MML Computer-Assisted Translation

Exam 1999 - Ronald Dworkin

Silke Mentchen

It has become common to describe the great issues [1] of domestic politics as [2] a conflict between [3] the demands of liberty and equality. It may be, it is said, that the poor [4] and the black and the uneducated have an abstract right to equality, but the prosperous and the whites and the educated have a right to liberty as well and any [5] efforts [6] at social reorganisation in aid of the first set of rights must reckon with and respect the second. Everyone except extremists recognises, therefore, the need [7] to compromise between equality and liberty. Every piece of important social legislation is [8] shaped by the supposed tension between these two goals.

The crucial question is whether we have a right to liberty. If freedom to choose one’s [9] schools, or employees, or neighbourhood is simply something that we all want, like air conditioning and lobsters [10] , then we are not entitled to hang on to these freedoms [11] as a concession to the rights of others to an equal share of respect and resources. But if we can say that we not only want these freedoms, but are entitled to them, then we have established at least a basis for demanding a compromise.