The Philosophical Roots of the Ideology of the New Equality

Abstract

The United States is traditionally perceived as a country dominated by liberal individualism. However, recently there has been a rise in the ideology of new equality. It presupposes the interpretation of the ideal of equality as equality of results, and in the collectivist dimension, i.e. as equality between some significant social groups, which is achieved through positive discrimination. This ideology received its philosophical justification in the left-liberal versions of the theory of justice - liberal egalitarianism and communitarianism. According to communitarians, the State cannot be neutral about differences between racial and gender groups. To this is added the concept of historical justice - the collective responsibility of representatives of “oppressive” communities in relation to the “oppressed”.