{"id":22591,"date":"2020-04-08T12:16:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T16:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=22591"},"modified":"2024-08-19T14:34:37","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T18:34:37","slug":"debating-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=22591","title":{"rendered":"debating equity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In my public policy course today, my students took a short opinion survey that I created for them, with questions about the justice or injustice of a variety of circumstances. For instance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, was paid about $45 million last year. A customer service representative at Disney starts at $10.43\/hour. Is this unjust?<\/li><li>A child raised in Lexington, MA can expect a much better education than a child raised in Lowell, MA, who can expect a much better education than a counterpart born in Jackson, MS, who (in turn) is likely to get much more schooling than a child born in Malawi. Are those gaps unjust? <\/li><li>Who has the responsibility to fix the Lexington\/Jackson gap? If the gap between Lexington and Lowell persists, does that imply that Massachusetts voters hold unjust values or attitudes?<\/li><li>Most Amish or [Haredi] Orthodox Jewish children will grow up to have lower incomes and less advanced health-care than average Americans. Is this unjust? Are the Amish or Orthodox parents responsible for an injustice toward their children?<\/li><li>Was this (below) a bad thing to express?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/images\/Screen-Shot-2020-04-07-at-3.32.48-PM-877x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22592\" width=\"282\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/images\/Screen-Shot-2020-04-07-at-3.32.48-PM-877x1024.png 877w, https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/images\/Screen-Shot-2020-04-07-at-3.32.48-PM-257x300.png 257w, https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/images\/Screen-Shot-2020-04-07-at-3.32.48-PM-768x897.png 768w, https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/images\/Screen-Shot-2020-04-07-at-3.32.48-PM.png 1154w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 282px) 100vw, 282px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Are people who object to David Geffen&#8217;s Tweet demonstrating the vice of envy?<\/li><li>If David Geffen self-isolated on his yacht but didn&#8217;t Tweet about it, would it be OK?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of the examples in my survey are derived from Tim Scanlon&#8217;s very useful article, &#8220;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/law.yale.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/pdf\/Intellectual_Life\/ltw-Scanlon.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">When Does Equality Matter<\/a>?&#8221; ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The survey&#8217;s forced choices generated a range of responses. In discussion, students offered more nuance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLSfgjCqb1Dfi0A29eRKt_lBGLAjzgvawCrvJkD8zr4L7xF0tlQ\/viewform?usp=sf_link\">take the survey yourself<\/a> and then look at the aggregate responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>See also <a href=\"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20430\">defining equity and equality<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19401\">sorting out human welfare, equity and mobility<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=21348\">college and mobility<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my public policy course today, my students took a short opinion survey that I created for them, with questions about the justice or injustice of a variety of circumstances. For instance: Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, was paid about $45 million last year. A customer service representative at Disney starts at $10.43\/hour. Is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-ethics","category-philosophy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22591"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22595,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22591\/revisions\/22595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}