Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457
Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls:
An analysis of Robert Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain argument and a consideration of its applicability to John Rawls’s Theory of Justice as Fairness.
In “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” Robert Nozick presents an argument against what he calls “End-Result” or “Time-Slice” distributive theories of justice. Famously known as “the Wilt
Chamberlain argument” it uses, as an example of free exchange, a basketball game in which Wilt
Chamberlain plays for a fee of twenty five cents per audience member. Nozick uses this example to show that given the liberty to make such free exchanges people rationally and knowingly do so, and in doing so eventually upset the determined distribution of any end-result theory. It is a matter of controversy whether this argument applies to the theory of “Justice as
Fairness” for which John Rawls is famous. In this paper I will show that the Wilt Chamberlain argument does in fact apply to Justice as Fairness. To do so I will demonstrate the main points of Nozick’s critique and then identify the second principle of justice, otherwise referred to as
“The Difference Principle,” as determining a time-slice distribution for Rawls’s theory. Finally, responding to a series of counter-arguments in favor of Rawls I will show that though Rawls must eventually bite the bullet, and accept that Nozick’s critique applies; it does not drastically harm justice as fairness. Instead, it highlights the subject of disagreement between Rawls and
Nozick.
End-result theories “hold that the justice of a distribution is determined by how things are distributed as judged by some structural principles of just distribution (Nozick 153).” Thus when judging a distribution by standards of an end-result theory, one examines the distribution of relevant goods at any one time and determines if the structure of the distribution is in accordance with certain just principles. This is why these theories are referred to as being time-slice or endresult theories. They are concerned only with the resulting structure of the distribution at a
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 specific moment in time (Nozick 154). The simplest example of an end-result principle is one of universal equality. In a theory of equality the only structure deemed just is one in which no inequality exists.
Using the example of equality, the Wilt Chamberlain argument critiques its end-result principles by challenging the practicality of maintaining the required structural distribution of perfect equality. If the distribution of wealth was equal and therefore just before a basketball game in which Wilt Chamberlain was paid a quarter by every audience member, this act of exchanging wealth for a service upsets the just distribution of equality. In order to prevent the justly structured distribution from being upset, the authority must either prevent Wilt from receiving his payment or act to redistribute it by taking the quarters from him and returning them to their previous owners (Nozick 160-4). From this Nozick claims that, “no end-state principle or patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized without continuous interference with people’s lives (Nozick 163).” Thus our belief in the liberty and the freedom from arbitrary governmental interference is contradictory to theories relying on end-result principles.
Like equality, the difference principle demands a certain structure of the distribution and is therefore an end-result principle. It states that there are to be no inequalities except those that are “to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged (Rawls 83).” Thus the difference principle structures the distribution of goods based on equality plus a few justified inequalities. In order to determine the justness of a distribution using the difference principle, one is required to look at the distribution from one exact moment in time and identify if it is perfectly equal, except for inequalities which are most beneficial to those that are the worst off. The Wilt Chamberlain argument then applies to Justice as Fairness because it contains the difference principle, the very nature of which is to regulate the structure of a distribution as an end-result principle.
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457
Yet one could argue that the difference principle is not in fact an end-result principle because it does not use time-slice images of distribution but instead a process of pure procedural justice. Rawls demonstrates the concept of pure procedural justice by stating that “the intuitive idea is to design the social system so that the outcome is just whatever it happens to be (Rawls
85).” In the Wilt Chamberlain example, this would be some system of payments and fees set up for the game so that both the distribution before and after the game are just. In this way, so long as each free-exchange follows the correct procedure of justice, the outcome will naturally be just.
Whilst arguing against end-result theories Nozick develops a historical system very similar to this idea of pure procedural justice, so perhaps Rawls system is in fact ideal. Yet it is questionable whether Rawls system of pure procedural justice really avoids Nozick’s critique.
Rawls explanation of procedural justice ends with a small disclaimer stating that, “the outcome is just whatever it happens to be, at least so long as it is within a certain range” (Rawls
85). In adding this disclaimer Rawls brackets an acceptable historical principle with one that is an end-result. Rawls claims that “to apply the notion of pure procedural justice to distributive shares it is necessary to set up and to administer impartially a just system of institutions,” so that these pure procedures always result in acceptable distributions (Rawls 86-7). In doing this
Rawls is creating an authority that maintains the end-result distribution through each and every transaction by altering all of them in such a way as to prevent them from upsetting the distribution. The creation of such institutions, such that all acts of exchange that could potentially disrupt the distribution are regulated so that they maintain the distribution, seems an oppressive and impossible goal. It would require not only that every single exchange, including gifts, be monitored, evaluated, and regulated, but also that the regulation of these exchanges be perfectly balanced with all other regulations so that the end-result is perfect.
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457
In the Wilt Chamberlain example this would be something like a game tax. For every game it would have to take into account every transacting members income and needs and calculate an acceptable income for each of the parties receiving funds and an acceptable payment for those paying funds. It would then have to distribute the payments accordingly and then redistribute any leftover payment back to the paying party members that overpaid as the distribution demanded. Such a system seems to be both extremely difficult and unnecessary as we seem to think that the transacting parties already consider their income and benefits before agreeing to the transaction.
Yet the difference principle is not like pure equality in that it requires only one acceptable distribution; there exist many possible acceptable distributions, so surely one is achievable. If it is taken into consideration that the difference principle is an array, allowing for multiple acceptable results so long as they don’t exceed a certain limit the system still seems implausible and unnecessary. Consider the Wilt Chamberlain example as if it allowed for this array. Then after one game, even if the distribution was a little more imbalanced than before it would still be an acceptable distribution. This would be like saying that twenty four cents would perfectly keep the distribution but people paid a quarter because it is easier. Maybe only one person paid the quarter but it still changes the distribution slightly. Assuming multiple repetitions of this same exchange or similarly, slightly unbalanced exchanges eventually the imbalance will grow to a point at which the distribution becomes unacceptable. Even if such an unbelievably accurate set of regulations were possible, in order to be successful they would have to be managed by such an invasive authority, that it would do nothing to counter the argument that the maintenance of the distribution requires continuous interference in people’s lives.
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457
Instead of maintaining the distribution through governmental institutions, Rawls may want to argue that non-coercive and social institutions would suffice for his theory: that people would naturally maintain the distribution on their own accord. Given Rawls belief both in a sense of justice within the individual and the community and that his theory best develops this sense, such an argument would seem effective, yet Nozick gives an argument against even that argument.
This presupposes unrealistically (1) that all will most want to maintain the pattern, (2) that each can gather enough information about his own actions and the ongoing activities of others to discover which of his actions will upset the pattern, and (3) that diverse and farflung persons can coordinate their actions to dove-tail into the pattern. (Nozick 163)
In this Nozick finds it unlikely that all people will find maintaining the distribution to be their highest desire and argues that even if this were true, it would be unlikely that they would be able to do it individually or collectively. The situation required would be something like the audience of the game instinctively understanding how their payment would affect the distribution and how they can cooperate together to provide the perfect overall payment to maintain the distribution, and that they would do so instead of simply giving a quarter. The players and managers would also have to have this understanding and work just hard enough to balance the amount of the payment. The previous argument relying on government maintenance of the distribution assumes that the government will want to maintain the distribution and that it has more ability to gather information and coordinate its efforts than individuals. In doing this it answers every single one of Nozick’s objections but still summons doubts about the plausibility of maintaining a distribution. Thus the argument that it can be done without government seems double implausible.
Another argument in defense of the difference principle, argues that it does not require continuous interference with people’s lives by claiming that the system itself will naturally
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 satisfy the difference principle. This is much like the argument for pure procedural justice except instead of forcibly structuring the system to fit the difference principle, Rawls argues that difference principle is structured in such a way that the system will naturally fit it. To better accommodate this argument it is necessary to use a looser definition of the difference principle in that “inequalities are to be structured so that they are reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage (Rawls 60).” By using this looser definition, the structure of the distribution is just for a much wider array of outcomes. All that is needed is that each inequality be reasonably expected to help everyone to some extent. Considering that the first principle guarantees liberty and thus provides active and efficient participation, it is likely that everyone is benefited in some way by the inequalities of this a system. Therefore there is no need to continuously or forcibly maintain such a distribution.
Yet the reason this argument succeeds is that it effectively removes the difference principle. It claims that so long as the first principle exists, it will naturally provide for a just system because liberty allows for efficient cooperation, and this cooperation will always justly benefit everyone. In changing the difference principle to such a weak version of itself it justifies almost any inequality at all as it is fairly easy to invent some way in which even the lowliest are benefited by a gross inequality. Perhaps the massive wealth possessed by Wilt Chamberlain provides exciting news to the rest of the world. This is the exact version of the difference principle that G. A. Cohen argues against in “Incentives, Inequality, and Community,” claiming that Rawls supports inequalities that are realistically harmful to the least well off. It is unlikely that this version of the difference principle is the one that Rawls supports. Not only would it be difficult to argue for such a theory within the original position, but Rawls later changes the difference principle from this weaker version to the more powerful one previously stated. The
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 reason for this could be that such a weak version not only justifies any inequality, but in doing so fails to affect the theory of justice as fairness at all and thus does not really exist.
Thus Rawls is forced to “bite the bullet.” If he is going to let the difference principle have a significant affect upon his theory he has to accept that it requires the restriction of liberty and that the Wilt Chamberlain argument applies to his theory because of that restriction. The difference principle is an end-result principle concerned with a just distribution that must be maintained. It may follow pure procedural justice but it does so in such a manner that the procedural itself restricts liberty and is concerned solely with maintaining an end-result distribution. In doing so, the theory constantly interferes with people’s lives but does that mean that the theory is bad? Even if Rawls bites the bullet and accepts the Wilt Chamberlain argument there are still a few arguments he can make in defense of his theory. The first one is that with the priority of the first principle of liberty he can still maintain liberties within his theory despite the application of the Wilt Chamberlain argument to the difference principle.
The claim of the Wilt Chamberlain argument is that end-result theories are too oppressive, restricting the liberties of people in order to maintain a just distribution. Yet even if the second principle of justice is determined to be an end-result principle, the fact that it is lexically subsidiary to a principle of maximum equal liberty seems to protect it from the claim that it restricts liberty. The difference principle by necessity must be instituted in such a manner as to not violate the first principle and therefore preserve liberty. This, however, reiterates the question of whether it is possible for the difference principle to have any affect without infringing on liberties. It has already been proven that in fact it cannot. In order to maintain the distribution, it needs to restrict liberties by either periodically redistributing goods or managing every single transaction in such a way as to continuously maintain the distribution. Given this, it
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 would seem that again justice as fairness becomes a theory of one principle in which the first principle prevents the use of the second.
Yet it is impossible that Rawls would overlook such a glaring contradiction within his own theory and so there must exist some way in which the two principles are reconciled. This reconciliation may provide a means by which to defend the difference principle. The first principle originally states that “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others (Rawls 60).” Considering the arguments presented earlier, demonstrating how any end-result principle will require a major infringement upon liberty, it would seem evident that the two principles are at least inconsistent. Yet the priority of the first principle does not state that liberty can never be decreased; in fact, it lists two cases in which it can be restricted. The second case discusses unequal liberty and does not apply, but the first allows for a less extensive liberty such that “a less extensive liberty must strengthen the total system of liberty shared by all” (Rawls 250). Does perhaps the allowance of regulations promoting the difference principle strengthen the system of liberty overall?
H.L.A. Hart answers that question in “Rawls on Liberty and its Priority,” when he claims that Rawls “earlier doctrine is not…consistent with Rawls’s treatment of the admissible limitation of the right of property,” yet it is consistent if he “refers not to ‘liberty’ but to basic or fundamental liberties” (Hart 237, 235). Hart is saying that the first principle is inconsistent with the second only so long as it protects the maximum level of all liberties or liberty in general. Yet what Rawls later does is protect the maximum level of only certain basic “liberties” instead of the all-encompassing term “liberty.” In doing this Rawls leaves out right to free transaction as one of the liberties protected and thus allows for both principles to act together. Unfortunately this does not protect the difference principle and in fact demonstrates how Rawls had to change
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 his theory in order to accommodate for the fact that the difference principle infringes upon certain liberties.
Perhaps this infringement of liberties is the only way in which a theory of justice can work. Nozick presents an idea that could justify the use of the difference principle if one has a certain view of cooperation. Consider that if none of the parties in the original position cooperated or interacted in any way, could the make claims that each one owed the other? The obvious answer being no, it must be that in cooperating and interacting the need for a theory of justice arises. Perhaps in cooperating and interacting we create a group product from which it is impossible to determine who contributed how much and how much their effort increased the overall product (Nozick 185-8). If we believe this, then the only way in which to divide this group product is to use an end-result principle. The parties in the original position are therefore determining the best principle with which to determine the distribution of this product. They want to make the product as big as possible and also distribute it as evenly as possible, thus the difference principle is born, yet Nozick argues that such is not that case.
He argues that from the group product we can determine who contributed what and how much their contribution increased the overall product. Not only does he believe that we can determine this but he also claims that we are good at it. Consider the example of a factory owner who carefully determines the amount that a single worker’s contributions to a production line will increase the overall product and from that accepts the worker request for payment after having conducted a similar calculation himself. Nozick points out that there exists “strong personal incentive for owners of resources to converge to the marginal product, and strong market pressures tending to produce this result (Nozick 188).” He is using a market system to show how both worker and manager are working to determine exactly how much the worker
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 contributes to production and that the market pushes them through competition both for labor and for customers to charge that very amount. Thus not only is the idea that it is impossible to determine a person’s contribution to the product false, but there also exists a previously determined and implemented method of exchange in which this product is fairly divided.
Again, a reference to the Wilt Chamberlain example can further explain this. The argument relies on the assumption that we cannot tell who contributes what to the game and how much each individual’s contribution is worth. Thus there exists a need to divide the costs and benefits of the cooperative effort of the game, of which an end-result theory is perfectly suited.
Yet we can easily see what the costs are to rent the building and purchase equipment. We can easily see who is playing well, how many points they score or how many shots they block. We can also determine how much enjoyment the audience is sustaining based on how much they are willing to pay and therefore can easily differentiate between who is contributing how much and how much that contribution is worth. Not only that, but in paying for the game an exchange already exists in which payment and compensation is properly divided. There is no need to rely on government to either determine the value of entertainment or divide up the profit because people have already created a fair system by playing or paying themselves.
Nozick continues to show that Rawls himself must believe in this truth else he is not able to rely on incentives to increase the overall product. The argument for the difference principle claims that it allows certain inequalities because these inequalities create incentives for people to work harder and more efficiently and that this increases the overall product for the community making everyone better off. Yet if the principle allows someone to have more than others. it must be possible to determine that they are producing more than others in order to justify giving them more. Not only that but it must be possible to determine how much more they are
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 producing in order to compare it to how much more they are getting than others, otherwise “it couldn’t be known that the additional product produced by these now motivated people is greater than the expenditure to them in incentives” (Nozick 189). In order for an inequality to be most beneficial to the least well off, Rawls must presuppose that it’s possible to determine how much a motivated person is increasing the overall pie and make sure not only that they do not take more than they are producing, but also that the majority of their increased production goes to people other than the incentivized producer. In order to determine Rawls’s belief that people are able to differentiate between who is doing what and therefore cannot use the argument that the product of cooperation is indivisible. Thus an end-result principle is not required to divide the product of cooperation because it has already been divided by those whom are cooperating.
In disproving that an end-result principle is the only way to divide cooperative product it is also proven that the difference principle not necessarily required as part of Rawls’s theory. It has also been proven that by using the difference principle Rawls infringes upon. Therefore
Rawls’s theory unnecessarily infringes upon liberty in order to preserve an end-result principle, making it susceptible to the critique of the Wilt Chamberlain argument. Again Rawls has to bite the bullet, this time for his entire theory. Yes, the difference principle, consistent with the rest of his theory, infringes on liberty and yes, there are other ways to distribute goods, and so yes, this restriction of liberties is not necessary, but Rawls can still claim his theory to be best.
The strength of Rawls argument is that he can, claim despite any arguments against it, that those in the original position would still agree to it. Rawls may say that in order to ensure the fair distribution of goods people in the original position would agree to the governmental regulation of all transactions so long as they still had their basic liberties protected. In fact this is the very argument that I believe he makes. He would likely believe that such freedom results in
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457 drastic inequality and suffering and since the loss of such a liberty actually benefits the community more than it having it, it is not only acceptable to taking it away, but something that we would agree to give away whilst within the original position. Nozick on the other hand believes the opposite, that we would not agree to give away liberty and this is the core of their disagreement. Unfortunately once this level of disagreement is reached it is up to personal opinion of whether the costs and benefits of giving away or retaining this liberty is something that people would agree to.
Thus the resulting conclusion is that whilst the Wilt Chamberlain argument certainly applies to Rawls theory of justice as fairness, its application does not cripple the theory. We have shown that the difference principle does require the loss of certain liberties and the use of governmental interference but this simply demonstrates that in accepting the difference principle, people within the original position are accepting that loss. Though the Wilt Chamberlain argument does apply to Rawls theory of Justice as Fairness, the only way to make it truly harm the theory is to claim that those within the original position would not accept this loss of liberty and I do not believe that this is what Rawls believes.
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Kyle Sutliff Wilt Chamberlain and John Rawls Final Paper: Phil 457
Works Cited
Cohen, G. A. "Incentives, Inequality, and Community." The Tanner Lectures on Human Values.
Stanford University. 21 May 1991. Reading.
Hart, H.L.A. "Rawls on Liberty and Its Priority." Ed. Norman Daniels. Reading Rawls: Critical
Studies on Rawls' A Theory of Justice . Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1989. 230-52. Print.
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia . New York: Basic, 1974. Print.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice . Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2005. Print.
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