An egalitarian plateau? Challenging the importance of Ronald Dworkin's abstract egalitarian rights

Res Publica

Volumn 13, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 255-291

  Brown, Alexander ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Dworkin; Equality; Justice; Liberalism; Political argument; Rights

Indexed keywords

EID: 34548140109     PISSN: 13564765     EISSN: 15728692     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11158-007-9030-2     Document Type: Article

References (124)

1. See Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1977), p. 180;
2. 'Comment on Narveson: In Defense of Equality', Social Philosophy and Policy 1 (1983) 24-40, pp. 24-25;
3. Law's Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 296-7;
4. 'What is Equality? Part 3: The Place of Liberty', Iowa Law Review 73 (1987) 1-54, pp. 7-8;
5. Sovereign Virtue (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 2.
6. Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality', p. 25.
7. Thomas Nagel, 'Equality', in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 111.
8. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, Second Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 4.
9. Eric Rakowski, Equal Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 19.
10. Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 18-19.
11. Adam Swift, Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), p. 93.
12. See Bernard Williams, 'The Idea of Equality', in P. Laslett and W. G. Runisman (eds), Philosophy, Politics and Society, Series II (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962) 110-131, p. 110;
13. Peter Westen, Speaking of Equality: An Analysis of the Rhetorical Force of 'Equality' in Moral and Legal Discourse (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 33.
14. Ronald Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources', Philosophy and Public Affairs 1.0 (1981) 283-345, p. 3.11,
15. G. A. Cohen famously challenges the coherence of Dworkin's way of drawing the distinction between choice and luck in his 'On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice', Ethics 99 (1989) 906-944.
16. For Dworkin's rejoinder, see Sovereign Virtue, ch. 7. A number of other commentators have raised doubts over the capacity of Dworkin's thought experiments to deliver genuine fulfilment of the twin requirements of ambition-sensitivity and endowment-insensitivity.
17. See Colin Macleod, Liberalism, Justice, and Markets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998);
18. Robert van der Veen, 'Equality of Talent resources: Procedures or Outcomes?' Ethics 113 (2002) 55-81;
19. Miriam Cohen Christofidis, 'Talent, Slavery, and Envy', in Justine Burley (ed), Dworkin and His Critics (Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2004) 30-44.
20. Dworkin's extensive replies are set out in 'Sovereign Virtue Revisited', Ethics 113 (2002) 106-143;
21. and 'Ronald Dworkin Replies', in Burley, op. cit. 339-395.
22. This line of egalitarian thought has its intellectual roots in the work of nine-teenth century liberal reformers such as Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill who argued for the abolition of slavery and equal political rights for women. It can also be found in the feminist literature which demands changes within the institution of the family in order to end the domination of women by men. Indeed, Iris Marion Young argues that 'no aspect of everyday life would be exempt from reflection and potential criticism - language, jokes, styles of advertising, dating practices, dress, norms of child rearing, and countless other supposedly mundane and trivial elements of behaviour and comportment'. Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 87.
23. Ronald Dworkin, 'Liberalism' in Stuart Hampshire (ed), Public and Private Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) 113-143, p. 127.
24. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 440.
25. See Jonathan Wolff, 'Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos', Philosophy and Public Affairs 27 (1998) 207-218;
26. Elizabeth Anderson, 'What is the Point of Equality?' Ethics 109 (1999) 287-337.
27. Anthony Crosland articulated this form of egalitarianism very well when he wrote that the socialist 'seeks to weaken the deep-seated class stratification, with its, concomitant feelings of envy and inferiority, and the barriers to inhibited mingling among the classes.' Anthony Crosland, The Future of Socialism (London: Cape, 1956), p. 113.
28. The claim that egalitarians should be particularly concerned about status inequality has been advanced more recently by the socialist scholar and political theorist David Miller. See his 'What Kind of Equality Should the Left Pursue?' in Jane Franklin (ed.), Equality (London: Institute of Public Policy Research, 1997) 83-99;
29. 'Equality and Justice', in Andrew Mason (ed.), Ideals of Equality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998) 21-36.
30. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, p. 180.
31. Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality', pp. 24-25.
32. Dworkin, 'The Place of Liberty', pp. 7-8.
33. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, pp. 272-273.
34. Ibid., p. 273.
35. Ibid., p. 272.
36. Ibid., p. 273.
37. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, pp. 5, 324.
38. Ronald Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 9-10.
39. Ibid., p. 9.
40. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, p. 5.
41. Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, p. 9.
42. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
43. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, p. 5
44. Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, p. 10.
45. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, p. 5.
46. Ibid., p. 6.
47. Ibid., p. 324.
48. Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, p. 102.
49. Ibid., p. 103.
50. Ibid., p. 105.
51. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, p. 5.
52. Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, p. 9.
53. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, p. 1.
54. Ibid., p. 6.
55. Dworkin, Law's Empire, p. 201.
56. Ibid., pp. 200-201.
57. Ibid., p. 214.
58. Ibid., pp. 70-76. See also Ronald Dworkin, 'Hart's Postscript and the Character of Political Philosophy', Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 24 (2004) 1-37.
59. These rival interpretations might be short canonical statements such as 'to treat citizens with equal concern and respect is to x' or more complex theories involving a number of different ideas, thought experiments, propositions and principles as with Dworkin's own theory which makes use of, amongst other things, imaginary desert islands and hypothetical insurance markets. See Dworkin, 'Equality of Resources'.
60. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, pp. 294-296, 323-324.
61. A similar method is employed by Samuel Scheffler, though he draws the opposing conclusion that the evidence of ordinary distinctions and practices in matters of personal morality and in political contexts does not support the significance that Dworkin and others have placed on the choice/luck distinction. Samuel Scheffler, 'Choice, Circumstance, and the Value of Equality', Politics, Philosophy and Economics 4 (2005) 5-28, esp. p. 15.
62. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, pp. 6, 294, 323.
63. Dworkin, 'Liberalism', pp. 116-117, 125-126.
64. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, p. 180.
65. Ronald Dworkin, 'What is Equality? Part 1 : Equality of Welfare', Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981) 185-246, p. 185.
66. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, pp. 325-327.
67. Dworkin, Law's Empire, p. 297.
68. Ibid., p. 296.
69. Dworkin, 'Liberalism', p. 121.
70. Ibid., p. 126.
71. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, pp. 93-99.
72. I wish to thank Bruce Landesman and Jonathan Wolff for suggesting this clarification.
73. I have borrowed this general claim (but not the specific argument) from Brian Barry, Culture and Equality (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), p. 4.
74. I have in mind political thinkers such as Thomas Paine.
75. Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality', p. 24. See also Swift, Political Philosophy, p. 93.
76. Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, ch. 2.
77. Kymlicka, op. cit., pp. 4-5.
78. Rawls, op. cit., p. 27.
79. Kymlicka, op. cit., p. 52n.16.
80. Rawls, op. cit. pp. 101-102.
81. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 21.4.
82. Marc Fleurbaey, 'Equality of Resources Revisited', Ethics 113 (2002) 82-105.
83. See Derek Parfit, 'Equality and Priority', in Mason, op. cit. 1-20, pp. 3, 6-7.
84. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue, pp. 2-3.
85. Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?, p. 97.
86. Ibid., p. 96.
87. Dworkin, 'In Defense of Equality', p. 3.1
88. Ibid., p.31.
89. Ibid., p.31.
90. Ibid., p.31
91. Ibid, p. 31.
92. Ibid., p. 32.
93. Ibid., p. 33.
94. Ibid. p.33.
95. Ibid., pp. 33-34.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid., p. 35.
98. 'We can ask two questions', writes Dworkin. 'First, if we occupy that plateau -if we accept the thesis in its abstract form - which interpretation or conception of it is the best? Second, what reason do we have for accepting the thesis - for occupying the plateau - in the first place?' 'In Defense of Equality', p. 25.
99. This is a view defended by Kok-Chor Tan in his recent book, Justice without Borders. He writes: 'What equal respect and concern entails is, of course, open to contest, and different political philosophies may provide different answers to this question. But any defensible political philosophy must endorse this so-called 'egalitarian plateau'. . . Yet it is also a basic assumption of most political philosophies that principles of justice apply primarily to individuals in the context of a 'closed society' (i.e., to citizens) rather than to individuals taken as such, (e.g., Rawls 197.1). The cosmopolitan ideal makes the stronger and more controversial (though not indefensible) claim that the ideal of equal respect and concern applies globally to all individuals and not just to citizens within bounded groups.'
100. Kok-Chor Tan, Justice without Borders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 6.
101. Dworkin, 'Liberalism', p. 125;
102. Sovereign Virtue, pp. 5-6;
103. Is Democracy Possible Here?, pp. 94-95.
104. See, for example, W. von Leyden, 'On Justifying Inequality', Political Studies 11 (1963), 56-70;
105. John Wilson, Equality (London: Hutchinson, 1966), pp. 15-23;
106. Stanley Benn, 'Egalitarianism and the Equal Consideration of Interests', in J. Pennock and J. Chapman (eds), Nomos IX: Equality (New York: Atherton Press, 1967), 61-78;
107. Felix Oppenheim, 'Egalitarianism as a Descriptive Concept', American Philosophical Quarterly 7 (1970), 143-152;
108. John Rees, Equality (London: Pall Mall, 1971), pp. 11-27.
109. See Williams, 'The Idea of Equality'; Peter Singer, 'Equality and its Implications', in his Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 16-54.
110. Ronald Dworkin, Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion and Euthanasia (New York: Knopf, 1993).
111. This line of criticism follows a general trend in political philosophy since the late 1970s toward the view that in making comparisons of justice the comparison should be between people in. general rather than between people within a narrow political jurisdiction such as a state. See, for example, Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), part III;
112. Henry Shue, 'The Burdens of Justice', Journal of Philosophy, 80 (1983), 600-608;
113. Thomas Pogge, Realizing Rawls (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), ch. 6;
114. Simon Caney, 'Cosmopolitan Justice and Equalizing Opportunities', Metaphilosophy 32 (2001), 113-134;
115. Tan, Justice without Borders. For an opposing view,
116. see John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
117. Rainer Baubock, 'Cultural Minority Rights for Immigrants', International Migration Review 30 (1996), 203-250, pp. 214-215.
118. See also Joseph H. Carens, 'Migration and Morality: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective', in B. Barry and R. Goodin (eds), Free Movement (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 25-47.
119. Dworkin, Law's Empire, pp. 207-208.
120. Ibid., pp. 201-202.
121. Ibid., p. 203.
122. Ibid., p. 203.
123. Ibid., p. 203.
124. Ibid., p. 214.