Liberals reject sex, race, or class as the relevant criteria for treating people differently, but they do believe that it is just and fair if inequalities are earned and deserved by virtue of their different desert or merit. Thus, liberal theory holds stubbornly that so long as inequality can be justified on the basis of rewards or desert for special qualities and abilities or special contribution to society, it is acceptable. One cannot help note here that what is meritorious, special or a contribution to the society are all circumscribed by the specificities of the society in question.
Moreover, it is very difficult to isolate the worth of an individual’s contribution, and if one takes back after contributing, then is one really contributing anything at all? This whole position seems to contradict the basic liberal position that all individuals have equal worth and respect and reduces people to a bundle of talents and abilities. In recent times, however, modern liberals such as Rawls and Dworkin have rejected merit and desert as a criteria for justifying inequality.
Instead, they advocate an equality of consideration based on the equal moral worth of all individuals, irrespective of their differing individual talents or skills. They base this equality on the idea that all human beings are equally endowed with the ability to make choices and formulate life plans. Rawls, for instance, rejects as morally arbitrary the distribution of rewards according to ability or effort, for differences in abilities and skills he contends, are simply facts of nature and no one is to gain or suffer because of the presence or an absence of these skills or abilities.
Hence, he advocates the treatment of these natural abilities as a social asset so that the basic structure of society can be arranged so that these contingencies work to the good of the least fortunate’. The so called Difference Principle that Rawls enunciates, is to his mind, the best principle for ensuring that natural assets do not lead to unfair advantages.
The Justice principle requires that social and economic inequalities should be so arranged that they are both a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged and b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. This, thus, unlike the traditional liberal rights is a much wider understanding of equality. Unequal rewards are justified not on the basis of differing abilities, but as incentives so that they benefit the least advantaged.
Dworkin also expresses displeasure with the traditional liberal ideas on equality and accepts the need for some redistribution and welfare policies. Macpherson has criticized Rawlsian equality on the grounds that it assumes the inevitability of institutionalized inequalities between classes. In doing this, Rawls ignores the fact that class based inequalities create unequal power relationships among individuals of different classes and would thus, impinge on other aspects of equality.
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