SOVEREIGN VIRTUE
The Theory and Practice of Equality
Ronald Dworkin
Harvard University Press, 2000

"Equality is a popular but mysterious political ideal. People can become equal (or at least more equal) in one way with the consequence that they become unequal (or more unequal) in others. If people have equal income, for example, they will almost certainly differ in the amount of satisfaction they find in their lives. It does not follow, of course, that equality is worthless as an ideal. But it is necessary to state, more exactly than is commonly done, what form of equality is finally important.

...There is a difference between treating people equally, with respect to one or another commodity or opportunity, and treating them as equals....," Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (2000), Part 1, Theory, "Equality of Welfare," page 11

"...Egalitarians must decide whether the equality they seek is equality of resources or welfare, or some combination or something very different, in order plausibly to argue that equality is worth having at all." Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (2000), Part 1, Theory, "Equality of Welfare," page 13

BOOK DESCRIPTION
PUBLISHER
Equality is the endangered species of political ideals. Even left-of-center politicians reject equality as an ideal: government must combat poverty, they say, but need not strive that its citizens be equal in any dimension. In his new book Ronald Dworkin insists, to the contrary, that equality is the indispensable virtue of democratic sovereignty. A legitimate government must treat all its citizens as equals, that is, with equal respect and concern, and, since the economic distribution that any society achieves is mainly the consequence of its system of law and policy, that requirement imposes serious egalitarian constraints on that distribution. What distribution of a nation's wealth is demanded by equal concern for all? Dworkin draws upon two fundamental humanist principles—first, it is of equal objective importance that all human lives flourish, and second, each person is responsible for defining and achieving the flourishing of his or her own life—to ground his well-known thesis that true equality means equality in the value of the resources that each person commands, not in the success he or she achieves. Equality, freedom, and individual responsibility are therefore not in conflict, but flow from and into one another as facets of the same humanist conception of life and politics. Since no abstract political theory can be understood except in the context of actual and complex political issues, Dworkin develops his thesis by applying it to heated contemporary controversies about the distribution of health care, unemployment benefits, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, assisted suicide,and genetic engineering.

BOOK REVIEWS
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
"In this ambitious investigation into the very bedrock of a democratic society, Dworkin, one of our leading legal thinkers,...explores the 'popular but mysterious political ideal' of equality, looking into its theoretical underpinnings and then showing how a proper conception of equality informs hot-button issues such as campaign finance reform, affirmative action and antisodomy laws. Dworkin...advocates a fundamental 'equality of resources,' arguing that government must provide a form of material equality for everyone. In probing this proposition, he rejects conservative and paternalistic notions of democracy, advocating an 'ethical individualism' that makes it government's obligation to treat the life of each person as having great and equal importance. Many of the questions Dworkin raises are of grave concern for America as it faces a new century: What form of democracy is most appropriate to an egalitarian society? How much should a nation like ours spend on its citizens' health? What are the ethical implications of genetic engineering? While in places his abstract discussions of liberty and democracy can be slow going, Dworkin also offers refreshingly pointed commentary on the 1996 Welfare Reform Act ('a plain defeat for social justice'), America's lack of national health-care coverage (a 'national disgrace') and other important issues. Two chapters on affirmative action, in which Dworkin argues that sketchy factual evidence about race-based admissions has distorted the debate, are especially insightful. Whatever one's political convictions, it is difficult not to be moved by this book's final, forceful imperative that human lives be successful rather than wasted."

LIBRARY JOURNAL, Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Library, New York
"Drawing from his expertise as a philosopher and legal theorist, Dworkin... discusses the ethical foundations of conflicting political ideologies and strives for a consensus that explains human behavior. Central to this notion is the Aristotelian concept of akrasia (literally, 'lack of self-control,' this term has come to mean, among other things, 'acting against one's considered judgment'), which he explicates thoroughly as he relates it to issues confronting contemporary politicians. As Dworkin sees it, the magnanimity of virtue imbues the political mind with an enlightened form of self-interest that has the potential to override immediate or corporeal self-interests of time, money, and labor. Dworkin frames this dichotomy in terms of a struggle between critical and volitional interests in which people actually spurn self-enhancing political concepts (such as a tax cut) in favor of more altruistic objectives. He concludes by noting that as human beings suppress their individual volitional interests, society will witness an increasing level of attention to the critical interests of humankind as a whole...."

David Miller–TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
"Ronald Dworkin is equally celebrated for his ground-breaking work in political philosophy and for his trenchant interventions in American constitutional debates over issues such as freedom of speech, abortion, and affirmative action."

Peter Berkowitz–THE NATIONAL REVIEW
"Ronald Dworkin is a powerful and persuasive advocate of the view that law and politics do indeed at crucial junctures depend on moral philosophy's services. At the same time, exposing the subtle maneuvers and clever obfuscations he employs to advance his particular derivation of law and public policy from morality provides a powerful reminder that we have good reason to limit our dependence on philosophers."

KIRKUS REVIEWS
"A case for equality as a policy-guiding principle in contemporary democracy, written by noted legal philosopher Dworkin....Lawmakers in the post-Cold War 'third way' democracies choose to protect individual liberty at the expense of equality, according to Dworkin. As he sees it, the consequences of this course (particularly in the US) are severe: the failure of health care and campaign finance reform, welfare cutbacks, and the elimination of affirmative action. More alarming to Dworkin, however, is the degree to which these policies reflect a lack of 'equal concern' for individuals, which he calls the 'indispensable virtue' of legitimate sovereigns. Rejecting the idea that liberty and equality are mutually exclusive ideals, Dworkin outlines a second chance for 'third way' democracies. A legitimate government's objective, he insists, must be to insure that the 'fates' of individuals are 'insensitive' to their identities but 'sensitive' to their choices. It accomplishes this by providing for equality through the initial outlay of resources, with citizens accepting responsibility for subsequent, freely made choices. Part I, comprised largely of theoretical pieces written in the 1980s, explores the intersection of equality, liberty, and community in hypothetical scenarios. Anyone frustrated by Dworkin's customarily high level of abstraction will be heartened by Part II, which is considerably more earthbound and nearly self-contained. These more recent, policy-based chapters on campaign finance reform, affirmative action, genetic technology, and euthanasia, among other issues, are thick with rigorous case analysis and fascinating data about the state of equality and liberty. This section is particularly valuable for its presentation of practical policy issues along with the theoretical penumbras emanating from them. While more compelling for its articulate announcement of crisis than for its proposed solution, Dworkin's study of what we 'can and must do' to 'redeem our political virtue' sounds a distressing alarm."

ECONOMIST
"Dworkin's aim in Sovereign Virtue is to rescue the 'endangered' value of equality and to accommodate it to personal responsibility...[His] position is what he calls an 'ethical individualism' embodying two principles: it is equally important, for each human life, that it be successful; and every person has a special responsibility for the success of his own life. If you take both these ideas seriously, you will be driven, so Dworkin argues, to demand equality of resources. This ideal is the core of the book, and he defends it in impressive detail against its main rivals—equality of welfare and equality of opportunity.

Mitchell Goodman
"Many philosophers would not be offended by the charge that philosophy is not a practical pursuit. Dworkin, a professor at New York University and University College in London, is deeply offended. He insists that philosophers can clarify the foundations of law to build a better world...In Sovereign Virtue, Dworkin attempts... first to establish principles and then apply them to today's vexing issues, including health care, campaign finance and affirmative action."

John Dunn
'Sovereign Virtue...is... extraordinarily impressive: supple, suave and enviably deft, like all his work, and in its cumulative effect quite exceptionally illuminating... [Dworkin] has been in many ways the most systematic moral, political and legal thinker of the past three decades in the Anglophone world. He may lack the personal authority or the singularity of mind of John Rawls. But on this evidence he has a substantially broader range of ambition, a set of forceful moral intuitions, a speed and boldness of intellectual manoeuvre, and a combination of energy and sheer pertinacity that are all his own."

Thomas Hurka
"There is much that is brilliant in Dworkin's development of [his] themes. He reconceptualizes egalitarianism so...it corrects only inequalities for which people are not responsible...[Dworkin] presents an original and comprehensive political theory that claims to unite equality not only with freedom but also with other allegedly competing values, such as democracy, community and the good life. And he repeatedly connects his abstract speculations to specific controversies from contemporary political life. This is what political philosophy should do, and Dworkin does it better than anyone else now writing."

Jeremy Waldron
"[Dworkin] explodes the platitudes that have traditionally been used to determine whether someone's views on equality were 'sound' and he manages to map out a terrain on which [an] honest and respectable argument about equality can be conducted. These are major achievements, and the papers collected in Sovereign Virtue must be regarded now as classics in political philosophy."

Anthony Julius
"Dworkin is that rare creature, a public intellectual. He writes with clarity and economy, and while he is not hard to understand, he demands maximum concentration from his readers...He sets out not just to persuade us to think differently, but also to act differently. He wants to change not just our beliefs but our behavior too...Sovereign Virtue is a book rich in arguments. Every objection is debated into submission; every alternative is pondered until its inadequacy becomes clear to the author."

Lief Carter
"For Dworkin fans, indeed for any analytical political philosopher who rejects the 'new pragmatism' linguistic turn and relishes a complex argumentative structure, this book will provide many hours of intellectual stimulation. Just as we who are not ourselves great chess players or mathematicians can admire the minds of great chess players or mathematicians, so even skeptical readers may admire Dworkin's elegant and complex sense of how philosophers can do their work. This is a work of the first importance, by an outstanding philosopher of politics and law who is the most eloquent, thoughtful and judicious spokesman of the new centre-left-liberal position which in recent years has come to be called 'the third way'—a label conferred and expounded by lesser minds, but here given what is not only the deepest and most compelling statement it has yet received, but a statement which is, in addition, genuinely deep and compelling."

K. Anthony Appiah
"For the last two decades, Ronald Dworkin has been developing answers to... questions [of public policy] as part of a powerful and surprising response to the larger question of how we should reconcile liberty with equality. Unlike many partisans of equality, he thinks conservatives are right to hold individuals largely responsible for their own fates. But unlike many partisans of liberty, he nevertheless believes in substantial governmental intervention to bring about more equality. And, unlike both, he argues that, in the deepest sense, equality and liberty are never truly at odds. In Sovereign Virtue, Dworkin has brought together this surprising theory and some of its applications...If we care about having a rational public discourse about the many contests that seem to pit liberty against equality, we owe his book a careful reading."

Daniel Choi
"With Sovereign Virtue, Ronald Dworkin finally presents his political theory in a form convenient for the general reader, stripped of the specialized arguments about jurisprudence on which he has built his reputation. The issue in Sovereign Virtue is not how judges should decide cases, but what kind of equality between individuals government should secure and maintain."

Alan Ryan–THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"Dworkin makes a plausible case for the strikingly implausible idea that equality is the sovereign political virtue, and then illustrates this claim with sharply pointed discussions of such topics as abortion, affirmative action and the role of money in politics."

Bryce Christensen– BOOKLIST
"Everywhere, egalitarians are in retreat—California and Texas have struck down affirmative action, even as federal and state officials scale back welfare benefits. But why should Americans worry so long as democratic majorities approve of the new policies? One of the country's most distinguished legal theorists, Dworkin here defends equality as a political ideal even more important to the nation's long-term political health than majority rule. But how should legislators and judges translate equality of concern into law and jurisprudence? In a tightly reasoned foray, Dworkin argues for the equality of available resources—tightly linking this equality to personal responsibility for the use of those resources. For the contemporary implications of egalitarian theory, readers can turn to the second half of the book, where Dworkin applies—and extends—his doctrines, laying out carefully detailed justifications for affirmative action, the prereform welfare system, and homosexual rights. Lawmakers and interested general readers will want to scour these pages for insights, even if they disagree with Dworkin's conclusions."