Roemer suggests that resource allocation be based on equality of opportunity and

Question

Roemer suggests that resource allocation be based on equality of opportunity and that people should be responsible for some things (e.g., effort expended) but not other things (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender, occupation). An example he gives is that a black steelworker who has smoked for 20 years should have more right to compensation for lung cancer than a white female college professor who smoked for 15 years-because the steelworker's behavior was more responsible when taking into account their behaviors compared to people in similar circumstances to themselves. Do you agree with Roemer, and why? Now suppose that you do agree with him. Should a person's educational attainment be considered a factor of which he or she has little or no control? Why?

Explanation / Answer

Prof. John roemer, in his theory of distributive justice has explained that the inequality of asset ownership is the primary reason of capitalist inequality.

Now, in the given case, roemer has compared the situations of two people from entirely different educational and socio-economic backgrounds i.e a black steelworker and a female college professor. He has argued that their end result i.e lung cancer may be same, but their situations must be observed in comparison to their immediate collegues as it will ascertain which person can be accounted for comparetively more irresponsible behaviour. In such a case, it is quite obvious that a female college professor is more liable to acquire lung cancer than the black steelworker as her immediate collegues are less likely to be smokers.

Now, this theory definitely makes a lot of sense, but it would be quite unjustified to hypothetically analyse tendency to acquire smoking habits by two people. Hence, roemer's theory is somewhat correct, but is quite subjective. In the given case, it can be said that black steelworker has more right to claim lung cancer compensation.

Now, as an extension of this theory, the roemer's argument that a person's educational background must also be considered a factor of which he/she has little or no control is quite correct. This is because, educated people are much more aware of the consequences of their actions and, are also usually blessed with better off collegues and family which makes it difficult for them to acquire bad habits. The situation of uneducated workers is quite opposite.

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