John Raws on Affirmative Action

John Rawls ( 1921-2002), in his book A Theory of Justice, argues for some sort of affirmative action. He  argues that unequal distribution of economic advantage is justified only if it results in benefiting those members who are at the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Due to differences in natural contingencies -- talents, physical fitness etc., he says, members of a society will be unequal in their capability to earn money for themselves. Thus, one cannot really say that this natural distribution is just or unjust; they just are. Whether they are really just or unjust depends on how social institutions allocate the fruit of their labour. So, according to Rawls, taxing Bill Gates who is so talented to give to the poor disabled beggar on the street is just.

Rawls would argue that the talents that Bill Gates possesses is not really his doing. And since it's not really his doing, he cannot keep all the fruit of his earning to himself. Justice demands that political institution takes part of his earning and give it to those who are less gifted than Gates. Rawls would also argue something to the effect that Gates being born in the US is not his doing. He he been born in Afghanistan or even five hundred years back, he won't have made such money with Microsoft. The fact that he was born in a favorable place at a favorable time is not really his doing. And so he cannot really keep all his earning to himself! 

Well, I think Rawls has a point. The problematic feature is that Gates did work hard besides being favoured by natural contingencies. So it's difficult to calculate how much percentage is to be attributed to hard work and how much to natural contingency. Even if one grants the fact that the aspiration/drive to work hard is also influenced by the kind of family one is born into, I don't think one can totally take away the credit from Gates for having worked hard.

Rawls was an atheist, and so he gave the kind of argument he gave. But for a Christian like me, one can go further in providing reasons for affirmative action. I believe that God is the creator of the world. He created this world/resources for everybody, not just for those talented ones. Disparity will arise in term of income and earning capability due to various factors. However, there is a moral obligation on the part of the more gifted ones to share with those who are less gifted. The idea of solidarity as God's created being places moral obligation on those who are more gifted. Moreover, in a given setting if certain group of people through certain political measure or economic policy gather more riches for themselves, leaving certain other group of people deprived of their God given resources or their potentiality to gather riches for sustenance, the rights of the some people are deprived; the sharing of God's created resources is not fairly distributed. And so these people are being wronged. Justice demands that their due share which have been taken away from them by introducing political measure or economic principles be given to them. In short, Christian belief introduces the idea of right and moral obligation. Right for the dispossessed and moral obligation on the possessed is what Christian idea of justice would entail. This sort of belief provides additional arguments to what Rawls has argued for.