Ronald Dworkins Liberal Morality - 892 Words

Dworkin begins by roughly defining liberalism according to the New Deal: It combined an emphasis on less inequality and greater economic stability with more abundant political and civil liberty for the groups campaigning for these goals. Dworkin states that such a definition is inadequate and goes on to elaborate on liberalism in more depth. The liberal, in economic policies, demands that the inequalities of wealth be reduced through social programs such as welfare and other redistribution financed by a progressive tax. Liberals also take a Keynesian policy toward the governments stabilizing intervention in the economy, such as controlling inflation and unemployment. And liberals support freedom of speech, racial equality and are†¦show more content†¦Inequalities would arise only from different mens different preferences and conceptions of the good life. But in the real world, there are the handicapped, inheritance, the untalented and so on, and consequently, the market will have a catastrophic effect upon the less off in society. The liberal will accordingly take the position of a reluctant capitalist as the market is better than a socialist economy that only mimics the market, but some redistribution of wealth will be needed. The liberal will also need a scheme of civil rights in a democracy, to counter weigh those decisions by the majority that would violate a minoritys fundamental right. These civil rights would work as trump cards for any individual that may be weighed against a vast majority. Dworkin then postulates the conservatives version of society as opposed to the liberals. The conservative believes in a virtuous society that promotes these virtuous for all to follow. The market is the best economy according to the conservative because it rewards what is virtuous to the conservative: talent and industry. The liberals believes these to be the flaws of the market as it is unfair to those who lack these virtues. The conservative will favor str ong property rights to control those who would be envious of those with property. The conservative will also beShow MoreRelated Dworkins Wishful-Thinkers Constitution Essay2865 Words   |  12 PagesDworkins Wishful-Thinkers Constitution ABSTRACT: Developing ideas first put forth in my Abortion Rights as Religious Freedom, I argue against Ronald Dworkins liberal view of constitutional interpretation while rejecting the originalism of Justices Scalia and Bork. I champion the view that Justice Black presents in his dissent in Griswold v. Connecticut. INTRODUCTION In Lifes Dominion Ronald Dworkin uses a liberal interpretation of the Constitution to defend constitutional rights to abortionRead MoreEssay about Tolerance, Liberalism, and Community3324 Words   |  14 PagesCommunity ABSTRACT: The liberal principle of tolerance limits the use of coercion by a commitment to the broadest possible toleration of rival religious and moral conceptions of the worthy way of life. While accepting the communitarian insight that moral thought is necessarily rooted in a social self with conceptions of the good, I argue that this does not undermine liberal tolerance. There is no thickly detailed way of life so embedded in our self-conceptions that liberal neutrality is blocked atRead More Amartya Sens What is Equality? Essays3903 Words   |  16 Pagesmodified version of Rawls’ theory which takes primary social goods as that which is to be distributed but which demands a Basic Rights principle that insures basic subsistent rights (as well as basic security rights) as the most fundamental principle of morality (and social justice), and then demands that Rawls’ Difference Principle be applied lexically to the ‘material’ goods of income, wealth, and l eisure time, but done so that the social basis of self-respect is never undermined. Since Amartya Sen’sRead MorePorn and Censorship15240 Words   |  61 PagesPornography and Censorship Should the government be allowed to legitimately prohibit citizens from publishing or viewing pornography, or would this be an unjustified violation of basic freedoms? Traditionally, liberals defended the freedom of consenting adults to publish and consume pornography in private from moral and religious conservatives who wanted pornography banned for its obscenity, its corrupting impact on consumers and its corrosive effect on traditional family and religious values. But