Sovereign Virtue: Theory & Practice of Equality, by Ronald Dworkin
Equal treatment by government at general abstract level. It is a rare book by Dworkin in which word ‘discretion’ is absent, yet the one where discussion of its procedural realities was most needed.
Ronald Dworkin wrote:
Introduction:
Does Equality Matter?
Equality is the endangered species of political ideals. …
[MGH: A future exhibit of Dworkin’s book will return to ‘endangered species’]
… Two principles of ethical individualism seem to me fundamental to any … comprehensive liberal theory, and together they shape and support the account of equality defended in this book. The first is the principle of equal importance: it is important, from an objective point of view, that human lives be successful rather than wasted, and this is equally important, from that objective point of view, for each human life. The second is the principle of special responsibility: though we must all recognize the equal objective importance of the success of a human life, one person has a special and final responsibility for that success—the person whose life it is.
The principle of equal importance does not claim that human beings are the same or equal in anything: not that they are equally rational or good, or that the lives they create are equally valuable. The equality in question attaches not to any property of people but to the importance that their lives come to something rather than being wasted. The consequences of that importance for the rightness or wrongness of anyone’s behavior is, moreover, a further question. … But the principle of equal importance does require people to act with equal concern toward some groups of people in certain circumstances. A political community that exercises dominion over its own citizens, and demands from them allegiance and obedience to its laws, must take up an impartial, objective attitude toward them all, and each of its citizens must vote, and its officials must enact laws and form governmental policies, with that responsibility in mind. Equal concern … is the special and indispensable virtue of sovereigns.
The second principle of ethical individualism, the principle of special responsibility, is neither metaphysical nor sociological. It does not deny that psychology or biology can provide persuasive causal explanations of why different people choose to live as they do choose, or that such choices are influenced by culture or education or material circumstance. The principle is rather relational: it insists that so far as choices are to be made about the kind of life a person lives, within whatever range of choice is permitted by resource and culture, he is responsible for making those choices himself. The principle does not endorse any choice of ethical value. It does not contemn a life that is traditional and unexciting, or one that is novel and eccentric, so long as that life has not been forced upon someone by the judgment of others that it is the right life for him to lead.
This book’s argument—the answer it gives to the challenge of equal concern—is dominated by these two principles acting in concert.
The first principle requires government to adopt laws and policies that insure that its citizens’ fates are, so far as government can achieve this, insensitive to who they otherwise are—their economic backgrounds, gender, race, or particular sets of skills and handicaps.
[MGH: So we should expect little role for discretion in welfare policies?]
The second principle demands that government work, again so far as it can achieve this, to make their fates sensitive to the choices they have made. The central doctrines and devices that the book endorses—the choice of impersonal and personal resources as the metric of equality, of opportunity costs for others as the measure of anyone’s holding of impersonal resources, and of a hypothetical insurance market as the model for redistributive taxation—can all be seen as shaped by these twin demands. I make no assumption that people choose their convictions or preferences, or their personality more generally, any more than they choose their race or physical or mental abilities. But I do assume an ethics which supposes—as almost all of us in our own lives do suppose—that we are responsible for the consequences of the choices we make out of those convictions or preferences or personality. …
… 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.
[MGH: Meaning? for the impersonal good of people-in-general, i.e. society, and by means other than discretionary preferences of government officials?]
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. …
Chapter 1
Equality of Welfare
I. Two Theories of Equality
Equality is a popular but mysterious political ideal. People can become equal (or at least more equal) in one way with the consequence that they become unequal (or more unequal) in others. If people have equal income, for example, they will almost certainly differ in the amount of satisfaction they find in their lives. It does not follow, of course, that equality is worthless as an ideal. But it is necessary to state, more exactly than is commonly done, what form of equality is finally important.
This is not a linguistic or even conceptual question. It does not call for a definition of the word “equal” or an analysis of how that word is used in ordinary language. It requires that we distinguish various conceptions of equality, in order to decide which of these conceptions (or which combination) states an attractive political ideal, if any does. That exercise may be described, somewhat differently, using a distinction I have drawn in other contexts. There is a difference between treating people equally, with respect to one or another commodity or opportunity, and treating them as equals.
Someone who argues that people should be more equal in income claims that a community that achieves equality of income is one that really treats people as equals. Someone who urges that people should instead be equally happy offers a different and competing theory about what society deserves that title. The question is then: which of the many different theories of that sort is the best theory?
In this chapter and the next I discuss one aspect of that question, which might be called the problem of distributional equality. Suppose some community must choose between alternative schemes for distributing money and other resources to individuals. Which of the possible schemes treats people as equals? This is only one aspect of the more general problem of equality, because it sets aside a variety of issues that might be called, by way of contrast, issues about political equality. Distributional equality, as I describe it, is not concerned with the distribution of political power, for example, or with individual rights other than rights to some amount or share of resources. It is obvious, I think, that these questions I throw together under the label of political equality are not so independent from issues of distributional equality as the distinction might suggest. Someone who can play no role in determining, for example, whether an environment he cherishes should be preserved from pollution is poorer than someone who can play an important role in that decision. But it nevertheless seems likely that a full theory of equality, embracing a range of issues including political and distributional equality, is best approached by accepting initial, even though somewhat arbitrary, distinctions among these issues.
I shall consider two general theories of distributional equality.
The first (which I shall call equality of welfare) holds that a distributional scheme treats people as equals when it distributes or transfers resources among them until no further transfer would leave them more equal in welfare.
The second (equality of resources) holds that it treats them as equals when it distributes or transfers so that no further transfer would leave their shares of the total resources more equal. Each of these two theories, as I have just stated them, is very abstract, because, as we shall see, there are many different interpretations of what welfare is, and also different theories about what would count as equality of resources. Nevertheless, even in this abstract form, it should be plain that the two theories will offer different advice in many concrete cases. …
… It is true that the distinction between the two abstract theories will be less clear-cut in an ordinary political context, particularly when officials have very little information about the actual tastes and ambitions of particular citizens.
[MGH: If they choose route of discretion? Then citizens will tell them what’s wanted.]
If a welfare-egalitarian knows nothing of this sort about a large group of citizens, he may sensibly decide that his best strategy for securing equality of welfare would be to establish equality of income. But the theoretical difference between the two abstract theories of equality nevertheless remains important in politics, for a variety of reasons. Officials often do have sufficient general information about the distribution of tastes and handicaps to justify general adjustments to equality of resources (for example by special tax allowances) if their goal is equality of welfare.
[MGH: Discretion implied here. A rebuttal from Hart is forthcoming.]
Even when they do not, some economic structures they might devise would be antecedently better calculated to reduce inequality of welfare under conditions of uncertainty, and others to reduce inequality of resources. But the main importance of the issue I now raise is theoretical. Egalitarians must decide whether the equality they seek is equality of resources or welfare, or some combination or something very different, in order plausibly to argue that equality is worth having at all.
I do not mean that only pure egalitarians need take any interest in this question. For even those who do not think that equality is the whole story in political morality usually concede that it is part of the story, so that it is at least a point in favor of some political arrangement, even if not decisive or even central, that it reduces inequality. People who assign equality even this modest weight must nevertheless identify what counts as equality. I must emphasize, however, that the two abstract conceptions of equality I shall consider do not exhaust the possible theories of equality, even in combination. There are other important theories that can be captured only artificially by either of these. Several philosophers, for example, hold meritocratic theories of distributional equality, some of which appeal to what is often called equality of opportunity. This claim takes different forms; but one prominent form holds that people are denied equality when their superior position in either welfare or resources is counted against them in the competition for university places or jobs, for example. [ojo]
Nevertheless the claims of both equality of welfare and equality of resources are both familiar and apparent, and it is these that I shall consider. … I propose that equality in welfare is not a desirable political goal even when inequality in welfare would not improve the position of the worst-off.
Chapter 3
The Place of Liberty
I. Introduction: Liberty and Equality
… C. Liberty: Rights Not License
… I believe that we are now united in accepting the abstract egalitarian principle: government must act to make the lives of those it governs better lives, and it must show equal concern for the life of each. Anyone who accepts that abstract principle accepts equality as a political ideal, and though equality admits of different conceptions, these different conceptions are competing interpretations of that principle. So anyone who thinks that liberty and equality really do conflict on some occasion must think that protecting liberty means acting in some way that does not show equal concern for all citizens. I doubt that many of us would think, after reflection, that this could ever be justified.
I do not mean that the abstract egalitarian principle is so empty or trivial that no one could possibly deny it. On the contrary, people might conceivably have a variety of reasons for rejecting the principle altogether or for qualifying it in an important way. They might reject it altogether by denying that government should take any interest in improving the lives of citizens. Or they might hold that, from the point of view of good government, the lives of some—those of one race or caste, perhaps, or those who belong to one religion, or those who are more virtuous—are more important than the lives of others. Or they might accept the abstract egalitarian principle but qualify it by denying that it is an absolute principle. They might argue, for example, that though government should show equal concern for the lives of all its citizens, it should also attend to other values not captured in or reducible to that concern. They might think, for instance, that government should also aim to improve the nation’s power and influence, for the sake of glory rather than for the good of citizens one by one; or, more plausibly, that government should aim to advance knowledge or to protect and develop art and other forms of high culture, again for the sake of knowledge or art itself, and not for the role they play in making people’s lives better. In that case, they might think that on some occasions it would be best all things considered to neglect certain political acts that are recommended by the principle of equal concern in order to pursue other goals. They might think it would be best, for example, to subsidize art with funds that could otherwise be used in economic programs that would bring the distribution of wealth closer to what equal concern for all citizens would otherwise require.
The abstract egalitarian principle can theoretically be rejected outright or qualified in all these different ways. But no significant body of political opinion among us would either reject it outright or qualify it in any way that would allow liberty to win a conflict with it. Rejecting the principle altogether seems out of the question for us; it is no longer arguable, at least in public, that officials should be more concerned about the lives of some citizens than about the lives of others. Nor does it make sense to accept the abstract principle but qualify it by supposing liberty to be an independent competitor in some pluralistic catalogue of political virtues. Some people treat art as a fundamental value independent of and competitive with abstract equality. But they can sensibly think that only because they think art has value for reasons independent of the contribution it makes to the lives of those who produce or enjoy or benefit from it. People believe, that is, in art for art’s sake. But liberty cannot, in the same way, have intrinsic value apart from the role liberty plays in the lives of those who have it. For it seems bizarre that people’s having some particular right, like the right of free speech, could be objectively valuable, in and of itself, quite apart from the consequences of that right for them. I do not mean what is evidently false: that having rights is always good for people in the narrow sense of improving their welfare. Critics of liberalism often point out that people are sometimes happier with less liberty, and wise liberals concede this. But no one could be enthusiastic for liberty, as something intrinsically valuable, who did not think that lives led under conditions of liberty were for just that reason more valuable lives, because more autonomous or more authentic, or lives of greater dignity, or better lives in some other way. So though it might seem plausible that the value of art is not exhausted by the various ways in which it makes the lives of at least some people better, a parallel claim does not seem plausible for rights like freedom of choice in speech, medical treatment, or employment.
Chapter 4
Political Equality
I. Two Strategies for Democracy
A. Democracy and Equality
I have been studying the idea of equality beginning in a principle—the abstract egalitarian principle—that states the idea in its most abstract form. This principle stipulates that government must act to make the lives of citizens better, and must act with equal concern for the life of each member. We reach a useful, practical theory about what equality requires by constructing and testing concrete interpretations—conceptions— of that principle, to decide which conception is, all things considered, the best. Of course the abstract egalitarian principle cannot decide all matters: government and politics face a variety of issues, at every level of abstraction and concreteness, that cannot be answered simply by selecting among different interpretations or conceptions of abstract equality. And yet the influence of the egalitarian principle will be pervasive for any society that accepts it. The preferred interpretation of equal concern will affect not only the design of all fundamental institutions of government, but also the particular decisions each of these institutions makes.
[MGH: A reason why levels and types of discretion are factors to consider.]
Chapter 9
Justice, Insurance, and Luck
II. The Strategic Problem
I argued … in this book, that we should insist on a continuous theory of justice that is drawn from and respects two main ethical principles. The first holds that, from the objective standpoint appropriate to the government of a political community, it is important that the lives of people go well, and it is equally important that each person’s life go well. The second insists that nevertheless each person has a special responsibility for his own life, a responsibility that includes deciding what kind of life is appropriate to him, and how best to use his resources to secure it. Any society faithful to these two principles must adopt legal and institutional structures that reflect equal concern for everyone in the community, but it must also insist, out of respect for the second principle, that the fate of each must be sensitive to his own choices.
Chapter 11
Affirmative Action: Does It Work?
… So, according to by far the best evidence yet available, affirmative action is not counterproductive. On the contrary it seems impressively successful. Nor is affirmative action unfair: it violates no individual rights and compromises no moral principle.
Chapter 12
Affirmative Action: Is It Fair?
… The distribution of position and power that affirmative action helps to achieve, that is, flows and changes naturally in accordance with millions of choices that people make for themselves. If the policy works to improve the overall position of any minority—as the River study suggests it has helped to improve the position of blacks—it does so only because other people have chosen to exploit the results of that policy: the greater range and variety of graduates with the motive, self-respect, and training to contribute effectively to their lives. Affirmative action in universities, in that way, makes the eventual economic and social structure of the community not more artificial but less so; it produces no balkanization, but helps to dissolve the balkanization now sadly in place.
If the justices recognize this aspect of what our best universities aim to do, as well as their academic need for educational diversity, then they will have served us particularly well. They will have acted not just as judges allowing a crucial educational initiative to continue, but as teachers helping to explain to the nation the true and continuing costs to everyone of our racist past, and the distinct promise of an educational policy that can help us all to achieve, if we really want it, a more perfect union.
Chapter 13
Playing God: Genes, Clones, and Luck
IV. Postscript: The Impact of Ethical Individualism
My own critical morality rests on a pair of humanist ethical ideals that I call ethical individualism and that define the value associated with human life. The first principle holds that it is objectively important that any human life, once begun, succeed rather than fail—that the potential of that life be realized rather than wasted—and that this is equally objectively important in the case of each human life. I say “objectively” important to emphasize that the success of a human life is not important just for the person whose life it is or for those close to him. We all have a reason to care about the fate of any human life, even that of a stranger, and to hope that it will be a successful life. The second principle acknowledges this objective importance, but insists nevertheless that one person—the person whose life it is—has a special responsibility for each life, and that in virtue of that special responsibility he or she has a right to make the fundamental decisions that define, for him, what a successful life would be. If we take these two principles of ethical individualism as fundamental guides in constructing a theory of political morality, it will be an egalitarian theory, because it will insist that government must treat the life of each person it governs as having great and equal importance, and construct its economic and other structures and policies with that egalitarian principle in mind, and it will also be a liberal theory, because it will insist that government must leave people finally free to make decisions that set the parameters of success for their own lives for themselves. This book is an attempt to describe the general implications of these two principles for political morality.
[MGH addendum: I was wrong to write initially that this was the ‘only’ book by Dworkin in which the word ‘discretion’ was absent. I now see Justice For Hedgehogs also omits ‘discretion’. The title line has been corrected, ‘rare’ replacing ‘only’.].
The Source:
Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, Harvard University Press 2000
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age..