Equality

The book I wish to write for Blackwell is a study of the philosophical foundations of the principle of equality as a principle of justice. The principle of equality is a principle of equal distribution. It is, I believe, part of the moral foundation of democracy and certain basic liberal rights as well as a foundational element in the proper principles of the distribution of wealth in society and in international society.

Though equality is at the basis of a considerable...
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The book I wish to write for Blackwell is a study of the philosophical foundations of the principle of equality as a principle of justice. The principle of equality is a principle of equal distribution. It is, I believe, part of the moral foundation of democracy and certain basic liberal rights as well as a foundational element in the proper principles of the distribution of wealth in society and in international society.

Though equality is at the basis of a considerable amount of modern normative political thought, there is not a great deal of theorizing about the rationale for equality. There is a very large and illuminating literature on the question of what equality of distribution should be distribution of, and this bears importantly on the question of the justification of equality. In my view, however, it is absolutely necessary to inquire into the moral foundations of equality since there are many thinkers who believe that equality is not a suitable principle of justice or of morality at all. Only by showing that equality is founded in powerful considerations of morality can the current impasse in debates on the nature of justice be overcome. The debates between libertarians, desert theorists, priority theorists, utilitarians, sufficiency theorists and egalitarians cannot go much further until we have a clear idea of the basis of the principle of equality. In addition, an adequate account of the foundations of equality will help in handling some of the more important objections to the principle of equality. In particular, I think that the proper account of the basis of equality will help in responding to the leveling down objection often made against the principle of equality.

There are two major exceptions to the lack of argument for equality. John Rawls argues that something like a principle of equality in the distribution of political and liberal rights as well as material resources can be defended on the basis of a hypothetical contract argument. This is a really interesting argument but it has been largely discredited in the last twenty years. Thomas Nagel has defended a principle of equality on the basis of the idea that it is more urgent to satisfy the interests of the worst off members of society than the interests of others. But Nagel does little to defend his principle of urgency and the overall argument does not seem to lead to equality as much as to a consequentialist principle of priority.

My intention is to develop a set of arguments that I have been working on as a defense of equality. It is also to deal with a number of important objections to the principle of equality, in particular the leveling down objection. The argument must proceed in a number of steps.

First, we need an account of the basic concept of justice. There are two elements that are central to the traditional concept of justice. One, justice consists in each person receiving his or her due. Two, relevantly like cases ought to be treated alike and unlike cases unlike. These two principles are at the basis of our understanding of justice generally. They require elaboration and defense.

Second, part of the defense of a principle that requires that each receive what is due to them is an account of the moral status of persons in virtue of which something is due to them at all. The idea of the status of persons is essential to the idea of justice. And it is a notion that establishes justice as an independent moral concern that is not merely subject to consequentialist considerations. The basis of the moral status of persons is highly contested and not very well understood. I contend that a plausible account of the basis of moral status is an important plank in the argument for the principle of equality. Third, it must be argued that persons have equal moral status. The notion of equal moral status requires detailed articulation and defense.

Fourth, an account of the rationale for equality must include an account of what constitutes the well being of a person. In my view, an account of the well being of persons is closely connected to the status of persons. I plan on articulating an account of the notion of well being that relates it to the moral status of persons. It will also show that what is due to human beings is that their well being be advanced.

With these four elements in place, I will show, fifth, how a principle of equality of distribution can be shown to follow. This is the main conclusion of the book project.

However, sixth, I also think that this argument can show how important objections to equality can be met. In particular, I think I can show how the leveling down objection to equality offered by Derek Parfit and Harry Frankfurt among others can be refuted given the argument for equality.

I expect the book to have a chapter structure roughly corresponding to the six main points of the outline. I do intend to respond along the way to a number of other major objections that have been made to the principle of equality such as that of Joseph Raz, Robert Nozick and Russell Hardin.

In my view, this book should be accessible to advanced undergraduates as well as graduate students. It should be quite useful in courses on distributive justice and on issues of political philosophy generally. But I also intend that it make a scholarly contribution. I think that it has been a long time since someone has tried to make a full dress argument for equality and that this work will be unique in this respect. To the extent that the principle of equality is, in my view, at the foundation of a number of important principles in political philosophy such as that of democratic equality, liberal rights and human rights more generally, this book ought to be of interest to a broad variety of political philosophers and political theorists.

I have already started on this project. I am publishing a paper entitled "An Argument for Equality and Against the Leveling Down Objection," in Social Justice and the Law ed. Harry Silverstein (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005) and in "A Foundation for Equalitarianism," in Egalitarianism eds. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen and Nils Holtug (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) where I sketch some of the arguments I want eventually to develop at great length. And this work will figure in the first chapter of my forthcoming book on the foundations of democracy The Constitution of Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). But my intention is to develop the ideas and follow the strands of argument so as to produce a book length treatment of the issues.