Review of Robert L. Tsai's Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation (W.W. Norton & Co., 2019)

Abstract

This is a brief review of Robert L. Tsai's book, Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation (W.W. Norton & Co., 2019). In his timely and thoughtful book, Robert Tsai advocates a pragmatic approach to achieving equality in an era of political polarization and cultural cleavages. The review acknowledges that sometimes partial equality or equality by other means is all that is possible, but questions whether the rhetorical and other tools of practical equality can achieve meaningful progress in terms of actual equality.

Keywords: equality, reason, due process, rationality, cruelty, equal protection