Paradoxes of Equality - Ronald Dworkin (1982)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 23 чер 2023
- Ronald Dworkin gives a talk on the notion of political equality and some of the difficulties that arise with it (and thus with democracy itself). This talk was given in 1982 at Queen's University as part of the Chancellor Dunning Trust Lecture series. Note, this is a reupload with improved audio.
#Philosophy #PoliticalPhilosophy #Ethics
"The world becomes filled with contradictions when we forget that things have RANKS."
great
Good argument.
"I would not envy your bundle of goods, and you would not envy my bundle of goods." This is assuming no one was bluffing during the auction and ended up with results they didn't want, no? Or am I taking the example too literally?
❤
This is a reupload
Literally auctioning policies (38:20) could 'solve' disputes like the shark debate, as I suggested to the Australian Senate Inquiry into Shark Mitigation and Deterrent Measures: "It might be possible to ‘solve’ the shark situation by auctioning the fate of sharks to the highest bidder. The government could hold regular auctions allowing the market to decide the fate of one shark per day. The money raised could then be used to compensate the losing side. Ideally, the funds would be invested in the needs of each community. Surfers would decide how best to protect themselves and the Greens would decide how best to protect the environment. This would relieve the government of the responsibility of having to make everyone happy, which is probably impossible in the shark debate."
3:00 Race vs ambition vs other things
“Captured by the ideological animus, both socialist and liberal-democratic art abandoned the criterion of beauty - considered anachronistic and of dubious political value - and replaced it with the criterion of correctness. …egalitarianism and despotism do not exclude each other, but usually go hand in hand.
To a certain degree, equality invites despotism, because in order to make all members of a society equal, and then to maintain this equality for a long period of time, it is necessary to equip the controlling institutions with exceptional power so they can stamp out any potential threat to equality in every sector of the society and any aspect of human life: to paraphrase a well-known sentence by one of Dostoyevsky’s characters, ‘We start with absolute equality and we end up with absolute despotism.’ Some call it a paradox of equality: the more equality one wants to introduce, the more power one must have; the more power one has, the more one violates the principle of equality; the more one violates the principle of equality, the more one is in a position to make the world egalitarian.
Liberal democracy is a powerful unifying mechanism, blurring differences between people and imposing uniformity of views, behavior, and language. But it does not require much effort to see that the dialogue in liberal democracy is of a peculiar kind because its aim is to maintain the domination of the mainstream and not to undermine it. A deliberation is believed to make sense only if the mainstream orthodoxy is sure to win politically. Today's 'dialogue' politics are a pure form of the right-is-might politics, cleverly concealed by the ostentatiously vacuous rhetoric of all-inclusiveness.
The illusion they cherish of being a brave minority heroically facing the whole world, false as it is, gives them nevertheless a strange sense of comfort: they feel absolutely safe, being equipped with the most powerful political tools in today's world but at the same time priding themselves on their courage and decency, which are more formidable the more awesome the image of the enemy becomes.
The ideological man is thus both absolutely suspicious and absolutely enthusiastic. There seems to be no idea under the sun that he would not put into question and make an object of derision, skepticism, or contempt, no idea that he would not reduce to an offshoot of hidden instincts, mundane interests, biological drives, and psychological complexes. Hence he is likely to despise reason as an autonomous faculty, to downgrade lofty ideals, and to debunk the past, seeing everywhere the same ideological mystification.
But at the same time, he lives in a constant state of mobilization for a better world. His mouth is full of noble slogans about brotherhood, freedom, and justice, and with every word he makes it clear that he knows which side is right and that he is ready to sacrifice his entire existence for the sake of its victory. The peculiar combination of both attitudes--merciless distrust and unwavering affirmation--gives him an incomparable sense of moral self-confidence and intellectual self-righteousness.”
― Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies
“Liberalism has failed, not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. As liberalism has become more fully itself, as its inner logic has become more evident and its self contradictions manifest, it has generated pathologies that are at once deformations of its claims, yet realizations of liberal ideology.
A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and of course expand liberty in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.”
― Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)
Reminds me of what someone said. Liberalism delivered what it promised, but it was the opposite of what most expected.
This hasn’t aged well at all.
What are you talking about?
@@Philosophy_Overdosei wish they would explain too
❤