The Dimensions Of Equality

Equality is the core issue of contemporary western political philosophy. In egalitarians' opinion, equality is the primary political value and the political idea that shall be promoted because equality shows justice. Since the publishing of Rawls' Theory of Justice in 1970 s, the focus of political philosophy has turned from liberty to equality. There are two disputes including the dispute on object of equality and the dispute on responsibility in contemporary equalitarianism.The so-called object of equality refers to article to be equalized, which is the standard of equality or the currency of equality according to Cohen. By criticizing, amending, or extending Rawls' equality of primary goods, numerous scholars construct their own theories of equality, including Dworkin's equality of resources, Arneson's equality of opportunity for welfare, and Amartya Sen's equality of capacity.According to Rawls' explanation to the equality of primary goods, every rational person wants something useful to him/her no matter his/her rational life plan. Rawls has believed that all rational people want more equality of primary goods, and try to find the justice principle to distribute the primary goods most fairly. The difference principle is the most important component. Upon the difference principle, the unequal distribution is not allowed until the most unfavorable person in the society gets the most benefits. The resources mentioned by Dworkin cover a bigger scope that Rawls' primary goods. A broad definition of the equality of resources is: the equality of resources is the equality of all individuals' private resources. Therefore, Dworkin and Rawls have different understanding on which to be distributed. In Rawls' opinion, the primary goods including freedom, right, opportunity, power, income, and wealth shall be equally distributed. However, Dworkin has believed that the resources shall be equally distributed including all private resources own by individuals. Dworkin has wanted to achieve the sensitivity to ambition and insensitivity to gift in resource distribution. Individuals shall be responsible for the inequality caused by option luck including their ambition, and this inequality shall not be made up. Nevertheless, individuals need not be responsible for inequality caused by brute luck including natural talent, and this inequality shall be made up.Arneson has improved the equality of welfare principle of traditional utilitarianism and put forwards equality of opportunity for welfare, in which the opportunity for welfare instead of resources is to be distributed. Arneson has suggested that the welfare is the satisfaction of rational preference, and the opportunity of welfare refers to the opportunity that a person can gets when looks for some welfare. Arneson has described the opportunity for welfare by decision-making tree. Every person faces a series of different options. When the fill expects of every possible life and historic preference are added, all preferences of specific range in decision-making points are included. If all people face the valid and equivalent options, they have the equal opportunity for welfare. The fundamental principle of equality of opportunity for welfare is that people shall be responsible for their choice. It is acceptable in morality that everyone undertakes the cost of his/her choice. However, if some inequality is not caused by the factor within personal control, such inequality shall be made up.In the field of distributive justice, Rawls' equality of primary goods and Dworkin's equality of resources can be deemed as the broad resource-based thought. Nevertheless, the equality of welfare in traditional utilitarianism and Arneson's equality of opportunity for welfare can be deemed as the welfare-based thought. Sen is not satisfied with the mainstream thoughts of equalitarianism, but has tried to find the third way on which to be distributed, namely equality of capacity. In Sen's opinion, the capacity is the real opportunity and actual freedom when people are engaged in different activities and situations, and is the freedom that people realizes various life styles. Sen has asserted that people cannot pursue their real opportunity only based on the equality of primary goods or resources. In fact, personal characteristics shall also be emphasized for these personal characteristics can deeply influence the capacity that transfers from primary gods to goal achievement. The capacity is closely related to the function. The so-called capacity refers to different combination of various functions that people can achieve upon their subjective capacity and objective conditions, and reflects people's freedom of selecting this or that life style. Sen has suggested that people's life quality shall be judged by either achievement or freedom. The achievement emphasizes what people has completed through their efforts and the freedom emphasizes the actual opportunity that people realizes various functions. The equality of capacity pays more attention to freedom instead of means to achieve freedom in the equality of resources. The equality of capacity reflects the freedom that people can achieve valuable functions and reflects the actual freedom that people enjoy.Besides the dispute on object of equality, another dispute inside equalitarianism is on the responsibility. Two concepts closely related to the responsibility are choice and luck. The responsibility exists because of choice, and turns complex because of luck. Most theories of equality is based on the equality of opportunity, which can be finally concluded to be the equality of luck. As a result, Elizabeth Anderson names this theory tendency as luck egalitarianism. The representatives of this theory include Dworkin and Arneson. However, Rawls' theory is also related to the luck egalitarianism. The core concept of this theory refers to that the inequality of benefit upon people's voluntary choice is acceptable, but the inequality of benefit upon people's involuntary choice is unacceptable. Involuntary environments include social factor(family wealth when a person is born) and social factor(natural capacity and intelligence). In other words, people shall be responsible for their choice, so the inequality caused by choice shall not be compensated. Meanwhile, the inequality caused by involuntary environments shall be corrected. People are responsible for something, but shall not be responsible for all things. The equalitarianism shows the conditions which people shall be responsible for. The luck egalitarianism is related to many issues including the distinguishing of personal responsibility and collective responsibility as well as moral luck.A lot of discussions have been made on the object of equality and responsibility inside the equalitarianism, but the value of equality shall be insisted on upon this theory. Equality is also a desirable goal and supreme political idea. However, not everyone agrees with this. Many theorists challenge the foundation, fairness, and feasibility of equality. Thus, equality shall be proved instead of self-evident. The demonstration of contract view of equality is one of the representative demonstrations. Rawls' demonstration on contract view of equality greatly influences the development of contemporary political philosophy. However, this hypothesis also attracts many critics. His student Scanlan has amended and corrected Rawls' contract view,He has proved the equal political theory upon the reasonable rejection without the hypothesis in the contract view.Besides theoretical evidence, equality also needs be guaranteed by system. We try to reconstruct a possible equal system for reference based on Rawls' equal system. Rawls' equal system is studied from two aspects including the equality of democracy from the political aspect and the property-owning democracy from the economic aspect. Of course, the two are connected with each other as an integrity. The equal system, named as equality of democracy by Rawls, is the product combining with difference principle and fair equality of opportunity principle. This equality of democracy reflects the guarantee of political system actually. In the economic field of a society, Rawls has not been satisfied with the capitalism in welfare countries, the political and economic life is usually grasped by few people when the property ownerships are concentrated. The property-owning democracy includes capital of democratic management attended by workers at different degrees owned by individual labor unions and enterprises as well as broad ownership of other means of production. Compared to the capitalism in welfare countries, this system can better serve for social fairness and justice and value of equality.