Francis Aznaran
To ask whether inequality can be justified is to suppose in the first place that it is somehow a bad thing. A ‘thing’ which is inherently ‘good’ (I am aware of the vagueness of such terms) would surely not require justification, it would be accepted as a right thing to advocate (or enforce) simply by its being good. As ‘justification’ is required with regards to inequality, I shall accept the premise that inequality is fundamentally bad – as it is unfair, immoral and so forth – but what I will explore, whether inequality has any benefits, direct or indirect, which somehow collectively outweigh the ‘badness’ created by inequality in the first place. In his Discourse Rousseau begins with the ideas for natural inequality conventional inequality and political inequality. I will address first ‘natural’ inequality. What is meant by this term is inequality which manifests itself in differences between the bodies or minds of different individuals; for example, person A is taller than person B (hereafter called A and B respectively), or A is more aesthetically attractive than person B, or A has a quicker mind than B. Such inequalities are those with which we are born. Therefore, we cannot attempt to justify them; to do so would be to question the judgement of nature, which acts largely arbitrarily and unpredictably. That is to say, if A is taller than B, it is simply a question of luck, of chance (assuming both have been fed equally etc.) Save from chopping off A’s legs, there is nothing we can do to amend the inequality between A and B. To question whether the difference in height is effectively meaningless. It is accepted generally and I must agree with this, that if A is taller than you, that is simply something up with which you have to put. Realize also that since the distribution of such
features by nature is largely random, it is more than likely that, for example, although A is taller than you, you are better looking than him; and although A is naturally smarter than you, you are a faster runner, and so on. In this way, many of the ‘natural’ inequalities between men balance or cancel one another. And if they don’t? Well, I reiterate, such things simply seem to be the luck of the draw. You will have to put up with your lot. I concede that this is a depressingly unsatisfactory conclusion, since I am effectively saying ‘that’s it, live with it’, but I see no other way to reconcile natural inequality with standard moral codes. That said, there is much provision for dealing with those inequalities of nature that are far more apparent, extreme or impeding. For example, those with non-existent or non- functional legs are given wheelchairs, so that they might travel with almost the same ease and speed of their legged peers. Dyslexics are given laptops so that they can write with the same legibility of their peers. While this may seem to constitute a justification of said inequalities, it is only an amendment of already existing ‘natural’ inequalities – and not a complete one at that, since by today’s standards at least, a wheelchair does not give the user the same or equivalent functions as would working legs. For the less pronounced inequalities (A is taller than you), however, there is little we can do about it. What’s more, Darwinist theory of genetics has showed that variation within the gene pool (such as different heights) is in fact a good thing for the entire species. The ramifications of natural inequality, however, are more far-reaching than a simple difference in height. Rousseau hypothesises that ‘conventional’ inequality (of money, land, power etc.) is intertwined with natural
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