Equality
(Dee Speaking)

 
 
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This is one of Rawls' most frightening ideas. To some liberals it sounds good, because it provides a justification for interfering with the free market and doing more through the government for the poor. But if you consider this idea for a moment, it has some very unsettling consequences.

On Rawls' view we don't deserve our intelligence or character and therefore we don't deserve the rewards that a free market gives to those who excel in various ways. But what does this imply? I think it ultimately means that we don't deserve anything. At the very least it makes some of our most important individual characteristics into a new kind of public good that can be exploited by everyone. It calls into question the whole notion of meritocracy by all but eliminating the idea of personal merit.

Reference: For a libertarian criticism of Rawls' view, see Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. The same issue is discussed in Michael Sandel's Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.
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