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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2010
The author struggles to come to grips here with the philosophical complexities and personal tragedies that disorient us when we reflect on the great and pervasive inequalities in human societies. His egalitarianism is radical in denying the justice of the inequalities that liberals like Rawls would countenance, and in denying that justice and capitalism are compatible. Nielsen displays a masterly knowledge of the literature of social justice, especially that which bears on Rawls's A Theory of Justice and Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, the celebrated philosophical flagships of liberalism and conservatism respectively; this feature of the book should be useful for advanced students of social and political philosophy who need to acquire a sense for the texture of contemporary argument in the field. The thicket of sturdy arguments in Equality and Liberty should convince Rawlsians to accept many tenets of Nielsen's radical egalitarianism, or else to re-examine their thinking about social justice. And the extended critique of Anarchy, State and Utopia should persuade Nozickians of the need for “a reasonably sophisticated political sociology and a sound critical theory of society” if one is to philosophize adequately about social justice (5). Many will find this critique the most valuable part of the book.
1 Daniels, Norman, “Equal Liberty and Unequal Worth of Liberty”, in Reading Rawls (New York: Basic Books, 1979)Google Scholar.
2 Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 104Google Scholar.
3 I am interpreting Nielsen as saying that such people are really deserving, as opposed to its being simply socially valuable to make desert-attributions, a thing that Rawls need not deny. 1 am stumped, however, about how to reconcile this interpretation with Nielsen's comment about desert in another context: “… we still have the point made by Hampshire and Rawls about the luck ofgenetic and social roulette. We can hardly say, if we keep those facts firmly in mind, that anyone is more intrinsically deserving than anyone else. Desert remains a pragmatic criterion …” (298).
