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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Liberalism, Part IV
Message-ID: <607@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 14:29:53 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.607
Posted: Tue Mar 11 14:29:53 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 06:19:12 EST
References: <364@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 60

In article <364@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>Continuing with the excerpts from "Liberalism" by Ronald Dworkin:
>______________

By and large I think that Dworkin describes what is today called
``conservatism'' well.  But is is worth noting that what he is
describing used to be called liberalism, and indeed is part of what
Milton Freidman still calls liberalism.

>I said that the conservative holds one among a number of possible
>alternatives to the liberal conception of equality.  Each of these
>alternatives shares the opinion that treating a person with respect
>requires treating him as the good man would wish to be treated.  The
>conservative supposes that the good man would wish to be treated in
>accordance with the principles of a special sort of society, which I
>shall call the virtuous society....

Here I think that Dworkin misses it; the statment is right but the
perspective is wrong.  The conservative does not believe that virtue
is defined by the virtuous society, but rather that virtuous men
create a virtuous society through the expression of their own virtue.
The purpose of society, thus, to the extent that a conservative can
say that society has a purpose is to *promote virtue*.  And one of the
many ways it promotes virtue is by rewarding it.

>Suppose a conservative is asked to draft a constitution for a society
>generally like ours, which he believes to be virtuous.

Phrased that way, the conservative will give up in disgust.  However,
a conservative can be asked to draft a consitution for a society which
is virtuous (or promotes virtue) and will come up with a society
generally like ours.

>[But another objection, that liberalism denies to political society
>its highest function and ultimate justification, which is that
>society must help its members to achieve what is in fact good] cannot
>so easily be set aside.  There is no easy way to demonstrate the
>proper role in institutions that have a monopoly of power over the
>lives of others; reasonable and moral men will disagree.  The issue
>is at bottom the issue I identified:  what is the content of the
>respect that is necessary to dignity and independence?

If Dworkin is truly interested in dignity and independence, doesn't he
see a strong conflict between monopoly of power and independence?
Why does this not lead him to conclude that few if any institutions should
have a monopoly of power, simply because that decreases independence?

I think that a fundamental distiction which Dworkin misses out on in this
essay is the objective or subjective nature of ``the good''.  Dworkin
keeps on plugging for ``a conservative believes that a virtuous society
determines the good'' (which is moral subjectivism) whereas all the
conservatives I know are moral objectivists.  This trait is shared
even though there is strong disagreement between conservatives as to
what is the basis of this moral standard -- God, human nature, evolutionary
pressure, or a simple ``but that is the way it is''.

-- 
Laura Creighton		
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