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Inequality is widely regarded as morally objectionable: T. M. Scanlon investigates why it matters to us. He considers the nature and importance of equality of opportunity, whether the pursuit of greater equality involves objectionable interference with individual liberty, and whether the rich can be said to deserve their greater rewards.

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1996, given by T.M. Scanlon, an American philosopher.

Frontmatter -- Brief Book Overview -- Acknowledgments -- Table of Contents -- Instead of an Introduction: Scanlon's Project -- Deontological Communitarianism. Laudation for Thomas M. Scanlon -- Contractualism and Justification -- Justification Fundamentalism: A Discourse-Theoretical Interpretation of Scanlon's Contractualism -- On How to Explain Rational Motivation: Where Internalism and Externalism Meet -- Moral Reality and Moral Progress -- Equality of Opportunity and Justified Inequalities: How the Family Can Be on Equality's Side -- Improving Scanlon's Contractualism -- Substantive Responsibility and the Causal Thesis -- Responses to Forst, Mantel, Nagel, Olsaretti, Parfit, and Stemplowska -- Words of Thanks -- Contributors -- Index

In this important collection of writings, leading legal and political thinkers address a wide array of issues that confront societies undergoing a transition to democratic rule. Bridging the gap between theory and practice in international human rights law and policy, the contributors continue discussions that were begun with the late Argentine philosopher-lawyer Carlos Santiago Nino, then extend those conversations in new directions inspired by their own and Nino's work.The book focuses on some of the key questions that confront the international human rights movement today. What is the moral justification for the concept and content of universal human rights? What is the relationship among nation-building, constitutionalism, and democracy? What are the political implications for a conception of universal human rights? What is the relationship between moral principles and political practice? How should a society confront what Kant called radical evil? And how does a successor regime justly and practically hold a prior regime accountable for gross violations of human rights?