Radical individualism as the philosophical basis of modern egalitarianism

The paper analyzes radical individualism as a conceptual principle that underlies the modern liberal philosophy, focuses on reflexive understanding of the task to achieve equality in societies, and eliminates barriers in the good distribution. It considers individualism as an element in the philosophy of liberalism substantiating new egalitarian ideas that are circulating within the Western intellectual environment. Natural connection is noted between an increase in the volume of personal freedom and legal claims recognized by the state, on the one side, and radicalization of the role of an individual as a sovereign social subject, on the other. Using the example of current trends in the Western socio-philosophical and political discourse development, the paper demonstrates pronounced imbalance in the public and private interests within the liberal egalitarianism framework. The problem of relationship between equality in the opportunities and equality in the results being two theoretical models used to describe social equality is analyzed. Regarding the balance between private and public interests, liberal egalitarianism promotes unconditional primacy of the individual’s interests to the detriment of the society real or imaginary interests. For the first time, the paper proposes to consider differences between these ideas in the context of radical individualism. Besides, it substantiates destructive significance of the results’ equality logic in achieving equality in a society. It is concluded that levelling the shift in modern liberalism towards radical individualism is the objective requirement. It could be achieved by understanding significance of the public interests and the need to suppress the destructive social processes based on the excessive sovereignty of an individual as the only criterion in constructing a society of universal equality.

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