| dc.description.abstract | It is often thought that a legitimate government must treat all citizens not just with a measure of concern but with equal concerns.
This book examines the relationship between the idea of legitimacy of law in a democratic system and equality, conceived in a tripartite sense: political, legal, and social. Exploring the constituent elements of the legal philosophy underlying concepts of legitimacy, this book seeks to demonstrate how a conception of democratic legitimacy is necessary for understanding and reconciling equality and political legitimacy by tracing and examining the conceptions of equality in political, legal, and social dimensions.
In the sphere of political equality this book argues that the best construction of equality in a democratic system - which resonates with the legitimizing function of majority rule - is that of equality of political opportunity. It is largely procedural, but those procedures represent important substantive values built into a majoritarian system. In the sphere of legal equality it argues that a plausible conception of non-discrimination can be constructed through a nullreflective equilibriumnull process, and should reject a thoughtless assumption that the presence of some particular criteria of differentiations necessarily taints a legal classification as discriminatory.
Finally, the chapters on social equality explore, in some detail, the currently influential, and presumptively attractive, nullluck egalitarianismnull: the idea that social equality calls for neutralizing the disparate effects of bad brute luck upon a person's position in society.
Table of contents
1. Law's Legitimacy and Democracy
Legitimacy of Law and the 'Service Conception' of Authority
Authority and Identification of Valid Law
'Service Conception' and Democracy
Justification and Obligation
'Democracy without Values'?
'Democracy without values' in the Motivational Sense
'Democracy without values' in the Constitutional Sense
2. Political Equality and Majority Rule
Majority Rule and Legitimacy: a Shortcut Link?
Majority Rule and Intensity of Preferences
Vote Trading and Equality
Majority Rule, Unanimity and Equal Respect
Majority Rule an the 'Aggregation of Wills'
Outcomes and Procedures: 'Detached' and 'Dependent' Conceptions of Democracy
Equality of Influence, of Impact, and of Political Opportunity
Equality of Political Opportunity and Majority Rule
3. Legal Equality
Equality before and in the Law
Equality in Law: A Non-Negotiable, Fundamentally Ambiguous Ideal
The 'No Differential Treatment' Standard
'Per Se' Theories and Immutable Characteristics
Relevance, Circularity, and Levels of Scrutiny
Suspectness and Discrimination
4. Social Equality (I): The Contours of Social Equality
Social Equality: Individualized and Collective
'Natural and Social Lottery'
Self-Ownership and the 'Extensions' of a Right over One's Body
Self: Thick and Thin
Common Pool of Natural Abilities?
5. Social Equality (II): Luck Egalitarianism and Its Limits
Luck and Responsibility in 'Luck Egalitarianism'
Luck Egalitarianism and Moral Intuitions about Equality
Equality of Resources, of Welfare, and the Status of Preferences
Persons, Circumstances and Talents in Luck Egalitarianism
Resources and Welfare: Shortening the Gap
How Egalitarian is Luck Egalitarianism?
6. Conclusions | en |
