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Equality and Human Need

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Marvin Zetterbaum
Marvin Zetterbaum*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Abstract

This paper has the twofold purpose of exploring how and whether it may be said that value arises from human need and, in particular, how the value of equality may arise from an alleged human need for recognition. It traces two opposite dispositions toward recognition, one seeing it as destructive of the minimum conditions for political life, the other viewing it as the principal agency through which men achieve their humanity. The concept of a basic human need is then exposed to the criticism of “social apperception,” which apparently renders meaningless the concept altogether. Nevertheless, two “faces” of recognition are explored – one affirming that common human nature in virtue of which all men are said to be equal, and the other, affirming the concrete specificity of each individual. The paper concludes by arguing that this second aspect of the drive for recognition, which is viewed by some as the primary political obligation, is actually not a legitimate aspiration of political life.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 983 - 998
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1977

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References

1 Aristotle, Politics, 1253a15.

2 Rokeach, Milton, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973), p. 20 Google Scholar. On the problem of the synonomous use of the terms “good” and “value,” see Diamond, Martin, “The Dependence of Fact Upon ‘Value,’” Interpretation, Volume 2/3 (Spring, 1972), 229–231 Google Scholar.

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14 There is, of course, an analogue in classical thought to Rousseau's depreciation of political life. But, whereas classical philosophy rejects political life in favor of the philosophic life, Rousseau does so in favor of the self, of the sentiment of one's own existence.

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40 Ibid., p. 28. Cf. Rokeach, pp. 14–15.

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45 Idem.

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50 Ibid., p. 150.

51 Ibid., p. 148.

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63 Lukes, p. 133.

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71 Ibid., p. 887. Cf., ibid., p. 884.

72 Ibid., p. 895. See also Schaar's description of the political, p. 889. Cf. Zetterbaum, Marvin, Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967), pp. 142–144 Google Scholar.

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75 Ibid., pp. 146, 151, 152.

76 Cf. Schaar, , “Some Ways,” p. 877–879, and the following quotation at p. 893 Google Scholar: “The constitutionalists … have offered a specifically political way of thinking about equality, a way which owes little to observation or to the moral sense. Their everyman is a construct, not an empirical portrait. … We cannot, without vast intellectual confusion and surprising practical consequences, deal with the construct either as an empirical generalization, or as a full guide to the making of public policy, or as an ethical justification for equal treatment.” See also Charvet, , “Individual Identity,” p. 483 Google Scholar; Charvet, , “Idea of Equality,” p. 13 Google Scholar.

77 Zetterbaum, Marvin, “Self and Political Order,” Interpretation, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring, 1971), 240–246 Google Scholar. See also, Lukes, pp. 152–153.

78 See the controversy on this point between Strauss, and Kojève, , in Strauss, , On Tyranny, pp. 165–175, 218–221 Google Scholar.

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80 Schaar, John H., “Equality of Opportunity, and Beyond,” in Contemporary Political Theory, ed. de Crespigny, Anthony and Wertheimer, Alan (Chicago: Atherton, 1970), p. 151 Google Scholar. Cf. Schaar, , “Some Ways,” p. 877 Google Scholar.

81 Schaar, , “Some Ways,” pp. 891–892 Google Scholar.

82 Ibid., p. 881. But cf. Schaar, , “Equality of Opportunity,” p. 152 Google Scholar.

83 Lukes,p. 132.

84 Buber, Martin, Between Man and Man (New York: Macmillan, 1965), p. 61 Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., p. 62. Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1261b16-1262a14.

86 Buber, Martin, The Knowledge of Man (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), pp. 72–73 Google Scholar.

87 Lukes, p. 153.

88 Ibid., p. 146.

89 Idem.

90 Schaar, , “Equality of Opportunity,” p. 152 Google Scholar.

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