2 - The principle of neutrality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2009
Summary
Although the principle of neutrality has been much discussed, it has less often been carefully formulated. Thus, before we can evaluate it, we must clarify its scope and meaning. This means asking which agents the principle constrains, at which political levels it applies, and which ways of promoting the good it forbids. It also means asking what, in this context, a conception of the good is. In the current chapter, I shall say something about each question. Although I shall not settle on any single set of answers, I shall try at least to lay out a manageable range of plausible alternatives.
First, though, I want to convey a bit more of the flavor of neutralism, and to make explicit the principles that will guide my analysis. Here are five representative formulations, the first two by supporters Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls, the last three by critics Alasdair Maclntyre, Michael Sandel, and Joseph Raz:
[P]olitical decisions must be, so far as is possible, independent of any particular conception of the good life, or of what gives value to life.
Justice as fairness … [does not] try to evaluate the relative merits of different conceptions of the good. … There is no necessity to compare the worth of the conceptions of different persons once it is supposed they are compatible with the principles of justice. Everyone is assured an equal liberty to pursue whatever plan of life he pleases as long as it does not violate what justice demands. […]
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- Beyond NeutralityPerfectionism and Politics, pp. 20 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997