Archive for September, 2006
见到了民法界的教父
上午10点，从开水间出来，远远看到一位，怎么说呢，圆圆的脸，慈眉善目，满面红光的长者，在几位老总的簇拥下进来了，呵呵，王泽鉴老先生。第一个反应有点像金庸啊，老先生的天龙八部可比金大师的厉害多了。转了一圈就进了会议室，可恨小女子胆量不够，老先生从我身边过，都没敢抬头，故作专心看书，其实心怦怦跳，有点粉丝的感觉。胡子让我要签名也没敢要，更遑论合影了。因为台湾人门第观念很重，像我们这种小字辈是不能擅自上前搭话的。嗯，姑且这样认为吧。
老先生颇有意思，倒茶不喝，点名要咖啡，又到星巴克买了咖啡，精神好得很啊。
老先生可见在台北的生活和他的学术地位比较相当，而不禁想起，前一段去拜访王名扬老先生，住着50多平的旧房子，室内之简陋实在不能想象，这是一个法学大家的生活场所，他们同样出身名校，同样贡献卓绝，为何此等凄凉，每每想到此，便感到一阵凄楚和莫名的寒意……
一切都是残缺的
还没做真正意义上的责编，就有一堆的问题出现，发出一本书稿，就开始提心吊胆，害怕听到电话响，害怕主任找，因为，准没好事。每次都会有那么一点问题，滴滴答答，就像房子漏水一样，问题不严重，但却足以让你心烦意乱，不过，也许，时间长了，就麻木了，抱着必死的决心就不用怕前怕后了。但是，时刻提醒自己认真一点，再认真一点。不求完美，但残缺并不美。
Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality
Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, Harvard University Press, 2000. 528 pages.
Equality is the endangered species of political ideals. Even left-of-center politicians reject equality as an ideal: government must combat poverty, they say, but need not strive that its citizens be equal in any dimension. In his new book Ronald Dworkin insists, to the contrary, that equality is the indispensable virtue of democratic sovereignty. A legitimate government must treat all its citizens as equals, that is, with equal respect and concern, and, since the economic distribution that any society achieves is mainly the consequence of its system of law and policy, that requirement imposes serious egalitarian constraints on that distribution.
What distribution of a nation’s wealth is demanded by equal concern for all? Dworkin draws upon two fundamental humanist principles–first, it is of equal objective importance that all human lives flourish, and second, each person is responsible for defining and achieving the flourishing of his or her own life–to ground his well-known thesis that true equality means equality in the value of the resources that each person commands, not in the success he or she achieves. Equality, freedom, and individual responsibility are therefore not in conflict, but flow from and into one another as facets of the same humanist conception of life and politics. Since no abstract political theory can be understood except in the context of actual and complex political issues, Dworkin develops his thesis by applying it to heated contemporary controversies about the distribution of health care, unemployment benefits, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, assisted suicide, and genetic engineering.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Does Equality Matter?
I. Theory
1. Equality of Welfare
2. Equality of Resources
3. The Place of Liberty
4. Political Equality
5. Liberal Community
6. Equality and the Good Life
7. Equality and Capability
II. Practice
8. Justice and the High Cost of Health
9. Justice, Insurance, and Luck
10. Free Speech, Politics, and the Dimensions of Democracy
11. Affirmative Action: Does It Work?
12. Affirmative Action: Is It Fair?
13. Playing God: Genes, Clones, and Luck
14. Sex, Death, and the Courts
Sources
Notes
Index
