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bgalbreath's avatar

'If "doing good" = "use innate talents to benefit other people", then I'm not sure I agree incentives for that can be too great - why wouldn't we want to maximize that?' We might not want to maximize that because it would make our own lives unbearable. Peter Singer argues that, as long as there is severe poverty, we who are not poor should make working to alleviate that poverty our highest priority, to the point where giving presents to our children, enjoying restaurant meals, or basically any personal consumption above meeting whatever needs allow us to continue to work to help the poor are all immoral. Why wouldn't we want to maximize that? Because it is too demanding and makes ordinary life impossible.

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robhollander's avatar

Doesn't self-improvement induce inequality only where it is relative to others? Where a tax system, let's say, redistributes all incomes to the median, or where a health care system is universal, the only incentive to improve would be personal and the inequalities personal as well. The desire to know more or be more physically active might not then enter the zero sum game of socially harmful inequalities. Inequalities might be unequal in their consequences -- some socially harmful, others socially harmless, others beneficial. Do we want to cultivate physicians who want to be rich or cultivate those who are interested in medicine? We might ask which inequalities we want our social structure to incentivize, if any. Overcoming bias, for example, could be its own reward.

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