PHI 4311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: False Consciousness
Document Summary
Equality of resources over equality of welfare: one should not take people"s preferences, desires, abilities, and talents as fixed. Justice should take account of what achievements and functioning people are capable of, and aim for a measure of equality at that level by enabling people to realize their capabilities. Justification: false consciousness, adaptive preference, and fear and oppression, can bring about preferences that have been adapted to people"s oppressed condition. Justice requires not equalization of welfare or opportunity of welfare, nor equality of resources, but elimination of conditions that prevent people from realizing their capabilities, and resources to enable them to do so. So an emphasis on capabilities is an objective approach: it determines a person"s capabilities objectively. This is extreme perfectionism (arneson), telling people how and what they ought to be whether they themselves value it or not. Dworkin (part 1) against equality of welfare: ultimately rejects equality of welfare.