Eliminating the Good in the name of Equality

Some philosophers from the British zone are worried that loving families may need to be eliminated because they provide benefits to their children not shared by others. This isn't the first time I've encountered this argument from Swift and company, but here they are again.

‘I had done some work on social mobility and the evidence is overwhelmingly that the reason why children born to different families have very different chances in life is because of what happens in those families.’   

Once he got thinking, Swift could see that the issue stretches well beyond the fact that some families can afford private schooling, nannies, tutors, and houses in good suburbs. Functional family interactions—from going to the cricket to reading bedtime stories—form a largely unseen but palpable fault line between families. The consequence is a gap in social mobility and equality that can last for generations....

‘One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.’   

It’s not the first time a philosopher has thought about such a drastic solution. Two thousand four hundred years ago another sage reasoned that the care of children should be undertaken by the state.

Plato pulled few punches in The Republic when he called for the abolition of the family and for the children of the elite to be given over to the state. 

Well, Plato wasn't at all concerned about equality in that discussion in Republic V. The model society he proposed was inherently and intentionally unequal. His intention was to divide society into the most rational, the most spirited, and everyone else: the ruling would be done by the most rational, the fighting by the most spirited, and everyone else would work for a living. 

The reason he wanted to separate them from their children was partly to ensure that the elite received the most fitting upbringing for exercising their power, but mostly because he didn't trust that parents would admit that their offspring weren't really fit for the ruling class and allow them to be demoted to the workers. In other words, it was to preserve the inequality of the most-rational that he proposed this idea. 

Our philosophers are interested in equality, however. They tried to construct an argument in favor of continuing to have natural families, and did decide that at least a few of the benefits are allowable.  

‘It’s the children’s interest in family life that is the most important,’ says Swift. ‘From all we now know, it is in the child’s interest to be parented, and to be parented well. Meanwhile, from the adult point of view it looks as if there is something very valuable in being a parent... Parenting a child makes for what we call a distinctive and special contribution to the flourishing and wellbeing of adults.’

Thus, they set about determining which of the contributions of the family were defensible against the countervailing claims of equality.

‘Private schooling cannot be justified by appeal to these familial relationship goods,’ he says. ‘It’s just not the case that in order for a family to realise these intimate, loving, authoritative, affectionate, love-based relationships you need to be able to send your child to an elite private school.’

In contrast, reading stories at bedtime, argues Swift, gives rise to acceptable familial relationship goods, even though this also bestows advantage.

Indeed, as he goes on to point out, the evidence suggests that it conveys even more advantage than private schooling. AVI will here want to point out that probably the kinds of people who are genetically inclined to spend time reading to their kids are also genetically likely to produce successful offspring no matter what you do, which if true would be a counter-argument against all of this meddling they propose.

I notice, however, the popularity of the argument that we can't allow private schools because all of our children need to suffer public schools would be better if the rich also attended them. This argument is especially popular, I notice, among those who are politically or economically empowered by the public school sector. If anything I would go the other way and eliminate public school entirely, in favor of universal school choice.

An alternative perspective -- one that Plato actually would endorse -- is that maybe equality isn't that important. You can't do without it completely, but you should definitely minimize your appeals to it. In Laws VI, Plato attempts to paint this as 'another, better kind of equality' while noting the dangers of the first kind. It's fine to have one test for everyone, and let the best man win (or woman, as equality between the sexes really was important to Plato both in the Laws and the Republic).

Aristotle, who is even less interested in equality than Plato, discusses the matter in Politics II. He comes down quite on the side of the natural family, as he does on the side of rule by the most virtuous rather than by the many per se. The closest he ever comes to a notion of political equality being important is when he says that the least dangerous people to empower are the middle class, because they will be so interested in minding their own business that they will neither embark on grand government schemes (as the rich like, but it takes too much of time for a man who also has to run his business) nor on redistributing property (as the poor would, but which would take away from the middle class also). That isn't a suggestion that equality is the big deal, though; it's favoring the middle class as a locus of power over either the poor or the rich.

Making the crackhead and the corrupt politician the equals of the working man and the shopkeeper would be a kind of step forward from where we are today; but it isn't the ideal relationship either. You really want a fruitful inequality in which the human good is maximized. Swift is finally able to see that the human good really does flourish best in the natural family, but even so he keeps turning back to this artificial and negative conception of putting artificial equalities over actual good.