"Prescriptive equality": two steps forward
Article Abstract:
The principle of prescriptive equality does have meaningful normative force, despite arguments to the contrary by Christopher Peters and others. Where it agrees with nonegalitarian justice it acts as a reinforcement, and where it does not, it counterbalances without becoming incoherent. However, the principle only truly applies when the people to be treated are significantly related and when the one who may receive worse treatment will know of better treatment given his equal. The doctrine of precedent gains no support here.
Publication Name: Harvard Law Review
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0017-811X
Year: 1997
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Equality revisited
Article Abstract:
Despite the tautology of the traditional statement of prescriptive equality, there is a nontautological principle of equality, though it too lacks normative content. Treating people rightly may clash with treating them equally, and because inequality is a symptom or warning sign rather than an inherent evil, right treatment should prevail over equal treatment wherever the two clash. Prescriptive equality, especially in the justice system but also wherever decisions are made, can perpetuate wrong without any benefit.
Publication Name: Harvard Law Review
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0017-811X
Year: 1997
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
The relationship between equality and access in law school admissions
Article Abstract:
The author argues that law schools purportedly use standards of admission which are based upon merit, but the standards used to determine merit are vague or cannot predetermine the quality of actual lawyering with any empirical evidence. The author discusses the concepts of equality as opportunity and equality as results in relation to this issue.
Publication Name: Harvard Law Review
Subject: Law
ISSN: 0017-811X
Year: 2000
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: No: you can't have excellence without equality. Yes: the passion for equality denigrates American life. New meaning for the First Amendment: free speech may be seen as a tool for protecting those in power
- Abstracts: Partnership in practice: the experience of two probation services. Consumer opinions of the probation service: advice, assistance, befriending and the reduction of crime
- Abstracts: IRS liberally construes individual selection rules for group-term life plans. Health coverage, the employer and multiple employer welfare arrangements
- Abstracts: Personal privacy and high tech: little brothers are watching you. part 2 Low-profile feds fashion laws to fight cybercrime; but they are shunned by companies wanting to conceal flaws in security
- Abstracts: Audit strategies for defending against the accumulated earnings tax. Personal holding company tax grabs the unwary