Who should have the best flutes?
Aristotle asked this famous in his exploration of justice. I brainstormed a few different answers. Can you think of others?
The Best Flute Players
The purpose of a flute is to make beautiful music. For a flute to fulfil its purpose, it should be owned by the best flute player.
Rich People
Flute prices are set by the market. The best flutes are expensive and the only people who can afford them are rich people. Perhaps the rich people with the best flutes will hire the best flute players or perhaps they’ll lend them a flute occasionally. Or perhaps they won’t. Perhaps they’ll keep the best flute in a safe place to sell for a great price later. They can do what they like because they are rich.
The State
We can’t trust capitalism to distribute flutes efficiently. It would be better if all the flutes were owned by the state which could distribute flutes according to need. Perhaps we could establish a National Flute Academy to nurture and reward the best flute players.
Poor People
It’s not fair that either the rich people get all the best flutes or the best flute players get all the best flutes. We should distribute flutes to the least well-off in society.
The Worst Flute Players
It’s not fair that the best flute players just get better and better. It’s because they have access to the best flutes. If the worst flute players had better flutes, they could be great flute players too.
The Children of Rich People
This flute has been in my family for four generations. I’ve been meaning to learn to play it but I’ve been busy you know. But my flute is my property and I am entitled to do what I want with it. I choose to give it to my eldest son.
Slovenians
The oldest flutes were discovered in Slovenia. The flutes were 45,000 years old. Flutes are part of Slovenian culture. For anyone else to play a flute… that would be cultural appropriation.
Ethnic Minorities
Flute playing is a white European thing and ethnic minorities have been excluded for too long. We should decolonise flute playing and give the best flutes to ethnic minorities.
The Best Flute Players
For any decision, we should consider which choice will result in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. If the best flute players have the best flutes, they will be happy and the rest of us will be happy to hear them play.
Epilogue
Another clown pointed out that it wasn’t obvious that the flutes were just placeholders for some limited resource. I wrote a follow up post to explore this a bit further.
It annoys me sometimes to see some nice object or experience “go to waste” because the person who has it either doesn’t or cannot make the highest and best use of it or doesn’t appreciate or take care of what they have. I’ll have to think about the “should” question you have posed. Interesting…
Ok, it took a while for me to come up with a scenario in which the answer is perfectly clear to me. The best flutes should go to the people who care most about flutes and would most enjoy having a flute. Whether they are highly accomplished, impoverished, or any of the other criteria you noted above as possibly legitimate ways to determine who gets flutes–it makes no difference. Who cares the most about flutes, is passionate about flutes, is committed to flutes, will be transported emotionally to a higher level with the flutes? Those people should get the flutes.
(The example that clarified the issue for me involved other things that aren’t survival related–tickets to the World Cup or the Metropolitan Opera, a really nice tennis racket or bicycle or table saw. No point in giving these things to people with relatively little interest compared to others, regardless of socioeconomic status. If we were talking about survival-level food, ambulance service, etc, I’d have to think about it some more.)
We could have flute czar. Elected or appointed, then they could decide for all of us what they think is best for the flutes.
The Flute Czar would still need some kind of guidance as to how to allocate the flutes.
Flute Czar accepts no guidance, decides based on what whim strikes the czar in the moment. We must put it up to a popular vote each and every time lol
That or let the Meta algorithms just figure it out. Though to most of us the effect would appear to be no different from that of allowing the czar’s whims to dictate…
We could allocate the flutes democratically. Everytime a new flute becomes available, we could have a vote to decide who deserves it.
Really all I know is that *I* would feel uncomfortable accepting a “best flute” knowing that its only value to be would be as an item to sell or give away. Under no scenario am I a reasonable candidate for ownership of a Best Flute!
The other clowns in the Clown Household pointed out that it’s not obvious that, in the title question, ‘best flutes’ is a placeholder for ‘any good thing that we don’t have enough of’.* If I just change the question to ‘Stradivarius violins’ (there are only 600 remaining), it becomes more obvious that not everyone can have a whatever-the-good-thing-is.
* The title question is Aristotle’s BTW. Not mine.
But you can go even broader than this by choosing a different ‘good thing’. If there are a limited number of houses for people to live in, who should have the houses? Should the answer be ‘the rich people should have as many houses as they want because they are rich and poor people are not’?
What about education? Who should have the best physics education? Should it be the kids who are best at physics? The kids who love physics the most? The kids who are not very good at physics? The kids who hate physics?
What about healthcare? What about iPhones? What about a place in pre-school or gymnastics class? What about tickets to the FA Cup final?* Different kinds of good thing will result in different answer but I think Aristotle’s question is a good one.
Maybe the other clowns have a point.
* Tony gave me his extra ticket for the 1990 FA Cup final replay vs Crystal Palace because he thought the ticket should go to a Man United fan.
Aristotle’s answer, BTW, is the first one. Aristotle believed that everything has a purpose (Greek: telos) — a reason to be.
The purpose of a flute is to make music. The purpose of a knife is to cut. The purpose of a bed is to be slept in. If a flute is not making good music — if it is kept in a safe by a rich man — it is not fulfilling its purpose (its telos). Good flutes should to be played by good flute players. Houses are meant to be lived in.
My answer was the last one: we should choose the option that makes the most people happy. Good flutes should be played by good flute players.
Great follow-ups, thanks. I learned some stuff!