Dangerous Egalitarian Dreams

John Kekes

John Kekes writes how two the thinking of two public philosophers -- John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin -- shaped the policies of the Democratic Party left.

The most celebrated public philosophers of our time--our Rousseau and Voltaire, so to speak--are John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. Prophets of a non-Marxist socialism, they provide the rationale for the domestic agenda of the left wing of the Democratic party, and they are in large measure responsible for the Left's remarkable success in occupying the moral high ground.

One can't overemphasize the towering prestige these two enjoy among the liberal elites. President Clinton decorated Rawls, a retired Harvard philosophy professor, with the Medal of Freedom, and the Chronicle of Higher Education recently celebrated him as "the most distinguished moral and political philosopher of our age,"...In philosophy departments across the land, young scholars tirelessly churn out explications of his thought.

For the complete article go to the City Journal website.