This is a three-part study and defense of the idea of basic human equality. (This is the idea that humans are basically one another's equals, as opposed to more derivative theories of the dimensions in which we ought to be equal or the particular implications that equality might have for public policy.) Part (1) of the paper examines the very idea of basic equality and it tries to elucidate it by considering what an opponent of (...) basic human equality (e.g. a philosophical racist) might hold. It explores the idea of there being no morally significant fundamental divisions among humans (of the kind that some people insist on as between humans and others animals). Part (2) considers whether basic human equality must be based on some descriptive similarity among us (naturalistic or metaphysical); it considers the positions of a number of thinkers who have denied this. Part (3) considers John Rawls's conception of basic equality in terms of range properties. (Being in Ohio is a range property; Columbus and Cincinnati are both equally in Ohio even though even though Columbus is in the center of the state, while Cincinnati is just over the river from Kentucky.) It explores the application of this Rawlsian idea to the descriptive properties that might be thought relevant to human equality. This three part paper is a rather technical philosophical exploration. And it is just a beginning; we need much more work on the idea of basic equality. Some of the energy that has gone into discussions of equality as a policy aim (e.g. in the Dworkin/Sen literature or in the literature surrounding Rawls's Difference Principle) needs to be devoted to this more fundamental conception. (shrink)

Although thinkers of the past might have started from presumptions of fundamental difference and inequality between (say) the genders, or people of different races, this is no longer the case. At least in mainstream political philosophy, we are all now presumed to be, in some fundamental sense, basic equals. Of course, what follows from this putative fact of basic equality remains enormously controversial: liberals, libertarians, conservatives, Marxists, republicans, and so on, continue to disagree vigorously with each other, (...) despite all presupposing some kind of basic equality. They may argue about who gets what, how much, and why, but the starting point - that all people are in some sense deserving of prima facie equal consideration - has become an axiom of our moral and political thinking. But why? Why are we basic equals? The trouble is that as soon as one asks for an explanation of this foundational premise, it begins to look shaky. After all, on any conceivable metric human beings are notably unequal, and often to striking degrees. Philosophers in this area tend to talk of equal worth, but often without trying to specify what exactly that means. Philosophically, basic equality is neither acceptable nor rejectable. It is not rejectable because we appear to be, as a matter of fact, profoundly committed to the truth of the claim that we are all one another's basic equals. But to the extent that there appear to be no philosophical arguments for believing in the truth of basic equality, it is not acceptable either. The aim of this book is to try and show why basic equality is acceptable. To do so, however, it will also contend that we need to approach the question rather differently to how it has mostly been handled so far. What's required is an exercise in what Bernard Williams called 'impure philosophy': it must include insights from other areas of human intellectual endeavour, whether psychology and history or even what we learn from how we go about practicing basic equality in our collective lives. (shrink)

Contemporary political philosophers often take for granted that for political purposes all humans are to be considered of equal worth. The difficulty, as Bernard Williams observed, is to find an interpretation of this claim that does not collapse into absurdity or triviality. I show that the principal attempts to solve this problem all beg the question against an Aristotelian proponent of natural hierarchy. I then explore existing proposals for dissolving the problem of basic equality, whether by denying the (...) need for justification altogether or by reframing justification in either ostensive or coherentist fashion, showing that each fails to account for our sense that basic equality is objectively true. In response, I outline a Hegelian approach that treats the commitment to basic equality as a social fact that constrains philosophical reasoning in contemporary liberal democracies. By itself that might suggest complacent conservatism or cultural relativism, but I argue that practices and institutions that reflect and foster a commitment to basic equality have a distinct value in permitting reciprocal recognition and thereby enabling us to make a distinct class of normative claims on one another. This Hegelian resolution of the problem is dialectically superior to its rivals and therefore warrants further development. (shrink)

The nature of basic equality (what it is that makes us all equals) can have implications not only for the question of the currency of egalitarian justice but also for that of its . The latter question is raised by G. A. Cohen in his critique of John Rawls's theory of justice. In this paper I argue that Rawlsian liberals might provide an answer to Cohen's critique by establishing two distinct kinds of basic equality, thus providing (...) a of basic equality. A first kind of basic equality gains moral relevance in the context of respectful relations between individuals, and establishes egalitarian duties between them. A second kind of basic equality gains moral relevance in the context of respectful relations between the state and individual citizens, and establishes egalitarian duties of the state toward citizens. The strength of Cohen's critique depends, in part, on the fact that Rawls identified only one kind of basic equality while at the same time wishing to defend a dualist account of individual and state duties. (shrink)

In present-day political and moral philosophy the idea that all persons are in some way moral equals is an almost universal premise, with its defenders often claiming that philosophical positions that reject the principle of equal respect and concern do not deserve to be taken seriously. This has led to relatively few attempts to clarify, or indeed justify, 'basic equality' and the principle of equal respect and concern. Such clarification and justification, however, would be direly needed. After all, (...) the ideas, for instance, that Adolf Hitler and Nelson Mandela have equal moral worth, or that a rape victim owes equal respect and concern to both her rapist and to her own caring brother, seem to be utterly implausible. Thus, if someone insists on the truth of such ideas, he or she owes his or her audience an explanation. The authors in this volume - which breaks new ground by engaging egalitarians and anti-egalitarians in a genuine dialogue - attempt to shed light into the dark. They try to clarify the concepts of "basic equality", "equal moral worth","equal respect and concern", "dignity," etc; and they try to justify-or to refute-the resulting clarified doctrines. The volume thus demonstrates that the claim that all persons have equal moral worth, are owed equal concern and respect, or have the same rights is anything but obvious. This finding has not only significant philosophical but also political implications. (shrink)

Although egalitarianism has been the dominant orthodoxy in Anglophone social and political philosophy for many decades, there have been surprisingly few attempts to account for the axiom on which it rests, namely that human moral worth does not come in degrees. This article begins by rehearsing and evaluating two families of approaches to the grounding problem. The first favours accounts that seek to preserve consistency with metaphysical naturalism, while the second relies on more philosophically contentious claims about the metaphysical status (...) of the human person. I then outline reasons for supposing that none of these accounts of basic equality offers a convincing theoretical foundation for egalitarianism. I conclude by sketching permutations of a theological account before arguing that one of these variations satisfies many of the explanatory criteria that a successful solution requires. (shrink)

Basic Equality and Discrimination examines the justification, interpretation and application of discrimination law. In order to navigate the often dense and conflicted jurisprudence in this area, the work first considers equality as a moral and political concept, thus providing a clearer understanding of the nature of the value - equality - and illustrating the nature of the difficulties posed by constitutional and ordinary 'equality law'.

This paper offers a targeted five-point critique of the current debate about the problem of basic equality. First, it argues that the debate should be refocussed away from any particular concept(ion) of basic equality to a more agnostic proposition about the possibility of establishing equality in any basic moral property. Second, it re-articulates the problem in terms of grounding relations rather than supervenience. Third, it argues that proponents of predominant approach to solving this problem (...) have failed to properly distinguish between two different non-scalar properties defined in terms of scalar properties: ‘range properties’ and ‘bare properties’. Once disambiguated it is clear as to why such an approach must fail. However, this critique does direct our attention to a possible alternative strategy, that is, grounding our equality upon a ‘relative property’. (shrink)

The task to reshape governments in the countries confronted with the Arab Spring prompts the question whether there are necessary conditions to realize a stable society that simultaneously seeks to eliminate the elements that have led to the uprisings. Acknowledging some constitutional rights seems indispensable in such a process. I argue that such a state of affairs is indeed the case, at least now that the ‘old’ justifications to differentiate between people do not suffice anymore. That is not to say (...) that the countries involved will have identical laws in each respect, but merely that a common basis has to be realized, manifested in political and legal equality, so this given does not derogate from the fact that each country’s specific legislation needs to be shaped in the light of its own history. Such a basis has no ‘moral’ character, but is a necessary condition to prevent sedition. (shrink)

In the debate on the basis of moral equality, one conclusion achieves near consensus: that we must reject all accounts that ground equality in the possession of some psychological capacity (Psychological Capacity Accounts). This widely held view crystallises around three objections. The first is the Arbitrariness Objection, which holds that the threshold at which the possession of the relevant capacities places an individual within the required range is arbitrary. The second is the Variations Objection, which holds that there (...) is rational pressure to acknowledge that variations in psychological capacities between individuals are morally relevant. The third is the No Rational Agency Objection, according to which Psychological Capacity Accounts have unpalatable implications for our treatment of humans who do not possess the relevant capacities. We develop a Psychological Capacity Account based on the capacity for a conception of the good and offer a novel defence of the account against these objections. (shrink)

The idea that all human beings have equal moral worth has been challenged by insisting that this is utterly counter-intuitive in the case of individuals like, for instance, Hitler on the one hand and Schweitzer on the other. This seems to be confirmed by a hypothetical in which one can only save one of the two: intuitively, one clearly should save Schweitzer, not Hitler, even if Hitler does not pose a threat anymore. The most natural interpretation of this intuition appeals (...) to unequal moral worth. Jeremy Waldron has recently tried to meet this challenge by giving a different interpretation, thereby trying to explain away the counter-intuitive implications of the basic equality doctrine in this case, and by suggesting that the rejection of basic equality comes with counter-intuitive implications of its own. I shall argue that Waldron’s response to the challenge fails on both counts. (shrink)

It has become somewhat a commonplace in recent political philosophy to remark that all plausible political theories must share at least one fundamental premise, ‘that all humans are one another's equals’. One single concept of ‘basic equality’, therefore, is cast as the common touchstone of all contemporary political thought. This paper argues that this claim is false. Virtually all do indeed say that all humans are ‘equals’ in some basic sense. However, this is not the same sense. (...) There are not one but two concepts of basic equality, and they reflect not a grand unity within political philosophy but a deep and striking division. I call these concepts ‘Equal Worth’ and ‘Equal Authority’. The former means that each individual’s good is of equal moral worth. The latter means that no individual is under the natural authority of anyone else. Whilst these two predicates are not in themselves logically inconsistent, I demonstrate that they are inconsistent foundation stones for political theory. A theory that starts from Equal Worth will find it near impossible to justify Equal Authority. And a theory that starts from Equal Authority will find any fact about the true worth of things, including ourselves, irrelevant to justifying legitimate action. This helps us identify the origin of many of our deepest and seemingly intractable disagreements within political philosophy, and directs our attention to the need for a clear debate about the truth and/or relationship between the two concepts. In short, my call to arms can be summed up in the demand that political philosophers never again be allowed to claim ‘that all human beings are equals’ full stop. They must be clear in what dimension they claim that we are equals—Worth or Authority. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Frage nach der Gerechtigkeit im Gesundheitswesen wird aus der Perspektive einer allgemeinen Theorie der Gerechtigkeit betrachtet. Diese Theorie ist ein Befähigungsansatz, der zwischen 1) der Grundversorgung aller Bürger mit Grundbefähigungen, 2) einem gerechten Anteil an den Früchten gesellschaftlicher Kooperation und 3) individuell erstrebten Gütern und Leistungen differenziert. Die Anwendung dieser Theorie reagiert auf charakteristische Probleme der Allokation im Gesundheitssektor: den prinzipiell ungedeckten Bedarf, die mangelnde Zurechenbarkeit des Bedarfes und die asymmetrische Informationsstruktur zwischen Patienten und Leistungserbringern.

While most theorists agree with the claim that human beings have high and equal moral standing, there are strong disagreements about how to justify this claim. These disagreements arise because there are different ways of managing the difficulty of finding a basis for this claim, which is sufficiently substantial to do this justifying work, but not vary in degree in order to not give rise to inequality of moral considerability. The aim of this paper is to review previous attempts to (...) address this difficulty and to demonstrate why they fail and then to defend another way of dealing with this challenge by applying two views: the substance view on the human person and the natural-law account of morality. My claim is that this approach has comparative advantages because it provides a binary and a normatively significant basis of justification for equality without being implausibly inclusive. (shrink)

In this paper we steer a course between two views of the value of equality that are usually understood as diametrically opposed to one another: on the one hand, the view that equality has intrinsic value; on the other, the view that equality is a normatively redundant notion. We proceed by analysing the different ways in which the equal possession of certain relevant properties justifies distributive equality. We then present an account of ‘basic equality’ (...) that serves to single out where this equal possession is really doing normative work. Our account departs from some common assumptions about basic equality but is nevertheless plausible in as much as it assigns to that concept a precise and normatively significant role in grounding the non-instrumental value of distributive equality. By showing when, exactly, equality is basic, we are able to explain both what is right and what is wrong in each of the two opposed views of the value of equality. The argument proceeds at a fairly high level of abstraction and is therefore applicable to a number of rival egalitarian theories. (shrink)

I argue that the often-heard claim that all serious present-day political philosophers subscribe to the principle of equal respect and concern or to the doctrine of equal moral status or are in some other fundamental sense egalitarians is wrong. Also wrong is the further claim that the usual methods currently used in political philosophy presuppose basic equality. I further argue that liberal egalitarianism itself is wrong. There is no universal duty “of equal respect and concern” towards every person, (...) for one does not owe one’s nice sister and a serial rapist equal respect and concern. There is also no duty of the state to respect all citizens equally, for a state need not be equally concerned about murderous criminals on the one hand and their innocent victims on the other. The potential maneuver of saving liberal egalitarianism by claiming that people have equal rights is unsuccessful. Human beings clearly do not have equal rights, nor are they born with equal rights; and merely having an equality of some rights, for example of “basic” or human ones, would not suffice for egalitarianism. Appeals to “recognition respect” and related concepts are also to no avail. Trying to go back still a step further and to claim that certain rights inequalities or justified discriminatory rules are themselves “grounded” in equal respect and concern at some deeper, norm-generating level (like, for example, the original position or a discourse-ethical principle of justification) is also futile. Finally, I argue that the “This is not what we mean”-strategy of escaping the above arguments reduces egalitarianism to triviality and empty rhetoric. Liberal egalitarianism should be abandoned. (shrink)

In this volume, leading scholars present new and original essays to address controversies raised regarding the focus, structure and justification of the capabilities approach to equality.

Amartya Sen is a renowned economist who has also made important contributions to philosophical thinking about distributive justice. These contributions tend to take the form of criticism of inadequate positions and insistence on making distinctions that will promote clear thinking about the topic. Sen is not shy about making substantive normative claims, but thus far he has avoided commitment to a theory of justice, in the sense of a set of principles that specifies what facts are relevant for policy choice (...) and determines, given a full characterization of any situation in terms of these relevant facts, what ought to be done in that situation. Moreover, Sen has expressed skepticism about the existence of a fully adequate theory in this sense. According to Sen there is a plurality of moral considerations that bear on choice of action and policy and no particular reason to think that weights can be attached nonarbitrarily to each consideration to yield a theory.1 “Sen’s proposal is that distributive justice entails equalizing midfare levels across persons,” writes John Roemer.2 “Other things being equal,” one has to add by way of correction to Roemer’s formulation. Sen holds that we should be concerned with the extent of people’s capability or freedom to attain midfare as well as the midfare level actually reached. Sen holds that distributive values.. (shrink)

Many theorists think that discrimination is wrongful because it involves treating discriminatees as if they have a lower moral status than others when in fact all people are moral equals. However, there are strong reasons, expounded by Peter Singer and others, to doubt that all people are indeed moral equals. While it may turn out that, ultimately, these reasons can be shown to be unsound, we cannot rule out the possibility that we are not all moral equals. If we are (...) not, discrimination cannot be wrong because it involves failure to treat people as moral equals. With this in mind, I propose two anti-inegalitarian accounts of the wrongness of discrimination – “anti-inegalitarian” rather than “egalitarian” because, strictly speaking, they do not posit equality of status, and “anti-inegalitarian” rather than “inegalitarian” because they reject almost all (and in the case of one of them, all) inequalities in status. These two accounts have many of the attractions of the moral equality account. Being immune to Singerian doubts about moral equality is also a strength of the accounts because it means that they are not hostage to the outcome of the intricate debate over moral equality. Lastly, the anti-inegalitarian accounts I propose are in some ways preferable to the moral equality account because they have certain implications for the wrongness of discrimination that an account given in terms of moral equality does not have, and which egalitarians so far have not theorized. (shrink)

This is a concise and profound book from one of the world's leading political and legal philosophers about a major theme, equality, and the proposition that humans are all one another's equals. Jeremy Waldron explores the implications of this fundamental tenet for law, politics, society and economy in the company of John Locke, whose work Waldron regards 'as well-worked-out a theory of basic equality as we have in the canon of political philosophy'. Throughout the text, which is (...) based on the Carlyle Lectures given in Oxford in 1999, Jeremy Waldron discusses contemporary approaches to equality and rival interpretations of Locke, and this dual agenda gives the whole an unusual degree of accessibility and intellectual excitement, of interest to philosophers, political theorists, lawyers and theologians around the world. (shrink)

A review essay of Gillian Brock Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Name any valued human trait—intelligence, wit, charm, grace, strength—and you will find an inexhaustible variety and complexity in its expression among individuals. Yet we insist that such diversity does not provide grounds for differential treatment at the most basic level. Whatever merit, blame, praise, love, or hate we receive as beings with a particular past and a particular constitution, we are always and everywhere due equal respect merely as persons. -/- But why? Most who attempt to answer this question (...) appeal to the idea that all human beings possess an intrinsic dignity and worth—grounded in our capacities, for example, to reason, reflect, or love—that raises us up in the order of nature. Andrea Sangiovanni rejects this predominant view and offers a radical alternative. -/- To understand our commitment to basic equality, Humanity without Dignity argues that we must begin with a consideration not of equality but of inequality. Rather than search for a chimerical value-bestowing capacity possessed to an equal extent by each one of us, we ought to ask: Why and when is it wrong to treat others as inferior? Sangiovanni comes to the conclusion that our commitment to moral equality is best explained by a rejection of cruelty rather than a celebration of rational capacity. He traces the impact of this fundamental shift for our understanding of human rights and the norms of anti-discrimination that underlie it. (shrink)

Moral equality—the idea that ‘we’ all have equal moral worth, our interests ought to count for the same, and we possess the same bundle of basic rights—is one of the most central principles of liberal thought, being regularly drawn on as a presupposition of moral and political inquiry. Perhaps because it is so often relied on as a presupposition, however, moral equality is more often assumed than argued for. When moral equality is argued for, the most (...) common tactic is to appeal to some inherent property. As is well established, however, such property-based defenses of moral equality face two significant challenges: the problem of exclusion and the problem of inequality. In light of these challenges, in this article I put forward a new, revisionist account of moral equality. Taking inspiration from recent work in the social metaphysics of human kinds, I argue that moral equality ought to be seen as a component of a status that we confer on one another, rather than (grounded in) a property inherent in certain individuals. Conceiving of moral equality this way, I argue, side-steps both the problem of exclusion and the problem of natural equality. (shrink)

Amartya Sen is a renowned economist who has also made important contributions to philosophical thinking about distributive justice. These contributions tend to take the form of criticism of inadequate positions and insistence on making distinctions that will promote clear thinking about the topic. Sen is not shy about making substantive normative claims, but thus far he has avoided commitment to a theory of justice, in the sense of a set of principles that specifies what facts are relevant for policy choice (...) and determines, given a full characterization of any situation in terms of these relevant facts, what ought to be done in that situation. Moreover, Sen has expressed skepticism about the existence of a fully adequate theory in this sense. According to Sen there is a plurality of moral considerations that bear on choice of action and policy and no particular reason to think that weights can be attached nonarbitrarily to each consideration to yield a theory. (shrink)

This paper investigates individual differences-based income entitlements in a context of political equality. Three regimes for distributing income are considered: guaranteed basic income, no guaranteed income, and guaranteed work opportunities. Whereas GBI attends to equality while remaining silent on difference and NGI attends to difference while de-emphasizing equality, GWO attends to both difference and equality. Balancing individual differences and political equality is a plausible goal for distributive justice, and the GWO regime seems well suited (...) to accommodate these joint concerns. (shrink)

Valuing -- Morality and reasonable partiality -- Doing and allowing -- The division of moral labour : egalitarian liberalism as moral pluralism -- Is the basic structure basic? -- Cosmopolitanism, justice, and institutions -- What is egalitarianism? -- Choice, circumstance, and the value of equality -- Is terrorism morally distinctive? -- Immigration and the significance of culture -- The normativity of tradition -- The good of toleration.

An enduring theme of Western philosophy is that we are all one another’s equals. Yet the principle of basic equality is woefully under-explored in modern moral and political philosophy. What does it mean to say we are all one another’s equals? Jeremy Waldron confronts this question fully and unflinchingly in a major new multifaceted account.

Everyone loves something or somebody, and most people are concerned with loving another person like themselves, all equal. This book is based on the belief that getting clear about the concept and meaning of love between equals is essential for success in our practical lives. For how can we love properly unless we have a fairly clear idea of what love is? The book is written in ordinary language and for the ordinary person, without jargon or philosophical technicalities. It aims (...) to show that love between equals involves a single basic disposition, though that disposition expresses itself in various ways. Thus, after an introduction explaining the need for analysis and clarification, the author then deals in order with love as desire or need; with intrinsic friendship and sharing the self; with basic difficulties concerning power, dependence, altruism and paranoia; with sex and erotic love; and finally with the value in human life of love between equals. The work as a whole gives clear, coherent and practical guidance for all who wish to grasp what such love is really like. (shrink)

This is an interview by the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics with Ian Carter. The interview covers Carter's intellectual biography; his extensive writings on the measurement and value of freedom; his reflections on the use of formal methods in philosophical work on freedom and in political philosophy more broadly; his more recent work on basic equality and respect for persons; and, finally, his advice to young scholars.

The principle of human moral equality is poorly understood. I criticize standard accounts and propose a mildly subversive alternative based in a certain view of the phenomenology of conceptual thought. First, a formulation of the principle: -/- (E) Every person has a basic moral worth equal to that of any other. -/- E is vague, as it should be. It is neutral regarding rival theories of the nature of the equalizing property or its value, or how we recognize (...) either. But I impose two constraints on the principle that seem to reflect a universal consensus among its proponents: E asserts a kind of worth (or status or value) that (i) is indifferent to ordinary moral judgments of character, merit, or desert and (ii) forbids political arrangements we intuitively judge to be at odds with the spirit of basic equality. The first constraint protects against absurdity or nihilism, the second against vacuity. (shrink)

Taking equality seriously means that we ought to consider the ways in which persons are not only unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged from the start – e.g., through genetic inheritance, wealth, or a parent’s educational background – but also how opportunities and rewards that result from these basic inequalities are later exacerbated in the distribution of goods and opportunities. The basic point of equality as a normative principle is not that everyone have similar things or achieve similar (...) outcomes, that would be undesirable both for reasons having to do with individual liberty as well as social need. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Conflicts between the good of each and the good of all are often presented in terms of freedom versus equality, with liberals pulled one way by libertarians and the other by social democrats. When we distinguish between negative and positive notions not only of freedom but also of equality, the liberal freedom ‘to pursue our own good in our own way’is a positive freedom involving a negative idea of equality . Yet ‘equity’is not strong enough to (...) deal with the problem of public goods. Trust is a public good, essential if markets are to work and dependable only where there is a moral commitment to a positive basic equality among citizens. (shrink)

The term “value of life” can refer to life’s intrinsic dignity: something nonincremental and time-unaffected in contrast to the fluctuating, incremental “value” of our lives, as they are longer or shorter and more or less flourishing. Human beings are equal in their basic moral importance: the moral indignities we condemn in the treatment of e.g. those with dementia reflect the ongoing human dignity that is being violated. Indignities licensed by the person in advance remain indignities, as when people might (...) volunteer their living, unconscious bodies for surrogacy or training in amputation techniques. Respect for someone’s dignity is significantly impacted by a failure to value that person’s very existence, whatever genuine respect and good will is shown by wanting the person’s life to go well. Valuing and respecting life is not, however, vitalism: there can be good and compelling reasons for eschewing some means of prolonging life. (shrink)

John Rawls's work has greatly contributed to rehabilitating equality as a basic social value, after decades of utilitarian hegemony,particularly in normative economics, but Rawls also emphasized that full equality of welfare is not an adequate goal either. This thesis was echoed in Dworkin's famous twin papers on equality, and it is now widely accepted that egalitarianism must be selective. The bulk of the debate on ‘Equality of What?’ thus deals with what variables ought to be (...) submitted for selection and how this selection ought to be carried out. (shrink)

Severe poverty is a major global problem about risk and inequality. What, if any, is the relationship between equality, fairness and responsibility in an unequal world? I argue for four conclusions. The first is the moral urgency of severe poverty. We have too many global neighbours that exist in a state of emergency and whose suffering is intolerable. The second is that severe poverty is a problem concerning global injustice that is relevant, but not restricted, to questions about responsibility. (...) If none were responsible, this does not eliminate all compelling claims to provide assistance. The third is that severe poverty represents an inequality too far; it is a condition of extremity with denial of basic needs. The fourth is that there is a need for an approach that captures all relevant cases – and the capabilities approach and the connection theory of remedial responsibilities are highlighted as having special promise. (shrink)

External economic aid has played an important role in Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding process, particularly by funding community-based intervention projects.As a consequence of the Troubles, Northern Ireland suffered from severe socioeconomic inequality. These locally funded projects have fostered social cohesion by encouraging cross community interaction aimed at reducing violence and sectarianism. The NGO projects also promote social justice, reduce inequality, and provide the means to meet people’s basic human needs. The field research for this article was conducted during the summer (...) of 2010 and explores the perceptions of 120 civil society leaders and funding agency development officers on the effectiveness of the aid from the IFI and EU Peace III Fund in creating local social-economic NGOs to promote equity, equality, and social justice. The findings of this study reveal significant diversity in the respondents’ descriptions of the aids’s role in promoting equality, equity, and social justice as well as their expressed hopes and frustrations regarding its overall effectiveness. (shrink)

This book offers a new and compelling account of distributive justice and its relation to choice. Unlike luck egalitarians, who treat unchosen differences in people's circumstances as sources of unjust inequality to be overcome, Sher views such differences as pervasive and unavoidable features of the human situation. Appealing to an original account of what makes us moral equals, he argues that our interest in successfully negotiating life's ever-shifting contingencies is more basic than our interest in achieving any more specific (...) goals. He argues, also, that the state's obligation to promote this interest supports a principled version of the view that what matters about resources, opportunity, and other secondary goods is only that each person have enough. The book opens up a variety of new questions, and offers a distinctive new perspective for scholars of political theory and political philosophy, and for those interested in distributive justice and luck egalitarianism. (shrink)

“Basic equality” is the thesis that all (or nearly all) human beings are equal in moral status. Widespread interpersonal differences among humans make the task of justifying basic equality notoriously difficult. One strategy for circumventing this difficulty is to identify some morally significant binary (“all-or-nothing”) property that all humans have. This strategy seems promising: if the basis of equality is binary, then those who have it have it equally. However, skeptics have argued against this strategy (...) on the grounds that a proper defense of basic equality requires that we identify a morally significant property that can vary among humans but does not in fact vary. This paper examines various ways in which this skeptical argument can be motivated and concludes that they all fail. (shrink)

In this introduction, I briefly summarize Sophia Moreau's Faces of Inequality. I situate her monograph within two highly contemporary bodies of literature — relational egalitarianism and discrimination theory — to show how it provides important insights for understanding both what it means to treat others as equals in society and how to define wrongful discrimination. Moreau's work on discrimination is of great relevance for philosophers and socio-legal theorists alike as the commentaries from the symposium contributors demonstrate, including Dale Smith, Pablo (...) Gilabert, Andrea Sangiovanni, Daniel Viehoff, Jessica Eisen, Alysia Blackham, and Iyiola Solanke. (shrink)

The basic principle of educational equality is that each child should receive an equally good education. This sounds appealing, but is rather vague and needs substantial working out. Also, educational equality faces all the objections to equality per se, plus others specific to its subject matter. Together these have eroded confidence in the viability of equality as an educational ideal. This article argues that equality of educational opportunity is not the best way of understanding (...) educational equality. It focuses on Brighouse and Swift's well worked out meritocratic conception and finds it irretrievably flawed; they should, instead, have pursued a radical conception they only mention. This conception is used as a starting point for developing a luck egalitarian conception, pluralistic and complex in nature. It is argued that such a conception accounts for the appeal of equality of opportunity, fits with other values in education and meets many of the objections. Thus, equality is reasserted as what morally matters most in education. (shrink)