Abstract

It is becoming popular among contemporary philosophers to view liberalism as a political morality which rests on a fundamental moral requirement that persons are to be treated equally according to a certain conception of equal respect and concern. On this view, the liberal conception of equal respect and concern requires that conflicts of interests must be decided by appeal to principles which are rationally justifiable on grounds that are neutral or impartial between persons and their competing conceptions of the good life. Ronald Dworkin has expressed this view by contrasting liberalism with political moralities that are founded on conceptions of what constitutes treating persons equally which are ‘at least partly determined by some conception of the good life.‘