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Disadvantage
What does it mean to be disadvantaged? Is it possible to compare different disadvantages? What should governments do to move their societies in the direction of equality, where equality is to be understood both in distributional and social terms? Linking rigorous analytical philosophical theory with broad empirical studies, including interviews conducted for the purpose of this book, Wolff and de-Shalit show how taking theory and practice together is essential if the theory is to be rich enough to be applied to the real world, and policy systematic enough to have purpose and justification.
The book is in three parts. Part 1 presents a pluralist analysis of disadvantage, modifying the capability theory of Sen and Nussbaum to produce the 'genuine opportunity for secure functioning' view. This emphasizes risk and insecurity as a central component of disadvantage. Part 2 shows how to identify the least advantaged in society even on a pluralist view. The authors suggest that disadvantage 'clusters' in the sense that some people are disadvantaged in several different respects. Thus identifying the least advantaged is not as problematic as it appears to be. Conversely, a society which has 'declustered disadvantaged'--in the sense that no group lacks secure functioning on a range of functionings--has made considerable progress in the direction of equality. Part 3 explores how to decluster disadvantage, by paying special attention to 'corrosive disadvantages'--those disadvantages which cause further disadvantages--and 'fertile functionings'--those which are likely to secure other
functionings.
In sum this books presents a refreshing new analysis of disadvantage, and puts forward proposals to help governments improve the lives of the least advantaged in their societies, thereby moving in the direction of equality.
The book is in three parts. Part 1 presents a pluralist analysis of disadvantage, modifying the capability theory of Sen and Nussbaum to produce the 'genuine opportunity for secure functioning' view. This emphasizes risk and insecurity as a central component of disadvantage. Part 2 shows how to identify the least advantaged in society even on a pluralist view. The authors suggest that disadvantage 'clusters' in the sense that some people are disadvantaged in several different respects. Thus identifying the least advantaged is not as problematic as it appears to be. Conversely, a society which has 'declustered disadvantaged'--in the sense that no group lacks secure functioning on a range of functionings--has made considerable progress in the direction of equality. Part 3 explores how to decluster disadvantage, by paying special attention to 'corrosive disadvantages'--those disadvantages which cause further disadvantages--and 'fertile functionings'--those which are likely to secure other
functionings.
In sum this books presents a refreshing new analysis of disadvantage, and puts forward proposals to help governments improve the lives of the least advantaged in their societies, thereby moving in the direction of equality.
248 pages, Hardcover
First published April 26, 2007
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About the author
Jonathan Wolff
39 books63 followersJonathan Wolff is a Professor specialising in political philosophy at University College London, in England. Wolff earned his MPhil from UCL under the direction of G.A. Cohen. He is the secretary of the British Philosophical Association and honorary secretary of the Aristotelian Society, which publishes Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Recently, Wolff's work has specialized in disadvantage and equality and public policy decision making.
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May 10, 2017
Disadvantage makes an important contribution by introducing the concepts of clustering, "corrosive disadvantages" and "fertile functionings." The authors neatly avoid the problems of indexing plural values by pointing out that clustering dynamics does a lot of the indexing work for the reformer. They make the further ingenious point that a society that has achieved genuine equality will be one where such clustering of disadvantages wouldn't occur. There will still be disadvantages, but they wouldn't be ruinous. The indexing problem wouldn't be solved, but it also wouldn't matter very much.
Fertile functioning likewise works against the indeterminacy problems associated with plural value systems (like the capabilities approach the authors use). If certain functionings or capabilities can be identified that reliably tend to lead individuals to achieve other important functionings, then policy should focus first on promoting these fertile functionings. An example they use is affiliation. Being embedded within a social network--having friends and family, participating in groups--is an important functioning in its own right, but it also leads to better health, better security against misfortune, and access to work and leisure opportunities.
The authors don't mention this, but an immediate thought I had was that access to high quality legal and market institutions can be seen as such a fertile functioning as it leads to innovations in health and leisure in addition to the general abundance they produce and the intrinsically worthwhile security of civil and property rights.
The method the authors use is interesting as well. They conducted in depth interviews with persons identified as being either disadvantaged themselves (by a prior reckoning of disadvantage) or as people close to disadvantage, like social workers. This wasn't a scientific polling, as the authors were interested in more than just the participants' pre-existing views. Pre-existing views were noted, but then they were asked to engage with the philosophically informed prompts. The results were used to inform the philosophical models themselves. The authors called this "public dynamic reflective equilibrium."
One complaint I had about the book was the apparently naive belief that there must always be a government policy response to identified disadvantage. They occasionally note where skeptics might make this criticism, but they don't seem to take it seriously. As an example, in the discussion of affiliation, they note that the government obviously cannot coerce citizens into engaging with one another, but that that the government can subsidize various community organizations. But the authors left unremarked the problem of how to choose which organizations to subsidize, how such choices will inevitably lead to political contestation and quite possibly a scourge rent-seeking, and the various reasons citizens might object to their taxes being used to prop up organizations they have reason to oppose. After all, churches are one of the main sources of community belonging in the world and state support for specific churches at best creates a tension with obligations to neutrality.
Finally, just as a side note, I was surprised at how dismissive the authors were of universal basic income guarantees. UBI proposals were dismissed as poorly targeted and on the basis that mere increases in wealth won't solve various problems like lack of affiliation and poor health. But of course no fertile functioning is a silver bullet. For authors who otherwise go to great pains to emphasize the importance of being secure from risk (one of their italicized phrases is "(genuine) opportunities for (secure) functionings"), the advantages of a stable source of income to supplement other income and other more targeted programs should be obvious, but it's completely ignored. Even if a person may not change their life much by an additional 10k/year (or whatever), the very knowledge that they had that income to fall back on in case of an emergency could alleviate much of the stress, health side effects, and relations of dependence and domination associated with poverty.
Fertile functioning likewise works against the indeterminacy problems associated with plural value systems (like the capabilities approach the authors use). If certain functionings or capabilities can be identified that reliably tend to lead individuals to achieve other important functionings, then policy should focus first on promoting these fertile functionings. An example they use is affiliation. Being embedded within a social network--having friends and family, participating in groups--is an important functioning in its own right, but it also leads to better health, better security against misfortune, and access to work and leisure opportunities.
The authors don't mention this, but an immediate thought I had was that access to high quality legal and market institutions can be seen as such a fertile functioning as it leads to innovations in health and leisure in addition to the general abundance they produce and the intrinsically worthwhile security of civil and property rights.
The method the authors use is interesting as well. They conducted in depth interviews with persons identified as being either disadvantaged themselves (by a prior reckoning of disadvantage) or as people close to disadvantage, like social workers. This wasn't a scientific polling, as the authors were interested in more than just the participants' pre-existing views. Pre-existing views were noted, but then they were asked to engage with the philosophically informed prompts. The results were used to inform the philosophical models themselves. The authors called this "public dynamic reflective equilibrium."
One complaint I had about the book was the apparently naive belief that there must always be a government policy response to identified disadvantage. They occasionally note where skeptics might make this criticism, but they don't seem to take it seriously. As an example, in the discussion of affiliation, they note that the government obviously cannot coerce citizens into engaging with one another, but that that the government can subsidize various community organizations. But the authors left unremarked the problem of how to choose which organizations to subsidize, how such choices will inevitably lead to political contestation and quite possibly a scourge rent-seeking, and the various reasons citizens might object to their taxes being used to prop up organizations they have reason to oppose. After all, churches are one of the main sources of community belonging in the world and state support for specific churches at best creates a tension with obligations to neutrality.
Finally, just as a side note, I was surprised at how dismissive the authors were of universal basic income guarantees. UBI proposals were dismissed as poorly targeted and on the basis that mere increases in wealth won't solve various problems like lack of affiliation and poor health. But of course no fertile functioning is a silver bullet. For authors who otherwise go to great pains to emphasize the importance of being secure from risk (one of their italicized phrases is "(genuine) opportunities for (secure) functionings"), the advantages of a stable source of income to supplement other income and other more targeted programs should be obvious, but it's completely ignored. Even if a person may not change their life much by an additional 10k/year (or whatever), the very knowledge that they had that income to fall back on in case of an emergency could alleviate much of the stress, health side effects, and relations of dependence and domination associated with poverty.
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