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Equality vs. Liberty: Advantage, Liberty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Jan Narveson
Jan Narveson
Affiliation:
Philosophy, University of Waterloo
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Extract

The subject of this essay is political, and therefore social, philosophy; and therefore, ethics. We want to know whether the right thing for a society to do is to incorporate in its structure requirements that we bring about equality, or liberty, or both if they are compatible, and if incompatible then which if either, or what sort of mix if they can to some degree be mixed. But this fairly succinct statement of the issue before us requires considerable clarification, even as a statment of the issue. For it is widely, and in my view correctly, held that some sort of equality is utterly fundamental in these matters. We seek a principle, or principles, that apply to all, are the same for all. In that sense, certainly, equality is fundamental and inescapable. But this is a very thin sort of “equality.”

It will almost equally widely be agreed that the principles in question should in some more interesting sense “treat” people equally, e.g., by allotting to all the same set of rights, and moreover, rights that are – again we have to say “in some sense” – nonarbitrary, so that whatever they are, persons of all races, sexes, and so on will have the same fundamental rights assigned to them. Taking this to be, again, essentially uncontroversial, though not without potentially worrisome points of unclarity, it needs, now, to be pointed out that this characterization does not settle the issue that this essay is concerned with. That issue is about economic matters in particular.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Autumn 1984 , pp. 33 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1984

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References

1 Landesman, Bruce, “Egalitarianism,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, March 1983, 13 (1), p. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), Ch. 6.Google Scholar

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6 This point was first made, to my knowledge, by Gauthier, Davidin “Justice and Natural Endowment: A Critique of Rawls' Ideological Framework,” Social Theory and Practice, Winter 1974, 3(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar A similar point is made in Marshall, John, “The Failure of Contract as Justification,” Social Theory and Practice, Fall 1975, 3(4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See Narveson, J., Morality and Utility (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), Ch. VIIGoogle Scholar, where this point is pressed.

8 Hume, David, Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), Ch. III, sec. ii.Google Scholar

9 For a development of this argument in relation to Rawls, cf. Narveson, J., “A Puzzle About Economic Justice in Rawls' Theory.” Social Theory and Practice, Fall 1976, 4 (1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Two quite different arguments within the context of utilitarianism are pressed in earlier publications of mine. See Narveson, , “Aesthetics, Charity, Utility and Distributive Justice,” The Monist, October, 1972, 56(4)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and also “Rights and Utilitarianism,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume V, Summer 1979 (Cooper, , Nielsen, , and Patton, , eds., New Essays on John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism), esp. pp. 157–160.Google Scholar

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14 Dworkin, , “In Defense of Equality,” p. 24.Google Scholar

15 Dworkin, , “What is Equality?,” Part II, pp. 31–2.Google Scholar

16 Scruton, Roger, The Meaning of Conservatism (Markham, Ont.: Penguin Books, 1980)Google Scholar provides an example of a serious thinker who evidently thinks thus.

17 See Cohen, G. A., “Capitalism, Freedom and the Proletariat,” Ryan, A., ed., The Idea of Freedom (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1979)Google Scholar for one who argues thus.

18 (Reading “¯” as “an act other than x”)

19 A similar argument is strongly pressed by Mack, Eric in “Bad Samaritanism and the Causation of Harm,” Philosophy and Public Affairs Spring 1980, 9(3).Google Scholar

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21 Hobbes, , op. cit., Ch. XIII, 10th paragraph.Google Scholar

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23 Locke, John, Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690), Ch. V.Google Scholar

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25 Most of the contributors to Machan (note 5) are cases in point. I should also mention that the original version of this paper, running to rather more than twice the present length, contains more detailed discussion of many points, and also examines several more arguments for equality than those considered here. The author can supply copies of this longer version upon request (within reason).