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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Liberalism, Part III
Message-ID: <608@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 15:00:39 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.608
Posted: Tue Mar 11 15:00:39 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 06:19:26 EST
References: <363@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 72

In article <363@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>I will make a stab at explaining the basic meaning of "liberalism"
>past and present.  Since Ronald Dworkin can do this much better than
>I can, I will let him do the talking.  The excerpts below are taken
>from his essay "Liberalism", which appears in both *Public and
>Private Morality*, ed. Stuart Hampshire, and *Liberalism and Its
>Critics*, ed. Michael Sandel (the latter is a very useful volume).  
>
>Liberalism, says Dworkin, is based on the belief that government must
>treat all its citizens with equal concern and respect:  as free,
>independent, and with equal dignity -- a belief shared by American
>(US) conservatives.  But the liberal also believes that government
>must be neutral on "the question of the good life," and denies that
>government must operate on a theory of what human beings ought to be:

Unfortunately, this is impossible.  You cannot both promote the belief
that a government must treat all its citizens with equal concern and respect
and be neutral on the question of what human beings ought to be.  As a bare
minimum you must have a theory which says ``government officials ought
to treat all its citizens with equal concern and respect''.

However, there is a deeper problem in Dworkin's conception of conservatism.
Conservatives do not believe that a government should treat all its
citizens with *equal* respect -- just with *at a bare minimum*, a
minimum amount of respect.  Thus conservatives and liberals will both
agree that all its citizens deserve respect, but conservatives claim
that it is possible to get more respect.  Respect can be earned.
While Dworkin claims that liberals want to treat all citizens with equal
respect, I have actually neer met one who demonstrates this belief.

Like everyone else, liberals have heroes, and accord them respect -- so
people like Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King are accorded more
respect than the average.  (Note -- I do this as well.  I find nothing
wrong with the practice, for indeed I believe that Mather Theresa and
Martin Luther King *deserve* more respect. But how one can hold this
belief while also believing that a government must be neutral on the
question of what human beings ought to be escapes me.  I don't think
it is possible.)

Finally, what is Dworkin's concept of the function of the judicial branch
of government?  Surely he believes that it is part of government.  But
it most clearly is *not* neutral on the question of what human beings 
ought to be.  (We can get into a semantic quibble here over whether
Dworkin thinks the function of courts is only to determine what human
beings ought not to be.  Buth when you covert that into ``everything not
forbidden is good'' you still have made a statement about what is good.)

Actually, I would like to see Dworkin attempt to defend the SEC, but
no matter...

>_____________
>These inequalities will have great, often catastrophic, effects on
>the distribution that a market economy will provide.  But, unlike
>differences in preferences, the differences these inequalities make
>are indefensible according to the liberal conception of equality.  It
>is obviously obnoxious to the liberal conception, for example, that
>someone should have more of what the community as a whole has to
>distribute because he or his father had superior skill or luck.

It is this concept of equality which is morally obnoxious to a
conservative.   Consider -- if one really believed this then one would
be forced to give an equal amount of music lessons to all, rather than
the lions share to those who have superior skill in music.  It also
ignores that preferences and skills are linked -- those who have a
preference for an area of study can usually develop skills in this area
through their efforts, and those who have skills in an area usually
develop a preference for it.  The two are not distinct.

-- 
Laura Creighton		
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