Principles of Equality, Need and Desert
EQUALITY -
We could express this principle as:
'Every individual is of equal value and should therefore be treated equally.'
This principle could be used to establish that:
'A basic retirement pension should be paid to everyone over the age of 65, irrespective of their financial position.
How might using a principle based upon equality be useful? • It could be easy to apply as there can be a clear decision about how much each person gets. • It can speed up decision-making and cut down on administration and fraud. • Decisions made on this basis can easily be defended against complaints. What problems might there be in using this principle in this case? • It may lead to a lack of motivation as you will never merit any more than anyone else. • It will be more expensive than providing only for the people who need help. • In many practical ways, people are in fact not equal. To use Aristotle's quaint example, if you are going to distribute flutes, you should give preference to flute players. • Giving the same to everyone does not produce equality (some people need more help than others to reach the same state).
NEED -
We could express this principle as:
'We ought to distribute to each person according to their need.'
This principle could be used to establish that:
'We should provide free care in the community for those elderly people who are less well-off.'
How useful might such a principle be in helping use to make decisions? • It could help us to allocate our resources in an objective and measurable way. • It could be seen to be a humane and fair principle to adopt. • It could help to prevent potentially damaging social divisions between the poor and the better-off.
What problems might we have in applying this principle in this case? • It could prove to be very expensive to provide such free care as the number of elderly people is increasing. • The elderly who would still have to pat for their care might complain that
We could express this principle as:
'Every individual is of equal value and should therefore be treated equally.'
This principle could be used to establish that:
'A basic retirement pension should be paid to everyone over the age of 65, irrespective of their financial position.
How might using a principle based upon equality be useful? • It could be easy to apply as there can be a clear decision about how much each person gets. • It can speed up decision-making and cut down on administration and fraud. • Decisions made on this basis can easily be defended against complaints. What problems might there be in using this principle in this case? • It may lead to a lack of motivation as you will never merit any more than anyone else. • It will be more expensive than providing only for the people who need help. • In many practical ways, people are in fact not equal. To use Aristotle's quaint example, if you are going to distribute flutes, you should give preference to flute players. • Giving the same to everyone does not produce equality (some people need more help than others to reach the same state).
NEED -
We could express this principle as:
'We ought to distribute to each person according to their need.'
This principle could be used to establish that:
'We should provide free care in the community for those elderly people who are less well-off.'
How useful might such a principle be in helping use to make decisions? • It could help us to allocate our resources in an objective and measurable way. • It could be seen to be a humane and fair principle to adopt. • It could help to prevent potentially damaging social divisions between the poor and the better-off.
What problems might we have in applying this principle in this case? • It could prove to be very expensive to provide such free care as the number of elderly people is increasing. • The elderly who would still have to pat for their care might complain that