Justice

What about people that are not working hard enough but gets a good job, more successfull than us who works harder? For example : Some people make more money without work hard, and some people work really hard but earn small money. How philosophy see it?

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This sounds like a question

This sounds like a question about justice. Should people receive a reward, e.g. money, on the basis of their effort, e.g. hard work, or on some other basis?

Justice is the principle that everyone receives their ‘due’. But philosophers disagree what people are owed. Among the most important suggestions include equality, need, and desert/merit (including effort).

If we start from equality, we can argue that as everyone is morally equal, then they should each receive the same in life. However, this ignores ways in which people are not equal, e.g. as you suggest, people do not put the same effort into their work. Or again, the work that people do may not have the same value (to society). Or third, strict equality ignores what people need, e.g. people with disabilities may need more resources to achieve the same standard of living as people without disabilities.

If we start from needs, there is a difficulty in fixing on what people need. And, as with equality, we can object that this principle ignores people’s effort and the value of their work.

So, even if we think that justice should include attention to equality and people’s needs, it is important to consider what people deserve. But what do people deserve? You suggest that effort should be rewarded, and this is a popular idea. But there are other factors to take into account. For instance, work may involve other costs apart from effort, e.g. it could be easy to do but unpleasant or damaging to health, and these costs should also be compensated. Or again, the value of the work people do to society should influence what reward they receive. If someone works hard to produce some gadget that no one wants, should they receive a reward as great as something that everyone loves? Or again, whether what someone does is morally good may be relevant. Do people deserve to be rewarded for encouraging harmful behaviour, even if people value what they produce, e.g. making cigarettes?

Some philosophers have argued that the only practical way to solve these questions is to leave reward to the ‘free market’. But unfortunately, this does not seem to track desert very well and certainly does not track effort. First, the market distributes rewards not according to value but according to how much and how many people desire what is offered. Is a footballer more socially valuable than a nurse? Second, market values are affected by other factors, such as scarcity. Gold is more valuable than iron because it is rarer, not because it is more useful. But no one deserves a greater reward for providing something just because it is scarce, unless it is also crucial to social welfare. It is difficult to know how we could – even if we wanted to – provide people with rewards for their work depending on their effort. But that shouldn’t stop us recognising clear cases of injustice when we come across them.

However, some last thoughts challenge the claim that justice should reward desert (including effort). First, if we are trying to be sensitive to people’s choices, there are many aspects of desert that do not depend on what people choose. First, it is impossible to distinguish between those aspects of people’s lives that result from their inheritance (genetic or upbringing) and those that result from their choices. For instance, the strength of will required for sustained effort makes a great difference to a person’s ambition and achievements. But is it itself inherited or related to choices? If both, what part each? What of people’s talents – inherited or developed through choice? In what proportion? Second, the value of the contribution we make to social productivity will depend on what we can do and how much others value this – neither of which we can control. Third, we may want to expand desert to include equality and need. Doesn’t an ill person deserve medical care? Indeed, doesn’t just being a person deserve respect? If the answer is ‘yes’, then the theory of desert might include the theories of equality and need: there are some things people deserve in virtue of moral equality (respect…), some they deserve because they need them, and some they deserve because of what their particular traits and actions.

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