Unfair in the Abstract, Fair in the Concrete

by Will Wilkinson on June 11, 2008

Over at Psychology Today, Josh Knobe reports on a new experiment by Shaun Nichols (see me diavlog with Nichols here) and Chris Freiman (an IHS friend of mine and David Schmidtz advisee):

Subjects who had been assigned to receive an abstract question were asked:

Suppose that some people make more money than others solely because they have genetic advantages. Please tell us whether you agree with the following statement:

- It is fair that those genetically-advantaged people make more money than others.

Meanwhile, subjects who had been assigned to receive a concrete question were asked:

Suppose that Amy and Beth both want to be professional jazz singers. They both practice singing equally hard. Although jazz singing is the greatest natural talent of both Amy and Beth, Beth’s vocal range and articulation is naturally better than Amy’s because of differences in their genetics. Solely as a result of this genetic advantage, Beth’s singing is much more impressive. As a result, Beth attracts bigger audiences and hence gets more money than Amy. Please tell us whether you agree with the following statement:

- It is fair that Beth makes more money than Amy.

Surprisingly, subjects who were given the abstract question said that it was not fair, but subjects who were given the concrete question said that it actually was fair! In other words, it seems that each individual person is torn between left and right. People seem to have a kind of leftist intuition in the abstract but to move to the right when they turn to more concrete cases. Perhaps the differences we observe between the views of different individuals are due in part to the degree to which they hold on to this abstract principle.

I don’t actually think this is very surprising. Of course, the actual explanation of any pattern of holdings is always concrete. So repeat the Beth and Amy case a million times over, and you should still get “fair”. I’d guess this is why people with left-leaning ideologies tend not to unreflectively think that the relative success of friends and family is unfair. If pushed, they might retreat to higher level of abstraction and say they do think it’s unfair, but their revealed day-to-day talk and behavior tends not to reveal any serious suspicion of injustice in their own case.

Viewing 8 Comments

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    You're evading the most important question. As long as we talk merely about Beth's success, rather than the negative consequences of Amy's failure, it skews rightward. But when Amy can't get work, and she loses her apartment and her car, and she doesn't have health insurance so she doesn't go to the doctor when she gets sick... then people will tell you that it's unfair. Just like when you use the vague term "welfare mothers", people can denounce to the point of hatred. Introduce them to an actual poverty-stricken mother, or just tell her specific story, and you'll find people to be much more compassionate.

    And here's the rub: there are no "people", just a vast collection of individual persons. Every life is someone's "my life."
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    I'm a bit surprised anyone said the abstract scenario is unfair. Liberals don't commonly believe in full equality of condition, not anymore.

    It would be interesting to replace "genetic advantage" with other differences like: "works harder", "has better luck", "knows the right people".

    It would also be interesting to ask direct policy questions -- e.g. "should we fully redistribute genetically-based income inequalities until everyone's equal?"

    It's fascinating how belief seems to be such a complex and context-specific thing. Totally unlike logic.

    I wonder if the difference between the two beliefs comes down to incentives (a la Bryan Caplan's analysis of political irrationality). That is, who cares if I have the wrong abstract belief? What does it matter to me? Then, people are free to have whatever belief makes them feel good.
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    Funny, despite my libertarian tendencies, I would have said they were both unfair. But that doesn't mean we should necessarily DO anything about it. Life IS unfair.

    That's the biggest difference between "left" and "right". The left believes life can be made fair. I'm not so sure.

    However, it does make you think doesn't it. Will advances in genetics mean that soon, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" will become a realistic policy, without the potential for disincentive effects?
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    Assuming genetics is to blame, it is unfortunate that I will never be one tenth the musician John Coltrane is, but it's isn't unfair. Learning to differentiate the two is... well, I'd say it's part of growing up.

    This is not to say that we should never correct any instances of misfortune, but there is a moral difference between the brute facts of nature, which can only be unfortunate, and the deliberate actions of other individuals, which are the only things properly called unfair. Nature doesn't know "fair" and "unfair," which are concepts of justice.

    Also, I wonder if the experimental data has anything to do with the remarkable success of anti-egalitarianism in fiction, as compared to anti-egalitarianism as an operating philosophy for the man on the street. Plenty of people read and like Ayn Rand's novels, but can't accept the abstract principles they advocate.
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    I wonder if Jason's terms "unfair" and "unfortunate" really have different policy implications. That is part of the issue here.

    If someone accidentally runs me over, that may not be "unfair" given Jason's definition, but perhaps retribution is in order.

    On the other hand, you might say that "retribution for random vagaries of life" is the job of a private insurance market.

    Finally, luck plays a role in the genetic (and environmental) lottery, of course. Who's to say whether I will be born talented and advantaged in a Western democracy in the suburbs, or mentally challenged somewhere, or in a shantytown in a third world country?

    I strongly believe that some retribution is in order for being dealt a crappier hand in life. Think of it as insurance for being born. This may be something the government is more suited for.
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    Let's say "restitution" instead of "retribution" which sounds adversarial.
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    I'll bet the concrete case is fair because it is about art - if it were about working at a loading dock, people would think it unfair.
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    Do Frieman and Nichols introduce the left-right political interpretation? I don't immediately see that interpretation. Nothing about policy implications is inherent in the presentation. No information about whether subjects who self identify with one policy position or another were more likely to read the situation as fair or unfair. (And my reaction is sort of like Neal, above. I'd conclude "unfair" in both cases, but not think of that conclusion as policy relevant.)

    My initial reaction about the two cases is that the effect arises because the mental model of "fairness" that people use demands that they decide whether the inputs justify the outputs. In the abstract case, with only an unearned genetic gift as input and additional money as output, it seems clear that there is little reason to say the additional money is merited.

    In the concrete case, the subject is give the chance to mentally balance the additional money against a positive service provided. The subject is able to view the higher quality performance of the one singer as something which can merit the positive reward.

    Contrary to Robin Hanson, I don't think art has anything to do with the result. I think we'd get the same result in a concrete case with a bigger, stronger dockworker - due solely to genetic endowment - getting paid more.

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