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people ’ s material conditions should be equalized, at least insofar as they are
not themselves responsible for being better or worse off than others. Many
philosophers have explored how best to interpret these egalitarian commitments;
for instance, over what goods ought to be equalized and whether
people ought to be made equal in outcomes or merely opportunities. Some,
however, have rejected the idea that equality per se is of any moral signifi -
cance. Harry Frankfurt, for instance, has argued that all that matters is that
everyone has enough, citing the fact that we don ’ t feel the need to redistribute
from billionaires to millionaires. He claims that our concern is not
really with inequality, but only with poverty.
Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,
First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
252 Ben Saunders
Frankfurt shows that we do indeed care about suffi ciency, maybe more
than about equality, but not that we do not care about equality as well.
Derek Parfi t, however, has advanced a famous argument to show that a
commitment to equality has perverse consequences and ought to be rejected.
He argues that anyone committed to equality must think that it is – at least
in this one respect – better to bring everyone down to the same level (something
he calls “ leveling down ” ) than to accept an inequality. This, however,
seems perverse if no one is made better off as a result.
Suppose we think it unjust that some people are born with two healthy
eyes and others with only one or none. In the absence of the technology
required to perform eye transplants, there is nothing that we can do to make
the blind better off. Thus, the only way to achieve equality between the
blind and the sighted would be to blind those who can presently see (see
Jerome ’ s short story, “ The New Utopia, ” which describes a dystopian future
where such practices are carried out). Represented numerically, we could
say that egalitarians think there is something better about a world where
everyone has four units of good than a world where some have fi ve and
some have seven since, although everyone is better off in the latter world,
it is unequal.
Note that Parfi t is not saying that egalitarians are committed to this
course of action all things considered, since most subscribe to values other
than equality and think it is better for people to be able to see than not.
What he is saying, however, is that qua egalitarians they are committed to
accepting that this would be in one way good – there is some reason to do
it – and he fi nds even this absurd. How could it be in any way good if it
is, by hypothesis, worse for some people and better for none? (Temkin calls
this premise, numbered P5 below, that the world cannot be better or worse
without being better or worse for any individual, “ the Slogan ” and argues
powerfully against it.)
While there are some who are completely untroubled by material inequalities
between persons, no matter how large, Parfi t ’ s own positive view
– which he calls the “ Priority View ” or prioritarianism, effectively a form
of weighted utilitarianism – would be regarded by many as broadly egalitarian.
Parfi t thinks that it is morally more important to benefi t someone the
worse off he is. This view does not, however, require us to make comparisons
between different people or posit that equality in itself has value, even
if it will tend to have equalizing consequences in practice (because, where
we can benefi t one of two people, we ought to benefi t the worse off until
she becomes better off than the other).
For true Egalitarians, equality has intrinsic value. [ . . . ] On the widest
version of this view, any inequality is bad. It is bad, for example, that some
people are sighted and others are blind. We would therefore have a reason,
Parfi t’s Argument against Egalitarianism 253
if we could, to take single eyes from some of the sighted and give them to the
blind [ . . . ]. Suppose that those who are better off suffer some misfortune, so
that they become as badly off as everyone else. Since these events would
remove the inequality, they must be in one way welcome [ . . . ] even though
they would be worse for some people, and better for no one. This implication
seems to many to be quite absurd. I call this the Levelling Down Objection.
(Parfi t Idea , 86, 97, 98)
P1. Egalitarianism implies that it is pro tanto (in one way) good to eliminate
inequality.
P2. Inequality can be eliminated by bringing the worse - off up, and inequality
can be eliminated by bringing the better - off down.
C1. Egalitarianism implies that it is pro tanto good to bring the worse -
off up and that it is pro tanto good to bring the better - off down
(conjunction, P1, P2).
C2. Egalitarianism implies that it is pro tanto good to bring the better - off
down (simplifi cation, C1).
P3. Simply bringing the better - off down does not make anyone better off.
P4. If no one is made better off, one state of affairs cannot be pro tanto
better than another.
C3. Simply bringing the better - off down cannot be pro tanto better
( modus ponens , P3, P4).
P5. If Egalitarianism is true, then it is pro tanto good to bring the better - off
down.
C4. Egalitarianism is false ( modus tollens, P5, C3).
67
Nozick ’ s Wilt
Chamberlain Argument
Fabian Wendt 1
Nozick , Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia . New York : Basic Books , 1974 .
Cohen , Gerald. “ Robert Nozick and Wilt Chamberlain: How Patterns
Preserve Liberty , ” in Self - Ownership, Freedom, and Equality . Cambridge,
UK : Cambridge University Press , 1995 .
Feser , Edward . On Nozick . Belmont, CA : Wadsworth , 2003 .
Kymlicka , Will . Contemporary Political Philosophy . Oxford : Oxford
University Press , 1990 / 2001 .
Wolff , Jonathan. Robert Nozick: Property, Justice, and the Minimal State .
Cambridge, UK : Polity Press , 1991 .
Robert Nozick ’ s Wilt Chamberlain Argument is notorious. It is very simple,
and its premises sound fairly reasonable, but its conclusion is perplexing:
Egalitarian (and other patterned) theories of justice are supposedly not
acceptable. Many philosophers are convinced that there is something wrong
with the argument, but it is not so easy to fi nd a fl aw in it. Nozick presents
the argument in Anarchy, State, and Utopia after having introduced his own