Mind the Economy/Justice 88

Ronald Dworkin and the multiple meanings of equality

Equality, fate, responsibility and freedom are the major themes around which the American philosopher's thought develops

15 September 2024

Balzan prize to US legal philosophe Ronald M. Dworkin during a ceremony at Quirinale Palace in Rome, Italy, on 14 November 2012. Il presidente della Repubblica Giorgio Napolitano premia David Charles Baulcombe con il premio Balzan, oggi 14 novembre 2012 a Roma all'interno del palazzo del Quirinale. ANSA/ GUIDO MONTANI

7' min read

'Equality is a popular but mysterious political ideal'. So begins the first of two essays that legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin published in 1981 in Philosophy & Public Affairs. They are entitled, part one and part two, "What is Equality?". A title as simple as it is ambitious, which Dworkin, however, chooses precisely to clear up any doubts about the scope of his project from the outset. 'It is necessary,' he continues, 'to state more precisely than is commonly done, what is ultimately the most important form of equality. A deep understanding of what equality is does not imply solving either a linguistic or a conceptual problem. Instead, it involves making a choice. "We have to distinguish the various conceptions of equality in order to be able to decide which of these conceptions can constitute an attractive political ideal" (p. 185).

First level of philosophy and law

Ronald Dworkin is a leading figure in philosophy and law. A Harvard graduate, he became a professor at Oxford in 1969 until his retirement in 1998, occupying the chair that was once held by Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart. After retiring from Oxford, he obtained the prestigious post of Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. From 1975 onwards, he will spend every autumn term in the United States as Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University. Here he will animate the famous Colloquium in Law and Social Philosophy with Thomas Nagel for a long time.

Dworkin is primarily a legal scholar. His interest in the topic of equality and distributive justice stems from the role that equality plays in the system of norms and how these norms influence the quality and sustainability of the political order.

Why, then, deal with equality?

There are at least two fundamental reasons for this. The first concerns the vagueness with which the term is usually used in political debate. This leads, for example, to a contrast, which for Dworkin is absurd, between equality and freedom. The champions of equality are willing to see citizens' freedom of choice restricted in the belief that this will ensure greater equality. The debate on schooling or private healthcare, for example, is constantly vitiated by the belief in this alleged underlying incompatibility, which generates confusion and unnecessary polarisation between opposing factions.

For Dworkin, as we shall see, not only are freedom and equality not incompatible, but are rather inseparable ideas. But to understand this requires an effective clarification operation. An operation that is also justified by a second reason. As Bernard Williams well pointed out in his essay 'The Idea of Equality' (1962), when we speak of equality, we designate an idea that is either too strong or too weak. The first case is when, for example, in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen we read that 'Men are born and remain free and equal in rights'. Williams comments that this statement of principle is, in fact, patently false if we only focus on individual ability, wealth, status, physical appearance and many other characteristics of individuals. In his radical critique of rights thus understood, Jeremy Bentham observed that if reality actually had that nature, then it would follow that 'The fool has the right to confine anyone else, as anyone else has the right to confine him. The idiot has as much right to rule everybody, as anybody can have the right to rule him' (Anarchical Fallacies, 1795).

To avoid these extreme outcomes we may have to resort to a weaker version of equality; one according to which, as Williams again points out, human beings are equal in that they share a 'common humanity'. A perspective that eliminates the aforementioned problems but leaves us without operational guidance on how, in practice, this idea of equality should be implemented in a political community.

Contributions to the debate

Dworkin's two articles of 1981 and the subsequent book Sovereign Virtue of 2000 are part of this debate. The starting point is the distinction that can be made between two apparently similar, but ultimately very different uses of the idea of 'equality': a distinction between treating people 'as equals' and giving them 'equal treatment'. It is the first idea, that of treating people not so much the same, but as equals, that captures Dworkin's interest. Suppose a community has to choose between alternative ways and different criteria for distributing money and other resources to its members. Which of these modes and criteria will put us in a position to treat people as effectively equal? To begin thinking about this question, a further preliminary distinction is necessary.

Indeed, it is still necessary to clarify the difference between the idea of equality that the philosopher calls 'welfare equality' according to which a distributive criterion considers people as equal when it distributes resources among them in such a way that no further transfer would make them even more equal in terms of welfare. But there is also a second metric for assessing equality that Dworkin calls 'resource equality'. According to this metric, people are treated as equal when resources are distributed among them in such a way that no further transfer would make them more equal on the basis of their total shares of resources. An example may help clarify the point.

A reflection on equality

Imagine, Dworkin tells us, a rich man who has to decide how to divide his inheritance among his children. Sons who are very different from each other: one is unfortunately born blind, another is a playboy with expensive tastes, a third is an aspiring politician with expensive ambitions, another is a poet with limited needs who leads a frugal life, the last is a sculptor who works with very expensive materials. What criterion should the father use to divide his wealth fairly? If his goal, Dworkin continues, were 'equality of wealth', i.e. that after the transfer of resources the well-being of his children cannot be equalled any further, then the father would necessarily have to take into account the differences in health, ambitions, aptitudes, preferences and lifestyles of his children. He will therefore most likely give a larger share to the aspiring politician and the playboy and a smaller one to the blind son and the poet. But if, on the other hand, the father's perspective were that of 'equality of resources', one would, then, have to recognise that the children have already had access, during their lives, to approximately the same shares of resources. The additional ones, therefore, that will come with the inheritance will have to be shared equally among all the children.

How important is this reflection on equality? It plays a fundamental role according to Dworkin. "There is - indeed - no legitimate government that is not equally concerned with the fate of all the citizens over whom it claims dominion and from whom it demands allegiance" we read in Sovereign Virtue. And again 'Equality is the sovereign virtue of the political community - without it, government is only tyranny'.

That is, when wealth is distributed very unequally in a nation, it means that tyranny is not far behind. "The distribution of wealth, in fact," Dworkin goes on to write, "is the product of a legal order: a citizen's wealth depends to a large extent on the laws that his community has enacted, not only those regulating property, theft, contract and tort, but also those regulating welfare, taxation, labour, civil rights, environmental regulation and practically everything else. This means that it is always possible to know in advance how and on whom certain regulations will have an effect. It is possible to predict the consequences of laws on people's lives. And if one group of citizens is systematically put at a disadvantage compared to other groups that systematically benefit from new laws, then it means that democracy is giving way to tyranny.

The defence of resource equality

As we shall see in the forthcoming Mind the Economy, Dworkin's position develops from a critique of equality in welfare through the defence of equality of resources. This poses another problem related to the temporal perspective. Life is a film and not a photograph. Resources, even once they are distributed equally at a hypothetical initial moment, will over time bear more fruit for some individuals and less for others. A distribution of resources that could be described as fair ex-ante may result in an unequal distribution ex-post. On this point, Dworkin is clear: the assessment must be made ex-ante.

Compensation cannot be demanded on the basis of considerations of justice for one who, despite having had the same resources as others, was unable, through lack of talent, excessive risk aversion, laziness, to benefit as much as others.

Personal Responsibility and the Role of Luck

This brings up a further point on which we will dwell; it is the issue of personal responsibility and the role of luck in determining just or unjust distributions. Dworkin is considered by many to be the founding father of luck egalitarianism. According to this perspective, a just society should compensate its citizens for any disadvantage that may result to them from circumstances beyond individual control and, therefore, the responsibility of individuals: genetics, family of birth, skin colour, for example.

On this point, Dworkin's position is original and in fact the authorship of luck egalitarianism has never been fully recognised. He distinguishes 'brute luck' from what he calls 'option luck'. The former concerns all those factors that are actually completely outside our control; birth family or a physical disability fall, for example, into this category. But if the disability results from a stunt gone wrong, or if the speculative bubble in which I had invested all my wealth bursts, then these events, although unforeseen and to some extent luck-related, cannot be considered outside my sphere of responsibility.

Equality, fate, responsibility and freedom are the major themes, as we shall see, around which the American philosopher's thought develops and his efforts to bring them back to the centre of political debate and practice. "We cannot turn our backs on equality," he wrote in the introduction to Sovereign Virtue. Only in this way can the members of our political communities truly continue to believe that governments seriously and actively take an equal interest in and regard for each of us.