224 (CHAPTER TEN reckon that higher taxation is a smaller price to pay for their own health and security than what they'd have to shell out on BUPA [private health insurance—Ed.] improved antiburglary systems, a house inthe suburbs, and 50 on. But however they figure those sums, inviting them to consider the issue primarily in that framewor a pretense of common interest, is a cop-out at the level of principle. this pape. Chapter Eleven HOW TO DO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1, Peorre tke ME, who have been trying to do philosophy for more than forty years, do in due course learn, if they’re lucky, how to do what they do learn how to d although I've learned how to d 1, s0 far as I would guess, nobody do philosophy, is that those of us re we mow are that we're now selfishly relucta 2. But however all that may be, let me now give you some tips abo. 0 do philosophy, in no particular order. After I've given these p nary tips about how to do philosophy in genera about political philosophy in parti 3. My first piece of advice is that you should t sible about exactly what you think you're fan argument. To be more precise: when you pi sce Figure 1}, try to be as clear as possible whether you think the argu- opponent holds, and only in that way the argument in quest Editor is chapter standing Oxford M.Phil plans co sevse and pol226 ¢ CHAPTER ELEVEN Decisively ‘Nondecisively Supports my position Proves, Auacks her position __Refutes Prove Refute Fig. 1. Two-by-owo matrix that classifies considerations or arguments your opponent, whether it refutes her po ‘or displays a weakness in it. And, analogous consideration pinion favors vors that position of yours oF deci between the columns in Figure of types of argument in philosophy, of, for that ms f types of argument in philosophy and in everything ot merely challenges ity ‘try to be clear whether a ir own position merely fa- rely establishes it. (See the difference So we've now got a foutfold classifica- a classifica- 4, Note that I said try to be clear about which box contains your argu- rnot—be clear, the latter, then, if yo be clear, and you wanted to follow not try to be clear, for fear of violating the instr be clear. Lam not saying that clarity is a necessary condition of anything worthwhile in philosophy. Philosophy is « very hard subject, so hard that it can be very hard to be clear about what I've suggested you try to be clear about, that is, exactly what you're doing, exactly what the force of a consideration that occurs to you is, Sometimes one senses that a consideration has some sort of bearing on a controversy, without knowing eithcr to which row and it is nevertheless worthwhile bringing it may provoke a discussion that leads to a clearer idea of the polemical significance of the consider- ation, that s. One should aspire for the sake of avoid- dumb, or simpleminded. If, for example, you 60 obviously mistaken that you cot something, keep fe conclusion, which is that they are missing something, or sceing something that isnt there, even if they are the teacher. Some of the most successful philosophical inter- ventions that F've witnessed have been a matter of pointing out that the emperor's not wearing any clothes. This is a subject in which seasoned HOWTO DO POLITICAL PHILOSOPEY 227 professionals can make huge mistakes, equivalent in size to a chemist forgetting that molecules consist of atoms—which is not, of course, a mistake that any chemist would ever make. 6. Let me now turn to political philosophy, and, in particular; to chat form Here my first tip ip.that when as we 50 in political philosophy, and we tions, then there are three questions that we should not hy that are in fact often as they should be, to the det rigor of argument within our di ought to be brought abou more of those questions with each other. Ozhers see that the qu they take for granted that the answers to some ce of them ace identical. They take for granted, for example, ts business n between question the concept of what the state should do. Conversely, not all justice is ro be achieved by the state: ox if you prefer, the very concept of justice does not is ta be achieved by the state. Question places a restriction, and question ‘whatever isto be brought about is to be brought about. And finally ques- is not the same question as question is not the228 (CHAPTER ELEVEN Consider, for example, the view associated especially with Harry Frankfurt, but also, to a degree, with Joseph Raz, which says that equal- ity isa false ideal and that what really matters is that everyone should have enough.’ According to this view, many who are drawn to the ideal of equality are drawn to it because they confuse the false desideratum of equality with the true desideratum of sufficiency. The sufficiency view isparages equality and says that what matters is not that people be ‘equal, but that everyone have enough. Enough for what?—well, there is ry here, but it doesn’t matter for my present purposes. Never as saying that economic justice is complete if everyone is assured a de- it, and possibly quite high or is it an answer to question which says that the responsibility of the state in economic justice ends when everyone has enough; or answer to question (i), one which say tate ends with ensuring universal particular may or may not be guestion (ii), which asks what distributional states of affairs are no: tively preferable to cach others, an says that certain are all that count, and that equality is not even normatively profer tld do, and how soci say, distinct questions, and itis controversial w! ions are. Some would say business is justice, and others might say that its sole business is something that they consider to be the sufficiency part of jus- ‘ice, and so on. People proceed as though these distinctions don’t have to be made when they countetpose one principle to another without speci- fying in which of the three contexts that I have distinguished they are setting the competition between competing principles. Great masses of literature ranging from the discussion of luck egalitarianism across to the trolley problem fail to make the needed distinctions at pertinent points. ‘Take another example, the so-called leveling-down objection to egal tarianism. The leveling-down objection says that itis a mistake to favor ted as flatly as that, with no speci- fication of who you are or of any wider frame in which the question is ‘See Frankfurt, “Equality as 2 Moral Ideal,” and Rav, The Morality of Freedom, chap- ter9-—Ed] HOW TO DO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 29 Equal Dis Unequal Distribution Abas 5 8 Bhas 5 6 Fig. 2. The Leveling-Down Objection iemight circum stances where the equal 5/5 distribution and the unequal 8/6 distribution in Figure 2 exhaust the feasible set, whereas, that is, it may be grotesque 1 the state to make everybody worse off, it does not follow that there is 1no injustice inthe 8/6 inequality, and, partly for that reason, it does not follow that no one should seek to bring the 5/5 Let me try to give some color of plausibility to those judgments. Imagine a peaceful anarchy, a state of nature with no state, in which manna falls from heaven and gets shated equally because the sharets think that’s the right way to deal with manna from heaven. Now sup- pose that an extra piece of irremovable and unredistributable but de- structi going to make a big bonfire with it to which you're ited, because it’s not fair it really sucks, for me to have more than you guys do.’ ish, then you might claim that the level person, and I chink we should commend her for being one, and pethaps reward her with the extra manna. Or even if we should not precisely reward her with the extra manna (since that might contradict the very principle of equality upon which she acted! her have it. Justice can be mean and spiteful, but justice even then: we shouldn't confuse different virtues. Portia was carefal not to ‘combine different virtues when she recommended that mercy scason justice." “Nonick himself said chat equality hough be signally and consequent230 (CHAPTER ELEVEN throw it away. Note, further, that if she does throw it away, that w not be at anybody else’s expense. Consider, now, a different example in which exera manna lands on ev- Iso exybody’s plot e's and only 5 om the plot of each ‘other person. uppose, farther, that do anything with respect to whether the manna stays or not, and that if she destroys her ‘own, then everybody else's manna goes too. is once again at no- body's expense, but if she throws it away that will be at the expense of hers. Now, nobody would deny that, in the original example, where she gets extra and nobody else does, Jane has the right to throw her surplus away, and I say that if she does throw it away, in that example, then she shows an admirable devotion to justice. Bue one may question whether she has the right to throw her surplus away in the second scenazio, on the ground that Jane would thereby also rob that they obodly else's expense. Partly for would say that if any view, quite consistent with my judgment that the second and strongly improving distribution is unfair, Among the reasons that Ronald Dwor- kin gives for opposing equality of welfare is that if we seek to make ‘welfare as equal as possible then we must reserve an enormous quan- tity of resources for very handicapped people, such a large should be able to be implemen regulati question It is pertinent to commend, here, a breathtakingly simple phrase that Derek Parfit has introduced for marking a distinction that is now, to the general profit, made more often in discussions about principles th «d through a reasonable stare there is, in that argument, a conflation of question (i HOW TO DO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 231 tory and desiderata of principle that are overrideable but whose presence te Of affairs, in Parfit’s great phrase for that, some circumstances some people should lose even the egalitarian can say that she would not level down, because isn’t everything, but nevertheless maintain that equal way betcer than its absence: something of value is los unfairness, and therefore a kind of i ‘ome have more than others through no relevant fault or choice of anyone. The leveling- With ehanks to Alan Ryae for excellent crtcioms ofa forerunner draft”