Volume 30, Number 6 · April 14, 1983
To Each His Own
By Ronald Dworkin
Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality
by Michael Walzer
Basic Books, 345 pp., $19.95
In his new book, Michael Walzer proposes a pluralistic theory of social justice which aims at what he calls 'complex' equality. He rejects the goals of 'simple' egalitarians who want to make people as equal as possible in their overall situation. He thinks they ignore the fact that the conventions and shared understandings that make up a society do not treat all goods as subject to the same principles of distribution. Our conventions, he argues, assign different kinds of resources and opportunities to different 'spheres' of justice, each of which is governed by its own distinct principle of fairness. These conventions provide what Walzer calls the 'social meaning' of different goods; for us it is part of social meaning, he says, that medicine and other necessities of a decent life should be distributed according to need, punishment and honors according to what people deserve, higher education according to talent, jobs according to the needs of the employer, wealth according to skill and luck in the market, citizenship according to the needs and traditions of the community, and so forth.
Review, 2923 words
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