In his Tanner Lecture of 1979 called ‘Equality of What?’ Amartya Sen asked what metric egalitarians should use to establish the extent to which their ideal is realized in a given society. What aspect of a person’s condition should count in a fundamental way for egalitarians, and not merely as cause of or evidence of or proxy for what they regard as fundamental?

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is the annual publication of lectures given at Clare Hall, Cambridge University; Brasenose College, Oxford University; Harvard University; Yale University; the University of California; Stanford University; the University of Michigan; and the University of Utah as well as other locations. Established to reflect upon the scholarly and scientific learning relating to human values, the lectureships are international and intercultural, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, and ideological distinctions. This Volume X, first published in 1989, includes: (...) ALBERT O. HIRSCHMAN 'Two Hundred Years of Reactionary Rhetoric: The Case of the Perverse Effect'; ROBERT A. DAHL 'The Pseudodemocratization of the American Presidency'; JAVIER MUGUERZA 'The Alternative of Dissent'; WILLIAM THEODORE DE BARY 'The Trouble with Confucianism'; ANTHONY QUINTON 'The Varieties of Value'; BARRY STROUD 'The Study of Human Nature and the Subjectivity of Value'. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Ronald Dworkin's liberal theory of political morality. According to Dworkin, liberalism must be conceived as a species of egalitarianism. It provides an interpretation of what is held to be the most fundamental demand of political morality, namely that individuals be regarded as equal moral persons and as entitled consequently to equal concern and respect. I evaluate Dworkin's interpretation of egalitarianism, particularly as this exhibits itself in his theory of equality of resources which provides the framework for the (...) explanation and justification of liberal ideals of distributive justice, individual liberty and state neutrality. At the centre of this theory is the suggestion that the perfectly competitive market of economic theory has an indispensable role to play in the articulation of the constitutive elements of liberalism. Each chapter of my dissertation examines a different aspect of Dworkin's attempt to employ the market in solving central problems of liberal theory. I show that the concern with equality which ultimately animates liberalism is ill-served by sophisticated manipulations of the market model. (shrink)