Immanuel Kant urged us to respect the value of human beings by treating them always (at the same time) as ends in themselves and never (merely) as means to ends other than themselves. I contend it would probably be a good idea to have such approach universalized (as much as possible) and stated as an admonition to treat as many things in our lives as we can not just as means to other desired or valued ends, but as ends in themselves.
Take, for instance, our choice of romantic partner or occupation. Both can be (and often are) made for instrumental reasons: one can choose to marry a well-off partner or a predictably reliable partner, in the hope that we can count on an economic provider (or a co-provider or co-caregiver) for our children. One can similarly choose their profession based on the expected job demand or economic or status return for a given occupation, quite irrespective of how much one may enjoy or value the training for and exercise of such profession.
Such instrumental choices are inherently risky, for they entail that we effectively renounce marrying for love or devoting our life’s work to an endeared vocation in the hope that we will thus secure some external end, such as economic prosperity or social status. But these instrumental endeavors can always go wrong: the expected returns may well never obtain. Additionally, the fact that we do not intrinsically enjoy our job or our relationship is quite likely to negatively affect our chances of effectively getting the fruitful career or the lasting relationship we were making such painful sacrifices to secure.
Hence, it seems wiser (both more secure and more likely to be effective) to make our life choices (big and small) with a view to doing everything we do—inasmuch as possible—not just as a means to an external end, but always also as an end in itself. Marrying for love and working on what we see as our calling are analogous life choices in that they both consist in making some key life choice not just instrumentally but also because we value intrinsically what we are choosing, be it the relationship to our romantic partner or the work we do. Surely, each is likely to have long term instrumental benefits, as well, in terms of meaning, economic and emotional security, and health and longevity. But—come what may in the hazardous, unpredictable long term—if we choose what we inherently value, then we will always be able to say, as the Spanish saying goes “¿quién nos quita lo bailao?”: nothing can take away the good we have already enjoyed.
If we so do, if we choose what we inherently value, then—whatever luck may bring—we shall always have our safe return. No matter how wrong our calculations and predictions may turn out to be regarding the expected instrumental goods our actions were meant to bring about, no matter how much the world may change to make our plans a failure, we shall have our safe return anyway. This is because the actions, the activities and relationships we invested our life on had the return in themselves: they were inherently valuable—as ends in and of themselves. If we behave like this as much as we can, and if we always try to do what we think may be instrumentally wiser but also good in itself, then we will be, as much as possible, immune to the deleterious effects of bad luck or poor instrumental calculations.
Now, if it is good for individuals to make their life choices in this manner, then, at a societal level, it will surely be good to put every individual, as much as this is feasible, in the position to choose the activities and relationships that make up his or her life, never for purely instrumental reasons but always also for the good they have in themselves. This is bound to enable an increase in the general happiness. But how could we do that?
A universal basic income (UBI), I contend, could be a helpful policy to this effect. UBI can be defined as an income paid unconditionally by the state to every member of the political community on a regular basis (e.g., monthly). Being unconditional, it amounts to an income floor on which every citizen or legal resident can rely on no matter what, a floor on which they can safely stand to build a life for themselves, that gives them the real freedom to make meaningful choices regarding the use of their limited time on earth, and the economic means to say “no” to abusive deals or relationships.
How would it help? It would, on the one hand, enable individuals to escape from bad relationships—including domination and abuse—in which many women today are trapped for instrumental considerations such as a lack of independent economic means to sustain themselves or their dependents. Because they are still expected to perform most of the housework and unpaid care for close dependents, even employed women tend to bear most of the unpaid work at home (a second shift, following their first shift in the labor market). This entails that many do not have solid ties to the labor market throughout their life. Effectively, having to handle both paid and unpaid care work without other responsible actors (such as partners, employers, or the state) stepping in means that many women have to opt for part-time work or to interrupt their labor market participation during times when care demands are higher. This, in turn, results in their pension contributions likely being insufficient as they reach old age. Thus, for homemakers or double-shifters whose independent income at different life stages is insufficient or unreliable, maintaining their relationship to their partners is not just a matter of emotional security: it is a matter of economic survival for them and their children. This introduces a power imbalance in the relationship, because women in traditional gender arrangements generally lack decent-enough fallback options in case of a break-up, and this is known by both members of the couple—meaning that both are well aware who has the most to lose if they separate. This, in turn, diminishes women’s voice and bargaining power within the couple, making women less likely to push for, and less able to effectively obtain, fair relationship terms. At best, economic dependency gives rise to domination: a situation of power imbalance in which the dominant party has the power to interfere arbitrarily in the lives of those who are dependent on him (even if he is loving or decent enough never to use it). Domination is bad in itself, since it deprives the dominated parties of the ability to make meaningful plans for their lives and it pushes them into self-demeaning practices such as subservience, adulation and avoidance, eroding their self-respect. At its worst, economic dependency amounts to a trap, that keeps many women and children at the mercy of abusive partners and fathers, unable to escape and rebuild their lives for purely financial reasons.
By providing everyone with the basic means to sustain themselves and those who depend on them, a universal basic income would free individuals from ill relationships they are forced to enter (or prevented from exiting) out of purely instrumental considerations, while, at the same time, enabling them to freely engage in inherently valuable relationships with others. Moreover, a UBI seems a suitable policy to meet women’s distinctive income security needs: it could protect full-time homemakers by endowing them with an independent income, while also stabilizing and supplementing the income flow of double-shifters who work part-time or intermittent jobs. Looking forward, a UBI can also be seen as a good policy for transitioning to a more equal distribution of paid and unpaid work between men and women. It would enable both members of heterosexual couples to reduce their working hours in the labor market, so as to make room for their caring responsibilities without reducing their income below a decent minimum. Thus, it would allow couples willing to share the traditional roles of homemaker and breadwinner to act on their wishes, while also protecting women in more traditional arrangements from having to choose between deprivation or domination.
A UBI would also free individuals from having to see their work—as many do today—solely as a job—as something they have to do for purely instrumental reasons such as getting a salary to fulfill their vital needs. A universal basic income would enable individuals to choose freely which abilities they want to develop and to what effect they feel they should put them to use. It would free young people from the pressure to devote their intelligence, their imagination and their energy to figuring out what they may have to offer to the wealthy few who can pay for it. It would free them to really ask themselves what it is that they are good at, what they love doing and what the world needs from them, and how they can best use their talents and inclinations to make a meaningful contribution to their peers and to the healing of our planet.
By freeing young women and men from the economic insecurity that pushes them to instrumentalize their very life—from their most intimate relationships through the abilities they choose to develop to the contribution they make to the world through their everyday work—a UBI would give them the real freedom and the genuine opportunity to choose what they inherently value: to marry for love and to work on their calling. That is surely a good thing for individuals and for society.
Julieta Elgarte
Julieta Elgartewas trained as a philosopher at Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina) and did postgraduate studies in philosophy at Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). She serves as Associate Professor of Logic and Assistant Professor of Ethics at the Philosophy program at UNLP, as Associate Professor of Ethics and deontology at the Speech Therapy program at UNLP and as Professor of Argumentation Theory at the Masters in Philosophy program at Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (Argentina). Her research interests include the effects of economic inequalities, theories of social justice, universal basic income, gender justice and the study of human needs from an evolutionary perspective.
