Tim Scanlon on What's Wrong with Inequality?

Philosophy Bites

Nigel Warburton

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2014

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is a concern for inequality of wealth just a form of envy? Are there good reasons for objecting to inequality? Harvard philosopher Tim Scanlon discusses these questions in converation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.
0:07.0	If you enjoy Philosophy Bites please support us.
0:10.0	We are currently unfunded and all donations would be gratefully received.
0:14.0	For details go to W.W. philosophy bites.com.
0:19.0	Suppose there were only two groups of people in the world.
0:22.0	Those in the first group each had money in
0:23.8	possessions worth a thousand pounds. Those in the second group each had a
0:27.9	million. Now suppose you could reduce the wealth of each member of the second
0:31.8	group so that they too had only a
0:33.9	thousand pounds. Overall this might be a bad thing to do but you would have made the
0:38.8	world more equal. So have you at least in this regard made the world a bit better.
0:44.0	Tim Scanlon from Harvard University has for many years been reflecting on the tricky issues
0:49.6	raised by the concept of equality.
0:52.0	Tim Scanlon, welcome to Philosophy Bites.
0:55.0	Thank you very much Nigel.
0:56.0	It's great to be back.
0:57.0	The topic we're going to focus on this time is
1:00.0	what's wrong with inequality.
1:02.0	Now we're focusing on economic inequality.
1:05.0	What is wrong with inequality?
1:07.0	Well, it's a puzzling question because objections to inequality are objections to the difference
1:12.0	between what some people have and what other people
	...

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