Taking The Equality Of Resources Seriously

The question of justice has been defined differently by thinkers of different times and different theoretical purports.Rawls takes the question of justice as the core of political philosophy,pointing out that justice is the primary value of society system,which led to the revival of modern political philosophy.The demand for equality has become an eternal theme of human society.Equality and justice are like the two sides of the hand,and to talk about justice is to talk about equality.In the realm of distribution,justice always implies equality.Since equality means treating everyone the same way,no one will complain that they are being treated equally.On the other hand,opposing equality or advocating inequality need a reason.Since inequality implies treating people differently,which further implies discrimination,people have a reason to complain that they are being treated unfairly.Since Rawls put forward his thought of justice,the theme of political philosophy has shifted from freedom to equality.Political philosophers have offered their own responses to the question of equality.Dworkin's political philosophy,especially the theory of social distributive justice,has had a significant and profound impact on the academic world.Dworkin's thought involves moral philosophy,political philosophy,legal philosophy and other aspects,while Dworkin's theory of justice contains the foundations of his moral philosophy,political philosophy and legal philosophy.The foundation of his moral philosophy is mainly reflected by his discussion of the two principles of ethical individualism and the good life of the equals.The foundation of his political philosophy is mainly embodied by his elaboration on abstract equal right and political equality.The foundation of his legal philosophy is mainly embodied by his emphasis on rights.The core of Dworkin's theory of justice is equality of resources.On the basis of criticizing the previous theories,Dworkin constructed his theory of equality of resources.In order to realize the idea of “being ambition-sensitive but endowment insensitive” in the theory of equality of resources,Dworkin put forward the assumption of “auction” and“virtual insurance market”.The idea of “auction” tries to solve the problem of inequality caused by impersonal resources,and the idea of“virtual insurance market” tries to solve the problem of inequality caused by personal resources.He tried to deal with inequality caused by subjective factors as well as inequality caused by objective factors.He considered the collective responsibility of government as well as the individual responsibility of citizens.The idea of “being ambition-sensitive but endowment insensitive” was applied throughout his theory of equality of resources.The responses of political philosophers to the question of “equality”constitute the modern western theoretical system of justice.Rawls' “equality of primary goods”,Nozick's “equality of opportunity”,Dworkin's “equality of resources”,Walzer's “complex equality”,and Amaetya Sen's “feasible capacity” are all important and different representative answers to the question of “equality”.Comparing Dworkin's theory of justice with that of other modern western political philosophers from the aspects of the school of theory,the way of demonstration,the way of realizing justice,the shift of focus of the theory of justice,the way of thinking in constructing the theory of justice,and the social purpose that the theory of justice tries to achieve.By comparison,we will have a deeper understanding of Dworkin's thought on justice,evaluating exactly Dworkin's position and role in the history of political philosophy.Dworkin's theory of justice not only has its unique theoretical significance and realistic value,but also has its limitations and defects.At the theoretical level,Dworkin provides a fourth mode and approach to just distributions.At a practical level,Dworkin solves the problem of inequality of economic status through the “two-pronged” allocation of resources.However,Dworkin's theory of justice shows somewhat ideal“utopianism” while the “auction” scheme and the “virtual insurance market” scheme face certain difficulties in practical operation.At the same time,there is a certain internal tension between “ambitionsensitive” and “endowment-insensitive”,which counteract each other.The proposition of “equality precedes freedom” is arguable.Dworkin's theory of justice not only has important academic value,but also has great reference and function in theoretical practice.Dworkin's theory of justice has certain significance of reference to the construction of social justice in China,which is embodied in his theory of rights and equality of resources.It is still a long way to go to fully realize the value of justice in China's politics,economy,culture and other dimensions.