What Is a Social Critic? Or The End of Beatty (At Least as We Have Known Him)

HAMISH STEWART

ABSTRACT

This Note has two objectives. First, a definitional confusion in David Beatty's theory of the Charter is clarified. Beatty argues that his emphasis on the less drastic means test is founded upon the Pareto principle. It is submitted that a welfarist rule such as Paretianism cannot support a rights-based criterion such as Beatty's. Second, Beatty's claim that his theory of the Charter is a social critic model is criticized. It is submitted that a theory founded upon an instrumentalist rule such as the less drastic means test does not represent true social criticism, which must refer to underlying values.

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Citation: (1991) 49(1) U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 186.
Copyright © 1991. University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review.
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