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It is possible that the fame of the Texas Rose Rustlers Society has not yet reached readers of these words. They may want to know then that its members prize roses that survive unattended in the wilds of Texas, having eluded the benevolent attention of gardeners. These unattended roses are not too distantly related to the ‘unofficial English rose’ that the poet says ‘Unkempt about those hedges blows’ in the proximity of The Old Vicarage at Grantchester. As all respectable societies, the Texas Rose Rustlers has by-laws stating the principles that unite its members. Here are some of them: there is more than one way of being beautiful; good climates are in the eye of the beholder; if you are attacked by disease, abandonment, or a bad chain of events, do not despair, there is always the chance that you were bred to be tough; and everyone should not smell the same. I mention these admirable principles because they offend profoundly against egalitarianism, which happens to be my target on this occasion.
1 ‘Every nation of the world is divided into haves and have-nots … The gap … is enormous. Confronting these disparities, the egalitarian holds that it would be a morally better state of affairs if everyone enjoyed the same level of social and economic benefits’, Arneson, Richard J., ‘Equality’, in Goodin, Robert & Pettit, Phillip, (eds.) A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 489Google Scholar. ‘From the standpoint of politics, the interests of the members of the community matter, and matter equally.’ Dworkin, Ronald, ‘In Defense of Equality’, Social Philosophy and Policy, No. 1, (1983), 24–40, at 24Google Scholar. ‘Everyone matters just as much as everyone else. [I]t is appalling that the most effective social systems we have been able to devise permit … material inequalities.’ Nagel, Thomas, Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 64Google Scholar. ‘Being egalitarian in some significant way relates to the need to have equal concern, at some level, for all persons involved.’ Sen, Amartya, Inequality Reexamined (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), ixGoogle Scholar. ‘A basic principle of equality [is] the principle of equal consideration of interests. The essence of the principle of equal consideration of interests is that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the like interests of all those affected by our actions.’ Singer, Peter, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 2nd ed., 21Google Scholar. ‘We want equalization of benefits … [because] in all cases where human beings are capable of enjoying the same goods, we feel that the intrinsic value of the enjoyment is the same…. We hold that … one man's well-being is as valuable as any other's.’ Vlastos, Gregory, ‘Justice and Equality’, in Social Justice, Brandt, Richard B. (ed.) (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962), 50–51.Google Scholar
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