Re: political philosophy - inheritance tax

[Keith Wilson <kw503@york.ac.uk>]

To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org


I agree with Daniel. There is a certain amount of confusion here over the 
meaning of 'equality'. Inheritance tax (as I understand it anyway) is 
intended to improve equality of opportunity, and not to impose some kind of 
utopian vision where every difference between individuals is stamped out in 
order to achieve a total equality of outcome; i.e. a world in which 
everyone is equally well (or badly) off. This is clearly both impossible 
and highly undesirable for any number of reasons, and is a 
misinterpretation of what is meant by the term 'equality' in this context.

Similarly, there are two interpretations of 'fairness', which can either 
mean 'just' (something that society can and should aspire to be), or 
'deserved', in the sense of being merited or according to reason. It may be 
'unfair' that it rained the whole time I was on holiday because I didn't do 
anything to deserve it, but as no injustice occurred, this is not something 
that I should be entitled to any kind of compensation for. Conversely, 
money and property are institutions that are created and maintained by 
society and so one could argue that it is not simply unfair but unjust that 
certain individuals are allowed to profit from the system through no doing 
of their own.

Rab, with reference to your earlier point, I'd be interested to read the 
book that you mention, but are you really saying that having society reward 
any particular characteristic is wrong on the grounds that no one criteria 
is better than any other? This seems like a case of throwing the baby out 
with the bath water. Just because rewarding privilege and hard work each 
produce unfair outcomes in certain cases, doesn't make them morally 
equivalent. Surely society has a role to play in encouraging certain traits 
and suppressing others, or are you in favour of the kind of moral 
relativism that holds all measures of worth to be equally valid, regardless 
of their effects? Sounds like poor thinking and nasty rhetoric to me... ;-)

Lurking somewhere behind this debate is the notion that there are some 
things which are brought about by society, and so should be addressed with 
social or financial measures such as IHT, and others that are down to blind 
luck or 'natural causes'. The best we can hope for with the latter is try 
and give those concerned the best possible chance to overcome their 
limitations (i.e. equality of opportunity), but attempting to compensate 
them for their misfortune, or trying to level the playing field completely 
to achieve equality of outcome is misguided and probably counterproductive 
(others may disagree).

Respectfully,
Keith.


Browse or search the BUPS-DIS archives, or unsubscribe from the mailing list at: http://www.bups.org/mailinglist.htm