CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Reich, Orsolya |
|---|---|
| Title | Equality of Resources: A New Account |
| Summary | Ronald Dworkin believes that two principles of human dignity are of fundamental ethical significance, the principle of equal importance and the principle of special responsibility. According to him, these principles, properly interpreted, call for an equal distribution of resources within the boundaries of a nation state. In my dissertation I criticize Dworkin for employing highly unrealistic assumptions in constructing his theory of equality of resources. While economists are justified in making such assumptions in their theories, normative theorists, to my understanding, are not, except for the assumption of full compliance. My aim is to provide a theory of equality of resources that does not employ highly unrealistic assumptions beyond the assumption of full compliance. I argue that such a theory will not assign the market a fundamental importance in establishing and maintaining equality. Instead, it will propose a number of mandatory insurance schemes for this role. To this point, my theory aims to be truer to Dworkin’s basic commitments than that of Dworkin’s own. Then, however, I suggest that pace Dworkin, the two principles of human dignity properly interpreted call for an equal distribution of resources not within the boundaries of a nation state, but among all moral persons, and I show what an appropriate global ideal and non-ideal theory of equality of resources should look like. |
| Supervisor | Kis, János |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/reich_orsolya.pdf |
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