Understanding Disadvantage Lunch-hour Seminar
May 9, 2007

On the 9th of May, AKU-ISMC held a lunch-hour seminar, Understanding Disadvantage, with University College London (UCL) Professor Jonathan Wolff.

Professor Wolff recently co-authored a book, Disadvantage, which explores the causes of disadvantage and how social policy can attempt to understand and resolve the problems it causes.

During his talk, Wolff explained that the book was sparked in part by his discontent with the limited contribution that political philosophy seems to have had on discussions about contemporary social issues and public policy in the UK.  According to Wolff, political philosophy has articulated hypothetical problems, but often has made no attempt to do so in ways relevant to public policy.  His purpose was therefore to be able to write a book that public policy-makers might use.

“There is room for people who are developing their theories in a very abstract way at the level of pure theory … it does seem to me that it is necessary to have some people who are prepared to … (think) about what political philosophy can do for public policy.”

Wolff talked about the three main types of theories by which political philosophers attempt to frame solutions to the problem of disadvantage.

The ‘theory of equality’ where everyone in society gets the same amount, the ‘sufficiency theory’ where everyone gets a sufficient amount to flourish, and the ‘priority theory’ which further splits into two streams: ‘absolute priority’ which gives priority to the absolutely worst off, and ‘weighted priority’ which gives special, but not overwhelming priority, to those who are worst off in society.

Wolff said that a great deal of philosophical literature is spent working out which theory is the most sound.  He argued that these theories and the differences between them, although valid, make no real difference to short or medium-term policy.

“Where is the dispute practical? If you believe that not everyone has enough now, there is no difference between bringing people up to a level of sufficiency and giving priority to the worst off.  As long as we haven’t yet got to a point where everyone has enough, you need to find out who is doing badly, and try to improve their lives.”
 
Wolff argued that how much money or the possessions one has are not good indicators of who is disadvantaged in society.

Further, he stated that there are a number of different ways to measure disadvantage, one of which is to attach a value to each aspect of well being.  He drew an analogy with decathlon scoring and described the difficulty of putting a weighting on each aspect of wellbeing and managing to maintain consensus between scorers.

“One person might think that athleticism is closely related to being able to run fast, but another might think that throwing a shot put is more of a show of skill.”

Wolff explained that ultimately one must have ‘robust weighting’ where the same people will form a group of the most disadvantaged in society despite different scoring measures being used. Otherwise, no clear ranking will emerge whatever the scoring method.

Wolff described some of the factors that cause disadvantage in society.

An important factor that Wolff described as influencing disadvantage included the level of stress in people’s lives.  Wolff explained that the level of stress, particularly long-term stress, reflects lack of control and therefore disadvantage in society.

Wolff explained that a lack of affiliation also contributes to disadvantage in society, and gave the example of males in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“A sense of belonging is rather protective.  For men now in Russia life expectancy is in the mid 50s … it has plummeted by about 10-15 years for males … there was massive unemployment after the collapse of the Soviet Union – and men tend to build a social network around their workplace… Affiliation and social networks are very, very important.  If you have poor social networks, it is likely that your health will be worse and your control over your environment will be worse.”

Speaking about the relationship between risk and disadvantage, Professor Wolff gave the example of honey collectors in Bengal who collect honey in forests inhabited by Bengal tigers, citing economics and philosophy scholar Amartya Sen.  While they were no less poor in monetary terms than other people, the risk that they faced in their daily lives put them at a distinct disadvantage in society.

“People who are subject to risk find themselves not equal. Vulnerability is very important when determining disadvantage.”

Following the talk by Professor Wolff there was a discussion which included questions related to the link between religion and disadvantage, and the applicability of his study to other cultures.

External Links*

For a profile of Professor Jonathan Wolff, please click here.

For more information on Disadvantage, by Jonathan Wolff and Avner de-Shalit please click here.

* Links to sites does not imply endorsement of the contents of those sites.