2008] The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights 139 example, the value of equality rivals di gnity as a guide to the Basic Law’s protection of an “exist ential minimum.” Some German commentators argue that, in measuring the standard of living of right s-claimants in relation to tha t of others, an equality norm is more reliable than investigations into dignity.144 Thus, from survival, life, dignity, equality, and free dom, we can find many different cores for eac h economic and social right. 145 The problem with the competing values is endemic, even be fore parsing out the different weight given to particular values for each righ t. An interpretation of the right to education, for example, draws more heavily on freedom, while an interpretation of the right to health relies more on th e value of dignity. The problem is also present before we recognize the highly contingent r esonance of each val ue in diff erent constitutional systems. There is no escape from disagreement, which I argue suggests th at the enterprise of setting up an essential core through normative argument—rather than an i nterpretation of the rights themselves—is the wrong approach. While the normative compulsion behind economic and soci al rights should be the subject of dialogue and contestation, the resulting legal standard shoul d retain a more open, contestable, or fluid formulation. Perhaps the greatest problem for the Essence Approach is that it relies on a fixed and stable version of norm ative argument. Even an “overlapping consensus” on the essential core, on the basis of what all reasonable 146 conceptions might be, cannot assist. As well as leading to the thinnest and most abstract formulation—a formula more suited to a lexical ordering than a definitive core 147 —the formula for a reasonable overlap fails to invite the voice necessary for an inquiry into t he evolving moral la nguage of rights. 148 Advocates often disagree over what is ba sic to rights, even as t hey agree with the general attempt to deliberate. In order to respond to this disagreement, many endorse an “ethic of fallibility,” which requires all who engage in the deliberation to recognize the po ssibility that they are mistaken. 149 Such an ethic would assign a differe nt type of focal point—an institutionally revisable one—for the interpretation of rights. An intuition of this incompatibility is perceptible in the South African Constitutional Court’s re luctance to give meani ng to the minimum core through a simple articulation of values. Despite its singular engagement with the underlying normati ve values of the South African Constitution—using a 144. ALEXY, supra note 118, at 284 (emphasizing the assessment of “factual” equality). 145. E.g., Rosalind Dixon, Creating Dialogue About Socio-Economic Rights: Strong-Form Versus Weak-Form Judicial Review Revisited , 5 I NT’L J. CONST. L. 391, 400-01 (2007) (exploring the likely disagreement with the value-based core for right s to housing and health case in the South African context). 146. RAWLS, supra note 138, 133-34 (1993) (advancing a resolution to reasonable disagreement, by appeal to what each person (or state) ought to agree on); see Dixon, supra note 145, at 400 (suggesting this version of consen sus would be likely for the m ost minimalist formulations, such as temporary shelter over adequate housing). 147. Rawls relied on m ore general organizing prin ciples for society—the difference principle being one—rather than a narrowed version of wh at was m eant by each socioeconom ic entitlement, whether health, education, food, or shelter. E.g., RAWLS, supra note 74, at 65-68. 148. E.g., Frank I. Michelm an, Law’s Republic, 97 Y ALE L.J. 1493, 1511 (1988) (condoning Rawls’s experiment while drawing attention to its problems for the norm of self-government). 149. E.g., Waldron, A Right-Based Critique, supra note 71.