Other than Rawls, Ronald Dworkin (1931–2013) is the most inluential theorist of liberalism of the late twentieth century. In his remarks at the Harvard memorial service for Rawls, Dworkin credited Rawls with showing that it is possible to a give systematic, individualistic theory of justice, one that is not aggregative in the way that utilitarianism is. In virtue of their shared commitment to individualism,Dworkin agrees with Rawls that a just government must take individual rights to liberty seriously and must ensure a fair distribution of resources, but their views also differ in important ways.

First, whereas Rawls’s individualism is represented theoretically by the view that justice consists of principles that equally situated, rationally self-interested individuals would rationally choose behind the veil of ignorance in the original position, Dworkin’s individualism is represented by the principle that the government must treat each citizen with equal concern and respect.

Second, and as a consequence, whereas Rawls justiies speciic rights, such as to freedom of thought and conscience, by the rational choice argument from the original position, Dworkin justiies speciic rights, such as to religious and sexual freedom, as implied by the general right to be treated by the government with equal concern and respect. In his review of TJ (Dworkin 1975), Dworkin argued that, because hypothetical contracts do not bind, and because Rawls’s argument from the original position presupposes that persons are entitled to be treated as equals, Rawls’s argument from the original position is really best understood as a method for articulating what distribution of goods is required by the principle of equal concern and respect.