Is Williams right in thinking that equality requires us to have a 'relevant reason' every time people are treated differently?

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Is Williams right in thinking that equality requires us to have a ‘relevant reason’ every time people are treated differently?

I think that Williams’ notion of equality is a very important one because it doesn’t try to deal with the issue of what has to be changed in the structure of the society (like a Marxist might argue), or doesn’t try to come up with a universal solution, but tries to find a way of acting and thinking that should be common to all people to help reduce the margin of inequality that is such a predominant characteristic of our society on a world scale.

The argument that equality requires us to have a relevant reason for treating people differently is very strong since it is based on two fundamental principles: the first that all men are equal, in that they all share humanity and have the same basic needs, like eating, need for shelter, etc., and that they are all beings with certain common characteristics and therefore deserve the same treatment; these characteristics are those feelings that every man inevitably is born with: pain, anger, love, hate and so on. The second principle is that all men should be equal; this does not mean that all men should be treated alike in every situation, but that there is a fundamental flaw in the contemporary social structure that doesn’t take into account certain parts of the population; this means that there should be an equal distribution of, or possibility of achieving, certain goods between men. The distribution of goods is based upon two different inequalities: inequality of need and inequality of merit.

It is easy to see that distribution of goods according to need is pretty simple, as it is based on the satisfaction of the existing desire. The more needy should have priority of access to the good in question (for example medical treatment) rather than people who don’t need it. A problem here arises when two (or more) people have the same need, but they don’t have the same necessary conditions to satisfy that need; in Williams’ example of medical treatment it would be the possession of sufficient money. Since medical treatment requires money, the rich ill and the poor ill will be necessarily treated differently. These are the kind of inequalities that we can see in most societies and it’s these that have to be dealt with to try and reduce the margin of unfairness.

Williams here makes an important distinction between “a man’s rights, the reason why he should be treated in a certain way, and his power to secure certain rights, the reason why in fact he can get what he deserves”. The importance of this statement is clear when we look at the reality of things: the most important aspect of equality isn’t the mere existence of these rights, but if they are really respected and the way they actually operate in the real world. This adds to the relevance of reason what Williams calls the “operativeness” of this same reason, and ...

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The issue of merit is a lot more complicated than that of need. When does one actually deserve something more than someone else? How do we decide if a certain sort of merit constitutes a reason for the acquisition of a certain good?

Williams argues that as there is a restriction in the reasons that could be given in relevance to the access to a certain good, it is not important which reason we choose (as everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and this constitutes the foundation of political philosophy ), as long as it is relevant to the situation under discussion.

This issue forms the core of Williams argument and connects with what I said at the beginning: he calls for everyone to use his common sense and intelligence (it’s a way of thinking and acting) to come up with relevant reasons to why people are treated in a different way. This will generate a series of useful discussions between people about how we should treat others; eventually an agreement should be reached and the margin of inequality should be reduced (it would be nearly impossible to eliminate all inequalities).

Every situation is different, therefore it should be analysed and discussed, and every time an appropriate solution should be found, either in accordance to the idea of equal respect for unequal people, or in agreement with the ideal of equality of opportunity. Both of these ideas can be found to be very vague, but only if one doesn’t examine the actual meaning of these two: the first deals with the notion of equality as a moral issue, alienated from those structures of the society that create inequality and give importance to material values like money, power and prestige. It can be better understood in Williams’ words: “ Each man is owed the effort of understanding, and in achieving it, each man is to be abstracted from certain conspicuous structures of inequality in which we can find them”. The other idea is more connected to the actual state of the people and the surrounding environment, as they are ‘from the start‘. For example it deals with the issue of inheritance, social and economic background, education and so on. It attempts to mitigate natural fortuitous differences resulting from accidents of birth, bad luck etc. and provide the necessary resources so that those with similar abilities and characteristics have the same opportunities of achieving social and economic goods (like a job, a social position, money, etc.).

I feel it is not simple to say that Williams is right or wrong. However, I think that although his notion of relevance of a reason is very important, sometimes it can seem vague and can lead to different interpretations. What is relevance? Is it a universal definition and concept? Or is it open to subjective ness? He doesn’t give an exact definition of what he considers to be relevant, but just says that relevance is an indispensable issue for understanding how people should be treated. Here he leaves plenty of space for personal points of view. I might consider my ideas as relevant to treating two people differently, while someone else may think they are totally irrelevant. For example some people may consider black people inferior because they are black and they come from under civilised countries like Africa. And that person may consider this fact relevant to treating black people as if they were some sort of animal. The fact that the majority of the population considers Blacks as equal people to whites is not important because that person is entitled to his own opinion and maybe is convinced that it is right because he was brought up that way. This example is clearly concerned just with the divergence of ideas, not with the issue of equality of rights between races, which to me seems to be obvious and indispensable to the continuation of society.

What I think Williams is actually trying to do here is to emphasize the importance of diverging ideas, of arguing over some issues, but also of being conscious of what we actually believe in and of being aware that our ideals are not universally true. Other people are around us and have the same needs and characteristics (not physical but metaphysical) as everyone else and they deserve as much respect and chances as all others.

I think that unfortunately most societies are corrupt and unequal (this is pretty obvious). It is very unlikely to imagine an event that could change such a situation. However, differences and inequalities should be examined in every detail so that both it’s present situation and how it came to be like this are clear. Once this is achieved, people should learn to respect differences in opinions and learn from them instead of rejecting them completely. It will be a combination of ideas of different people that may help to understand how to reduce these inequalities and bring a more just world.

Though it is Utopian to think of a perfectly equal society, it is not Utopian to think that people might start thinking less selfishly and pay attention to other people’s problems. Unfortunately in a capitalist society like ours everyone has to think of themselves first or they will be left behind. It is virtually impossible to not fall into Utopianism when we think of correcting the unfair society we live in.