Computer Access Equity
Walter Maner
6. What Access Do People Deserve?
In some sense of the phrase, people deserve “fair and equal
access” to computer resources. We could take this to require strict equality
of access, but it is more flexible to assume that the phrase only requires similar
access in similar circumstances. Persons whose situations are alike in relevant
respects should have like access, and persons whose situations differ in relevant
respects should have access that varies appropriately with the specific nature
of their differences. If we elevate this “fair and equal” rule to
the level of an intergroup principle, we can make an important statement about
equity. We can say that inequity exists when access opportunities are different
for groups of persons who are similar in relevant respects, or when access opportunities
are similar for groups of persons who are different in relevant respects. There
should be general agreement that the following characteristics are at least
presumptively irrelevant: age, gender, wealth, geography, social status, race,
ethnic origin and disability.
Some minimal principle of proportional dealing based
on relevant characteristics has been part of theories of justice since
the time of Aristotle. Perhaps it has endured as a principle because it
is minimal and abstract. If we want to convert it into a principle of
practical value, we will have to provide a substantive interpretation.
One substantive interpretation might be (1) that justice requires that all people
have access to the computer resources required to do whatever they want. Since
resource limitations make this impossible, we might retreat one step from naive
equality and declare (2) that justice requires that all people get equal access
to whatever computer resources are actually available. While this reformulation
copes effectively with resource scarcity, it also provides indiscriminately
equal access – equal even in cases where relevant differences would seem
to require corresponding differences in access opportunities. So we might retreat
from naive equality along another path, holding (3) that justice demands that
all people have access to computer resources up to the level of some lifetime
maximum that would be equal for all people. This version forces worst-case equality
but allows access opportunities to vary short of this extreme of circumstance.
It also copes with scarcity, assuming the lifetime maximum is reasonably defined.
Even so, it violates our sense of justice because it won’t permit persons
disadvantaged in the social lottery to have a larger lifetime limit even if
that new limit is required in order to advance toward parity.
We might try clothing the principle in the mantle
of utilitarianism, arguing (4) that justice demands that we maximize the
net total benefits of computer access across society as a whole. This
seems fair until we consider that the rule may require giving the best
access opportunities to the most savvy experts since they would be the
best position to exploit and extend their benefits. The decision to favor
experts with access would do more to pad the utilitarian’s bottom
line total than would squandering the same opportunities on novices.
Alternatively, we could try clothing the principle
in egalitarianism, arguing (5) that justice demands people have access
to whatever computer resources are necessary to raise themselves to parity
with others. Since others presumably don’t have optimal access either,
this principle does not require that everyone be well connected. It only
requires that substandard access be remedied. The main attraction of this
principle is the chance it gives those who are least advantaged to catch
up, to get even. The problem with it is that there exist a small number
of chronically ineffectual persons who would be required to consume all
available computer resources in a doomed effort to reach parity with others.
We can prevent resources from being sucked into this black hole by reformulating
(5) to say (6) that justice demands (only) that people who can raise themselves
to parity with others have access to the resources necessary to do so.
One last refinement is needed to incorporate the possibility that persons
may not choose to have access even when resources are made available to
them. We should make allowance for this fact by saying (7) that justice
requires that persons who can raise themselves to parity with others have
the opportunity to access the resources necessary to do so.
This principle of justice has evolved through six
refinements toward a position that is now essentially Rawlsian in spirit
(Rawls, 1971). It is consistent with his belief that persons are initially
advantaged and disadvantaged by caprice of nature or fluke of social circumstance.
By combined the luck of a natural and a social lottery, persons acquire
benefits they did not strictly earn along with burdens they do not strictly
deserve. We are born with different physical, intellectual and genetic
endowments; we are socialized to have different positions, roles and influence.
The existence of these characteristics seems arbitrary from a moral point
of view. Beyond these differences that are initially attributable to chance,
however, lie fundamental equalities of personhood: our ability to experience
pain and disappointment, our need to give and receive affection, our need
for belonging and for autonomy, our desire for freedom and self-respect.
There is something essentially and equally human about all of us that
is independent of life’s lotteries. Even if we are not precisely
equal in these humanizing qualities, they remain sufficient to support
a claim of equal treatment that cannot be refuted by empirical arguments
(Williams, 1971). This presumption of equality demands that social policy
work to the greatest benefit of those who are least advantaged, hence
that persons who can raise themselves to parity with others have the opportunity
to access the resources necessary to do so.
Bowling Green State University
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