This chapter contains section titled: I The Challenge Model II Challenge Versus Impact III Parameters and Limitations IV Tolerance, Neutrality, and Antipaternalism V Equality VI Resources Versus Welfare VII Conclusion Acknowledgement.

This book makes a significant contribution to the tradition of liberal political theory: it explores the foundations and limits of the idea of equality within that theory and offers a sustained argument for a persuasive new view of liberalism. Liberal thinking has always displayed a tension between the claims of liberty and those of equality. Professor Gutmann examines the contributions of liberal theorists from Locke to Rawls on the subject of two kinds of equality (...) - equality of opportunity to participate and the equal distribution of economic goods. Valuing both, she shows that, far from being alternatives, the two ideals are compatible to a much greater degree than has previously been thought. Liberal Equality restores egalitarianism to political theory in a way that will forcefully challenge its critics to deeper reflection. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin’s Justice for Hedgehogs defends liberal political morality on the basis of a rich account of dignity as constitutive of living well. This article raises the Rawlsian concern that making political morality dependent on ethics threatens citizens’ political autonomy. Thereafter, it addresses whether the abandonment of ethical foundations signals the demise of Dworkin’s liberalism and explores the possibility of laundering his conception so as to facilitate a marriage between the political philosophies of Rawls and Dworkin. The article finishes (...) by rebutting some objections Dworkin raises against Rawls’s account of public reason. (shrink)

Inequalities that arise because of the influence of arbitrary factors of social or natural contingency, as opposed to choices, are unjust. But whilst liberals wish to preserve and protect the affective family, parental partiality to their own children can result in an inequality that is unjust on account of it being attributable to arbitrary factors. Children's access to resources and opportunities should not be significantly determined by parental entitlement to resources. Justice requires not the abandonment of the family, but it (...) does impose constraints on the ways in which parents can permissibly express their partiality for their children. (shrink)

I am sure there are no men marked of God above another; for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him. A Leveller Commonplace, circa 1647 ... the day will come when the individual will no more be permitted to bequeath his property to his descendents even by means of a will thatn he has been permitted (since the French Revolution) to bequeath his offices and his status. Emile Durkheim, (...) 1892... despite the ideology of the `open society' and social democratic attacks upon inherited wealth through the imposition of estate and death duties, inheritance remains an important factor in the distribution of control over resources, especially wealth. Roderick Martin, 1977. (shrink)

(1977). Rawlsian Contractarianism: Liberal Equality or Inequality? Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 7, Supplementary Volume 3: New Essays on Contract Theory, pp. 71-94.

Liberalism is a wonderful theory, but its adherents have a difficult time explaining why. In his Tanner Lecture entitledFoundations of Liberal Equality, Ronald Dworkin proposes to defend liberalism in a new way. Dworkin is not content to view liberalism as a political compromise in which people set aside their personal convictions in the interest of social peace. Instead, he undertakes to make liberal political theory “continuous” with personal ethics, by describing an ethical position that endorses liberalism as (...) a matter of conviction. (shrink)

In order to assess to the degree to which the provision of economic incentives can result in justified inequalities, we need to distinguish between compensatory incentive payments and non-compensatory incentive payments. From a liberal egalitarian perspective, economic inequalities traceable to the provision of compensatory incentive payments are generally justifiable. However, economic inequalities created by the provision of non-compensatory incentive payments are more problematic. I argue that in non-ideal circumstances justice may permit and even require the provision of non-compensatory incentives (...) despite the fact that those who receive non-compensatory payments are not entitled to them. In some circumstances, justice may require us to accede to unreasonable demands for incentive payments by hard bargainers. This leads to a kind of paradox: from a systemic point of view, non-compensatory incentive payments can be justified even though those who receive them have no just claim to them. (shrink)

This important new study presents a systematic and definitive critique of Ronald Dworkin's highly influential theory of liberal equality. Focusing on the connection Dworkin attempts to establish between economic markets and liberal egalitarian political morality, the study examines his contention that markets have an indispensable role to play in the articulation of liberal ideals of distributive justice, individual liberty, and state neutrality. Subjecting the central tenents of this theory to sustained critical analysis, the author argues that (...) Dworkin's attempt to establish deep affinities between the market and equality is unsuccessful and his proposed solutions to some central controversies in political theory are seriously flawed. This powerful examination of the work of America's leading public philosopher reveals some timely lessons about the hazards and limitations of the market as a device for the articulation and realization of egalitarian justice. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin's Tanner Lectures, “Foundations of Liberal Equality,” have hardly elicited comment within the academic political theory community. This is surprising for a number of reasons. First, Dworkin is widely taken to be one of the leading liberal theorists in the English-speaking world, and “Foundations” is a major statement (120 pages in length) involving reflection upon issues of principle that are at the center of contemporary scholarly debate among liberals. Secondly, “Foundations” introduces a number of ideas and (...) concepts that are new in Dworkin's corpus and that serve to illuminate and clarify some of his wdely discussed earlier works, especially the famous article “Liberalism,” which sparked so much argument over the idea of neutrality and its place within liberal political theory. Finally, the lectures are interesting because of the approach they take to the matter of “defending liberalism,” an approach that departs in interesting and significant ways from those presently pursued by other leading liberal thinkers, notably John Rawls and Joseph Raz. (shrink)

In 1981, Ronald Dworkin published a two-part article entitled “What Is Equality?”. In it, he considers what egalitarians should aim to equalize. Dworkin argues in favor of equality of resources rather than equality of welfare, and in particular, he maintains that a proper egalitarian theory of distributive justice should be “ambition-sensitive” but not “endowment-sensitive.” That is, it will allow inequalities that reflect the fact that some people “choose to invest rather than consume, or to consume less expensively (...) rather than more, or to work in more rather than less profitable ways,” but it will not allow the distribution of resources to be affected by “differences in ability of the sort that produce income differences in a laissez-faire economy among people with the same ambitions”. (shrink)

Die neue Reihe Ideen&Argumente ist dem Ideal einer pluralistischen und offenen Argumentationskultur verpflichtet und präsentiert in solider Ausstattung Themen und Fragestellungen, die inhaltlich oder methodisch wichtige Beiträge zur zeitgenössischen Philosophie leisten. Die Publikationen sollen die Vorzüge angelsächsischer und kontinentaler Philosophietraditionen in ein produktives Zusammenspiel bringen. Herausragende, systematisch ausgerichtete Originalausgaben und deutsche Erstausgaben aus allen Teilgebieten der Theoretischen und Praktischen Philosophie finden in Ideen&Argumente ihren Platz. Willkommen sind programmatische Monographien jeglicher philosophischer Provenienz. Es gilt, die zeitgenössische Philosophie in ihrer thematischen und (...) methodischen Vielfalt neu zur Geltung zu bringen. (shrink)

피터 싱어는 쾌고감수능력이 있는 동물들을 고통스럽도록 다루면서, 쾌고감수능력이 없는 가장자리 인간들의 생명을 그들이 단지 인간이라는 생물 종의 구성원이라는 이유 하나만으로 신성시하는 것은 종차별주의라고 비판했다. 그의 이런 비판의 배후에는 이익평등고려의 원칙에 대한 확고한 신념이 있다. 필자는 이 논문에서 이익평등고려의 원칙을 세가지 측면에서 비판하고 있다. 첫째로, 이익평등고려의 원칙은 우리의 직관적인 도덕적 진리와 상충한다. 둘째로, 그 원칙은 동물과 비교해서 인간의 이익을 평등하게 고려하지 못하고 있다. 셋째로 싱어는 이익평등고려의 원칙에 근거한 자신의 동물해방론이 인간의 지위를 낮추는 것이 아니라 동물의 지위를 높이는 것이라고 주장하는데, 이 역시 (...) 잘못이다. (shrink)

This study explores freedom and equality as necessary constituents of a liberal democratic state. At the same time, equality and freedom conflict in various respects. It is examined how such conflicts may optimally be resolved while taking seriously the interests involved. These inquiries have far-reaching consequences for the justification of the liberal democratic state. Equal rights are generally considered to be an integral part of a liberal democratic state, but on what foundation are such rights (...) based? Various attempts have been made to provide such a foundation from a moral framework. Some important and influential positions are examined critically and an alternative perspective is offered. "Equality" is approached straightforwardly, without appealing to obscure notions while seeking an outcome that may universally be accepted. Rationality is an important feature in this respect. The question to what extent freedom should be allowed to citizens is another important issue. Granting citizens freedom is beneficial for the liberal democratic state as a whole and for citizens themselves. The limits of freedom must, however, be defined carefully. The search for a simple solution is balanced against the need to do the complexities of individual cases justice. In addition, it is not the task of a liberal democratic state to influence people’s convictions concerning equality ; only equal treatment should be guaranteed. (shrink)

The debate over the nature of egalitarianism has come to dominate political philosophy. As ever more sophisticated attempts are made to describe the principles of an egalitarian distribution or to specify the good or goods that should be distributed equally, little is said about the fundamental basis of equality. In virtue of what should people be regarded as equal? Egalitarians have tended to dismiss this question of fundamental equality. In the first part of the paper I will examine (...) some of these strategies of marginalisation and assess whether the issue of fundamental equality matters. Jeremy Waldron has criticised this strategy of avoidance in his recent book God, Locke and equality. He argues that Locke’s turn to a theistic grounding for fundamental equality provides a better approach to the problem than the approach taken by contemporary liberals such as John Rawls. I will examine Waldron’s critique of Rawls and show that it is wanting. I will conclude by suggesting that Rawls’s approach to the issue has a bearing on the way in which equality should be understood as a political value. This argument for the primacy of a political conception of egalitarianism has a bearing on the interconnection between core liberal values and the idea of the state that has been emphasised by Rawls, Dworkin and Nagel. (shrink)

According to John Rawls’s famous Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is justifiable to all citizens. The currently dominant interpretation of what is justifiable to persons in this sense is an internalist one. On this view, what is justifiable to persons depends on their beliefs and commitments. In this paper I challenge this reading of Rawls’s principle, and instead suggest that it is most plausibly interpreted in externalist terms. On this alternative (...) view, what is justifiable to persons is not in any way dependent on, or relativized to, their beliefs and commitments. Instead, what is justifiable to all in the relevant sense is what all could accept as free and equal. I defend this reinterpretation of the view by showing how it is supported by Rawls’s account of the freedom and equality of persons. In addition, a considerable advantage of this suggestion is that it allows for an inclusive account of to whom the exercise of political power must be made justifiable. (shrink)

This essay argues that the four most plausible arguments compatible with public reason for an outright legal ban on all forms of polygamy are unvictorious. My purpose is not to survey exhaustively the empirical literature on contemporary forms of polygamy, but to tease out the types of arguments political liberals would have to insist on, and precisely how strongly, in order for a general prohibition against polygamy to be justified. The most common objection to polygamy is on grounds of gender (...) equality, more specifically, female equality. But advancing this argument forcefully often involves neglecting the tendency of political liberalism (whatever name it goes by in contemporary, complex, multicultural societies) to tolerate a certain amount of inegalitarianism in private, within the bounds of robust and meaningful freedoms of choice and exit. Properly understood, polygamy involves no inherent statement about the essential inferiority of women, and certainly not more than many other existing practices and institutions (including many expressions of the main monotheistic religions) which political liberals regard as tolerable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Equal Freedom and Utility: Herbert Spencer’s Liberal Utilitarianısm by David WeinsteinDaniel PalmerDavid Weinstein. Equal Freedom and Utility: Herbert Spencer’s Liberal Utilitarianısm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 235. Cloth, $69.95.Herbert Spencer, though influential and widely read in the nineteenth century, has been largely neglected by contemporary philosophers. David Weinstein argues that this neglect is unjustified, and that Spencer’s moral and political thought deserves the (...) same attention that has been afforded to Spencer’s contemporary John Stuart Mill. The comparison with Mill is particularly important for Weinstein. Indeed, he claims that, like Mill, Spencer was a liberal utilitarian who attempted to preserve a place for strong moral rights within a broadly utilitarian framework.A large part of Weinstein’s study is devoted to delineating the precise nature of Spencer’s utilitarianism. Weinstein argues that Spencer is both more consistently utilitarian and more systematic than has often been alleged. In the first two chapters he discusses Spencer’s utilitarianism in relation to his metaphysical principles and his account of moral psychology. Weinstein convincingly demonstrates that Spencer’s liberal utilitarianism follows from his views on social evolution. Spencer viewed evolutionary processes as leading to increasing differentiation among phenomena, which implied for Spencer a trend towards greater individuation of persons as societies evolve. Evolutionary principles also led Spencer to view happiness as largely dependent upon the exercise of faculties. Together, these views lend support to what Weinstein sees as the centerpiece of Spencer’s liberal utilitarianism, his principle of equal freedom, or the claim that “each shall have as much liberty to pursue his ends as consists with maintaining like liberties to pursue their ends by others” (38). The increasing individuation of individuals coupled with the dependence of happiness upon the free exercise of our faculties guaranteed for Spencer that the greatest happiness will be generated through the adoption of the principle of equal freedom.Weinstein’s central argument is that Spencer’s moral philosophy offers a distinctive version of indirect utilitarianism. In chapters 3 through 5 he outlines the main contours of Spencer’s liberal utilitarianism and its relevance to contemporary discussions, maintaining that Spencer accepted the utilitarian principle as the ultimate criterion of actions. However, much like Mill, and in reaction to Bentham, he argued that any direct pursuit of the greatest happiness is self-defeating. Spencer’s indirect utilitarianism sought to promote the conditions upon which happiness is founded through the principle of equal freedom. Moral rights were for him merely corollaries of the principle that flesh out its empty formalism, providing the basis for deliberation. Concrete moral rights such as property rights, contract rights, and exchange rights are therefore the basis for our primary obligations and yet find their ultimate justification in the principle of utility.Spencer’s two-tiered account of our moral obligations is thus remarkably similar to Mill’s account of moral rights in Chapter 5 of Utilitarianism. The difference between them concerns the stringency of moral rights. While Mill saw moral rights as important, but ultimately defeasible, Spencer viewed them as indefeasible. While Mill’s position seems more plausible from the utilitarian perspective, Weinstein shows that Spencer’s stronger position must be judged in terms of his beliefs about the exercise of human [End Page 685] faculties. Weinstein correctly shows that if Spencer is wrong, it is not because, as critics have charged, his position is logically inconsistent, but because he held mistaken views about human nature and society.While the heart of Equal Freedom and Utility concerns the relation between utility and moral rights in Spencer’s work, the final two chapters are devoted to metaethics and applied ethics respectively. Weinstein marshals strong textual support to show that Spencer never simply defined the good as happiness and that G. E. Moore’s use of Spencer in Principia Ethica as an example of someone who committed a glaring version of the naturalistic fallacy was not justified. Spencer simply avoided prolonged treatments of such metaethical concerns. In the last chapter Weinstein argues that Spencer’s evolving views on land nationalization reveals both the general nature of Spencer’s derivation of moral rights from the principle... (shrink)

This rich and provocative study assesses Herbert Spencer's pivotal contribution to the emergence of liberal utilitarianism and shows that Spencer, as much as J. S. Mill, provided liberal utilitarianism with its formative contours. Like Mill, Spencer tried to reconcile a principle of liberty and strong moral rights with a utilitarian, maximizing theory of good. In this powerful and sympathetic account, David Weinstein argues that Spencer's moral and political thought exhibits greater systematic integrity than received views of his thought (...) acknowledge. However, Weinstein also examines the problems and flaws in Spencer's version of liberal utilitarianism, and shows that, precisely because of these flaws, it is engaging and deserving of our critical attention. This challenging study will be of interest to graduates and scholars in the fields of political theory, moral and political philosophy, and the history of political thought. (shrink)

This article deals with the issue of resignification to advance a hypothesis on the way in which social practices are transformed with recourse to the language of institutions. It first discusses the transition from gay liberation to same-sex marriage equality by exploring the trajectory of homosexuals’ rights claims. The article continues by providing a theoretical interpretation of what brought this shift about, that is, what the author calls a movement ‘from the street to the court’: in both civil law (...) and common law jurisdictions, legal means are increasingly being used by individuals and groups to make their claims audible to political institutions and to society at large. Then, an analysis is offered of the shape that social struggles take when socio-political claims are articulated with recourse to the legal language. The conclusion is that reliance on the law as a device to achieve political goals and construct same-sex group identity risks producing but a feeble resignification of the conventional heterosexual matrix. In light of that, a more effective way to defy this matrix is to create awareness of what is gained and what gets lost in becoming legally visible. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to briefl y examine one of the fundamental assumptions made in contemporary liberal political philosophy, namely that persons are free and equal. Within the contemporary liberal political thought it would be considered very uncontroversial and even trivial to claim something of the following form: “persons are free and equal” or “people think of themselves as free and equal”. The widespread nature of this assumption raises the question what justifies this assumption, are there (...) good reasons for holding it? After establishing some methodological remarks, including a distinction between having freedom-equality and being free-equal and restricting the domain of discussion to include only a subset of all moral questions, namely the questions of political morality, the paper deals with some conceptual issues concerning this assumption of persons as free and equal, such as how do free-and-equal-making properties relate to person-making properties. It then moves on to examine three broad ways the free-and-equal-mak-ing properties could be established. First, necessary property approaches, which take some necessary feature of persons to be what makes them free and equal (e.g. possessing an immortal soul). Second, contingent property approaches, which take some contingent feature of persons to be what makes them free and equal (e.g heir practise of reasoning). Third, agreement based approaches, which take some agreement or contract among persons to be the basis for their being free and equal (e.g. evolutionary emergence of our treatment of others). Strengths and weaknesses of all approaches will be examined. (shrink)