Dworkin on Equality

Ronald Dworkin has the distinct honor of being properly regarded as one of the greatest political philosophers and one of the greatest legal theorists of our time (all times). In this section of his Carnegie Council talk, he discusses equality as a political ideal and argues that no government is legitimate unless it meets two conditions: (1) that it treat its citizens with equal concern and (2) that it show equal respect for the dignity of its citizens as responsible self-authors. He argues that the theory of economic equality fails to solve this “system of simultaneous equations” and as such no government should try to actualize this ideal. He goes on to argue against the idea that whatever market distribution emerges can satisfy the condition that the government treat its citizens with equal concern. Dworkin’s theory of equality poses a challenge to traditional critics and defenders of egalitarianism and opens up fruitful ways to think about the degrees to which our polities do and can live up to this normative standard.