Putting Yourself on the Line: The Harms of Competition

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.7.2.5689

Keywords:

Competition, Harms, Self-worth, Opportunity costs, Estrangement, Stakes

Abstract

Competition is a key element in the design of social institutions in contemporary liberal democracies. Competitive procedures for jobs, grants and university admissions can be considered ‘substantially engulfing’ since they provide access to important goods that everyone has reasons to want, such as financial security, the social bases of self-respect and education. While competition can have beneficial outcomes and can be a fair way of selecting meritorious candidates, this paper aims to identify the distinctive moral problems it raises by developing what we call a ‘Harm Account’ of competition. We argue that substantially engulfing competitions predictably lead to three types of harm: (1) substantial psychological and emotional costs; (2) substantial opportunity costs; and (3) estrangement. These harms provide strong pro tanto reasons against organizing substantially engulfing competitions for important goods. The weight of these reasons depends on the stakes and scope of the competition at hand.

Author Biographies

Yvette Drissen, Tilburg University

Yvette Drissen is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Academic Collaborative Center for an Inclusive Labour Market and a lecturer in Ethics and Political Philosophy, both at Tilburg University. Her areas of specialisation are applied ethics, social and political philosophy and feminism. She recently defended her PhD on the ethics of competition with the title: “When Success Becomes the New Normal: The Competitive Society and its Symptoms”.

Bart Engelen, Tilburg University

Bart Engelen is an Associate Professor at Tilburg University (The Netherlands) and is affiliated with the Tilburg Centre for Moral Philosophy, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS). His research focuses on the borders between ethics, political philosophy (institutional design) and economics (rational choice theory). He has published on conceptual and normative issues surrounding rationality, reciprocity, paternalism, compulsory voting and the role of preferences in economics. Recently, he has focused primarily on ethical and conceptual issues that arise with respect to nudging and how that relates to manipulation, rationality, transparency and autonomy.

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Published

17-01-2025

How to Cite

Drissen, Y., & Engelen, B. (2025). Putting Yourself on the Line: The Harms of Competition. Ethics, Politics & Society, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.7.2.5689

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Section

Original Articles