THE
PUSHPIN PUNDIT
Rawls, Utilitarianism, and the Welfare State: Did Rawls Undermine what Utilitarianism
Built?
(posted June 2, 2006)
Rawls
is sometimes considered the philosopher of the welfare state – as if the
welfare state had no philosophy before he published A Theory of Justice in 1971.
This view grants too much to Rawls, and too little to
utilitarianism. After all, who do you
think put the “welfare” in the welfare state?
As FDR proclaimed in his 1936 campaign, “Always… your Government has had but
one sign on its desk—‘Seek only the greater good of the greater number of
Americans.’” An inexact
statement of the principle of utility, to be sure, but the utilitarian
sentiment is clear.
Rawls
was not needed to provide a philosophical grounding for the welfare state
because utilitarianism had long since accomplished that task. However, Rawls may have played a role in
undermining the welfare state. During
the period when utilitarianism was the dominant theory of distributive justice,
the welfare state was created, expanded, and strengthened. Since Rawls dethroned utilitarianism in the
early 1970’s, the record of the political Left has been mixed at best,
especially in English-speaking countries.
Coincidence?
Perhaps…
I
am not entirely serious about this, but I am not entirely joking either. Rawls appeals to a baseline – absolute
economic equality – that is foreign to the experience of almost everyone in
society. As a result, his theory is less
able than utilitarianism to support an overlapping consensus (to coin a phrase)
in favor of the welfare state.
The
baseline that is most salient to people is the baseline of the status quo. From that baseline, Rawls’s difference principle, and his principle of fair equality of opportunity, treat
people who are advantaged almost purely as a means to the betterment of those
who are less advantaged. Any sacrifice
by the better-off, no matter how great, is said to be justified if it provides
any increase, no matter how small, in fair equality of opportunity or in the
situation of the least advantaged class.
How could anyone possibly think that such a lopsided theory could
achieve the general assent of an entire society? If those who are better off are asked to
support greater economic equality based on such a theory, their predominant
reaction must be: forget greater
economic equality.
The
overlapping consensus necessary to sustain an extensive welfare state (not to
mention Rawls’s own more ambitious plans) is not a consensus between theories
of the good, as Rawls would have it.
Catholic Rawlsians, Protestant Rawlsians and Jewish Rawlsians may all
agree on Rawls’s principles of justice, but that does not get us very far. The requisite consensus in favor of the
welfare state is a consensus between, or at least cutting across, economic classes. Only utilitarianism can achieve and maintain
such a consensus,
because only utilitarianism can say to the better off: “Your welfare counts as much as the welfare
of those who are worse off. You need not
sacrifice for their benefit unless they would gain more than you would lose.”
Of
course, it’s not easy, even for utilitarianism, to maintain an overlapping
consensus in favor of an extensive welfare state. People are never eager to give up things for
the benefit of others. But people are
sometimes willing to give up things if
others will benefit more, especially if the difference in benefit is large,
and if there is a focused social message in favor of utilitarian
redistribution. By contrast, it is
unrealistically utopian to think that people will be willing to give up things
for the sake of others if those others
will benefit less. Utopian
egalitarian philosophies, such as the one offered by Rawls, undermine the
welfare state by sapping the strength and focus of the utilitarian
message.
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