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
"reflective equilibrium" 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,
"luck egalitarianism": the idea that social equality calls for
neutralizing the disparate effects of bad brute luck upon a person's
position in society.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191562761
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter