Robert L. Tsai’s Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation proposes to discard equality as an otiose criterion for legal and political strategy. The idea is at once surprising and provocative. That it should come from a respected and accomplished progressive scholar is even more noteworthy. I critique Tsai’s claim by evaluating his use of equality and the adequacy of his proposed understudies. None of these understudies, I suggest, can do the salutary work Tsai hopes. In particular, I argue that the failures of human sympathy that consistently undermine the progressive equality project will equally puncture the proposed understudies. A final, brief conclusion reconsiders how equality might be analyzed and deployed as a regulative ideal in modern American politics and law notwithstanding Tsai's well-founded concerns.

中文翻译：

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平等的研究

Robert L. Tsai 的《实践平等：在分裂的国家中建立正义》建议摒弃平等作为法律和政治战略的一个无关紧要的标准。这个想法既令人惊讶又具有挑衅性。更值得一提的是，它应该出自一位受人尊敬、成就卓著的进步学者之手。我通过评估他对平等的使用和他提议的研究的充分性来批评蔡的主张。我认为，这些替补都无法完成蔡英文希望的有益工作。特别是，我认为，不断破坏进步平等项目的人类同情心的失败同样会破坏拟议的研究。尽管蔡英文的担忧是有根据的，但最后的简短结论重新考虑了如何将平等分析和部署为现代美国政治和法律的规范理想。