Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality - Softcover

Dworkin, Ronald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674008103 ISBN 13: 9780674008106

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Equality is the endangered species of political ideals. Even left-of-center politicians reject equality as an ideal: government must combat poverty, they say, but need not strive that its citizens be equal in any dimension. In his new book Ronald Dworkin insists, to the contrary, that equality is the indispensable virtue of democratic sovereignty. A legitimate government must treat all its citizens as equals, that is, with equal respect and concern, and, since the economic distribution that any society achieves is mainly the consequence of its system of law and policy, that requirement imposes serious egalitarian constraints on that distribution.

What distribution of a nation's wealth is demanded by equal concern for all? Dworkin draws upon two fundamental humanist principles--first, it is of equal objective importance that all human lives flourish, and second, each person is responsible for defining and achieving the flourishing of his or her own life--to ground his well-known thesis that true equality means equality in the value of the resources that each person commands, not in the success he or she achieves. Equality, freedom, and individual responsibility are therefore not in conflict, but flow from and into one another as facets of the same humanist conception of life and politics. Since no abstract political theory can be understood except in the context of actual and complex political issues, Dworkin develops his thesis by applying it to heated contemporary controversies about the distribution of health care, unemployment benefits, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, assisted suicide, and genetic engineering.

About this title

About the Author:

Ronald Dworkin was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From the book:

"Politicians are now anxious to endorse what they call a 'new' liberalism, or a 'third' way between the old rigidities of right and left. These descriptions are often criticized as merely slogans lacking substance. The criticism is generally justified, but the appeal of the slogans nevertheless suggests something important. The old egalitarians insisted that a political community has a collective responsibility to show equal concern for all its citizens, but they defined that equal concern in a way that ignored those citizens' personal responsibilities. Conservatives--new and old--insisted on that personal responsibility, but they have defined it so as to ignore the collective responsibility. The choice between these two mistakes is an unnecessary as well as an unattractive one. If the argument that follows is sound, we can achieve a unified account of equality and responsibility that respects both. If that is the third way then it should be our way."

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0674008103
• ISBN 13: 9780674008106
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528