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On Being Unfair to Rawls, Rousseau and Williams or John Charvet and the Incoherence of Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

M. P. Masterson
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Abstract

John Charvet, in a recent article, charges various ‘attempts to make of equality a substantive principle of society’ with being ‘incoherent and self contradictory’ (p. 13). The unifying theme of Charvet's article is that certain contenders for equality do so in a manner that logically presupposes the assuming away of those elements of social life which entitle us to talk about individuals as ‘human beings at all, i.e. as beings possessing the attributes of humanity’ (p. 2). I wish to show how little justified these charges are.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1971 , pp. 209 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 John Charvet, , ‘The Idea of Equality as a Substantive Principle of Society’, Political Studies, XVII, no. 1 (1969), 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar All page references in my text are references to Charvet's article.

2 Rawls, John, ‘Justice as Fairness’, Philosophy, Politics and Society (Second Series), eds. Laslett, P. and Runciman, W. G. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964), pp. 132–57, 150–1, 155.Google Scholar

3 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 143.Google Scholar

4 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 140.Google Scholar

5 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 143.Google Scholar

6 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 143.Google Scholar

7 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, pp. 139–40, 144.Google Scholar

8 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, pp. 139–42.Google Scholar

9 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, pp. 136–8.Google Scholar No doubt Rawls would have had to describe this situation to his readers first, for the sake of exposition, in order to explain the drift of his argument: but afterwards he could have gone on to drop the assumption of equality as suggested without altering the general character of his argument.

10 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 139.Google Scholar

11 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 138.Google Scholar

12 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 138.Google Scholar

13 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, pp. 133–9.Google Scholar

14 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, p. 135.Google Scholar

15 Rawls, , ‘Justice as Fairness’, pp. 137, 140.Google Scholar

16 My page references to Rousseau's, works are to the relevant volume of Rousseau, Political Writings, ed. Vaughan, C. E. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, repr. 1962).Google Scholar

17 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’ in Rousseau, Political Writings, I, 118–220, 160–3, 182.Google Scholar

18 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, p. 164.Google Scholar

19 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’ pp. 166, 178, 206.Google Scholar

20 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, pp. 176, 178.Google Scholar

21 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, pp. 175, 190–1, 207.Google Scholar

22 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, p. 181.Google Scholar

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24 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, pp. 191–2, 178, 204–6.Google Scholar

25 Rousseau, , ‘Social Contract’ in Rousseau, Political Writings, ii, pp. 21–136, 39 (note), 60–1, 72–3.Google Scholar

26 Rousseau, , ‘Project for a Constitution for Corsica’ in Rousseau, Political Writings, ii, pp. 306–56, 309–10, 313, 320–2, 325–8.Google Scholar

27 Rousseau, , ‘Corsica’, pp. 325–8, 330, 334–5.Google Scholar

28 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

29 Rousseau, , ‘Discourse’, pp. 191–2.Google Scholar

30 Rousseau, , ‘Corsica’, pp. 325–6, 332, 343.Google Scholar

31 It is true that in various places in the ‘Discourse’ (pp. 190–1) Rousseau's sloppy use of the words ‘necessary’ and ‘inevitable’ might lead us to suppose him guilty of wishing to destroy the necessary or inevitable. Yet, when this use occurs in or near paragraphs whose implication is that the increasing corruption of the bad forms of inequality is not absolutely inevitable, we must, while perhaps grumbling at Rousseau the stylist for over-writing, still make a sympathetic effort to understand what Rousseau, the political philosopher, is trying to say to us.

32 Rousseau, , ‘Corsica’, pp. 344–7.Google Scholar

33 I think useful parallels can be drawn here with the concepts of republican virtue and monarchic honour in Montesquieu (who certainly influenced Rousseau considerably in other respects). (Cf. Montesquieu, , Esprit des Lois, III.Google Scholar)

34 ‘But having argued for equality as the solution to all human problems, Rousseau then admits that distinctions within society are both necessary and permissible’ (Charvet, p. 8). The unwary may be led by this sentence and its ‘then’ into believing that this fairly represents the actual expository structure of some work of Rousseau's: what work this could be is unclear.

35 William, Bernard, ‘The Idea of Equality’ in Laslett, and Runciman, , Philosophy, Politics and Society (Second Series), pp. 110–31,115–16.Google Scholar

36 Williams, ‘Idea of Equality’, p. 119. Critical analysis aimed at a philosophically satisfactory concept of necessity is out of place, because Williams is merely describing behaviour resulting from an idea of necessity that some ignorant people might hold, an idea which ex hypothesi is confused and imperfect.

37 Williams, , ‘Idea of Equality’, p. 114.Google Scholar