Introduction: Just Compensation?
“What we seek is some kind of compensation for what we put up with.”
― Haruki Murakami
Who should society compensate? Which differences in outcome does justice require that we rectify? Dworkin argues that a person with handicaps or poor endowments is entitled to compensation, while a person with negative behavioral traits like laziness or impulsivity is not entitled to compensation. To argue for this claim, he draws a distinction between option luck, or the luck involved in deliberate risky decisions made by the individual, and brute luck, “a matter of how risks fall out that are not in that sense deliberate gambles.”[1] Being handicapped by forces out of your control is an example of what Dworkin would call brute luck. As handicaps are due to brute luck and are out of the individual’s control, they deserve some form of compensation. On the other hand, behavioral traits are the result of option luck and therefore do not merit compensation. As he puts it in more colloquial terms, “people should pay the price of the life they have decided to lead.”[2] This is Dworkin’s just compensation principle.
I will argue that this principle does not account for sociological and biological factors that affect our behavioral traits and our decision-making, making it much more difficult to justify only giving compensation to those with handicaps and not to those who suffer due to bad decisions. Dworkin might respond with his caveat that if a person has a behavioral impairment like a severe craving, and the person judges this craving as bad for their life-projects, it ought to be considered a handicap deserving of compensation. However, I will conclude that this caveat fails in the case of mental illness. Ultimately, the just compensation principle is an inadequate way to think about egalitarianism and justice.
Not Just Gambles
Dworkin’s just compensation principle states that our disadvantages in resources due to circumstances outside of our control are worthy of compensation, whereas disadvantages due to our deliberate gambles or lifestyle choices should not be compensated. For instance, if someone is born in poverty and suffers from the long-term effects of malnutrition, they deserve compensation for this brute luck. But if someone decides to spend every waking hour surfing for their first forty years of life, and then ends up with very few marketable skills and is unable to find employment, they do not deserve compensation. Another example of a case undeserving of compensation might be someone who decides to gamble and subsequently loses all their earnings. In these cases, Dworkin argues, the individuals have made deliberative lifestyle choices that resulted in bad option luck and decreased their access to internal and external resources. They have intentionally rolled the dice. These situations are not the result of brute luck, but are consequences of deliberative choices, and therefore do not deserve compensation from society.
However, these lifestyle choices are not as deliberative as Dworkin suggests. Consider the case of the gambler. Imagine a young person on a Navajo reservation decides to start gambling because there is a casino nearby, because her friends gamble and encourage her to participate, and because the local economy depends on the casino. She is also misinformed about gambling, due to cultural norms, lack of education, pervasive advertising, and other situational factors. She loses all her savings in several gambling sprees. A simple generalization of Dworkin’s theory would dictate that she is suffering the consequences of option luck and is not entitled to compensation. But this view ignores the situational factors that drove the person to gambling.
Someone who is born in an area with no casinos and strong cultural norms against gambling, who receives a good education, and has friends who mostly go to colleges and not casinos, is not subject to negative situational factors of comparable strength or frequency. Gambling may not even come to mind as a serious option for this more privileged individual. Therefore, our choices are deeply influenced by the brute luck of being born in a harmful environment. Our brute luck impacts our options and our decisions. Even if gambling is an exercise of option luck, it is arguably still worthy of compensation when someone’s decision to gamble is strongly influenced by brute luck factors outside of their control. In this sense, the gambler’s poor choices which led to bad option luck are an indirect consequence of the brute luck of being born with certain situational factors.
This case is not imaginary. Due to cultural and sociodemographic factors, a person born on a Native American reservation is twice as likely as the average person to practice pathological gambling.[3] The strong influence of surroundings on behavior has been generalized by studies which find that decision-making processes are profoundly influenced by sociocultural factors outside of our control.[4] And these “brute luck” factors do not just influence minor decisions, but shape our fundamental decisions about life projects, goals, and lifestyles. For example, a person is far more likely to decide to marry at a young age if they were raised Mormon in Utah Valley than if they had a secular childhood in New York City. This weakens Dworkin’s case that losses due to “deliberative gambles” or lifestyle choices should not be compensated, while losses due to brute luck should be compensated. Apparent choices are profoundly shaped by brute luck. It would be a superficial misrepresentation to call these choices intentional ‘gambles.’
Brute luck genetics & personality
Another aspect of brute luck is genetics. On a surface level, genetic factors seem to be separate from decision-making processes. But most of us will readily accept that our personality shapes our choices. And research confirms that personality affects our decisions in a wide variety of contexts.[5] For example, people with high openness to experience are far more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors.[6] If personality is largely or even partially a product of brute luck, and personality shapes our choices, that implies our decisions are partly determined by brute luck. Therefore, our gambles are not as deliberative as they seem and may deserve compensation.
It turns out that a significant proportion of personality is determined by brute luck in the form of genetic inheritance. A meta-analysis of epigenetic studies found that about 20-60% of the phenotypic variation in personality (also called temperament) is determined by genetics.[7] Pairs of twins reared apart share an average personality resemblance of .45, suggesting that almost half of their personality is rooted in genetics.[8] Another study found that genetics explain about 40-60% of the variance in Big 5 personality traits.[9] The empirical evidence concurs that our personality, which shapes our decision-making, is in large part determined by genetic factors. For example, someone who genetically inherits the personality trait of openness to experience is far more likely to seek gambling as a source of novelty.
Dworkin’s defenses
How would Dworkin respond to this objection? He notes that the distinction between brute luck and option luck is a spectrum rather than a complete dichotomy. He accepts that brute luck influences our decisions, making the distinction between option and brute luck far messier. Therefore, he might argue that we should just compensate losses to the extent that they are caused by brute luck. For example, if hypothetically 50% of a person’s personality is determined by genetics and their personality shapes 30% of their choices, then 15% of their choices will be genetically determined. If we add in another 10% due to sociological influences, Dworkin’s just compensation principle might dictate that we compensate only that 25% of the person’s losses due to behavior caused by brute luck. Quick justice maths. But it seems inordinately difficult or impossible to calculate the appropriate compensation by tracing decisions to their root causes. This suggests that Dworkin’s entire scheme of compensation is not practically implementable, as it requires calculating the incalculable to figure out if losses are caused by brute or option luck.
Furthermore, Dworkin might say that the examples of sociology and genetics do not count as brute luck, as there is still an element of personal choice in both cases. A person born into a gambling-promoting culture will be more likely to gamble, but they are not compelled to do so. Additionally, all people are subject to social influences on their behavior, and it is difficult to say that one environment is unequivocally worse than another. For example, a wealthy person not born on a reservation may not be influenced by as much pressure to gamble, but rather may be subject to more influences to take cocaine, embezzle funds, or engage in insider trading. Therefore, Dworkin could make a case that sociological and genetic influences on our behavior do not constitute true brute luck, because all people are subject to these influences, and they still allow a significant element of choice. Genuine brute luck does not allow for any choice: it is a situation completely out of our control, like a hurricane or a physical disability.
However, Dworkin’s counter-argument here contradicts his previous response. The claim that brute luck only exists in conditions that do not allow for any choice is mutually exclusive with the idea that there is a spectrum between brute luck and option luck. Dworkin cannot have his spectrum and his dichotomy too. Additionally, it is almost certainly the case that some situations involve more negative brute luck than others. While all situations involve brute luck that impacts our choices, this does not imply that we should completely ignore the differences between these situations. Some environments are simply worse than others.
Cravings as handicaps
Finally, Dworkin might respond by arguing that his theory has already addressed this problem of decision-making shaped by brute luck. He agrees that personality traits shape our decision-making. Some people, he mentions, might be cursed with a personality that includes insatiable cravings for sex. If someone has a severe craving that they view as an impediment to the success of their life-projects, it may be considered a handicap worthy of compensation:
They regret that they have these tastes, and believe they would be better off without them, but nevertheless find it painful to ignore them. These tastes are handicaps; though for other people they are rather an essential part of what gives value to their lives.
(Dworkin, 303).
Dworkin therefore makes an exception in this case and reevaluates the craving as a kind of handicap. Severe cravings can be added to the list of things that a person in the hypothetical insurance market could purchase insurance against. This seems to be Dworkin’s best response to the problem of the blurred lines between option luck and brute luck. After all, it allows him to classify negative behavioral traits as cravings that are worthy of compensation only if the person views the craving as a harmful for their life-projects. However, with the rest of this paper I will argue that this response fails as well, because it fails to account for the case of mental illness.
The case of mental illness
The key problem with Dworkin’s treatment of cravings is his use of the glad-not-sad test to evaluate whether a craving is a genuine handicap or a personal failing: “if an individual is glad not sad to have a preference, that preference falls on the side of her choices and ambitions for which he bears responsibility rather than on the side of her unchosen circumstances.”[10] This rule does not account for the case of a mentally ill person who irrationally evaluates harmful cravings as beneficial for their life-projects.
For example, a person with severe schizophrenic paranoia may have an irrational craving to eliminate all communication devices from their home to escape the eyes of government spies. They may view this craving as beneficial for the life-project of protecting their family. Therefore, under Dworkin’s framework for compensation of cravings, this person would not receive compensation because they are irrationally glad that they have the irrational preference. Dworkin does not account for the possibility that the very process by which we decide whether a craving helps our helps our life-projects will be subject to brute luck factors like mental illness. Mentally ill people who have negative cravings (e.g. for drug addiction or paranoid behaviors) and judge those cravings as good would not receive compensation for the consequences of their cravings.
Furthermore, it is problematic for Dworkin’s theory of justice that people who judge their own mental illness as good for their life projects will not be compensated. For example, someone like Van Gogh, who viewed his bipolar disorder as essential for his artistic life-projects, would never receive compensation for the harmful consequences of this disorder. After all, it is a disorder that he is generally “glad” rather than “sad” about. However, it seems deeply arbitrary that those who see their mental illness as positive should not be compensated simply because of their outlook.
This scheme of compensation even creates perverse incentives to treat one’s disorder as harmful for one’s life-projects even if a different outlook could make it beneficial. Imagine that two persons are subject to the same brute luck factor of having mental illness, and one person decides to view it as a positive factor that furthers their life projects while the other decides to view it as an impediment. The one who reevaluates the disorder as beneficial for their life-projects is almost punished for their decision by a scheme which withholds compensation when a person views a disorder as positive.
Dworkin might respond that mental illness is also something that could be insured against in the hypothetical insurance auction. In this auction, we would have knowledge about the likelihood of mental illness, as well as the differing levels and costs of coverage for mental illness. If one does not insure against mental illness, then they would not be compensated for the consequences of this mental illness.
However, given the rarity of mental illness it seems unlikely that anyone would purchase this insurance. And this hypothetical auction can hardly be seen as relevant to the practical implementation of just institutions. After all, how can we know what people would choose in the hypothetical auction? How can we simulate it? How can we measure and interpret the results in creating our institutions? Ultimately, the hypothetical insurance auction seems more like an idle thought experiment than a method that could salvage Dworkin’s theory of just compensation.
Conclusion
I have attempted to cast doubt on the distinction between option luck and brute luck, in order to show that variations in option luck (the results of our decisions) are largely explained by variations in brute luck (factors outside our control). If this claim is true, then Dworkin’s compensation principle cannot stand, because it relies on a distinction between brute and option luck. Furthermore, Dworkin’s view that bad option luck caused by bad behavioral traits should not be compensated rests on the rational choice model, which models human behavior as mostly explained by logical deliberations based on information to reach conclusions about and act within the world. This deliberative choice model allows Dworkin to draw a distinction between a resource paucity due to brute luck, and a resource paucity due to option luck.
But Dworkin’s view of human decision-making is incomplete at best and misguided at worst. This paper gives two strong counterexamples to the rational choice model: sociological factors and biological-genetic factors. These examples suggest that a large proportion of human decision-making is the direct or indirect result of brute luck. As such, it seems that even the bad consequences of our intentional choices might merit compensation. Dworkin gave two replies that were insufficient due to logical contradictions. Ultimately, he offers the caveat that if a person judges a craving to be harmful for their life-projects, it merits compensation. But this caveat fails as well when we apply it to mental illness. Therefore, Dworkin’s model needs serious reworking or replacement. Focusing on equality of resources and distributing resources as compensation for only the consequences of brute luck and not the consequences of option luck, fails to account for sociological, biological, and psychiatric influences on our behavior.
Works Cited
- Dworkin, R., 2000, Sovereign Virtue, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Pg. 73. ↑
- Dworkin, pg. 74. ↑
- Patterson-Silver Wolf Adelv Unegv Waya, David A et al. “Sociocultural Influences on Gambling and Alcohol Use Among Native Americans in the United States.” Journal of gambling studies vol. 31,4 (2015): 1387-404. doi:10.1007/s10899-014-9512-z ↑
- Bruch, Elizabeth, and Fred Feinberg. “Decision-Making Processes in Social Contexts.” Annual review of sociology vol. 43 (2017): 207-227. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053622 ↑
- Vroom, V. H. (1959). Some personality determinants of the effects of participation. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59(3), 322-327. ↑
- Marco Lauriola, Irwin P Levin, Personality traits and risky decision-making in a controlled experimental task: an exploratory study. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 31, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 215-226, ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00130-6. ↑
- Saudino, Kimberly J. “Behavioral genetics and child temperament.” Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP vol. 26,3 (2005): 214-23. ↑
- Bratko, Denis, Ana Butković, and Tena Vukasović Hlupić. “Heritability of Personality.” Psychological Topics, 26 (2017), 1, 1-24. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. ↑
- Power, Robert & Pluess, Michael. (2015). Heritability estimates of the Big Five personality traits based on common genetic variants. Translational psychiatry. 5. e604. 10.1038/tp.2015.96. ↑
- Olsaretti, Serena, and Richard J. Arneson. “Dworkin and Luck Egalitarianism: A Comparison.” The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice. Oxford University Press: June 07, 2018. Oxford Handbooks Online. Accessed 27 May 2019. Pg. 19. ↑