definition essay on equality

5 Essays to Learn More About Equality

“Equality” is one of those words that seems simple, but is more complicated upon closer inspection. At its core, equality can be defined as “the state of being equal.” When societies value equality, their goals include racial, economic, and gender equality . Do we really know what equality looks like in practice? Does it mean equal opportunities, equal outcomes, or both? To learn more about this concept, here are five essays focusing on equality:

“The Equality Effect” (2017) – Danny Dorling

In this essay, professor Danny Dorling lays out why equality is so beneficial to the world. What is equality? It’s living in a society where everyone gets the same freedoms, dignity, and rights. When equality is realized, a flood of benefits follows. Dorling describes the effect of equality as “magical.” Benefits include happier and healthier citizens, less crime, more productivity, and so on. Dorling believes the benefits of “economically equitable” living are so clear, change around the world is inevitable. Despite the obvious conclusion that equality creates a better world, progress has been slow. We’ve become numb to inequality. Raising awareness of equality’s benefits is essential.

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. He has co-authored and authored a handful of books, including Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration—and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives . “The Equality Effect” is excerpted from this book. Dorling’s work focuses on issues like health, education, wealth, poverty, and employment.

“The Equality Conundrum” (2020) – Joshua Rothman

Originally published as “Same Difference” in the New Yorker’s print edition, this essay opens with a story. A couple plans on dividing their money equally among their children. However, they realize that to ensure equal success for their children, they might need to start with unequal amounts. This essay digs into the complexity of “equality.” While inequality is a major concern for people, most struggle to truly define it. Citing lectures, studies, philosophy, religion, and more, Rothman sheds light on the fact that equality is not a simple – or easy – concept.

Joshua Rothman has worked as a writer and editor of The New Yorker since 2012. He is the ideas editor of newyorker.com.

“Why Understanding Equity vs Equality in Schools Can Help You Create an Inclusive Classroom” (2019) – Waterford.org

Equality in education is critical to society. Students that receive excellent education are more likely to succeed than students who don’t. This essay focuses on the importance of equity, which means giving support to students dealing with issues like poverty, discrimination and economic injustice. What is the difference between equality and equity? What are some strategies that can address barriers? This essay is a great introduction to the equity issues teachers face and why equity is so important.

Waterford.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving equity and education in the United States. It believes that the educational experiences children receive are crucial for their future. Waterford.org was founded by Dr. Dustin Heuston.

“What does equality mean to me?” (2020) – Gabriela Vivacqua and Saddal Diab

While it seems simple, the concept of equality is complex. In this piece posted by WFP_Africa on the WFP’s Insight page, the authors ask women from South Sudan what equality means to them. Half of South Sudan’s population consists of women and girls. Unequal access to essentials like healthcare, education, and work opportunities hold them back. Complete with photographs, this short text gives readers a glimpse into interpretations of equality and what organizations like the World Food Programme are doing to tackle gender inequality.

As part of the UN, the World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization focusing on hunger and food security . It provides food assistance to over 80 countries each year.

“Here’s How Gender Equality is Measured” (2020) – Catherine Caruso

Gender inequality is one of the most discussed areas of inequality. Sobering stats reveal that while progress has been made, the world is still far from realizing true gender equality. How is gender equality measured? This essay refers to the Global Gender Gap report ’s factors. This report is released each year by the World Economic Forum. The four factors are political empowerment, health and survival, economic participation and opportunity, and education. The author provides a brief explanation of each factor.

Catherine Caruso is the Editorial Intern at Global Citizen, a movement committed to ending extreme poverty by 2030. Previously, Caruso worked as a writer for Inquisitr. Her English degree is from Syracuse University. She writes stories on health, the environment, and citizenship.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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This article is concerned with social and political equality. In its prescriptive usage, ‘equality’ is a highly contested concept. Its normally positive connotation gives it a rhetorical power suitable for use in political slogans (Westen 1990). At least since the French Revolution, equality has served as one of the leading ideals of the body politic; in this respect, it is at present probably the most controversial of the great social ideals. There is controversy concerning the precise notion of equality, the relation of justice and equality (the principles of equality), the material requirements and measure of the ideal of equality (equality of what?), the extension of equality (equality among whom?), and its status within a comprehensive (liberal) theory of justice (the value of equality). This article will discuss each of these issues in turn.

1. Defining the Concept

2.1 formal equality, 2.2 proportional equality, 2.3 moral equality, 2.4 presumption of equality, 3.1 simple equality and objections to equality in general, 3.2 libertarianism, 3.3 utilitarianism, 3.4 equality of welfare, 3.5 equality of resources, 3.6 responsibility and luck-egalitarianism, 3.7 equality of opportunity for welfare or advantage, 3.8 capabilities approaches, 4. relational equality, 5. equality among whom, 6.1. kinds of egalitarianism, 6.2 equality vs. priority or sufficiency, other internet resources, related entries.

‘Equality’ is a contested concept: “People who praise it or disparage it disagree about what they are praising or disparaging” (Dworkin 2000, p. 2). Our first task is therefore to provide a clear definition of equality in the face of widespread misconceptions about its meaning as a political idea. The terms ‘equality’ (Greek: isotes ; Latin: aequitas , aequalitas ; French: égalité ; German Gleichheit ), ‘equal’, and ‘equally’ signify a qualitative relationship. ‘Equality’ (or ‘equal’) signifies correspondence between a group of different objects, persons, processes or circumstances that have the same qualities in at least one respect, but not all respects, i.e., regarding one specific feature, with differences in other features. ‘Equality’ must then be distinguished from ‘identity’, which refers to one and the same object corresponding to itself in all its features. For the same reason, it needs to be distinguished from ‘similarity’ – the concept of merely approximate correspondence (Dann 1975, p. 997; Menne 1962, p. 44 ff.; Westen 1990, pp. 39, 120). Thus, to say that men are equal, for example, is not to say that they are identical. Equality implies similarity rather than ‘sameness’.

Judgements of equality presume a difference between the things compared. According to this definition, the notion of ‘complete’ or ‘absolute’ equality may be seen as problematic because it would violate the presumption of a difference. Two non-identical objects are never completely equal; they are different at least in their spatiotemporal location. If things do not differ they should not be called ‘equal’, but rather, more precisely, ‘identical’, such as the morning and the evening star. Here usage might vary. Some authors do consider absolute qualitative equality admissible as a borderline concept (Tugendhat & Wolf 1983, p. 170).

‘Equality’ can be used in the very same sense both to describe and prescribe, as with ‘thin’: “you are thin” and “you are too thin”. The approach taken to defining the standard of comparison for both descriptive and prescriptive assertions of equality is very important (Oppenheim 1970). In the descriptive case, the common standard is itself descriptive, for example when two people are said to have the same weight. In the prescriptive use, the standard prescribes a norm or rule, for example when it is said people ought to be equal before the law. The standards grounding prescriptive assertions of equality contain at least two components. On the one hand, there is a descriptive component, since the assertions need to contain descriptive criteria, in order to identify those people to which the rule or norm applies. The question of this identification – who belongs to which category? – may itself be normative, as when we ask to whom the U.S. laws apply. On the other hand, the comparative standards contain something normative – a moral or legal rule, such as the U.S. laws – specifying how those falling under the norm are to be treated. Such a rule constitutes the prescriptive component (Westen 1990, chap. 3). Sociological and economic analyses of (in-)equality mainly pose the questions of how inequalities can be determined and measured and what their causes and effects are. In contrast, social and political philosophy is in general concerned mainly with the following questions: what kind of equality, if any, should obtain, and with respect to whom and when ? Such is the case in this article as well.

‘Equality’ and ‘equal’ are incomplete predicates that necessarily generate one question: equal in what respect? (Rae 1980,p. 132 f.) Equality essentially consists of a tripartite relation between two (or several) objects or persons and one (or several) qualities. Two objects A and B are equal in a certain respect if, in that respect, they fall under the same general term. ‘Equality’ denotes the relation between the objects compared. Every comparison presumes a tertium comparationis , a concrete attribute defining the respect in which the equality applies – equality thus referring to a common sharing of this comparison-determining attribute. This relevant comparative standard represents a ‘variable’ (or ‘index’) of the concept of equality that needs to be specified in each particular case (Westen 1990, p. 10); differing conceptions of equality here emerge from one or another descriptive or normative moral standard. There is another source of diversity as well: As Temkin (1986, 1993, 2009) argues, various different standards might be used to measure inequality, with the respect in which people are compared remaining constant. The difference between a general concept and different specific conceptions (Rawls 1971, p. 21 f.) of equality may explain why some people claim ‘equality’ has no unified meaning – or is even devoid of meaning. (Rae 1981, p. 127 f., 132 f.)

For this reason, it helps to think of the idea of equality or inequality, in the context of social justice, not as a single principle, but as a complex group of principles forming the basic core of today’s egalitarianism. Different principles yield different answers. Both equality and inequality are complex and multifaceted concepts (Temkin 1993, chap. 2). In any real historical context, it is clear that no single notion of equality can sweep the field (Rae 1981, p. 132). Many egalitarians concede that much of our discussion of the concept is vague, but they believe there is also a common underlying strain of important moral concerns implicit in it (Williams 1973). Above all, it serves to remind us of our common humanity, despite various differences (cf. 2.3. below). In this sense, egalitarianism is often thought of as a single, coherent normative doctrine that embraces a variety of principles. Following the introduction of different principles and theories of equality, the discussion will return in the last section to the question how best to define egalitarianism and its core value.

2. Principles of Equality and Justice

Equality in its prescriptive usage is closely linked to morality and justice, and distributive justice in particular. Since antiquity equality has been considered a constitutive feature of justice. (On the history of the concept, cf. Albernethy 1959, Benn 1967, Brown 1988, Dann 1975, Thomson 1949.) People and movements throughout history have used the language of justice to contest inequalities. But what kind of role does equality play in a theory of justice? Philosophers have sought to clarify this by defending a variety of principles and conceptions of equality. This section introduces four such principles, ranging from the highly general and uncontroversial to the more specific and controversial. The next section reviews various conceptions of the ‘currency’ of equality. Different interpretations of the role of equality in a theory of justice emerge according to which of the four principles and metrics have been adopted. The first three principles of equality hold generally and primarily for all actions upon others and affecting others, and for their resulting circumstances. From the fourth principle onward, i.e., starting with the presumption of equality, the focus will be mainly on distributive justice and the evaluation of distribution.

When two persons have equal status in at least one normatively relevant respect, they must be treated equally with regard in this respect. This is the generally accepted formal equality principle that Aristotle articulated in reference to Plato: “treat like cases as like” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , V.3. 1131a10–b15; Politics , III.9.1280 a8–15, III. 12. 1282b18–23). The crucial question is which respects are normatively relevant and which are not. Some authors see this formal principle of equality as a specific application of a rule of rationality: it is irrational, because inconsistent, to treat equal cases unequally without sufficient reasons (Berlin 1955–56). But others claim that what is at stake here is a moral principle of justice, one reflecting the impartial and universalizable nature of moral judgments. On this view, the postulate of formal equality demands more than consistency with one’s subjective preferences: the equal or unequal treatment in question must be justifiable to the relevantly affected parties, and this on the sole basis of a situation’s objective features.

According to Aristotle, there are two kinds of equality, numerical and proportional (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , 1130b–1132b; cf. Plato, Laws , VI.757b–c). A way of treating others, or a distribution arising from it, is equal numerically when it treats all persons as indistinguishable, thus treating them identically or granting them the same quantity of a good per capita. That is not always just. In contrast, a way of treating others or a distribution is proportional or relatively equal when it treats all relevant persons in relation to their due. Just numerical equality is a special case of proportional equality. Numerical equality is only just under special circumstances, namely when persons are equal in the relevant respects so that the relevant proportions are equal. Proportional equality further specifies formal equality; it is the more precise and comprehensive formulation of formal equality. It indicates what produces an adequate equality.

Proportional equality in the treatment and distribution of goods to persons involves at least the following concepts or variables: Two or more persons \((P_1, P_2)\) and two or more allocations of goods to persons \((G)\) and \(X\) and \(Y\) as the quantity in which individuals have the relevant normative quality \(E\). This can be represented as an equation with fractions or as a ratio. If \(P1\) has \(E\) in the amount of \(X\) and if \(P_2\) has \(E\) in the amount \(Y\), then \(P_1\) is due \(G\) in the amount of \(X'\) and \(P_2\) is due \(G\) in the amount of \(Y'\), so that the ratio \(X/Y = X'/Y'\) is valid. (For the formula to be usable, the potentially large variety of factors involved have to be both quantifiable in principle and commensurable, i.e., capable of synthesis into an aggregate value.)

When factors speak for unequal treatment or distribution, because the persons are unequal in relevant respects, the treatment or distribution proportional to these factors is just. Unequal claims to treatment or distribution must be considered proportionally: that is the prerequisite for persons being considered equally.

This principle can also be incorporated into hierarchical, inegalitarian theories. It indicates that equal output is demanded with equal input. Aristocrats, perfectionists, and meritocrats all believe that persons should be assessed according to their differing deserts, understood in the broad sense of fulfillment of some relevant criterion. Reward and punishment, benefits and burdens, should be proportional to such deserts. Since this definition leaves open who is due what, there can be great inequality when it comes to presumed fundamental (natural) rights, deserts, and worth -– this is apparent in both Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle’s idea of justice as proportional equality contains a fundamental insight. The idea offers a framework for a rational argument between egalitarian and non-egalitarian ideas of justice, its focal point being the question of the basis for an adequate equality (Hinsch 2003). Both sides accept justice as proportional equality. Aristotle’s analysis makes clear that the argument involves those features that decide whether two persons are to be considered equal or unequal in a distributive context.

On the formal level of pure conceptual explication, justice and equality are linked through these formal and proportional principles. Justice cannot be explained without these equality principles, which themselves only receive their normative significance in their role as principles of justice.

Formal and proportional equality is simply a conceptual schema. It needs to be made precise – i.e., its open variables need to be filled out. The formal postulate remains empty as long as it is unclear when, or through what features, two or more persons or cases should be considered equal. All debates over the proper conception of justice – over who is due what – can be understood as controversies over the question of which cases are equal and which unequal (Aristotle, Politics , 1282b 22). For this reason, equality theorists are correct in stressing that the claim that persons are owed equality becomes informative only when one is told what kind of equality they are owed (Nagel 1979; Rae 1981; Sen 1992, p. 13). Every normative theory implies a certain notion of equality. In order to outline their position, egalitarians must thus take account of a specific (egalitarian) conception of equality. To do so, they need to identify substantive principles of equality, which are discussed below.

Until the eighteenth century, it was assumed that human beings are unequal by nature. This postulate collapsed with the advent of the idea of natural right, which assumed a natural order in which all human beings were equal. Against Plato and Aristotle, the classical formula for justice according to which an action is just when it offers each individual his or her due took on a substantively egalitarian meaning in the course of time: everyone deserved the same dignity and respect. This is now the widely held conception of substantive, universal, moral equality. It developed among the Stoics, who emphasized the natural equality of all rational beings, and in early New Testament Christianity, which envisioned that all humans were equal before God, although this principle was not always adhered to in the later history of the church. This important idea was also taken up both in the Talmud and in Islam, where it was grounded in both Greek and Hebraic elements. In the modern period, starting in the seventeenth century, the dominant idea was of natural equality in the tradition of natural law and social contract theory. Hobbes (1651) postulated that in their natural condition, individuals possess equal rights, because over time they have the same capacity to do each other harm. Locke (1690) argued that all human beings have the same natural right to both (self-)ownership and freedom. Rousseau (1755) declared social inequality to be the result of a decline from the natural equality that characterized our harmonious state of nature, a decline catalyzed by the human urge for perfection, property and possessions (Dahrendorf 1962). For Rousseau (1755, 1762), the resulting inequality and rule of violence can only be overcome by binding individual subjectivity to a common civil existence and popular sovereignty. In Kant’s moral philosophy (1785), the categorical imperative formulates the equality postulate of universal human worth. His transcendental and philosophical reflections on autonomy and self-legislation lead to a recognition of the same freedom for all rational beings as the sole principle of human rights (Kant 1797, p. 230). Such Enlightenment ideas stimulated the great modern social movements and revolutions, and were taken up in modern constitutions and declarations of human rights. During the French Revolution, equality, along with freedom and fraternity, became a basis of the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen of 1789.

The principle that holds that human beings, despite their differences, are to be regarded as one another’s equals, is often also called ‘human equality’ or ‘basic equality’ or ‘equal worth’ or ‘human dignity’ (William 1962, Vlastos 1962, Kateb 2014, Waldron 2017, Rosen 2018). Whether these terms are synonyms is a matter of interpretation, but “they cluster together to form a powerful body of principle” (Waldron 2017, p. 3).

This fundamental idea of equal respect for all persons and of the equal worth or equal dignity of all human beings (Vlastos 1962) is widely accepted (Carter 2011, but see also Steinhoff 2015). In a period in which there is not agreement across the members of a complex society to any one metaphysical, religious, or traditional view (Habermas 1983, p. 53, 1992, pp. 39–44), it appears impossible to peacefully reach a general agreement on common political aims without accepting that persons must be treated as equals. As a result, moral equality constitutes the ‘egalitarian plateau’ for all contemporary political theories (Kymlicka 1990, p. 5).

Fundamental equality means that persons are alike in important relevant and specified respects alone, and not that they are all generally the same or can be treated in the same way (Nagel 1991). In a now commonly posed distinction, stemming from Dworkin (1977, p. 227), moral equality can be understood as prescribing treatment of persons as equals, i.e., with equal concern and respect, and not the often implausible principle of providing all persons with equal treatment. Recognizing that human beings are all equally individual does not mean treating them uniformly in any respects other than those in which they clearly have a moral claim to be treated alike.

Disputes arise, of course, concerning what these claims amount to and how they should be resolved. Philosophical debates are concerned with the kind of equal treatment normatively required when we mutually consider ourselves persons with equal dignity. The principle of moral equality is too abstract and needs to be made concrete if we are to arrive at a clear moral standard. Nevertheless, no conception of just equality can be deduced from the notion of moral equality. Rather, we find competing philosophical conceptions of equal treatment serving as interpretations of moral equality. These need to be assessed according to their degree of fidelity to the deeper ideal of moral equality (Kymlicka 1990, p. 44).

Many conceptions of equality operate along procedural lines involving a presumption of equality . More materially concrete, ethical approaches, as described in the next section below, are concerned with distributive criteria – the presumption of equality, in contrast, is a formal, procedural principle of construction located on a higher formal and argumentative level. What is at stake here is the question of the principle with which a material conception of justice should be constructed, particularly once the approaches described above prove inadequate. The presumption of equality is a prima facie principle of equal distribution for all goods politically suited for the process of public distribution. In the domain of political justice, all members of a given community, taken together as a collective body, have to decide centrally on the fair distribution of social goods, as well as on the distribution’s fair realization. Any claim to a particular distribution, including any existing distributive scheme, has to be impartially justified, i.e., no ownership should be recognized without justification. Applied to this political domain, the presumption of equality requires that everyone should get an equal share in the distribution unless certain types of differences are relevant and justify, through universally acceptable reasons, unequal shares. (With different terms and arguments, this principle is conceived as a presumption by Benn & Peters (1959, 111) and by Bedau (1967, 19); as a relevant reasons approach by Williams (1973); as a conception of symmetry by Tugendhat (1993, 374; 1997, chap. 3); as default option by Hinsch (2002, chap. 5); for criticism of the presumption of equality, cf. Westen (1990, chap. 10).) This presumption results in a principle of prima facie equal distribution for all distributable goods. A strict principle of equal distribution is not required, but it is morally necessary to justify impartially any unequal distribution. The burden of proof lies on the side of those who favor any form of unequal distribution. (For a justification of the presumption in favor of equality s. Gosepath 2004, II.8.; Gosepath 2015.)

The presumption of equality provides an elegant procedure for constructing a theory of distributive justice (Gosepath 2004). One has only to analyze what can justify unequal treatment or unequal distribution in different spheres. To put it briefly, the following postulates of equality are at present generally considered morally required.

Strict equality is called for in the legal sphere of civil freedoms, since – putting aside limitation on freedom as punishment – there is no justification for any exceptions. As follows from the principle of formal equality, all citizens must have equal general rights and duties, which are grounded in general laws that apply to all. This is the postulate of legal equality. In addition, the postulate of equal freedom is equally valid: every person should have the same freedom to structure his or her life, and this in the most far-reaching manner possible in a peaceful and appropriate social order.

In the political sphere, the possibilities for political participation should be equally distributed. All citizens have the same claim to participation in forming public opinion, and in the distribution, control, and exercise of political power. This is the postulate – requiring equal opportunity – of equal political power sharing. To ensure equal opportunity, social institutions have to be designed in such a way that persons who are disadvantaged, e.g. have a stutter or a low income, have an equal chance to make their views known and to participate fully in the democratic process.

In the social sphere, equally gifted and motivated citizens must have approximately the same chances to obtain offices and positions, independent of their economic or social class and native endowments. This is the postulate of fair equality of social opportunity. Any unequal outcome must nevertheless result from equality of opportunity, i.e., qualifications alone should be the determining factor, not social background or influences of milieu.

The equality required in the economic sphere is complex, taking account of several positions that – each according to the presumption of equality – justify a turn away from equality. A salient problem here is what constitutes justified exceptions to equal distribution of goods, the main subfield in the debate over adequate conceptions of distributive equality and its currency. The following factors are usually considered eligible for justified unequal treatment: (a) need or differing natural disadvantages (e.g. disabilities); (b) existing rights or claims (e.g. private property); (c) differences in the performance of special services (e.g. desert, efforts, or sacrifices); (d) efficiency; and (e) compensation for direct and indirect or structural discrimination (e.g. affirmative action).

These factors play an essential, albeit varied, role in the following alternative egalitarian theories of distributive justice. These offer different accounts of what should be equalized in the economic sphere. Most can be understood as applications of the presumption of equality (whether they explicitly acknowledge it or not); only a few (like strict equality, libertarianism, and sufficiency) are alternatives to the presumption.

3. Conceptions of Distributive Equality: Equality of What?

Every effort to interpret the concept of equality and to apply the principles of equality mentioned above demands a precise measure of the parameters of equality. We need to know the dimensions within which the striving for equality is morally relevant. What follows is a brief review of the seven most prominent conceptions of distributive equality, each offering a different answer to one question: in the field of distributive justice, what should be equalized, or what should be the parameter or “currency” of equality?

Simple equality, meaning everyone being furnished with the same material level of goods and services, represents a strict position as far as distributive justice is concerned. It is generally rejected as untenable.

Hence, with the possible exception of Babeuf (1796) and Shaw (1928), no prominent author or movement has demanded strict equality. Since egalitarianism has come to be widely associated with the demand for economic equality, and this in turn with communistic or socialistic ideas, it is important to stress that neither communism nor socialism – despite their protest against poverty and exploitation and their demand for social security for all citizens – calls for absolute economic equality. The orthodox Marxist view of economic equality was expounded in the Critique of the Gotha Program (1875). Marx here rejects the idea of legal equality, on three grounds. First, he indicates, equality draws on a limited number of morally relevant perspectives and neglects others, thus having unequal effects. In Marx’s view, the economic structure is the most fundamental basis for the historical development of society, and is thus the point of reference for explaining its features. Second, theories of justice have concentrated excessively on distribution instead of the basic questions of production. Third, a future communist society needs no law and no justice, since social conflicts will have vanished.

As an idea, simple equality fails because of problems that are raised in regards to equality in general. It is useful to review these problems, as they require resolution in any plausible approach to equality.

(i) We need adequate indices for the measurement of the equality of the goods to be distributed. Through what concepts should equality and inequality be understood? It is thus clear that equality of material goods can lead to unequal satisfaction. Money constitutes a typical, though inadequate, index; at the very least, equal opportunity has to be conceived in other terms.

(ii) The time span needs to be indicated for realizing the desired model of equal distribution (McKerlie 1989, Sikora 1989). Should we seek to equalize the goods in question over complete individual lifetimes, or should we seek to ensure that various life segments are as equally provisioned as possible?

(iii) Equality distorts incentives promoting achievement in the economic field, and the administrative costs of redistribution produce wasteful inefficiencies (Okun 1975). Equality and efficiency need to be balanced. Often, Pareto-optimality is demanded in this respect, usually by economists. A social condition is Pareto-optimal or Pareto-efficient when it is not possible to shift to another condition judged better by at least one person and worse by none (Sen 1970, chap. 2, 2*). A widely discussed alternative to the Pareto principle is the Kaldor-Hicks welfare criterion. This stipulates that a rise in social welfare is always present when the benefits accruing through the distribution of value in a society exceed the corresponding costs. A change thus becomes desirable when the winners in such a change could compensate the losers for their losses, and still retain a substantial profit. In contrast to the Pareto-criterion, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion contains a compensation rule (Kaldor 1939). For purposes of economic analysis, such theoretical models of optimal efficiency make a great deal of sense. However, the analysis is always made relative to a starting situation that can itself be unjust and unequal. A society can thus be (close to) Pareto-optimality – i.e., no one can increase his or her material goods or freedoms without diminishing those of someone else – while also displaying enormous inequalities in the distribution of the same goods and freedoms. For this reason, egalitarians claim that it may be necessary to reduce Pareto-optimality for the sake of justice, if there is no more egalitarian distribution that is also Pareto-optimal. In the eyes of their critics, equality of whatever kind should not lead to some people having to make do with less, when this equalizing down does not benefit any of those who are in a worse position.

(iv) Moral objections : A strict and mechanical equal distribution between all individuals does not sufficiently take into account the differences among individuals and their situations. In essence, since individuals desire different things, why should everyone receive the same goods? Intuitively, for example, we can recognize that a sick person has other claims than a healthy person, and furnishing each with the same goods would be mistaken. With simple equality, personal freedoms are unacceptably limited and distinctive individual qualities insufficiently acknowledged; in this way they are in fact unequally regarded. Furthermore, persons not only have a moral right to their own needs being considered, but a right and a duty to take responsibility for their own decisions and the resulting consequences.

Working against the identification of distributive justice with simple equality, a basic postulate of many present-day egalitarians is as follows: human beings are themselves responsible for certain inequalities resulting from their free decisions; aside from minimum aid in emergencies, they deserve no recompense for such inequalities (but cf. relational egalatarians, discussed in Section 4 ). On the other hand, they are due compensation for inequalities that are not the result of self-chosen options. For egalitarians, the world is morally better when equality of life conditions prevail. This is an amorphous ideal demanding further clarification. Why is such equality an ideal, and what precise currency of equality does it involve?

By the same token, most egalitarians do not advocate an equality of outcome, but different kinds of equality of opportunity, due to their emphasis on a pair of morally central points: that individuals are responsible for their decisions, and that the only things to be considered objects of equality are those which serve the real interests of individuals. The opportunities to be equalized between people can be opportunities for well-being (i.e. objective welfare), or for preference satisfaction (i.e., subjective welfare), or for resources. It is not equality of objective or subjective well-being or resources themselves that should be equalized, but an equal opportunity to gain the well-being or resources one aspires to. Such equality depends on their being a realm of options for each individual equal to the options enjoyed by all other persons, in the sense of the same prospects for fulfillment of preferences or the possession of resources. The opportunity must consist of possibilities one can really take advantage of. Equal opportunity prevails when human beings effectively enjoy equal realms of possibility.

(v) Simple equality is very often associated with equality of results (although these are two distinct concepts). However, to strive only for equality of results is problematic. To illustrate the point, let us briefly limit the discussion to a single action and the event or state of affairs resulting from it. Arguably, actions should not be judged solely by the moral quality of their results, as important as this may be. One must also consider the way in which the events or circumstances to be evaluated have come about. Generally speaking, a moral judgement requires not only the assessment of the results of the action in question (the consequentialist aspect) but, first and foremost, the assessment of the intention of the actor (the deontological aspect). The source and its moral quality influence the moral judgement of the results (Pogge 1999, sect. V). For example, if you strike me, your blow will hurt me; the pain I feel may be considered bad in itself, but the moral status of your blow will also depend on whether you were (morally) allowed such a gesture (perhaps through parental status, although that is controversial) or even obliged to execute it (e.g. as a police officer preventing me from doing harm to others), or whether it was in fact prohibited but not prevented. What is true of individual actions (or their omission) has to be true mutatis mutandis of social institutions and circumstances like distributions resulting from collective social actions (or their omission). Social institutions should therefore be assessed not only on the basis of information about how they affect individual quality of life. A society in which people starve on the streets is certainly marked by inequality; nevertheless, its moral quality, i.e., whether the society is just or unjust with regard to this problem, also depends on the suffering’s causes. Does the society allow starvation as an unintended but tolerable side effect of what its members see as a just distributive scheme? Indeed, does it even defend the suffering as a necessary means, as with forms of Social Darwinism? Or has the society taken measures against starvation which have turned out to be insufficient? In the latter case, whether the society has taken such steps for reasons of political morality or efficiency again makes a moral difference. Hence even for egalitarians, equality of results is too narrow and one-sided a focus.

(vi) Finally, there is a danger of (strict) equality leading to uniformity, rather than to a respect for pluralism and democracy (Cohen 1989; Arneson 1993). In the contemporary debate, this complaint has been mainly articulated in feminist and multiculturalist theory. A central tenet of feminist theory is that gender has been and remains a historically variable and internally differentiated relation of domination. The same holds for so-called racial and ethnic differences, which are often still conceived of as marking different values. The different groups involved here rightly object to their discrimination, marginalization, and domination, and an appeal to equality of status thus seems a solution. However, as feminists and multiculturalists have pointed out, equality, as usually understood and practiced, is constituted in part by a denial and ranking of differences; as a result it seems less useful as an antidote to relations of domination. “Equality” can often mean the assimilation to a pre-existing and problematic ‘male’ or ‘white’ or ‘middle class’ norm. In short, domination and a fortiori inequality often arises out of an inability to appreciate and nurture differences, not out of a failure to see everyone as the same. To recognize these differences should however not lead to an essentialism grounded in sexual or cultural characteristics. There is a crucial debate between those who insist that sexual, racial, and ethnic differences should become irrelevant, on the one hand, and those believing that such differences, even though culturally relevant, should not furnish a basis for inequality: that one should rather find mechanisms for securing equality, despite valued differences. Neither of these strategies involves rejecting equality. The dispute is about how equality is to be attained (McKinnon 1989, Taylor 1992).

Proposing a connection between equality and pluralism, Michael Walzer’s theory (1983) aims at what he calls “complex equality”. According to Walzer, relevant reasons can only speak in favor of distributing specific types of goods in specific spheres, not in several or all spheres. Against a theory of simple equality promoting equal distribution of dominant goods, which underestimates the complexity of the criteria at work in each given sphere, the dominance of particular goods needs to be ended. For instance, purchasing power in the political sphere through means derived from the economic sphere (i.e., money) must be prevented. Walzer’s theory of complex equality is not actually aimed at equality per se, but at the separation of spheres of justice; the theory’s designation is misleading. Any theory of equality should, however, as per Walzer, avoid monistic conceptions and recognize instead the complexity of life and the plurality of criteria for justice.

The preceding considerations yield the following desideratum: instead of simple equality, a more complex equality needs to be conceptualized. That concept should resolve the problems discussed above through a distinction of various classes of goods, a separation of spheres, and a differentiation of relevant criteria.

Libertarianism and economic liberalism represent minimalist positions in relation to distributive justice. Citing Locke, they both postulate an original right to freedom and property, thus arguing against redistribution and social rights and for the free market (Nozick 1974; Hayek 1960). They assert an opposition between equality and freedom: the individual (natural) right to freedom can be limited only for the sake of foreign and domestic peace. For this reason, libertarians consider maintaining public order the state’s only legitimate duty. They assert a natural right to self-ownership (the philosophical term for “ownership of oneself” – i.e., one’s will, body, work, etc.) that entitles everybody to hitherto unowned bits of the external world by means of mixing their labor with it. All individuals can thus claim property if “enough and as good” is left over for others (Locke’s proviso). Correspondingly, they defend market freedoms and oppose the use of redistributive taxation schemes for the sake of egalitarian social justice. A principal objection to libertarian theory is that its interpretation of the Lockean proviso – nobody’s situation should be worsened through an initial acquisition of property – leads to an excessively weak requirement and is thus unacceptable (Kymlicka 1990, pp.108–117). However, with a broader and more adequate interpretation of what it means for one a situation to be worse than another, it is much more difficult to justify private appropriation and, a fortiori , all further ownership rights. If the proviso recognizes the full range of interests and alternatives that self-owners have, then it will not generate unrestricted rights over unequal amounts of resources. Another objection is that precisely if one’s own free accomplishment is what is meant to count, as the libertarians argue, success should not depend strictly on luck, extraordinary natural gifts, inherited property, and status. In other words, equal opportunity also needs to at least be present as a counterbalance, ensuring that the fate of human beings is determined by their decisions and not by unavoidable social circumstances. Equal opportunity thus seems to be the frequently vague minimal formula at work in every egalitarian conception of distributive justice. Many egalitarians, however, wish for more – namely, an equality of (at least basic) life conditions .

In any event, with a shift away from a strictly negative idea of freedom, economic liberalism can indeed itself point the way to more social and economic equality. For with such a shift, what is at stake is not only assuring an equal right to self-defense, but also furnishing everyone more or less the same chance to actually make use of the right to freedom (e.g. Van Parijs 1995, Steiner 1994, Otsuka 2005). In other words, certain basic goods need to be furnished to assure the equitable or “fair value of the basic liberties” (Rawls 1993, pp. 356–63).

It is possible to interpret utilitarianism as concretizing moral equality – and this in a way meant to offer the same consideration to the interests of all human beings (Kymlicka 1990, pp. 31f., Hare 1981, p. 26, Sen 1992, pp. 13f.). From the utilitarian perspective, since everyone counts as one and no one as more than one (Bentham), the interests of all should be treated equally without consideration of contents of interest or an individual’s material situation. For utilitarianism, this means that all enlightened personal interests have to be fairly aggregated. The morally proper action is the one that maximizes utility (Hare 1984). This conception of equal treatment has been criticized as inadequate by many opponents of utilitarianism. At least in utilitarianism’s classical form – so the critique reads – the hoped for moral equality is flawed, because all desires are taken up by the utilitarian calculation, including “selfish” and “external” preferences (Dworkin 1977, p. 234) that are meant to all have equal weight, even when they diminish the ‘rights’ and intentions of others. This conflicts with our everyday understanding of equal treatment. What is here at play is an argument involving “offensive” and “expensive” taste: a person cannot expect others to sustain his or her desires at the expense of their own (Kymlicka 1990, p. 40 f.). Rather, according to generally shared conviction, equal treatment consistently requires a basis of equal rights and resources that cannot be taken away from one person, whatever the desire of others. In line with Rawls (1971, pp. 31, 564, cf. 450), many hold that justice entails according no value to interests insofar as they conflict with justice. According to this view, unjustified preferences will not distort the mutual claims people have on each other. Equal treatment has to consist of everyone being able to claim a fair portion, and not in all interests having the same weight in disposal over my portion. Utilitarians cannot admit any restrictions on interests based on morals or justice. As long as utilitarian theory lacks a concept of justice and fair allocation, it must fail in its goal of treating everyone as equals. As Rawls (1971, pp. 27) also famously argues, utilitarianism that involves neglecting the separateness of persons does not contain a proper interpretation of moral equality as equal respect for each individual.

The concept of welfare equality is motivated by an intuition that when it comes to political ethics, what is at stake is individual well-being. The central criterion for justice must consequently be equalizing the level of welfare. But taking welfare as what is to be equalized leads to difficulties resembling those of utilitarianism. If one contentiously identifies subjective welfare with preference satisfaction, it seems implausible to count all individual preferences as equal, some – such as the desire to do others wrong – being inadmissible on grounds of justice (the offensive taste argument). Any welfare-centered concept of equality grants people with refined and expensive taste more resources – something distinctly at odds with our moral intuitions (the expensive taste argument) (Dworkin 1981a). However, satisfaction in the fulfillment of desires cannot serve as a standard, since we wish for more than a simple feeling of happiness. A more viable standard for welfare comparisons would seem to be success in the fulfillment of preferences. A fair evaluation of such success cannot be purely subjective, but requires a standard of what should or could have been achieved. This itself involves an assumption regarding just distribution, so it cannot stand as an independent criterion for justice. Another serious problem with any welfare-centered concept of equality is that it cannot take account of either desert (Feinberg 1970) or personal responsibility for one’s own well-being, to the extent this is possible and reasonable.

Represented above all by both Rawls and Dworkin, resource equality avoids such problems (Rawls 1971; Dworkin 1981b). It holds individuals responsible for their decisions and actions, but not for circumstances beyond their control, such as race, sex, skin-color, intelligence, and social position, thus excluding these as distributive criteria. Equal opportunity is insufficient because it does not compensate for unequal innate gifts. What applies for social circumstances should also apply for such gifts, as both are purely arbitrary from a moral point of view.

According to Rawls, human beings should have the same initial expectations of “basic goods,” i.e., all-purpose goods; this in no way precludes ending up with different quantities of such goods or resources, as a result of personal economic decisions and actions. When prime importance is accorded an assurance of equal basic freedoms and rights, inequalities are just when they fulfill two provisos: on the one hand, they have to be linked to offices and positions open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; on the other hand, they have to reflect the famous ‘difference principle’ in offering the greatest possible advantage to the least advantaged members of society (Rawls 1993, p. 5 f.; 1971, § 13). Otherwise, the economic order requires revision. Due to the argument of the moral arbitrariness of talents, the commonly accepted criteria for merit (like productivity, working hours, effort) are clearly relativized. The difference principle only allows the talented to earn more to the extent this raises the lowest incomes. According to Rawls, with regard to the basic structure of society, the difference principle should be opted for under a self-chosen “veil of ignorance” regarding personal and historical circumstances and similar factors: the principle offers a general assurance of not totally succumbing to the hazards of a free market situation; and everyone does better than with inevitably inefficient total equal distribution, whose level of well-being is below that of those worst off under the difference principle.

Since Rawls’ Theory of Justice is the classical focal point of present-day political philosophy, it is worth noting the different ways his theory claims to be egalitarian. First, Rawls upholds a natural basis for equal human worth: a minimal capacity for having a conception of the good and a sense of justice. Second, through the device of the “veil of ignorance,” people are conceived as equals in the “original position.” Third, the idea of sharing this “original position” presupposes the parties having political equality, as equal participants in the process of choosing the principles by which they would be governed. Fourth, Rawls proposes fair equality of opportunity. Fifth, he maintains that all desert must be institutionally defined, depending on the goals of the society. No one deserves his or her talents or circumstances, which are products of the natural lottery. Finally, the difference principle tends toward equalizing holdings. However, it is important to keep in mind, as Scheffler (2003) has pointed out, that the main focus of Rawls’ theory is justice as such; it is only secondarily about an egalitarian conception of justice. In addition, since the primary subject is the basic structure, pure procedural justice has priority over distributive or allocative justice Equality is not the only or single value for Rawls.

Dworkin’s equality of resources (1981b), on the other hand, is concerned with equality as such. His theory stakes a claim to being even more ‘ambition- and endowment-insensitive’ than Rawls’ theory. Unequal distribution of resources is considered fair only when it results from the decisions and intentional actions of those concerned. Dworkin proposes a hypothetical auction in which everyone can accumulate bundles of resources through equal means of payment, so that in the end no one is jealous of another’s bundle (the envy test). The auction-procedure also offers a way to precisely measure equality of resources: the measure of resources devoted to a person’s life is defined by the importance of the resources to others (Dworkin 1981b, p. 290). In the free market, how the distribution then develops depends on an individual’s ambitions. The inequalities that thus emerge are justified, since one has to take responsibility for how one’s choices turn out (i.e., one’s “option luck”) in the realm of personal responsibility. In contrast, unjustified inequalities based on different innate provisions and gifts, as well as on brute luck, should be compensated for through a fictive differentiated insurance system: its premiums are established behind Dworkin’s own “veil of ignorance,” in order to then be distributed in real life to everyone and collected in taxes. For Dworkin, this is the key to the natural lottery being balanced fairly, preventing a “slavery of the talented” through excessive redistribution.

Only some egalitarians hold inequality to be bad per se. Most of today’s egalitarians are pluralistic, recognizing other values besides equality. So called luck-egalitarians regard the moral significance of choice and responsibility as one of the most important values besides equality (for an overview over the debate see Lippert-Rasmussen 2015). They hold that it is bad – unjust or unfair – for some to be worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own (Temkin 1993, 13) and therefore strive to eliminate involuntary disadvantages, for which the sufferer cannot be held responsible (Cohen 1989, 916).

The principle of responsibility provides a central normative vantage point for deciding on which grounds one might justify which inequality. The positive formulation of the responsibility principle requires an assumption of personal responsibility and holds that inequalities which are the result of self-chosen options are just. (See above all Dworkin, 1981b, p. 311; contra: Anderson, 1999.) Unequal portions of social goods are thus fair when they result from the decisions and intentional actions of those concerned. Individuals must accept responsibility for the costs of their decisions. Persons are themselves responsible for certain inequalities that result from their voluntary decisions, and they deserve no compensation for such inequalities, aside from minimal provisions in cases of dire need (see below). In its negative formulation , the responsibility principle holds that inequalities which are not the result of self-chosen options are to be rejected as unjust; persons disadvantaged in this way deserve compensation. That which one can do nothing about, or for which one is not responsible, cannot constitute a relevant criterion. Still, the initial assumption remains an ascription of responsibility, and each individual case requires close scrutiny: one is responsible and accountable unless there is an adequate reason for being considered otherwise (but cf. Stemplowska 2013 for a different interpretation)..

If advantages or disadvantages that are due to arbitrary and unearned differences are unfair, this holds for social circumstances as well as natural endowments. The reasons favoring an exclusion of features like skin-color, size, sex, and place of origin as primarily discriminative apply equally to other natural human qualities, like intelligence, appearance, physical strength, and so forth. The kind and the extent of one’s natural abilities are due to a lottery of nature; considered from a moral standpoint, their distribution is purely arbitrary (Rawls, 1971, § 48). To sum up: natural and social endowment must not count, and personal intentions and voluntary decisions should count. Thus, a given social order is just when it equalizes as much as possible, and in a normatively tenable way, all personal disadvantages for which an individual is not responsible, and accords individuals the capacity to bear the consequences of their decisions and actions, as befits their capacity for autonomy.

Objections to all versions of “brute-luck egalitarianism” come from two sides. Some authors criticize its in their view unjustified or excessively radical rejection of merit: The luck-egalitarian thesis of desert only being justifiably acknowledged if it involves desert “all the way down” (Nozick 1974, p. 225) not only destroys the classical, everyday principle of desert, since everything has a basis that we ourselves have not created. In the eyes of such critics, along with the merit-principle this argument also destroys our personal identity, since we can no longer accredit ourselves with our own capacities and accomplishments. (Cf. the texts in Pojman & McLeod 1998, Olsaretti 2003.) Other authors consider the criterion for responsibility to be too strong, indeed inhuman (or “harsh”) in its consequences, since human beings responsible for their own misery would (supposedly) be left alone with their misery (Anderson 1999, also MacLeod 1998, Scheffler 2003, Wolff 1998, Fleurbaey 1995, Voigt 2007, Eyal 2017, Olsaretti 2009, Stemplowska 2009). However, pluralistic egalitarians should be able to argue that there are special cases, in which people are so badly off that they should be helped, even if they got into the miserable situation through their own fault. But even when people are in terrible situations, which did not arise through their own fault (‘bad brute luck’) – for instance, when they are disabled from birth – and egalitarians therefore have reasons to help them, these reasons are supposedly stigmatizing, since in these cases the principles of distribution would be based on pity. In these cases, political institutions have to take certain decisions – for example, in which category a particular case of distress should be placed – and gather relevant information on their citizens. Against such a procedure, one could object that it subjects the citizens to the tutelage of the state and harms their private sphere (Anderson 1999, also Hayek 1960: 85–102).

Approaches based on equality of opportunity can be read as revisions of both welfarism and resourcism. Ranged against welfarism and designed to avoid its pitfalls, they incorporate the powerful ideas of choice and responsibility into various, improved forms of egalitarianism. Such approaches are meant to equalize outcomes resulting from causes beyond a person’s control (i.e., beyond circumstances or endowment), but to allow differential outcomes that result from autonomous choice or ambition. But the approaches are also aimed at maintaining the insight that individual preferences have to count, as the sole basis for a necessary linkage back to the individual perspective: otherwise, there is an overlooking of the person’s value. In Arneson’s (1989, 1990) concept of equal opportunity for welfare , the preferences determining the measure of individual well-being are meant to be conceived hypothetically – i.e., a person would decide on them after a process of ideal reflection. In order to correspond to the morally central vantage of personal responsibility, what should be equalized are not enlightened preferences themselves, but rather real opportunities to achieve or receive a good, to the extent that it is aspired to. G.A. Cohen’s (1989, p. 916 f.) broader conception of equality of access to advantage attempts to integrate the perspectives of welfare equality and resource equality through the overriding concept of advantage. For Cohen, there are two grounds for egalitarian compensation. Egalitarians will be moved to furnish a paralyzed person with a compensatory wheelchair independently of the person’s welfare level. This egalitarian response to disability overrides equality of (opportunity to) welfare. Egalitarians also favor compensation for phenomena such as pain, independent of any loss of capacity – for instance by paying for expensive medicine. But, Cohen claims, any justification for such compensation has to invoke the idea of equality of opportunity to welfare. He thus views both aspects, resources and welfare, as necessary and irreducible. Much of Roemer’s (1998) more technical argument is devoted to constructing the scale to calibrate the extent to which something is the result of circumstances. An incurred adverse consequence is the result of circumstances, not choice, precisely to the extent that it is a consequence that persons of one or another specific type can be expected to incur.

Theories that limit themselves to the equal distribution of basic means, in the hope of doing justice to the different goals of all human beings, are often criticized as fetishistic, because they focus on means as opposed to what individuals gain with these means (Sen 1980). The value that goods have for someone depends on objective possibilities, the natural environment, and individual capacities. Hence, in contrast to the resourcist approach, Amartya Sen proposes orientating distribution around “capabilities to achieve functionings,” i.e., the various things that a person manages to do orbe in leading a life (Sen 1992). In other words, evaluating individual well-being has to be tied to a capability for achieving and maintaining various precious conditions and “functionings” constitutive of a person’s being, such as adequate nourishment, good health, the ability to move about freely or to appear in public without shame. The real freedom to acquire well-being is also important here, a freedom represented in the capability to oneself choose forms of achievement and the combination of “functionings.” For Sen, capabilities are thus the measure of an equality of capabilities human beings enjoy to lead their lives. A problem consistently raised with capability approaches is the ability to weigh capabilities in order to arrive at a metric for equality. The problem is intensified by the fact that various moral perspectives are blended in the concept of capability (Cohen 1993, p. 17–26, Williams 1987). Martha Nussbaum (1992, 2000) has linked the capability approach to an Aristotelian, essentialistic, “thick” theory of the good – a theory meant to be, as she puts it, “vague,” incomplete, and open-ended enough to leave place for individual and cultural variation. On the basis of such a “thick” conception of necessary and universal elements of a good life, certain capabilities and functionings can be designated as foundational. In this manner, Nussbaum can endow the capability approach with a precision that furnishes an index of interpersonal comparison, but at the risk of not being neutral enough regarding the plurality of personal conceptions of the good, a neutrality normally required by most liberals (most importantly Rawls 1993; but see Robeyns 2009 for a different take on the comparison with Rawls). For further discussion, see the entry on the capability approach .

Since the late 1990s, social relations egalitarianism has appeared in philosophical discourse as an increasingly important competitor to distribuitivist accounts of justice, especially its luck egalitarian versions (cf. Lippert-Rassmussen 2018). Proponents of social relations egalitarianism include Anderson (1999), Miller (1997), Scanlon (1996, 2018), Scheffler (2003, 2005, 2015), Wolff (1998, 2010) and Young (1990). Negatively, they are united in a rejection of the view that justice is a matter of eliminating differential luck. Positively, they claim that society is just if, and only if, individuals within it relate to one another as equals. Accordingly, the site of justice (i.e. that to which principles of justice apply) is society, not distributions. Relational Egalitarianism has a certain overlap with many theories of recognition and non-domination. Certain status differences are at the core of their objections, like those stigmatizing differences in status, whereby the badly off are caused to experience themselves as inferior, and are treated as inferiors, or when inequalities create objectionable relations of power(Honneth/Fraser 2003) and domination (Pettit 2001).

What does it mean that (and when do) individuals within a society relate to one another as equals? Racial discrimination, for example, is a paradigmatic instance of this condition?s violation. But once we move beyond a handful of such examples things become much less clear.

These claims to social and political equality exclude all unequal, hierarchical forms of social relationships, in which some people dominate, exploit, marginalize, demean, and inflict violence upon others:

As a social ideal, it holds that a human society must be conceived of as a cooperative arrangement among equals, each of whom enjoys the same social standing. As a political ideal, it highlights the claims that citizens are entitled to make on one another by virtue of their status as citizens, without any need for a moralized accounting of the details of their particular circumstances. (Scheffler 2003, p. 22)

However, forms of differentiation that do not violate moral equality (see above) are not per se excluded from social equality, if they are compatible with the recognition of the equal social status of concerned parties, as with differences relating to merit, need, and, if appropriate, race, gender, and social background (as in cases of affirmative action or fair punishment).

Where there is social equality, people feel that each member of the community enjoys an equal standing with all the rest that overrides their unequal ratings along particular dimensions. (Miller, 1997, p. 232)

Thus the question has to be answered whether – and if so, why – other dimensions, such as a person’s natural talents, creativity, intelligence, innovative skills or entrepreneurial ability, can be the basis for legitimate inequalities.

Relational egalitarians need a certain conception of what an equal standing in society amounts to and implies in terms of rights and goods. One way to offer such an account would be to rely (like Anderson 1999) on the capabilities approach (§3.8) and sufficitarianism (§6.2.): In a democratic community that preserves the free and equal status of persons, at least three sets of conditions have to be fulfilled.

First, certain political conditions are necessary to allow citizens to participate as equals in democratic deliberation. These include, among others, the capabilities to vote, hold office, assemble, petition the government, speak freely, and move about freely (Rawls 1999, p.53). The principle of democratic equality (as asked for by Anderson 1999) requires us to eliminate social hierarchies that prevent a democratically organized society, a society in which we cooperate and decide upon state action as equals. Persons morally owe each other the capabilities and conditions to live as equals in a democratic community (Christiano 2008, Kolodny 2014). Democracy can be interpreted as realizing public equality in collective decision-making.

Second, to participate as an equal in civil society, certain civil conditions must obtain. These include the conditions that make it robustly likely that injustices such as marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism (Anderson 1999 with reference to Young 1990), or domination (Pettit 2001) can be to avoided. Third, certain social conditions and personal capabilities have to obtain that enable people to enjoy equal standing in society. Citizens need, in this regard, adequate nutrition, shelter, clothing, education, and medical care. This last point leads into the debate over whether a relational egalitarian conception of social justice yields intrinsic and instrumental reasons of justice to care about distributive inequality in socially produced goods, despite its emphasis on just social relationships and not the distribution of goods per se (Schemmel 2011, Elford 2017).

Justice is primarily related to individual actions. Individual persons are the primary bearers of responsibility (the key principle of ethical individualism). This raises two controversial issues in the contemporary debate.

One could regard the norms of distributive equality as applying to groups rather than individuals. It is often groups that rightfully raise the issue of an inequality between themselves and the rest of society, as with women and racial and ethnic groups. The question arises of whether inequality among such groups should be considered morally objectionable in itself, or whether even in the case of groups, the underlying concern should be how individuals (as members of such groups) fare in comparative terms. If there is a worry about inequalities between groups of individuals, why does this not translate into a worry about inequalities between members of the group?

A further question concerns whether the norms of distributive equality (whatever they are) apply to all individuals, regardless of where (and when) they live. Or rather, do they only hold for members of communities within states and nations? Most theories of equality deal exclusively with distributive equality among people in a single society. There does not, however, seem to be any rationale for that limitation. Can the group of the entitled be restricted prior to the examination of concrete claims? Many theories seem to imply this, especially when they connect distributive justice or the goods to be distributed with social cooperation or production. For those who contribute nothing to cooperation, such as the disabled, children, or future generations, would have to be denied a claim to a fair share. The circle of persons who are to be the recipients of distribution would thus be restricted from the outset. Other theories are less restrictive, insofar as they do not link distribution to actual social collaboration, yet nonetheless do restrict it, insofar as they bind it to the status of citizenship. In this view, distributive justice is limited to the individuals within a society. Those outside the community have no entitlement to social justice. Unequal distribution among states and the social situations of people outside the particular society could not, in this view, be a problem of social distributive justice (Nagel 2005). Yet here too, the universal morality of equal respect and the principle of equal distribution demand that all persons consider one another as prima facie equally entitled to the goods, unless reasons for an unequal distribution can be advanced. It may be that in the process of justification, reasons will emerge for privileging those who were particularly involved in the production of a good, but there is no prima facie reason to exclude from the outset other persons, such as those from other countries, from the process of distribution and justification (Pogge 2002). That may seem most intuitively plausible in the case of natural resources (e.g. oil) that someone discovers by chance on or beneath the surface of his or her property. Why should such resources belong to the person who discovers them, or on whose property they are located? Nevertheless, in the eyes of many if not most people, global justice, i.e., extending egalitarian distributive justice globally, demands too much from individuals and their states (Miller 1998; but cf. Caney 2005). Alternatively, one might argue that there are other ‘special relations’ between members of one society that do not exist between members of different societies. Nationalism is an example for such a (controversial) thesis that may provide a case for a kind of local equality (Miller 1995). For further discussion, see the entry on global justice.

Another issue is the relationship between generations. Does the present generation have an egalitarian obligation towards future generations regarding equal living conditions? One argument in favor of this conclusion might be that people should not end up unequally well off as a result of morally arbitrary factors. However, the issue of justice between generation is notoriously complex (Temkin 1992). For further discussion, see the entry on intergenerational justice .

6. The Value of Equality: Why Equality?

Does equality play a major role in a theory of justice, and if so, what is this role? A conception of justice is egalitarian when it views equality as a fundamental goal of justice. Temkin has put it as follows:

… an egalitarian is any person who attaches some value to equality itself (that is, any person that cares at all about equality, over and above the extent it promotes other ideals). So, equality needn’t be the only value, or even the ideal she values most… . Egalitarians have the deep and (for them) compelling view that it is a bad thing – unjust and unfair – for some to be worse off than others through no fault of their own. (Temkin 1986, p. 100, cf. 1993, p. 7)

In general, the focus of the modern egalitarian effort to realize equality is on the possibility of a good life, i.e., on an equality of life prospects and life circumstances – interpreted in various ways according to various positions in the “equality of what” debate (see above).

It is apparent that there are three sorts of egalitarianism: intrinsic, instrumental and constitutive. (For a twofold distinction cf. Parfit 1997, Temkin 1993, p. 11, McKerlie, 1996, p. 275.)

Intrinsic egalitarians view equality as a good in itself. As pure egalitarians, they are concerned solely with equality, most of them with equality of social circumstances, according to which it is intrinsically bad if some people are worse off than others through no fault of their own. But it is in fact the case that people do not always consider inequality a moral evil. Intrinsic egalitarians regarde quality as desirable even when the equalization would be of no use to any of the affected parties, such as when equality can only be produced through depressing the level of well being of everyone’s life. But something can only have an intrinsic value when it is good for at least one person, when it makes one life better in some way or another.

The following “ leveling-down ” objection indicates that doing away within equality in fact ought to produce better circumstances; it is otherwise unclear why equality should be desired. (For such an objection, cf. Nozick 1974, p. 229, Raz 1986, chap. 9, p. 227, 235, Temkin 1993, pp. 247–8.) Sometimes inequality can only be ended by depriving those who are better off of their resources, rendering them as poorly off as everyone else. (For anyone looking for a drastic literary example, Kurt Vonnegut’s 1950 science-fiction story Harrison Bergeron is recommended.) This would have to be an acceptable approach according to the intrinsic conception. But would it be morally good if, in a group consisting of both blind and sighted persons, those with sight were rendered blind because the blind could not be offered sight? That would be morally perverse. Doing away with inequality by bringing everyone down contains – so the objection goes – nothing good. Such leveling-down objections would of course only be valid if there were indeed no better and equally egalitarian alternatives available, but there are nearly always such alternatives: e.g. those who can see should have to help the blind, financially or otherwise. When there are no alternatives, in order to avoid such objections, intrinsic egalitarianism cannot be strict, but needs to be pluralistic . Then intrinsic egalitarians could say there is something good about the change, namely greater equality, although they would concede that much is bad about it. Pluralistic egalitarians do not have equality as their only goal; they also admit other values and principles, above all the principle of welfare, according to which it is better when people are doing better. In addition, pluralistic egalitarianism should be moderate enough to not always grant equality victory in the case of conflict between equality and welfare. Instead, they must accept reductions in equality for the sake of a higher quality of life for all (as with Rawls’ difference principle).

At present, many egalitarians are ready to concede that equality in the sense of equality of life circumstances has no compelling value in itself, but that, in a framework of liberal concepts of justice, its meaning emerges in pursuit of other ideals, like universal freedom, the full development of human capacities and the human personality, the mitigation of suffering and defeat of domination and stigmatization, the stable coherence of modern and freely constituted societies, and so forth (Scanlon 1996, 2018). For those who are worse off, unequal circumstances often mean considerable (relative) disadvantages and many (absolute) evils; as a rule, these (relative) disadvantages and (absolute) evils are the source of our moral condemnation of unequal circumstances. But this does not mean that inequality as such is an evil. Hence, the argument goes, fundamental moral ideals other than equality stand behind our aspiring for equality. To reject inequality on such grounds is to favor equality either as a byproduct or as a means, and not as a goal or intrinsic value. In its treatment of equality as a derived virtue, the sort of egalitarianism – if the term is actually suitable – here at play is instrumental .

As indicated, there is also a third, more suitable approach to the equality ideal: a constitutive egalitarianism. According to this approach, to the aspiration to equality is rooted in other moral grounds, namely because certain inequalities are unjust. Equality has value, but this is an extrinsic value, since it derives from another, higher moral principle of equal dignity and respect. But it is not instrumental for this reason, i.e., it is not only valued on account of moral equality, but also on its own account. (For the distinction between the origin of a value and the kind of value it is, cf. Korsgaard 1996.) Equality stands in relation to justice as does a part to a whole. The requirement of justification is based on moral equality, and in certain contexts, successful justification leads to the above-named principles of equality, i.e., formal, proportional equality and the presumption of equality. Thus, according to constitutive egalitarianism, these principles and the resulting equality are required by justice, and by the same token constitute social justice.

It is important to further distinguish two levels of egalitarianism and non-egalitarianism, respectively. On a first level, a constitutive egalitarian presumes that every explication of the moral standpoint is incomplete without terms such as ‘equal,’ ‘similarly,’ etc. In contrast, a non-egalitarianism operating on the same level considers such terms misplaced or redundant. On a second level, when it comes to concretizing and specifying conceptions of justice, a constitutive egalitarian gives equality substantive weight. On this level, more and less egalitarian positions can be found, according to the chosen currency of equality (the criteria by which just equality is measured) and according to the reasons for unequal distributions (exemptions of the presumption of equality) that the respective theories regard as well grounded. Egalitarianism on the second level thus relates to the kind, quality and quantity of things to be equalized. Because of such variables, a clear-cut definition of second level egalitarianism cannot be formulated. In contrast, non-egalitarians on this second level advocate a non-relational entitlement theory of justice.

Alongside the often-raised objections against equality mentioned in the section on “simple equality” (3.1. above) there is a different and more fundamental critique formulated by first level non-egalitarians: that equality does not have a foundational role in the grounding of claims to justice. While the older version of a critique of egalitarianism comes mainly from the conservative end of the political spectrum, thus arguing in general against “patterned principles of justice” (Nozick 1974, esp. pp. 156–157), the critique’s newer version also often can be heard in progressive circles (Walzer 1983, Raz 1986, chap. 9, Frankfurt 1987, 1997, Parfit 1997, Anderson 1999). This first-level critique of equality poses the basic question of why justice should in fact be conceived relationally and (what is here the same) comparatively. Referring back to Joel Feinberg’s (1974) distinction between comparative and non-comparative justice, non-egalitarians object to the moral requirement to treat people as equals, and the many demands for justice emerging from it. They argue that neither the postulate nor these demands involve comparative principles, let alone any equality principles. They reproach first-level egalitarians for a confusion between “equality” and “universals.” As the non-egalitarians see things, within many principles of justice – at least the especially important ones – the equality-terminology is redundant. Equality is thus merely a byproduct of the general fulfillment of actually non-comparative standards of justice: something obscured through the unnecessary insertion of an expression of equality (Raz 1986, p. 227f.). At least the central standards of dignified human life are not relational but “absolute.” As Harry Frankfurt puts it: “It is whether people have good lives, and not how their lives compare with the lives of others” (Frankfurt 1997, p. 6). And again: “The fundamental error of egalitarianism lies in supposing that it is morally important whether one person has less than another regardless of how much either of them has” (Frankfurt 1987, p. 34).

From the non-egalitarian perspective, what is really at stake in helping those worse off and improving their lot is humanitarian concern , a desire to alleviate suffering. Such concern is not understood as egalitarian, as it is not focused on the difference between the better off and the worse off as such (whatever the applied standard), but on improving the situation of the latter. Their distress constitutes the actual moral foundation. The wealth of those better off only furnishes a means that has to be transferred for the sake of mitigating the distress, as long as other, morally negative consequences do not emerge in the process. The strength of the impetus for more equality lies in the urgency of the claims of those worse off, not in the extent of the inequality. For this reason, instead of equality the non-egalitarian critics favor one or another entitlement theory of justice , such as Nozick’s (1974) libertarianism (cf. 3.2. above) and Frankfurt’s (1987) doctrine of sufficiency , according to which “What is important from the moral point of view is not that everyone should have the same but that each should have enough. If everyone had enough , it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others” (Frankfurt 1987, p. 21).

Parfit’s (1997) priority view accordingly calls for a focus on improving the situation of society’s weaker and poorer members, and indeed all the more urgently the worse off they are, even if they can be less helped than others in the process. Parfit (1995) distinguishes between egalitarianism and prioritarianism. According to prioritarians, benefiting people is more important the worse off those people are. This prioritising will often increase equality, but they are two distinct values, since in an important respect equality is a relational value while priority is not. However, egalitarians and prioritarians share an important feature, in that both hold that the best possible distribution of a fixed sum of goods is an equal one. It is thus a matter of debate whether prioritarianism is a sort of egalitarianism or a (decent) inegalitarianism. In any case, entitlement-based non-egalitarian arguments can practically result in an equality of outcome as far-reaching as egalitarian theories. Hence the fulfillment of an absolute or non-comparative standard for everyone (e.g. to the effect that nobody should starve) frequently results in a certain equality of outcome, where such a standard comprises not only a decent but a good life. Consequently, the debate here centers on the basis – is it equality or something else? – and not so much on the outcome – are persons or groups more or less equal, according to a chosen metric? Possibly, the difference lies even deeper, in their respective conceptions of morality in general.

Egalitarians can respond to the anti-egalitarian critique by conceding that it is the nature of some (however certainly far from all) essential norms of morality and justice to be concerned primarily with the adequate fulfillment of the separate claims of individuals. However, whether a claim can itself be considered suitable can be ascertained only by asking whether it can be agreed on by all those affected in hypothetical conditions of freedom and equality. (See, e.g., Casal 2007 for a deeper discussion and critique of the doctrine of sufficiency.) This justificatory procedure is more necessary if it is less evident that what is at stake is actually suffering, distress, or an objective need. In the view of the constitutive egalitarians, all the judgments of distributive justice should be approached relationally, by asking which distributive scheme all concerned parties can universally and reciprocally agree to. As described at some length in the pertinent section above, many egalitarians argue that a presumption in favor of equality follows from this justification requirement. In the eyes of such egalitarians, this is all one needs for the justification and determination of the constitutive value of equality.

Secondly, even if – for the sake of argument – the question is left open as to whether demands for distribution according to objective needs (e.g. alleviating hunger) involve non-comparative entitlement-claims, it is nonetheless always necessary to resolve the question of what needy individuals are owed. And this is tied in a basic way to the question of what persons owe one another in comparable or worse situations, and how scarce resources (money, goods, time, energy) must be invested in light of the sum total of our obligations. While the claim on our aid may well appear non-relational, determining the kind and extent of the aid must always be relational, at least in circumstances of scarcity (and resources are always scarce). Claims are either “satiable” (Raz 1986, p. 235) – i.e., an upper limit or sufficiency level can be indicated, after which each person’s claim to X has been fulfilled – or they are not. For insatiable claims, to stipulate any level at which one is or ought to be sufficiently satisfied is arbitrary. If the standards of sufficiency are defined as a bare minimum, why should persons be content with that minimum? Why should the manner in which welfare and resources are distributed above the poverty level not also be a question of justice? If, by contrast, we are concerned solely with claims that are in principle “satiable,” such claims having a reasonable definition of sufficiency, then these standards of sufficiency will most likely be very high. In Frankfurt’s definition, for example, sufficiency is reached only when persons are satisfied and no longer actively strive for more. Since people find themselves ourselves operating, in practice, in circumstances far beneath such a high sufficiency level, they (of course) live under conditions of (moderate) scarcity. Then the above mentioned argument holds as well – namely, that in order to determine to what extent it is to be fulfilled, each claim has to be judged in relation to the claims of all others and all available resources. In addition, the moral urgency of lifting people above dire poverty cannot be invoked to demonstrate the moral urgency of everyone having enough. In both forms of scarcity – i.e., with satiable and insatiable claims – the social right or claim to goods cannot be conceived as something absolute or non-comparative. Egalitarians may thus conclude that distributive justice is always comparative. This would suggest that distributive equality, especially equality of life-conditions, should play a fundamental role in any adequate theory of justice in particular, and of morality in general.

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• Tugendhat, Ernst and Ursula Wolf, 1983, Logisch-Semantische Propädeutik , Stuttgart: Reclam.
• Tugendhat, Ernst, 1993, Vorlesungen über Ethik , Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
• –––, 1997, Dialog in Letitia , Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
• Van Parijs, Philippe, 1995, Real Freedom For All. What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Vlastos, Gregory, 1962, “Justice and Equality,” in R. Brandt (ed.), Social Justice , Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall; reprinted in J. Waldron (ed.), 1984, Theories of Rights , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 41–76; reprinted in L. Pojman & R. Westmoreland (eds.), 1997, Equality. Selected Readings , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 120–133.
• Voigt, Kristin, 2007, “Brute Luck, Option Luck, and Equality of Initial Opportunities,” Ethics , 112(3): 529–57.
• Vonnegut, Kurt, 1950, “Harrison Bergeron,” in K. Vonnegut, 1950, Welcome to the Monkey House , New York: Delacorte Press, pp. 7–13; reprinted in L. Pojman & R. Westmoreland (eds.), 1997, Equality. Selected Readings , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 315–311.
• Waldron, Jeremy, 2017, One another’s equals: the basis of human equality , Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Walzer, Michael, 1983, Spheres of Justice. A Defence of Pluralism and Equality , New York/London: Basic Books.
• Westen, Peter, 1990, Speaking Equality , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• White, Stuart, 2006, Equality , Oxford: Blackwell.
• Williams, Bernard, 1973, “The Idea of Equality”, in B. Williams, Problems of the Self , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 230–249, reprinted in: L. Pojman & R. Westmoreland (eds.), 1997, Equality. Selected Readings , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 91–102.
• –––, 1987, “The Standard of Living: Interests and Capabilities,” in A. Sen, The Standard of Living , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 94–102.
• Wolff, Jonathan, 1998, “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos,” Philosophy & Public Affairs , 27: 97–122.
• –––, 2010, “Fairness, respect and the egalitarian ethos revisited,” Journal of Ethics , 14 (3–4): 335–350.
• Young, Iris Marion, 1990, Justice and the Politics of Difference , Princeton: Princeton University Press.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

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Equity vs. Equality: What’s the Difference?

November 5, 2020 

While the terms equity and equality may sound similar, the implementation of one versus the other can lead to dramatically different outcomes for marginalized people.

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.  

In the illustration below, two individuals have unequal access to a system — in this case, the tree that provides fruit. With equal support from evenly distributed tools, their access to the fruit still remains unequal. The equitable solution, however, allocates the exact resources that each person needs to access the fruit, leading to positive outcomes for both individuals. 

While the tree appears to be a naturally occurring system, it’s critical to remember that social systems aren’t naturally inequitable — they’ve been intentionally designed to reward specific demographics for so long that the system’s outcomes may appear unintentional but are actually rooted discriminatory practices and beliefs. 

Source: “Addressing Imbalance,” by Tony Ruth for the  2019 Design in Tech Report.

Equity is a solution for addressing imbalanced social systems. Justice can take equity one step further by fixing the systems in a way that leads to long-term, sustainable, equitable access for generations to come.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO),  equity is defined  as “the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically.” Therefore, as the WHO notes, health inequities involve more than lack of equal access to needed resources to maintain or improve health outcomes. They also refer to difficulty when it comes to “inequalities that infringe on fairness and human rights norms.”

The  U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refers to health equity  as “when everyone has the opportunity to be as healthy as possible.” As such, equity is a process and equality is an outcome of that process. Or, as the  Race Matters Institute  describes, “The route to achieving equity will not be accomplished through treating everyone equally. It will be achieved by treating everyone equitably, or justly according to their circumstances.”

Understanding the  difference between health equality and health equity  is important to public health to ensure that resources are directed appropriately — as well as supporting the ongoing process of meeting people where they are. Inherent to this process is the promotion of diversity in teams and personnel, public health practice, research methods and other related factors. For these reasons, providing the same type and number of resources to all is not enough. In order to reduce the health disparities gap, the underlying issues and individual needs of underserved and vulnerable populations must be effectively addressed.

The Difference Between Equity and Equality

“The route to achieving equity will not be accomplished through treating everyone equally. It will be achieved by treating everyone justly according to their circumstances.”

—Paula Dressel, Race Matters Institute  1

EXAMPLES OF EQUALITY 2

A city cuts the budget for 25 community centers by reducing the operational hours for all centers by the same amount at the same times.

A community meeting, where all members of the community are invited, about a local environmental health concern is held in English though English is not the primary language for 25% of the residents.

Examples of EqualityAll public schools in a community have computer labs with the same number of computers and hours of operation during school hours.

EXAMPLES OF EQUITY 2

The city determines which times and how many hours communities actually need to use their community centers and reduces hours for centers that aren’t used as frequently.

Examples of EquityThe community leaders hire translators to attend the meeting or offer an additional meeting held in another language.

Examples of EquityComputer labs in lower income neighborhoods have more computers and printers, as well as longer hours of operation, as some students don’t have access to computers or internet at home.

There are many successful initiatives in communities around the United States where specific steps have been taken to  make approaches to health more equitable (PDF, 4.9MB),  according to the CDC. Attempts to achieve equity have involved identifying the individualized needs of specific populations and implementing steps to help meet those needs. Below are three examples of public health initiatives.

Project Brotherhood

Project Brotherhood  — a clinic for Black men at Woodlawn Health Center in Chicago —  was created through the CDC’s Healthy Communities Program. The clinic was formed by a Black physician and a nurse-epidemiologist who were interested in better addressing the health needs of Black men. Partnering with a Black social science researcher, they conducted focus groups with Black men to learn about their experiences with the health care system and met with other Black staff at the clinic. As a result of this research, Project Brotherhood employed a number of specific strategies, including:

• Offering free health care, with optional appointments and evening clinic hours, to make health care more accessible to Black men.
• Providing health seminars and courses specifically for Black men.
• Employing a barber to perform free haircuts after receiving health education training to be a health advocate for Black men whom the clinic staff could not reach.
• Providing fatherhood classes to help Black men become more effectively involved in the lives of their children.
• Building “a culturally competent workforce able to create a safe, respectful, male-friendly environment and to overcome mistrust in Black communities toward the traditional health care system.”
• Organizing physician participation in support group discussions to enhance understanding between providers and patients.

According to the organization, positive outcomes were achieved: “In January 1999, Project Brotherhood averaged four medical visits and eight group participants per week. By September 2005, the average grew to 27 medical visits and 35 group participants per week….” By 2007, Project Brotherhood had provided service to more than 13,000 people since the initiative started and created a health services environment designed specifically for Black men where they would be respected, heard and empowered, thus helping to reduce the health disparities experienced by this population.

Poder es Salud 

Poder es Salud (Power for Health)  is a partnership involving nonprofits, government organizations, local health care providers and several community- and faith-based groups. This partnership was formed to address social determinants of health and reduce health disparities in Black and Latino communities in Multnomah County, Oregon, by employing an approach to “increase social capital through durable social networks for the purpose of facilitating the achievement of community goals and health outcomes.” This was achieved through three specific strategies:

• Conducting community-based participatory research to support cross-cultural partnerships.
• Implementing popular education, which involves mutual learning and analysis.
• Providing community health workers with specialized training “in leadership, local politics, governance structure, advocacy, community organizing, popular education, and health.”

Program effectiveness was reflected in follow-up surveys that showed “significant improvements in social support, self-rated health and mental health among community members that participated in the interventions with community health workers who use popular education.”

Project BRAVE: Building and Revitalizing an Anti-Violence Environment

Project BRAVE  is a school-based intervention that builds on existing relationships among schools, community members, community-based organizations and local researchers. In doing so, Project BRAVE supports preexisting opportunities for students to share their experiences with violence and to take part in community change to reduce it. The program’s effectiveness was evidenced by an increase in school attendance, which is an important social determinant of community health.

Using Equity and Equality in Public Health Practice

Understanding the difference between equity and equality is a key component in the effort to reduce health disparities among vulnerable populations. The good news is that public health officials can take specific steps to help address this confusion in their own communities — including using educational resources such as the CDC’s  Defining and Measuring Disparities, Inequities, and Inequalities in the Healthy People Initiative (PDF, 391KB)  and group exercises such as those suggested by  JustHealthAction (PDF, 637KB),  in which teams can work together to differentiate between equity and equality.

Additional Resources about Equity and Equality

• Office of Health Equity,  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 
• Health Equity,  American Public Health Association 
• Equity of Opportunity,  U.S. Department of Education
• Health Equity: Why It Matters, and How To Take Action,  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit,  Race Forward 
• Equity vs. Equality: 6 Steps Toward Equity,  Edutopia

1 “Racial Equality or Racial Equity? The Difference it Makes,” Race Matters Institute. 2014. Accessed Oct. 15, 2020. http://viablefuturescenter.org/racemattersinstitute/2014/04/02/racial-equality-or-racial-equity-the-difference-it-makes/ 

2 “How are Equity and Equality Different?” Just Health Action, 2010. Accessed Oct. 15, 2010. http://justhealthaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/JHA-Lesson-Plan-3-How-are-equity-and-equality-different-final.pdf

Citation for this content: MPH@GW, the George Washington University  online Master of Public Health program

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What Does “Created Equal” Mean?

A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.

Editor’s note: This essay is an excerpt of the new Hoover Press book  Milton Friedman on Freedom , edited by Robert Leeson and Charles G. Palm. This essay by Friedman originally appeared in the book Free to Choose: A Personal Statement .

“Equality, liberty”—what precisely do these words from the Declaration of Independence mean? Can the ideals they express be realized in practice? Are equality and liberty consistent one with the other or are they in conflict?

Since well before the Declaration of Independence, these questions have played a central role in the history of the United States. The attempt to answer them has shaped the intellectual climate of opinion, led to bloody wars, and produced major changes in economic and political institutions. This attempt continues to dominate our political debate. It will shape our future as it has our past.

In the early decades of the Republic, equality meant equality before God; liberty meant the liberty to shape one’s own life. The obvious conflict between the Declaration of Independence and the institution of slavery occupied the center of the stage. That conflict was finally resolved by the Civil War. The debate then moved to a different level. Equality came more and more to be interpreted as “equality of opportunity” in the sense that no one should be prevented by arbitrary obstacles from using his capacities to pursue his own objectives. That is still its dominant meaning to most citizens of the United States.

Neither equality before God nor equality of opportunity presented any conflict with liberty to shape one’s own life. Quite the opposite. Equality and liberty were two faces of the same basic value—that every individual should be regarded as an end in himself.

A very different meaning of equality has emerged in the United States in recent decades—equality of outcome. Everyone should have the same level of living or of income, should finish the race at the same time. Equality of outcome is in clear conflict with liberty. The attempt to promote it has been a major source of bigger and bigger government and of government-imposed restrictions on our liberty.

Equality Before God

When Thomas Jefferson, at the age of thirty-three, wrote “all men are created equal,” he and his contemporaries did not take these words literally. They did not regard men—or as we would say today, persons—as equal in physical characteristics, emotional reactions, mechanical and intellectual abilities. Thomas Jefferson himself was a most remarkable person. At the age of twenty-six he designed his beautiful house at Monticello (Italian for “little mountain”), supervised its construction, and, indeed, is said to have done some of the work himself. In the course of his life, he was an inventor, a scholar, an author, a statesman, governor of the State of Virginia, president of the United States, minister to France, founder of the University of Virginia—hardly an average man.

The clue to what Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries meant by equal is seen in the next phrase of the Declaration—“endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Men were equal before God. Each person is precious in and of himself. He has unalienable rights, rights that no one else is entitled to invade. He is entitled to serve his own purposes and not to be treated simply as an instrument to promote someone else’s purposes. “Liberty” is part of the definition of equality, not in conflict with it.

Equality before God—personal equality—is important precisely because people are not identical. Their different values, their different tastes, their different capacities will lead them to want to lead very different lives. Personal equality requires respect for their right to do so, not the imposition on them of someone else’s values or judgment. Jefferson had no doubt that some men were superior to others, that there was an elite. But that did not give them the right to rule others.

If an elite did not have the right to impose its will on others, neither did any other group, even a majority. Every person was to be his own ruler—provided that he did not interfere with the similar right of others. Government was established to protect that right—from fellow citizens and from external threat—not to give a majority unbridled rule. Jefferson had three achievements he wanted to be remembered for inscribed on his tombstone: the Virginia statute for religious freedom (a precursor of the US Bill of Rights designed to protect minorities against domination by majorities), authorship of the Declaration of Independence, and the founding of the University of Virginia. The goal of the framers of the Constitution of the United States, drafted by Jefferson’s contemporaries, was a national government strong enough to defend the country and promote the general welfare but at the same time sufficiently limited in power to protect the individual citizen, and the separate state governments, from domination by the national government. Democratic, in the sense of widespread participation in government, yes; in the political sense of majority rule, clearly no.

Similarly, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French political philosopher and sociologist, in his classic Democracy in America, written after a lengthy visit in the 1830s, saw equality, not majority rule, as the outstanding characteristic of America. “In America,” he wrote, “the aristocratic element has always been feeble from its birth; and if at the present day it is not actually destroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled, that we can scarcely assign to it any degree of influence on the course of affairs. The democratic principle, on the contrary, has gained so much strength by time, by events, and by legislation, as to have become not only predominant but all-powerful. There is no family or corporate authority. . . . America, then, exhibits in her social state a most extraordinary phenomenon. Men are there seen on a greater equality in point of fortune and intellect, or, in other words, more equal in their strength, than in any other country of the world, or in any age of which history has preserved the remembrance.”

Tocqueville admired much of what he observed, but he was by no means an uncritical admirer, fearing that democracy carried too far might undermine civic virtue. As he put it, “There is . . . a manly and lawful passion for equality which incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”

It is striking testimony to the changing meaning of words that in recent decades the Democratic Party of the United States has been the chief instrument for strengthening that government power that Jefferson and many of his contemporaries viewed as the greatest threat to democracy. And it has striven to increase government power in the name of a concept of “equality” that is almost the opposite of the concept of equality Jefferson identified with liberty and Tocqueville with democracy.

Of course the practice of the Founding Fathers did not always correspond to their preaching. The most obvious conflict was slavery. Thomas Jefferson himself owned slaves until the day he died—July 4, 1826. He agonized repeatedly about slavery, suggested in his notes and correspondence plans for eliminating slavery, but never publicly proposed any such plans or campaigned against the institution.

Yet the Declaration he drafted had either to be blatantly violated by the nation he did so much to create and form or slavery had to be abolished. Little wonder that the early decades of the Republic saw a rising tide of controversy about the institution of slavery. That controversy ended in a Civil War that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, tested whether a “nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . . can long endure.” The nation endured but only at a tremendous cost in lives, property, and social cohesion.

Equality of Opportunity

Once the Civil War abolished slavery and the concept of personal equality—equality before God and the law—came closer to realization, emphasis shifted, in intellectual discussion and in government and private policy, to a different concept—equality of opportunity.

Literal equality of opportunity—in the sense of identity—is impossible. One child is born blind, another with sight. One child has parents deeply concerned about his welfare who provide a background of culture and understanding; another has dissolute, improvident parents. One child is born in the United States, another in India or China or Russia. They clearly do not have identical opportunities open to them at birth, and there is no way that their opportunities can be made identical.

Like personal equality, equality of opportunity is not to be interpreted literally. Its real meaning is perhaps best expressed by the French expression dating from the French Revolution:  Une carrière ouverte aux les talents —a career open to the talents. No arbitrary obstacles should prevent people from achieving those positions for which their talents fit them and for which their values lead them to seek. Not birth, nationality, color, religion, sex, or any other irrelevant characteristic should determine the opportunities that are open to a person—only his abilities.

On this interpretation, equality of opportunity simply spells out in more detail the meaning of personal equality, of equality before the law. And like personal equality, it has meaning and importance precisely because people are different in their genetic and cultural characteristics and hence both want to and can pursue different careers.

Equality of opportunity, like personal equality, is not inconsistent with liberty; on the contrary, it is an essential component of liberty. If some people are denied access to particular positions in life for which they are qualified simply because of their ethnic background, color, or religion, that is an interference with their right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It denies equality of opportunity and, by the same token, sacrifices the freedom of some for the advantage of others.

Like every ideal, equality of opportunity is incapable of being fully realized. The most serious departure was undoubtedly with respect to the blacks, particularly in the South but in the North as well. Yet there was also tremendous progress for blacks and for other groups. The very concept of a melting pot reflected the goal of equality of opportunity. So also did the expansion of free education at elementary, secondary, and higher levels, though this development has not been an unmixed blessing.

The priority given to equality of opportunity in the hierarchy of values generally accepted by the public after the Civil War is manifested particularly in economic policy. The catchwords were free enterprise, competition, laissez-faire. Everyone was to be free to go into any business, follow any occupation, buy any property, subject only to the agreement of the other parties to the transaction. Each was to have the opportunity to reap the benefits if he succeeded, to suffer the costs if he failed. There were to be no arbitrary obstacles. Performance, not birth, religion, or nationality, was the touchstone.

One corollary was the development of what many who regarded themselves as the cultural elite sneered at as vulgar materialism—an emphasis on the almighty dollar, on wealth as both the symbol and the seal of success. As Tocqueville pointed out, this emphasis reflected the unwillingness of the community to accept the traditional criteria in feudal and aristocratic societies, namely, birth and parentage. Performance was the obvious alternative, and the accumulation of wealth was the most readily available measure of performance.

Another corollary, of course, was an enormous release of human energy that made America an increasingly productive and dynamic society in which social mobility was an everyday reality. Still another, perhaps surprisingly, was an explosion in charitable activity. This explosion was made possible by the rapid growth in wealth. It took the form it did—of nonprofit hospitals, privately endowed colleges and universities, a plethora of charitable organizations directed to helping the poor—because of the dominant values of the society, including, especially, promotion of equality of opportunity.

Of course, in the economic sphere as elsewhere, practice did not always conform to the ideal. Government was kept to a minor role; no major obstacles to enterprise were erected; and, by the end of the nineteenth century, positive government measures, especially the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, were adopted to eliminate private barriers to competition. But extralegal arrangements continued to interfere with the freedom of individuals to enter various businesses or professions, and social practices unquestionably gave special advantages to persons born in the “right” families, of the “right” color, and of the “right” religion. However, the rapid rise in the economic and social position of various less privileged groups demonstrates that these obstacles were by no means insurmountable.

In respect of government measures, one major deviation from free markets was in foreign trade, where Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures had enshrined tariff protection for domestic industries as part of the American way. Tariff protection was inconsistent with thoroughgoing equality of opportunity and, indeed, with the free immigration of persons, which was the rule until World War I, except Orientals. Yet it could be rationalized both by the needs of national defense and on the very different ground that equality stops at the water’s edge—an illogical rationalization that is adopted also by most of today’s proponents of a very different concept of equality.

Equality of Outcome

That different concept, equality of outcome, has been gaining ground in this century. It first affected government policy in Great Britain and on the European continent. Over the past half-century it has increasingly affected government policy in the United States as well. In some intellectual circles the desirability of equality of outcome has become an article of religious faith: everyone should finish the race at the same time. As the Dodo said in Alice in Wonderland, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”

For this concept, as for the other two, equal is not to be interpreted literally as identical. No one really maintains that everyone, regardless of age or sex or other physical attributes, should have identical rations of each separate item of food, clothing, and so on. The goal is rather fairness, a much vaguer notion—indeed, one that it is difficult, if not impossible, to define precisely. “Fair shares for all” is the modern slogan that has replaced Karl Marx’s, “To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability.”

This concept of equality differs radically from the other two. Government measures that promote personal equality or equality of opportunity enhance liberty; government measures to achieve fair shares for all reduce liberty. If what people get is to be determined by fairness, who is to decide what is fair? As a chorus of voices asked the Dodo, “But who is to give the prizes?” Fairness is not an objectively determined concept once it departs from -identity. Fairness, like needs, is in the eye of the beholder. If all are to have fair shares, someone or some group of people must decide what shares are fair—and they must be able to impose their decisions on others, taking from those who have more than their fair share and giving to those who have less. Are those who make and impose such decisions equal to those for whom they decide? Are we not in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”?

In addition, if what people get is determined by fairness and not by what they produce, where are the prizes to come from? What incentive is there to work and produce? How is it to be decided who is to be the doctor, who the lawyer, who the garbage collector, who the street sweeper? What assures that people will accept the roles assigned to them and then carry out those roles in accordance with their abilities? Clearly, only force or the threat of force will work.

The key point is not merely that practice will depart from the ideal. Of course it will, as it does with respect to the other two concepts of equality as well. The point is rather that there is a fundamental conflict between the ideal of fair shares, or of its precursor, “to each according to his needs,” and the ideal of personal liberty. This conflict has plagued every attempt to make equality of outcome the overriding principle of social organization. The end result has invariably been a state of terror: Russia, China, and, more recently, Cambodia offer clear and convincing evidence. And even terror has not equalized outcomes. In every case, wide inequality persists by any criterion; inequality between the rulers and the ruled, not only in power but also in material standards of life.

The far less extreme measures taken in Western countries in the name of equality of outcome have shared the same fate to a lesser extent. They, too, have restricted individual liberty. They, too, have failed to achieve their objective. It has proved impossible to define fair shares in a way that is generally acceptable or to satisfy the members of the community that they are being treated fairly. On the contrary, dissatisfaction has mounted with every additional attempt to implement equality of outcome.

Much of the moral fervor behind the drive for equality of outcome comes from the widespread belief that it is not fair that some children should have a great advantage over others simply because they happen to have wealthy parents. Of course it is not fair. However, unfairness can take many forms. It can take the form of the inheritance of property—bonds and stocks, houses, factories; it can also take the form of the inheritance of talent—musical ability, strength, mathematical genius. The inheritance of property can be interfered with more readily than the inheritance of talent. But from an ethical point of view, is there any difference between the two? Yet many people resent the inheritance of property but not the inheritance of talent.

Look at the same issue from the point of view of the parent. If you want to assure your child a higher income in life, you can do so in various ways. You can buy him (or her) an education that will equip him to pursue an occupation yielding a high income; or you can set him up in a business that will yield a higher income than he could earn as a salaried employee; or you can leave him property, the income from which will enable him to live better. Is there any ethical difference among these three ways of using your property? Or again, if the state leaves you any money to spend over and above taxes, should the state permit you to spend it on riotous living but not to leave it to your children?

The ethical issues involved are subtle and complex. They are not to be resolved by such simplistic formulas as fair shares for all. Indeed, if we took that seriously, youngsters with less musical skill should be given the greatest amount of musical training in order to compensate for their inherited disadvantage and those with greater musical aptitude should be prevented from having access to good musical training, similarly with all other categories of inherited personal qualities. That might be fair to the youngsters lacking in talent, but would it be fair to the talented, let alone to those who had to work to pay for training the youngsters lacking talent or to the persons deprived of the benefits that might have come from the cultivation of the talents of the gifted?

Life is not fair. It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore. There’s nothing fair about Marlene Dietrich’s having been born with beautiful legs that we all want to look at or about Muhammad Ali’s having been born with the skill that made him a great fighter. But on the other side, millions of people who have enjoyed looking at Marlene Dietrich’s legs or watching one of Muhammad Ali’s fights have benefited from nature’s unfairness in producing a Marlene Dietrich and a Muhammad Ali. What kind of a world would it be if everyone were a duplicate of everyone else?

It is certainly not fair that Muhammad Ali should be able to earn millions of dollars in one night. But wouldn’t it have been even more unfair to the people who enjoyed watching him if, in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, Muhammad Ali had not been permitted to earn more for one night’s fight—or for each day spent in preparing for a fight—than the lowest man on the totem pole could get for a day’s unskilled work on the docks? It might have been possible to do that, but the result would have been to deny people the opportunity to watch Muhammad Ali. We doubt very much that he would have been willing to undergo the arduous regimen of training that preceded his fights or to subject himself to the kind of fights he has had, if he were limited to the pay of an unskilled dockworker.

Still another facet of this complex issue of fairness can be illustrated by considering a game of chance, for example, an evening at baccarat. The people who choose to play may start the evening with equal piles of chips, but as the play progresses, those piles will become unequal. By the end of the evening, some will be big winners, others big losers. In the name of the ideal of equality, should the winners be required to repay the losers? That would take all the fun out of the game. Not even the losers would like that. They might like it for the one evening, but would they come back again to play if they knew that, whatever happened, they’d end up exactly where they started?

This example has a great deal more to do with the real world than one might at first suppose. Every day each of us makes decisions that involve taking a chance. Occasionally it’s a big chance—as when we decide what occupation to pursue, whom to marry, whether to buy a house or make a major investment. More often it’s a small chance, as when we decide what movie to go to, whether to cross the street against the traffic, whether to buy one security rather than another. Each time the question is who is to decide what chances we take? That in turn depends on who bears the consequences of the decision. If we bear the consequences, we can make the decision. But if someone else bears the consequences, should we or will we be permitted to make the decision? If you play baccarat as an agent for someone else with his money, will he, or should he, permit you unlimited scope for decision making? Is he not almost certain to set some limit to your discretion? Will he not lay down some rules for you to observe? To take a very different example, if the government (i.e., your fellow taxpayers) assumes the costs of flood damage to your house, can you be permitted to decide freely whether to build your house on a floodplain? It is no accident that increasing government intervention into personal decisions has gone hand in hand with the drive for fair shares for all.

The system under which people can make their own choices—and bear most of the consequences of their decisions—is the system that has prevailed for most of our history. It is the system that gave the Henry Fords, the Thomas Alva Edisons, the George Eastmans, the John D. Rockefellers, the James Cash Penneys the incentive to transform our society over the past two centuries. It is the system that gave other people an incentive to furnish venture capital to finance the risky enterprises that these ambitious inventors and captains of industry undertook. Of course, there were many losers along the way—probably more losers than winners. We don’t remember their names. But for the most part they went in with their eyes open. They knew they were taking chances. And win or lose, society as a whole benefited from their willingness to take a chance.

The fortunes that this system produced came overwhelmingly from developing new products or services or new ways of -producing products or services or of distributing them widely. The resulting addition to the wealth of the community as a whole, to the well-being of the masses of the people, amounted to many times the wealth accumulated by the innovators. Henry Ford acquired a great fortune. The country acquired a cheap and reliable means of transportation and the techniques of mass production. Moreover, in many cases the private fortunes were largely devoted in the end to the benefit of society. The Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie Foundations are only the most prominent of the numerous private benefactions that are so wonderful as a consequence of the operation of a system that corresponded to “equality of opportunity” and “liberty” as these terms were understood until recently.

One limited sample may give the flavor of the outpouring of philanthropic activity in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In a book devoted to “cultural philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917,” Helen Horowitz writes: “At the turn of the century, Chicago was a city of contradictory impulses: it was both a commercial center dealing in the basic commodities of an industrial society and a community caught in the winds of cultural uplift. As one commentator put it, the city was ‘a strange combination of pork and Plato.’ A major manifestation of Chicago’s drive toward culture was the establishment of the city’s great cultural institutions in the 1880s and early 1890s (the Art Institute, the Newberry Library, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the University of Chicago, the Field Museum, the Crerar Library). . . . These institutions were a new phenomenon in the city. Whatever the initial impetus behind their founding, they were largely organized, sustained, and controlled by a group of businessmen. . . . Yet while privately supported and managed, the institutions were designed for the whole city. Their trustees had turned to cultural philanthropy not so much to satisfy personal aesthetic or scholarly yearnings as to accomplish social goals. Disturbed by social forces they could not control and filled with idealistic notions of culture, these businessmen saw in the museum, the library, the symphony orchestra, and the university a way to purify their city and to generate a civic renaissance.”

Philanthropy was by no means restricted to cultural institutions. There was, as Horowitz writes in another connection, “a kind of explosion of activity on many different levels.” And Chicago was not an isolated case. Rather, as Horowitz puts it, -“Chicago seemed to epitomize America.” The same period saw the establishment of Hull House in Chicago under Jane Addams, the first of many settlement houses established throughout the nation to spread culture and education among the poor and to assist them in their daily problems. Many hospitals, orphanages, and other charitable agencies were set up in the same period.

There is no inconsistency between a free market system and the pursuit of broad social and cultural goals or between a free market system and compassion for the less fortunate, whether that compassion takes the form, as it did in the nineteenth century, of private charitable activity or, as it has done increasingly in the twentieth, of assistance through government—provided that in both cases it is an expression of a desire to help others. There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent and, second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 -percent—William Graham Sumner’s famous example of B and C deciding what D shall do for A. The first may be wise or unwise, an effective or an ineffective way to help the -disadvantaged—but it is consistent with belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty. The second seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty.

Who Favors Equality of Outcome?

There is little support for the goal of equality of outcome despite the extent to which it has become almost an article of religious faith among intellectuals and despite its prominence in the speeches of politicians and the preambles of legislation. The talk is belied alike by the behavior of government, of the intellectuals who most ardently espouse egalitarian sentiments, and of the public at large.

For government, one obvious example is the policy toward lotteries and gambling. New York State—and particularly New York City—is widely and correctly regarded as a stronghold of egalitarian sentiment. Yet the New York State government conducts lotteries and provides facilities for off-track betting on races. It advertises extensively to induce its citizens to buy lottery tickets and bet on the races—at terms that yield a very large profit to the government. At the same time it tries to suppress the numbers game, which, as it happens, offers better odds than the government lottery (especially when account is taken of the greater ease of avoiding tax on winnings). Great Britain, a stronghold, if not the birthplace, of egalitarian sentiment, permits private gambling clubs and betting on races and other sporting events. Indeed, wagering is a national pastime and a major source of government income.

For intellectuals, the clearest evidence is their failure to practice what so many of them preach. Equality of outcome can be promoted on a do-it-yourself basis. First, decide exactly what you mean by equality. Do you want to achieve equality within the United States? in a selected group of countries as a whole? in the world as a whole? Is equality to be judged in terms of income per person, per family, per year, per decade, per lifetime, income in the form of money alone? Or including such nonmonetary items as the rental value of an owned home; food grown for one’s own use; services rendered by members of the family not employed for money, notably the housewife? How are physical and mental handicaps or advantages to be allowed for?

However you decide these issues, you can, if you are an egalitarian, estimate what money income would correspond to your concept of equality. If your actual income is higher than that, you can keep that amount and distribute the rest to people who are below that level. If your criterion were to encompass the world—as most egalitarian rhetoric suggests it should—something less than, say, $200 a year (in 1979 dollars) per person would be an amount that would correspond to the conception of equality that seems implicit in most egalitarian rhetoric. That is about the average income per person worldwide.

What Irving Kristol has called the “new class”—government bureaucrats, academics whose research is supported by government funds or who are employed in government-financed think tanks, staffs of the many so-called general interest or public policy groups, journalists and others in the communications -industry—are among the most ardent preachers of the doctrine of equality. Yet they remind us very much of the old, if unfair, saw about the Quakers: “They came to the New World to do good and ended up doing well.” The members of the new class are in general among the highest paid persons in the community. And for many among them, preaching equality and promoting or administering the resulting legislation has proved an effective means of achieving such high incomes. All of us find it easy to identify our own welfare with the welfare of the community.

Of course, an egalitarian may protest that he is but a drop in the ocean, that he would be willing to redistribute the excess of his income over his concept of an equal income if everyone else were compelled to do the same. On one level this contention that compulsion would change matters is wrong; even if everyone else did the same, his specific contribution to the income of others would still be a drop in the ocean. His individual contribution would be just as large if he were the only contributor as if he were one of many. Indeed it would be more valuable because he could target his contribution to go to the very worst off among those he regards as appropriate recipients. On another level compulsion would change matters drastically; the kind of society that would emerge if such acts of redistribution were voluntary is altogether different—and, by our standards, infinitely preferable—to the kind that would emerge if redistribution were compulsory.

Persons who believe that a society of enforced equality is preferable can also practice what they preach. They can join one of the many communes in this country and elsewhere or establish new ones. And, of course, it is entirely consistent with a belief in personal equality or equality of opportunity and liberty that any group of individuals who wish to live in that way should be free to do so. Our thesis that support for equality of outcome is word-deep receives strong support from the small number of persons who have wished to join such communes and from the fragility of the communes that have been established.

Egalitarians in the United States may object that the fewness of communes and their fragility reflect the opprobrium that a predominantly capitalist society visits on such communes and the resulting discrimination to which they are subjected. That may be true for the United States but as Robert Nozick has pointed out, there is one country where that is not true, where, on the contrary, egalitarian communes are highly regarded and prized. That country is Israel. The kibbutz played a major role in early Jewish settlement in Palestine and continues to play an important role in the state of Israel. A disproportionate fraction of the leaders of the Israeli state were drawn from the kibbutzim. Far from being a source of disapproval, membership in a kibbutz confers social status and commands approbation. Everyone is free to join or leave a kibbutz, and kibbutzim have been viable social organizations. Yet at no time, and certainly not today, have more than about 5 percent of the Jewish population of Israel chosen to be members of a kibbutz. That percentage can be regarded as an upper estimate of the fraction of people who would voluntarily choose a system enforcing equality of outcome in preference to a system characterized by inequality, diversity, and opportunity.

Public attitudes about graduated income taxes are more mixed. Recent referenda on the introduction of graduated state income taxes in some states that do not have them, and on an increase in the extent of graduation in other states, have generally been defeated. On the other hand, the federal income tax is highly graduated, at least on paper, though it also contains a large number of provisions (loopholes) that greatly reduce the extent of graduation in practice. On this showing, there is at least public tolerance of a moderate amount of redistributive taxation.

However, we venture to suggest that the popularity of Reno, Las Vegas, and now Atlantic City is no less faithful an indication of the preferences of the public than the federal income tax, the editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and the pages of the New York Review of Books.

Consequences of Egalitarian Policies

In shaping our own policy, we can learn from the experience of Western countries with which we share a common intellectual and cultural background and from which we derive many of our values. Perhaps the most instructive example is Great Britain, which led the way in the nineteenth century toward implementing equality of opportunity and in the twentieth toward implementing equality of outcome.

Since the end of World War II, British domestic policy has been dominated by the search for greater equality of outcome. Measure after measure has been adopted designed to take from the rich and give to the poor. Taxes were raised on income until they reached a top rate of 98 percent on property income and 83 percent on earned income and were supplemented by ever heavier taxes on inheritances. State-provided medical, housing, and other welfare services were greatly expanded, along with payments to the unemployed and the aged. Unfortunately, the results have been very different from those that were intended by the people who were quite properly offended by the class structure that dominated Britain for centuries. There has been a vast redistribution of wealth, but the end result is not an equitable distribution.

Instead, new classes of privileged have been created to replace or supplement the old: the bureaucrats, secure in their jobs, protected against inflation both when they work and when they retire; the trade unions that profess to represent the most downtrodden workers but in fact consist of the highest paid laborers in the land—the aristocrats of the labor movement; and the new millionaires—people who have been cleverest at finding ways around the laws, the rules, the regulations that have poured from Parliament and the bureaucracy, who have found ways to avoid paying taxes on their income and to get their wealth overseas beyond the grasp of the tax collectors. A vast reshuffling of income and wealth has taken place, greater equity, hardly.

The drive for equality in Britain failed, not because the wrong measures were adopted, though some no doubt were; not because they were badly administered, though some no doubt were; not because the wrong people administered them, though no doubt some did. The drive for equality failed for a much more fundamental reason. It went against one of the most basic instincts of all human beings. In the words of Adam Smith, that condition is “The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition”—and, one may add, the condition of his children and his children’s children. Smith, of course, meant by that condition not merely material well-being, though certainly that was one component. He had a much broader concept in mind, one that included all of the values by which men judge their -success—in particular the kind of social values that gave rise to the outpouring of philanthropic activities in the nineteenth century.

When the law interferes with people’s pursuit of their own values, they will try to find a way around. They will evade the law, they will break the law, or they will leave the country. Few of us believe in a moral code that justifies forcing people to give up much of what they produce to finance payments to persons they do not know for purposes they may not approve of. When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law—whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal such as equality or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law.

When people start to break one set of laws, the lack of respect for the law inevitably spreads to all laws, even those that everyone regards as moral and proper—laws against violence, theft, and vandalism. Hard as it may be to believe, the growth of crude criminality in Britain in recent decades may well be one consequence of the drive for equality.

In addition, that drive for equality has driven out of Britain some of its ablest, best-trained, most vigorous citizens, much to the benefit of the United States and other countries that have given them a greater opportunity to use their talents for their own benefit. Finally, who can doubt the effect that the drive for equality has had on efficiency and productivity? Surely, that is one of the main reasons why economic growth in Britain has fallen so far behind its continental neighbors, the United States, Japan, and other nations over the past few decades.

We in the United States have not gone as far as Britain in promoting the goal of equality of outcome. Yet many of the same consequences are already evident—from a failure of egalitarian measures to achieve their objectives, to a reshuffling of wealth that by no standards can be regarded as equitable, to a rise in criminality, to a depressing effect on productivity and efficiency.

Capitalism and Equality

Everywhere in the world there are gross inequities of income and wealth. They offend most of us. Few can fail to be moved by the contrast between the luxury enjoyed by some and the grinding poverty suffered by others.

In the past century a myth has grown up that free market capitalism—equality of opportunity as we have interpreted that term—increases such inequalities, that it is a system under which the rich exploit the poor.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, wherever anything approaching equality of opportunity has existed, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living never dreamed of before. Nowhere is the gap between rich and poor wider, nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer, than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate. That is true of feudal societies like medieval Europe, India before independence, and much of modern South America, where inherited status determines position. It is equally true of centrally planned societies, like Russia or China or India since independence, where access to government determines position. It is true even where central planning was introduced, as in all three of these countries, in the name of equality.

Russia is a country of two nations: a small privileged upper class of bureaucrats, Communist Party officials, technicians, and a great mass of people living little better than their great-grandparents did. The upper class has access to special shops, schools, and luxuries of all kind; the masses are condemned to enjoy little more than the basic necessities. We remember asking a tourist guide in Moscow the cost of a large automobile that we saw and being told, “Oh, those aren’t for sale; they’re only for the Politburo.” Several recent books by American journalists document in great detail the contrast between the privileged life of the upper classes and the poverty of the masses. Even on a simpler level, it is noteworthy that the average wage of a foreman is a larger multiple of the average wage of an ordinary worker in a Russian factory than in a factory in the United States—and no doubt he deserves it. After all, an American foreman only has to worry about being fired; a Russian foreman also has to worry about being shot.

China, too, is a nation with wide differences in income—between the politically powerful and the rest; between city and countryside; between some workers in the cities and other workers. A perceptive student of China writes that “the inequality between rich and poor regions in China was more acute in 1957 than in any of the larger nations of the world except perhaps Brazil.” He quotes another scholar as saying, “These examples suggest that the Chinese industrial wage structure is not significantly more egalitarian than that of other countries.” And he concludes his examination of equality in China, “How evenly distributed would China’s income be today? Certainly, it would not be as even as Taiwan’s or South Korea’s. . . . On the other hand, income distribution in China is obviously more even than in Brazil or South America. . . . We must conclude that China is far from being a society of complete equality. In fact, income differences in China may be quite a bit greater than in a number of countries commonly associated with ‘fascist’ elites and exploited masses.”

Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, and all the great wonders of the modern era have meant relatively little to the wealthy. The rich in Ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing: running servants replaced running water. Television and radio—the patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading artists as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets; all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. They would have welcomed the improvements in transportation and in medicine, but for the rest, the great achievements of Western capitalism have redounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.

In 1848 John Stuart Mill wrote: “Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish.”

No one could say that today. You can travel from one end of the industrialized world to the other and almost the only people you will find engaging in backbreaking toil are people who are doing it for sport. To find people whose day’s toil has not been lightened by mechanical invention, you must go to the non-capitalist world: to Russia, China, India, or Bangladesh, parts of Yugoslavia or to the more backward capitalist countries—to Africa, the Mideast, South America and, until recently, Spain or Italy.

A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of -outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.

On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. Though a by-product of freedom, greater equality is not an accident. A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from becoming institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s disadvantaged to become tomorrow’s privileged and, in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller and richer life.

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Social Equality: On What It Means to be Equals

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• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Equality

equality , Generally, an ideal of uniformity in treatment or status by those in a position to affect either. Acknowledgment of the right to equality often must be coerced from the advantaged by the disadvantaged. Equality of opportunity was the founding creed of U.S. society, but equality among all peoples and between the sexes has proved easier to legislate than to achieve in practice. Social or religious inequality is deeply ingrained in some cultures and thus difficult to overcome ( see caste ). Government efforts to achieve economic equality include enhancing opportunities through tax policy, subsidized training and education , redistributing wealth or resources, and preferential treatment of those historically treated unequally ( see affirmative action ). See also civil rights movement ; feminism ; gay rights movement ; human rights ; Universal Declaration of Human Rights .

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The Equal Society: Essays in Theory and Practice

George Hull (ed.), The Equal Society: Essays in Theory and Practice , Rowman and Littlefield, 2015, 354pp., $100.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781498515719.

Reviewed by Valentin Beck, Freie Universität Berlin

What would be the central characteristics of a society in which its citizens are truly treated as equals? While egalitarian thinkers are united in their affirmation of the value of equality, they notoriously have -- for centuries -- disagreed about its interpretation. Egalitarianism now is a dominant current within Western moral and political philosophy, but it is also very broad and multifaceted. There is a wide range of mutually inconsistent egalitarian conceptions, ranging from libertarian and meritocratic positions to social liberal, communitarian and socialist ones. Therefore, the decisive question is not whether one should be an egalitarian, but what kind of egalitarian one should be, and how to interpret the central tenet of equal treatment more concretely in political theory and practice.

The anthology under review sheds light on this question. It offers a fascinatingly rich collection of original essays from a diverse group of scholars, some of whom have been shaping egalitarian discourse for decades. An introduction by George Hull and a helpful index complete a collection that will surely be indispensable for those wishing to take stock of recent developments in egalitarian thought. The book's more theoretical first part is dedicated to expansions and revisions of the concept of equality. It focuses on theoretical innovations concerning, among other topics, the interpretation of "social" or "relational" equality, and methodological issues such as the relation of non-ideal to ideal theory. The second part contains contributions on more applied issues, namely equality in higher education (Ann E. Cudd), the challenges to equality posed by the gendered division of labour (Gina Schouten), workplace democracy (Pierre-Yves Néron), modern constitutionalism (David Bilchitz) and historical redress claims (Daryl Glaser). The division of the book into two parts should not be misinterpreted, however. All of the contributions in one way or the other address the theoretical challenge of fleshing out the tenet of equal treatment. And while the articles in the second part have a more specific focus, those in the first also contain more concrete references to what the tenet of equal treatment implies in practice.

The volume does not take stock of the entire range of egalitarian theories, but rather assembles a variety of innovative positions and perspectives. At least six such areas receive in-depth treatment in the volume: first, the idea of "social" or "relational equality", as opposed to "distributional equality" (Jonathan Wolff, Miranda Fricker, Tom P. S. Angier, Lucy Allais, Néron and Daniel Putnam); second, the focus on race as a neglected category in egalitarian thinking (Charles W. Mills and Glaser); third, reflection on capabilities as metric of justice and wellbeing (Fricker, Bekka Williams and Hull); fourth, the importance of rectificatory justice for establishing more equal societies (Mills and Glaser); fifth, African-communitarianism as a distinct egalitarian current (Thaddeus Metz); and sixth, a negativist methodology, according to which specific inequalities or injustices should be the starting point of egalitarian theorizing, rather than the affirmation of an abstract ideal (particularly Wolff, Mills and Fricker). The treatment of this array of topics is generally very stimulating and deserves to be studied in detail. Without wishing to neglect any of these areas or essays in particular, I will limit my more extensive comments to the essays of Mills, Fricker and Wolff, in which several of the above-mentioned innovative concepts are concerned. At the end of this review, I will briefly reflect on why the present volume, which is up-to-date on an impressive number of issues, excludes any treatment of international and global economic inequalities as well as intergenerational environmental inequalities.

In "Racial Equality" Mills addresses race as a neglected category as well as the issues of methodological negativism (see Hull's introduction, p. 3, for this term) and corrective justice, which are interlinked. Mills has gained prominence by arguing that contemporary political philosophy, and particularly its contractualist strand, does not adequately address racial inequalities in liberal societies. In this essay, he argues that race is an essential category and shows the extent to which it has been neglected in what he calls "mainstream social justice theory, particularly Rawlsianism" (p. 44). Beyond this deconstructive concern, however, Mills also demonstrates how egalitarian theorizing can better incorporate issues of racial inequalities. He points to different positions on the metaphysics of race, ranging from simple eliminativism, according to which race does not exist in any sense, to variants of anti-eliminativism, including the constructivist variant to which Mills himself subscribes. Anti-eliminativist constructivism holds that races do not exist biologically, but as "socio-political constructs brought into existence through discriminatory socio-political processes" (p. 44).

From this angle, Mills analyses different forms of racism in "racist societies", which are distinguished from "overtly racist regimes" such as the U.S. under Jim Crow, Nazi Germany or South Africa under apartheid, because they lack features such as an "overtly racist ideology" or de jure discriminations (see p. 49). What matters is that racist societies still structurally advantage whites to a very significant extent, even in the absence of formal discrimination. Mills sets aside racism of the interpersonal kind, embodied in individual actions, since it is deemed "not relevant for racial inequality as a broad social phenomenon" (p. 45). Alternatively, one might argue that individual racist behaviour is relevant and could be integrated into the structural analysis that Mills is championing, since structural injustices likely influence the forms that interpersonal racism takes. Be that as it may, Mills focuses on "socio-institutional" racism (see p. 45) as the more fundamental phenomenon and which can exist even in the absence of interpersonal racism. He holds that racially unequal societies possess a "racialized basic structure" (p. 54), which discriminates against black people even while they possess formal equality with white people. These distinctions allow for the observation that ideal theory of the Rawlsian kind, which justifies principles for societies that are at least approximately just, cannot address racial discriminations of the kind that are typical for Western societies, since they simply do not exist in this framework.

This is where methodological negativism comes into play. Mills states that, instead of focusing on scenarios of roughly full compliance, theorists should start by designing principles of non-ideal theory with the aim of establishing transitional justice. This will lead to substantially different principles and priority rules, compared for example to the well-known principles that are discussed by Rawls under the notion of justice as fairness. Ideal theory does not become altogether obsolete in this variant of methodological negativism, however. Its proper function is to illustrate the ideal of a just society, which could one day be realized if principles of non-ideal theory are implemented. So despite his harsh criticism of Rawlsian ideal theory, Mills acknowledges a need for ideal theory next to non-ideal theorizing. Within his framework of "modified Rawlsianism" (p. 66), his use of the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory is also broadly in line with Rawls' usage.

Fricker, too, is renowned for addressing a category that has hitherto been neglected in egalitarian thought, namely that of epistemic injustice (2007). In "Epistemic Contribution as a Central Human Capability", Fricker builds on central themes of her groundbreaking monograph. Her goal is to show that any society dedicated to furthering human well-being has to take seriously the ways in which it enables or constrains the capacities of its members to contribute to commonly shared knowledge. In order to enhance the well-being of their members, societies must realize their capability of epistemic contribution, understood as a "combined capability" in the sense coined by Martha Nussbaum (that is, as both an internally developed and an externally enabled capability). Fricker affirms and significantly extends the capabilities metric developed by Sen and Nussbaum. Her work is more closely aligned with Nussbaum than with Sen, since she emphasizes her sympathies for the project of formulating a "list of capabilities that might at least roughly capture workable universal characterisation of human well-being" (p. 77). However, Nussbaum's list is incomplete according to Fricker, because it displays a bias towards capabilities of practical as opposed to theoretical reason (see p. 75). In going back to Wolff and Avner de-Shalit (2007, p. 45), Fricker defends a "two-directional conception of human well-being" (p. 76), reminding us that "while it is good to receive it is also good to give " (p. 75). Fricker posits that the capability of epistemic contribution consists in being able to "contribute to the pool of shared epistemic materials -- materials for knowledge, understanding, and very often for practical deliberation" (p. 76).

It is not Fricker's aim to show that we can sometimes be morally obliged not to withhold knowledge from others, which would be a relatively easy and straightforward task depending on the concrete type and context of concealment in question. She instead aims to show that it is good and even essential for their wellbeing for individuals to contribute knowledge to society. Individuals' capabilities of epistemic contribution can be constrained or enabled by certain types of interpersonal behaviour as well as by societal structures. To justify why the protection of this capability of theoretical reason is important, Fricker draws on the value of non-domination in the sense of liberty from arbitrary interference made famous by Philip Pettit. Pettit argues that freedom from arbitrary interference can only be secured through public institutions which allow members of society to publicly contest such interferences. For such contestation, however, the capability of epistemic contribution must in turn be realized (see p. 86).

Beyond introducing a concept that deserves the concern of egalitarians in theory and practice, Fricker sheds light on a number of other hotly debated issues, such as the critique of recipient-oriented approaches to equality and the conceptualization of relational equality. Fricker also has interesting things to say on what she calls a "failure-first methodology" (p. 74), which informs her account of epistemic injustice and her concept of epistemic contribution. Her methodology is similar to Mills', in that it places an emphasis on starting with the negative. But it diverges at least in one respect: for Fricker, starting with the negative is not necessarily tied to non-ideal theorizing, since the concepts of "justice" and "equality" need to be comprehensively interpreted by taking into account the "endemic pressures for collapse into injustice and inequality" (p. 73). Fricker therefore emphasizes that a failure-first-methodology is conceptually distinct from the dichotomy of ideal and non-ideal theorizing and can yield fruitful results within either framework.

In "Social Equality, Relative Poverty and Marginalised Groups", Wolff answers these methodological questions differently. Wolff's aim is to analyze how absolute and relative poverty prevent the achievement of a (truly) equal society, which he defines as one that is free from asymmetrical relations and from relations of estrangement and alienation. His methodology for this enterprise is set out at the start of the essay. Like Mills and Fricker, Wolff emphasizes the importance of "starting from problems with the actual world rather than a depiction of an ideal world" (p. 24). But unlike Mills and Fricker, who each acknowledge the significance of ideal theory when appropriately combined with non-ideal theory, Wolff completely rejects ideal theory. He holds that "an ideal theory of social equality is hard to sustain, because it is very difficult to give precise and unique content to an ideal of social equality" (p. 22). Instead, there are "many different ways in which a society could count as a 'society of equals' . . . . Quaker Society, a Kibbutz, and a 1960s Californian Hippy community may all, if things go well, count as small-scale societies of equals" (p. 23). In place of the term of non-ideal theory Wolff suggests that of "real-world political philosophy" (p. 22), because it avoids any connotation of dependence on ideal theorizing.

Looking at the work of Mills, Fricker, and Wolff, we can distinguish three variants of methodological negativism. Mills' variant is placed within the classical Rawlsian understanding of ideal and non-ideal theory, but displays a much greater emphasis on the latter as opposed to the former. Fricker's approach underlines the distinctness and complementarity of the negativist methodology by stating that it can be applied to either non-ideal or ideal theorizing. Wolff's methodological negativism transcends the classic distinction of ideal and non-ideal theory by rejecting the focus on ideals for political theory altogether. Mills' and Fricker's approaches to methodological negativism are in principle compatible, but Wolff's approach cannot be reconciled with them, due to his complete rejection of ideal theory.

Methodological concerns are not the only focus in Wolff's article. His two main themes are providing an account of different forms of poverty, and reflecting on how to tackle them from a perspective that values the idea of "social equality" (widely treated as synonymous with "relational equality"). This idea has gained steam in recent years since being affirmed in the writings of thinkers such as Elizabeth Anderson, Samuel Scheffler and Tim Scanlon, and it is also treated in a number of other contributions to the volume (compare the third paragraph above; see also Fourie/Schuppert/Wallimann-Helmer 2015). Wolff dedicates particular attention to the notion of relative poverty and how it is connected with that of social (in)equality. Poverty is dependent on what is customary in a given society, Adam Smith noted when he wrote that "in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt" (Smith 1776, book 5, ch. 2). According to Wolff, "one is in relative poverty if one lacks the consumption and household goods customary in one's society, or lacks resources sufficient to allow a social life, or is unable to purchase what is needed to avoid shame" (p. 26). While this tripartite notion of relative poverty has material implications, it is preferable to purely monetary definitions (e.g. defining poverty as receiving an income below 60 percent of the median income). Numerical definitions of poverty scratch only at the surface of what it means to be poor, and fail to distinguish between material inequalities, as problematic as they may otherwise be, and poverty. Wolff's definition shows how relative poverty and social inequality are connected yet distinct phenomena. They are not identical because there can be other forms of inequality that are not reflected in a lack of resources to participate in customary social practices -- such as asymmetric race or gender relations. Wolff analyses different constellations of deprivation that result from the desire to "fit in", such as when people spend resources on status goods such as mobile phones despite lacking the resources for basic necessities (see p. 29). Fighting poverty effectively might also be complicated by the fact that "fitting in" to a local community might require different resources or efforts than fitting in to society more broadly.

Wolff's account of poverty is illuminating. It shows how relative poverty may be interpreted from a social egalitarian perspective, according to which equal distributions of specific goods are not of ultimate, but only derivative egalitarian concern. His essay should be of interest not only for normative and empirical theorists, but also for policy-makers and others who deal with the goal of poverty-alleviation in practice.

The articles by Mills, Fricker and Wolff are representative of a collection that embodies the state of the art of contemporary egalitarian theory in many respects. Two important subjects, however, are missing from the otherwise multifaceted picture. There is no engagement with economic inequalities beyond the nation state. Neither does this work treat intergenerational environmental inequalities resulting from environmental degradation and man-made climate change. These two concerns give egalitarians reason to question the fairness and legitimacy of the international order. To start with, the distribution of income and capital across nation states remains highly unequal, which increases incentives for those who find themselves in less fortunate circumstances to seek better living conditions abroad. Furthermore, while trade with resources, goods and services has never been more global and interdependent than today, it may be argued that the current system has primarily benefitted the world's wealthy and powerful, and that it rests on practices that are highly environmentally destructive and which violate the basic human rights of labourers and affected populations. Finally, past and present generations have contributed to environmental degradation and fossil fuel consumption to a much larger degree than future generations will, assuming they act in such a way as to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes.

What should we make of the absence of these topics in an anthology that seeks to shed light on contemporary egalitarian theorizing? An uncharitable reading may trace it back to an unexpressed particularism. It would be hard to argue that demands of equal treatment stop at national or communal borders or generational confines -- at least not in a highly interdependent world like ours. Neither could the widely shared social (or relational) egalitarian perspective plausibly attach any such categorical constraints to egalitarian demands. New technologies now allow an increasing number of the world's least well-off individuals to compare themselves to more privileged individuals across national boundaries, which in turn affects what they seek to achieve in life and what they will regard as justified or unjustified inequalities. A more charitable interpretation is that a single anthology simply cannot cover all of the issues that are currently at the forefront of egalitarian theory. However, it should be clear that while it remains important and rewarding to reflect on the conditions of "The Equal Society", an egalitarian should certainly not stop there. Instead, she should also ask what it would mean to transform transnational and transgenerational relations in a way so that all humans are (truly) treated as equals.

Carina Fourie, Fabian Schuppert, Ivo Wallimann-Helmer (eds.), Social Equality: On What It Means to Be Equals , Oxford University Press 2015.

Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing , Oxford University Press 2007.

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], edited by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press 1976.

Jonathan Wolff/Avner De-Shalit, Disadvantage , Oxford University Press 2007.

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The Equality Conundrum

Michael and Angela have just turned fifty-five. They know two people who have died in the past few years—one from cancer, another in a car accident. It occurs to them that they should make a plan for their kids. They have some money in the bank. Suppose they were both killed in a plane crash—what would happen to it?

They have four children, who range in age from their late teens to their late twenties. Chloe, the oldest, is a math wiz with a coding job at Google; she hopes to start her own company soon. Will, who has a degree in social work, is paying off his student debt while working at a halfway house for recovering addicts. The twins, James and Alexis, are both in college. James, a perpetually stoned underachiever, is convinced that he can make it as a YouTuber. (He’s already been suspended twice, for on-campus pranks.) Alexis, who hopes to become a poet, has a congenital condition that could leave her blind by middle age.

At first, Michael and Angela plan to divide their money equally. Then they start to think about it. Chloe is on the fast track to remunerative Silicon Valley success; Will is burdened by debt in his quest to help the vulnerable. If James were to come into an inheritance, he’d likely grow even lazier, spending it on streetwear and edibles; Alexis, with her medical situation, might need help later in life. Maybe, Michael and Angela think, it doesn’t make sense to divide the money into equal portions after all. Something more sophisticated might be required. What matters to them is that their children flourish equally, and this might mean giving the kids unequal amounts—an unappealing prospect.

The philosopher Ronald Dworkin considered this type of parental conundrum in an essay called “What Is Equality?,” from 1981. The parents in such a family, he wrote, confront a trade-off between two worthy egalitarian goals. One goal, “equality of resources,” might be achieved by dividing the inheritance evenly, but it has the downside of failing to recognize important differences among the parties involved. Another goal, “equality of welfare,” tries to take account of those differences by means of twisty calculations. Take the first path, and you willfully ignore meaningful facts about your children. Take the second, and you risk dividing the inheritance both unevenly and incorrectly.

In 2014, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to rank the “greatest dangers in the world.” A plurality put inequality first, ahead of “religious and ethnic hatred,” nuclear weapons, and environmental degradation. And yet people don’t agree about what, exactly, “equality” means. In the past year, for example, New York City residents have found themselves in a debate over the city’s élite public high schools, such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Some ethnicities are vastly overrepresented at the schools, while others are dramatically underrepresented. What to do? One side argues that the city should guarantee procedural equality: it should insure that all students and families are equally informed about and encouraged to study for the entrance exam. The other side argues for a more direct, representation-based form of equality: it would jettison the exam, adopting a new admissions system designed to produce student bodies reflective of the city’s demography. Both groups pursue worthy egalitarian goals, but each approach runs against the other. Because people and their circumstances differ, there is, Dworkin writes, a trade-off between treating people equally and treating them “as equals.”

The complexities of egalitarianism are especially frustrating because inequalities are so easy to grasp. C.E.O.s, on average, make almost three hundred times what their employees make; billionaire donors shape our politics; automation favors owners over workers; urban economies grow while rural areas stagnate; the best health care goes to the richest. Across the political spectrum, we grieve the loss of what Alexis de Tocqueville called the “general equality of conditions,” which, with the grievous exception of slavery, once shaped American society. It’s not just about money. Tocqueville, writing in 1835, noted that our “ordinary practices of life” were egalitarian, too: we behaved as if there weren’t many differences among us. Today, there are “premiere” lines for popcorn at the movies and five tiers of Uber; we still struggle to address obvious inequalities of all kinds based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other aspects of identity. Inequality is everywhere, and unignorable. We’ve diagnosed the disease. Why can’t we agree on a cure?

In January of 2015, Jeremy Waldron, a political philosopher at New York University’s School of Law, delivered a series of lectures at the University of Edinburgh on the fundamental nature of human equality. He began by provoking his audience. “Look around you,” he said, “and look at the differences between you.” The crowd included the old and the young, men and women, the beautiful and the ugly, the rich and the poor, the healthy and the infirm, the high-status and the low. In theory, Waldron said, the audience could contain “soldiers as well as civilians, fugitives and convicts as well as law-abiding citizens, homeless people as well as property owners”—even “bankrupts, infants, lunatics,” all with different legal rights.

In a book based on those lectures, “One Another’s Equals: The Basis of Human Equality,” Waldron points out that people are also marked by differences of skill, experience, creativity, and virtue. Given such consequential differences, he asks, in what sense are people “equal”? Waldron believes in our fundamental equality; as a philosopher, however, he wants to know why he believes in it.

According to the Declaration of Independence, it is “self-evident” that all men are created equal. But, from a certain perspective, it’s our inequality that’s self-evident. A decade ago, the writer Deborah Solomon asked Donald Trump what he thought of the idea that “all men are created equal.” “It’s not true,” Trump reportedly said. “Some people are born very smart. Some people are born not so smart. Some people are born very beautiful, and some people are not, so you can’t say they’re all created equal.” Trump acknowledged that everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law but concluded that “All men are created equal” is “a very confusing phrase to a lot of people.” More than twenty per cent of Americans, according to a 2015 poll, agree: they believe that the statement “All men are created equal” is false.

In Waldron’s view, though, it’s not a binary choice; it’s possible to see people as equal and unequal simultaneously. A society can sort its members into various categories—lawful and criminal, brilliant and not—while also allowing some principle of basic equality to circumscribe its judgments and, in some contexts, override them. Egalitarians like Dworkin and Waldron call this principle “deep equality.” It’s because of deep equality that even those people who acquire additional, justified worth through their actions—heroes, senators, pop stars—can still be considered fundamentally no better than anyone else. By the same token, Waldron says, deep equality insures that even the most heinous murderer can be seen as a member of the human race, “with all the worth and status that this implies.” Deep equality—among other principles—ought to tell us that it’s wrong to sequester the small children of migrants in squalid prisons, whatever their legal status. Waldron wants to find its source.

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In the course of his search, he explores centuries of intellectual history. Many thinkers, from Cicero to Locke, have argued that our ability to reason is what makes us equals. (But isn’t this ability itself unequally distributed?) Other thinkers, including Immanuel Kant, have cited our moral sense. (But doesn’t this restrict equality to the virtuous?) Some philosophers, such as Jeremy Bentham, have suggested that it’s our capacity to suffer that equalizes us. (But then, many animals suffer, too.) Others have nominated our capacity to love. (But what about selfish, hard-hearted people?) It would be helpful, on a practical level, if there were a well-defined basis for our deep equality. Such a basis might guide our thinking. If deep equality turned out to be based on our ability to suffer, for example, then Michael and Angela might feel better about giving their daughter Alexis, who risks blindness, more money than her siblings. But Waldron finds none of these arguments totally persuasive.

In various religious traditions, he observes, equality flows not just from broad assurances that we are all made in God’s image but from some sense that everyone is the protagonist in a saga of error, realization, and redemption: we’re equal because God cares about how things turn out for each of us. He notes that atheists, too, might locate our equality in the idea that we each have our own story. Waldron himself is taken by Hannah Arendt’s related concept of “natality,” the notion that what each of us share is having been born as a “newcomer,” entering into history with “the capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of acting.” And yet Arendt herself was pessimistic about the quest for a proof of equality; in her view, the Holocaust had revealed that there was “nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human.” If that’s true, then equality may be not a self-evident fact about human beings but a human-made social construction that we must choose to put into practice.

In the end, Waldron concludes that there is no “small polished unitary soul-like substance” that makes us equal; there’s only a patchwork of arguments for our deep equality, collectively compelling but individually limited. Equality is a composite idea—a nexus of complementary and competing intuitions.

The blurry nature of equality makes it hard to solve egalitarian dilemmas from first principles. In each situation, we must feel our way forward, reconciling our conflicting intuitions about what “equal” means. Deep equality is still an important idea—it tells us, among other things, that discrimination and bigotry are wrong. But it isn’t, in itself, fine-grained enough to answer thorny questions about how a community should divide up what it has. To answer those questions, it must be augmented by other, narrower tenets.

The communities that have the easiest time doing that tend to have some clearly defined, shared purpose. Sprinters competing in a hundred-metre dash have varied endowments and train in different conditions; from a certain perspective, those differences make every race unfair. (How can you compete with someone who has better genes?) But runners form an egalitarian community with a common goal—finding out who’s fastest—and so they have invented rules and procedures (qualifying heats, drug bans) that allow them to consider a race valid as long as no one jumps the gun. By embracing an agreed-upon theory of equality before the race, the sprinters can find collective meaning in the ranked inequalities that emerge when it ends. A hospital, similarly, might find an egalitarian way to do the necessary work of giving some patients priority over others, perhaps by adopting a theory of equality that ignores certain kinds of differences (some patients are rich, others poor) while acknowledging others (some patients are in urgent trouble, others less so). What matters, above all, is that the scheme makes sense to those involved.

Because maintaining such agreements takes constant work, egalitarian communities are always in danger of disintegrating. Nevertheless, the egalitarian landscape is dotted with islands of agreement: communes, co-ops, and well-organized competitions in which a shared theory of equality is used for some practical purpose. An individual family might divide up its chores by agreeing on a theory of equality that balances quick, unpleasant tasks, such as bathroom-cleaning, with slower, more enjoyable ones, such as dog-walking. This sort of artisanal egalitarianism is comparatively easy to arrange. Mass-producing it is what’s hard. A whole society can’t get together in a room to hash things out. Instead, consensus must coalesce slowly around broad egalitarian principles.

No principle is perfect; each contains hidden dangers that emerge with time. Many people, in contemplating the division of goods, invoke the principle of necessity: the idea that our first priority should be the equal fulfillment of fundamental needs. The hidden danger here becomes apparent once we go past a certain point of subsistence. When Fyodor Dostoyevsky went to military school, he wrote home to ask his land-owning but cash-strapped father, Mikhail Andreevich, for new boots and other furnishings, arguing that, without them, he would be ostracized. Mikhail Andreevich recognized his son’s changed needs and granted his request; he died soon afterward, under mysterious circumstances, and Dostoyevsky came to believe that he had been murdered by the serfs he had overworked. The episode, which helped inspire “The Brothers Karamazov,” also illustrates a core problem that bedevils egalitarianism—what philosophers call “the problem of expensive tastes.”

The problem—what feels like a necessity to one person seems like a luxury to another—is familiar to anyone who’s argued with a foodie spouse or roommate about the grocery bill. It applies not just to material goods but to societal ones. To an environmentalist, protecting the spotted owl is a necessity; to a logger who stands to lose his job, it’s a luxury. The problem is so insistent that a whole body of political philosophy—“prioritarianism”—is devoted to the challenge of sorting people with needs from people with wants. It’s difficult in part because the line shifts as the years pass. Medical procedures that seem optional today become necessities tomorrow; educational attainments that were once unusual, such as college degrees, become increasingly indispensable with time. In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, four economists evaluated the success of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. They found that, judging by a modernized version of the definition of “poverty” which Johnson used, the poverty rate in America fell from 19.5 per cent in 1963 to 2.3 per cent in 2017. Still, they note in their paper, “expectations for minimum living standards evolve.” Today, taking advantage of the social safety net that the War on Poverty put in place—food stamps, Medicaid, and so on—is itself a sign of poverty. A new, more robust safety net—free college, Medicare for All—becomes, for some, an egalitarian necessity.

Some thinkers try to tame the problem of expensive tastes by asking what a “normal” or “typical” person might find necessary. But it’s easy to define “typical” too narrowly, letting unfair assumptions influence our judgments. In an influential 1999 article called “What Is the Point of Equality?,” the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson pointed out an odd feature of our social contract: if you’re fired from your job, unemployment benefits help keep you afloat, while if you stop working to have a child you must deal with the loss of income yourself. This contradiction, she writes, reveals an assumption that “the desire to procreate is just another expensive taste”; it reflects, she argues, the sexist presumption that “atomistic egoism and self-sufficiency” are the human norm. The word “necessity” suggests the idea of a bare minimum. In fact, it sets a high bar. Clearing it may require rethinking how society functions.

Perhaps because necessity is so demanding, our egalitarian commitments tend to rest on a different principle: luck. The philosopher Richard Arneson explained the idea a couple of decades ago: “Some people are blessed with good luck, some are cursed with bad luck, and it is the responsibility of society—all of us regarded collectively—to alter the distribution of goods and evils that arises from the jumble of lotteries that constitutes human life as we know it.” Anderson, in an influential coinage, calls this outlook “luck egalitarianism.”

Instead of dividing things up by asking what people need, a luck-egalitarian system tries to equalize the distribution of misfortune. If you’re born on the wrong side of the tracks, or if your house is destroyed in an unpredictable natural disaster, luck egalitarianism suggests that you deserve help. If you screw up—by squandering your savings, launching a failed business, and so on—you’re on your own. It’s to luck egalitarianism that we owe the metaphors of the “level playing field” and the “social safety net.” The first equalizes the bad luck we’re born with; the second, the bad luck that finds us as adults.

As Americans, we are charged with recognizing two conflicting values: individualism and egalitarianism. By smoothing out the unlucky differences while accepting those for which people are responsible, luck egalitarianism promises to help us be individualists and egalitarians simultaneously. But, as Anderson and others have argued, doing this is harder than it sounds. One problem, Anderson writes, is that luck egalitarianism condescends to those it helps: by seeing them as hapless victims of circumstance, it denies them the “equal respect” they’re due as citizens of a democracy. (It’s perhaps for this reason that the people who might benefit from the extension of government programs so often vote against them.)

Another problem, which the political theorist Yascha Mounk explores in “The Age of Responsibility: Luck, Choice, and the Welfare State,” is that the distinction between choice and luck is hard to sustain. If you sleep in instead of coming to work every day and then get fired, you’re clearly making bad choices. But what if you’re born into a family with an income just north of the poverty line, then drop out of high school to get a dead-end job? In all likelihood, you’ve suffered from bad luck and made bad choices. Suppose you turn down a place at your state university to take a job at the auto plant where your parents work, and the plant then closes. The closing of the plant was out of your control, but the decision to work there rather than go to college was yours to make. If you’d acquired more skills, would you be more employable? Or would the forces of globalization that led to the closure of the plant have narrowed your job prospects no matter your training? You might lie awake night after night mulling such questions without settling on answers; it’s absurd, Mounk writes, to expect “a real-world state bureaucracy to answer such intricate hypothetical questions about millions of citizens.”

The distinction between choice and luck, he argues, is a matter not of fact but of perspective. Explanations of human behavior have traditionally been divided into two groups: those which focus on the forces that push us around and those which emphasize how, as individuals, we can choose to resist them. The same phenomenon can be viewed from either side of the so-called structure-agency distinction. For most of the twentieth century, Mounk writes, criminologists looked at crime from a structural perspective: they urged politicians to fight it by reducing poverty—its root cause. Later, however, they changed tack: they began examining the motivations of individual criminals and asking how potential wrongdoers, as “agents,” might be dissuaded from committing crimes. The criminologists weren’t repudiating their prior insights about poverty, Mounk says; they were just looking at crime from a different perspective. The agent-based perspective was more useful to police officers, who couldn’t lift a neighborhood out of poverty but could change the way they patrolled it.

Mounk thinks that most people understand, intuitively, that the distinction between structure and agency is—like the distinction between “nature” and “nurture”—an artifact of explanation, not a part of reality. All explanations are limited, we know, and tell only part of the story. This, he writes, is why we are so ambivalent about luck egalitarianism and the politicians who see the world through its lens. Conservatives, hoping to constrain the size of the welfare state, overstate how much control people have over their lives; liberals, hoping to expand it, overstate our powerlessness. But both positions are unconvincing. “While voters are receptive to the idea that it is deeply unjust for some public schools to have better funding than others, they balk when they are told that students who do well in school are merely lucky,” Mounk writes. “And while they recognize that the explanation for the stagnating living standards of average people lies in larger structural transformations of the world economy, they are skeptical when they are told that the choices of specific individuals don’t play any role in determining their particular economic fate.”

There’s a problem with finding problems with egalitarianism. The head fights the gut; complexities can’t drown out the moral law within. Reading Waldron, Anderson, Mounk, and other thinkers on egalitarianism, I found myself remembering a time that started when I was eleven or twelve years old. My parents were divorced and rarely spoke; I went to three middle schools in three years, one bad, one middling, one good. The bad school was near my mother’s house, where we lived in the basement, having rented out the main floor. The good school was in a wealthy suburb. I attended it by claiming to live at the address of a family friend who had a small apartment, above a commercial space, on its edge. (So-called enrollment fraud is common across the country, especially in places where rich and poor school districts border each other.)

For a while, I took the bus home to the apartment, hanging out there until late in the evening. When this arrangement grew untenable, my mother devised a plan. She’d struck up a conversation with a cabdriver and taken his card; she called him and asked if, for a flat monthly fee, he’d pick me up at school each day and drop me at my father’s house, a short drive away. There weren’t many fares at two-thirty in the afternoon in the Maryland suburbs, and he said yes.

Peter, the cabdriver, began picking me up from a hidden spot past the soccer fields, under some trees. He was from West Africa, with an accent I sometimes struggled with. We talked about his home town, his girlfriend, the books I was reading—Stephen King, for the most part—in which he sweetly expressed an interest. Eventually, two of my friends, who were also picked up after school, discovered my secret spot and joined me there. As Peter and I drove away, everyone waved.

One day, Peter was agitated when he arrived. “I have to make a detour, O.K.?” he said. “Don’t tell your mom.” He didn’t wave to my friends, and we took a left instead of a right, eventually entering a neighborhood of small, unkempt row houses. As we drove, Peter told me how the taxi business worked. He didn’t own his cab; he rented it from the cab company, in a rent-to-own arrangement. If he missed his monthly payment, the company took the cab back. The payment was extremely high. “I drive and I drive and I drive,” he said. “But I can’t make it. I can’t make it!” As we pulled up in front of his cousin’s house, he sobbed. I watched from the back seat as he returned to the cab, weeping, with borrowed cash in his hand.

I wasn’t a sheltered kid; I knew about economic hardship. A few times that year, my mother had fallen behind on our bills, and our power had been cut off; we’d showered and eaten dinner in the dark. She’d hidden her despair, but Peter had shared his. For him, the bottom could fall out faster and more completely. More than a decade later, in a Dickensian coincidence, Peter, who was still driving cabs, picked my father up from the airport and gave him a business card. Peter started driving him, too; that year, on a trip with my dad and his family, Peter and I were reunited, to our great delight. But not long afterward he died. He suffered from diabetes and hypertension, and had no health insurance; he went too long before seeking treatment for an infection in his toe. It got into his bloodstream, and he died of septic shock.

Injustice isn’t cerebral. Peter and I were two equal people on the same earth. What’s so complicated about that?

The gap between intuition and argument—between outrage and the best response to that outrage—is the subject of Robert Tsai’s “Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation.” Tsai, a law professor at American University, places great weight on the intuition that we are “one another’s equals”—and yet, he writes, it’s inevitable that, “in a diverse democracy, people will disagree about what equality means.” Hashing out questions of equality, he concludes, can be so fraught, so confusing, that the wisest course is sometimes to circumvent them. Inequality can be resisted, and equality pursued, by other, less tangled means.

Tsai, a constitutional litigator, is intimately familiar with how arguments about equality have unfolded in the courts. Often, he writes, the moral magnetism of equality backfires. To crusade for it is to be on the side of justice, and so there is no choice but to accuse those obstructing it of being racists, misogynists, élitists, or oppressors. Tsai tells the story of City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., a Supreme Court case from 1985. A private company proposed opening a group home for thirteen intellectually disabled residents in the small city of Cleburne; it was thwarted by a local ordinance that required a permit for the opening of facilities for the “feeble-minded.” City officials opposed to the home cited a variety of concerns: the preservation of the neighborhood’s “serenity,” the danger to nearby elderly people, the possibility that bullies from a nearby junior high school would torment their new neighbors. Advocates for it pointed out that the ordinance’s origins lay in the country’s eugenicist past. (In 1927, a Supreme Court decision permitted the sterilization of the intellectually disabled “for the protection and health of the state.”)

When the case reached the Supreme Court, the arguments against the ordinance were mostly framed in terms of equality. Some people likened it to an apartheid law: it was no different, they argued, from a rule barring the construction of hospitals for people of a particular religion or ethnicity. The Reagan Administration, defending the law, argued that, since the disabled did have “distinctive needs and abilities,” treating them differently need not reflect “invidious and derogatory aims.” The table was set for an intractable egalitarian debate. A morally charged yet abstract question had been raised about the place of intellectual disabilities within a society committed to equality; the answer would concretely affect millions of disabled people. And that discussion, in turn, had been connected to the accusation that those who objected to the home were closed-minded bigots—a charge sure to rally many of their fellow-citizens to their defense. The likelihood of the Court coming to a universally convincing conclusion seemed remote.

In the end, Tsai writes, the Justices decided to avoid thinking in terms of equality. Instead, they applied the “rule of reason,” asking whether the citizens’ concerns had any rational basis, and concluding that they did not. By taking this approach, the Court avoided entirely the question of whether the citizens who objected to the home were motivated by bigotry; it also skirted the Waldronesque question of what it might mean to treat intellectually disabled people equally. And yet, Tsai writes, the Court still created a basically egalitarian outcome, and “placed discriminatory action based on damaging cultural stereotypes off-limits.”

The Court used the same approach in other equality-enhancing decisions. In United States v. Virginia, from 1996, a female high-school student filed a complaint against the Virginia Military Institute (the so-called West Point of the South), which excluded women. The arguments on her behalf, which leaned heavily on equality, soon got bogged down in the question of what it might mean for the Institute to treat male and female cadets equally. Instead of weighing in on that issue, the Court ruled that there was no rational basis for denying women admission.

These cases and many others, Tsai believes, show that it’s often more practical to pursue “equality by other means” than to sail into the crosscurrents of egalitarian debate. Reasonableness, or rationality, is one test to which we can subject inegalitarian systems or rules. One can also ask whether they are fair, whether their specific consequences are cruel, whether all relevant voices have been heard. Answering these questions isn’t always easy, but it’s easier than generating consensus about what “equal” means. We make more progress, Tsai argues, when we “shift the focus of moral outrage.”

Language itself may be misleading us. Appalled by inequality, our minds turn immediately to its opposite. Sidestepping that impulse, as Tsai advocates, requires giving up a satisfying rhetorical clarity, but it may bring us closer to our moral common sense. The philosopher David Schmidtz explains why in a 2006 book titled “Elements of Justice.” Schmidtz begins by asking us to contemplate what makes a neighborhood a good place to live: a thriving community might have a grocery store, a fire station, a library, a playground. Similarly, a system of justice must have a few different structures to be livable. It’s easy to imagine justice as a unitary thing—a single, imposing building, a Supreme Court. But it’s more like a collection of buildings, each with its own function.

In the neighborhood of justice, Schmidtz identifies four structures: equality, desert, reciprocity, and need. We consult these in different contexts, to solve different kinds of problems. Citizens are owed equality before the law. Workers, by contrast, should be compensated differently, depending on what they have accomplished. In relationships with our partners, we favor reciprocity. In trying to do right by our children, we ask what they need. (Michael and Angela, in considering their will, might focus on necessity more than the other concepts: instead of asking “What do they deserve?” or “What have they done for us lately?,” they might ask, “What do our kids need?”) None of these principles are capacious enough to serve in every situation; in fact, they are often in tension with one another. And they can be used inappropriately. No one wants a merit-based marriage. A workplace that operates by reciprocity is a dysfunctional one.

In real life, therefore, we amble around the neighborhood of justice. A coach doesn’t run her team on egalitarian principles alone; to win, she must field the best players more often. But she doesn’t run a ruthless meritocracy, either. On a good team, players get the help they need, they assist one another reciprocally, they’re rewarded for their individual accomplishments, and they are treated similarly enough that they feel connected in a common enterprise.

The frustrations and complexities of egalitarianism reflect the hidden complexity of equality. It looks simple and self-evident, as though one could proclaim it into existence. But achieving it requires a willingness to recognize, and to shift among, many different conceptions of what’s right—a kind of moral egalitarianism. Even equality itself, as an ideal, is insufficient. No one version of the good can rule the rest. ♦

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Background Essay: Rights, Equality, and Citizenship

Directions:

Keep these discussion questions in mind as you read the background essay, making marginal notes as desired. Respond to the reflection and analysis questions at the end of the essay.

Discussion Questions

• Is suffrage a right or a privilege?
• Is suffrage necessary for a person to be considered a citizen?
• Is legal equality necessary for liberty?
• Can a person be free if not equal under the law?

Introduction

What is equality? What is the connection between equality and citizenship? The principle of equality means that all individuals have the same status regarding their claim to natural rights and treatment before the law. Our definition of citizenship has expanded throughout American history, most often through claims to our natural equality. The story of women’s suffrage is an example of the patience, determination, and sacrifice necessary to carry out long term change within a constitutional order. The word, suffrage, meaning “the right to vote,” originated with the Latin suffragium, meaning “a vote cast in an assembly, or influence given in support of a candidate.”

The Declaration of Independence asserts as a self-evident truth that all people were created equal. Something “self-evident” is a plain truth that does not need to be proven through reasoned deduction from other principles. It is apparent immediately (or self-evident) to any reasonable observer that there are no natural differences among people which give one person or group of people (such as kings and queens) the power to rule over others without their consent. All have equal rights and dignity.

In his Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690), as part of an argument against slavery, English philosopher John Locke theorized that all people are born free: “The natural liberty of man [human beings] is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man [humans], but to have only the law of nature for his rule.”

Almost a century later, Samuel Adams quoted Locke regarding the natural liberty of man, agreeing that all people are created equally free; there are no natural rulers.

Equality and Natural Rights

Further, the Declaration asserts that it was “self-evident” that human beings were “endowed by their Creator” with certain rights. In the Founders’ view, since rights come from God, the creator of our human nature, an individual’s natural rights could be neither given nor taken away. They are, to use the Declaration’s word, unalienable

The term “natural” here refers to human nature. Natural rights are those rights humans have at birth, including life, liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and others. No person or government can “give” an individual these rights; they are part of what it means to be human. One can know natural rights are natural because they can all be exercised without requiring anything from others. Natural rights are sometimes called negative rights for this reason. They are also called inherent rights because they inhere in humanity: they are an essential characteristic of human nature.

Painting depicting Thomas Jefferson and his fellow committee members presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Second Continental Congress. Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull, 1819. United States Capitol.

“Nobody Can Give More Power Than He Has Himself”

The assertion of inherent rights remains the foundation for the principle of equality. In the same argument against slavery, Locke reasoned:

“This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it…for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. Nobody can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.”

In other words, Locke maintained, individual lives and the rights that flow from human nature belong to the Creator

Again, Adams echoes Locke in The Rights of the Colonists (1772):

“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate [make void] such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

Because humans are born with inherent rights, these rights are the same under any political system. An unjust government— including a tyrannical majority—may abuse or abridge the people’s inherent rights, but can never remove them, since these rights are essential to human nature.

But not all rights are inherent. Political rights, for example, may vary through times and places, because, unlike natural rights, they are given by government. Many political rights, including voting and serving on juries, have been expanded to more groups of people throughout American history through claims to natural and inherent equality. Although people use the term “rights” to refer to them, these rights conferred by civil society could more accurately be considered privileges—abilities that can be justly given or denied by government under certain conditions. For example, a driver’s license will be granted if a person passes a driving test, but can be revoked for drunk driving or too many accidents. A person can lose the ability to serve on a jury and to vote if convicted of a felony. People have inherent rights by nature, but must have permission in order to exercise a privilege.

Samuel Adams by John Singleton Copley, about 1772; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The U.S. Constitution

The Declaration asserted two more principles that were self-evident: that in order to secure our rights, “governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and that when a government repeatedly abuses the peoples’ rights, the people have the power and the duty to “alter or abolish” it and create a new government that will better protect their rights and ensure their safety and happiness.

After a time under the Articles of Confederation, many observers recognized the need for a more powerful central government, giving rise to a convention of the states in 1787. The resulting new Constitution’s opening lines “We the people…ordain and establish this Constitution” outlined a government of limited powers, recognizing the sovereignty of the individual and protecting the natural right of the people to govern themselves.

With this right to self-government come many responsibilities. In fact, it could be argued that citizenship is more about responsibilities than about rights. Individuals are free to make choices about their government and direct their own lives within a system that guarantees the equal right (and responsibility) of others to do the same. The Constitution reflects the sovereignty of the individual, by limiting the national government to certain enumerated powers, leaving everything else to the states and to the people.

Theory vs. Practice

Despite the bold proclamation, the principle of equality was not meaningfully reflected in the lives of all people during the early republic. Enslaved persons and Native Americans were unable to exercise their inherent rights and were not afforded political rights. The Constitution sanctioned slavery both explicitly and implicitly: it gave Congress the power to ban the international slave trade, but mandated a 20-year waiting period before doing so. The Constitution also allowed slave states to count three-fifths of their enslaved population toward the calculation of those states’ representation in Congress. Though this compromise prevented slave states from having even greater power (they had wanted to count their entire slave populations), the policy tolerated the practice of owning and trading in human beings. Though many of the leading Founders were convinced of the evils and injustices of slavery, they did not end it in their lifetimes.

Women also lacked legal equality. Enslaved women and Native American women were denied all of their rights. Among white women, and depending on varying state laws, widows had some political rights and could own property, but married white women had no legal status at all under the traditional doctrine of coverture. The English jurist William Blackstone explained this doctrine in 1765. Through marriage, husband and wife become one person under the law: “the  very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything.”

The Constitution left voting requirements to the states, and so states could adopt different policies. Some states did away with property requirements but still required voters to be taxpayers. Some states required a tax to vote, or a poll tax. Vermont became the first state to grant universal male suffrage in 1777. New Jersey allowed property-owning white women and free African Americans to vote for a short time before that right was revoked in 1807.

Extending Equality

The Founding generation did not perfectly live out its ideal of equality. However, it provided a foundation for greater expansion of liberty through time. Through sustained effort and commitment over time, Americans have persistently appealed to Founding documents and their root principles to insist on changes that gradually recognized and protected both natural and civil rights.

The women’s suffrage movement provides a model for implementing social and legal change to better align institutions with principles of liberty, justice, and equality. The pathway for change was long. Seventy-two years passed between the Declaration of Independence assertion of self-evident and equal natural rights and the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, where women planned to “discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman.” In most parts of America in 1848 it was considered improper—even illegal—for women to speak in public meetings. Now they were convening one. It took another seventytwo years of struggle for women to achieve a constitutional amendment—the Nineteenth in 1920—protecting their right to vote, and guaranteeing their opportunity to participate more fully in the political process.

The Constitution contains the means to institute the meaningful changes required to bring it more in line with the governing principles on which it was founded. One of these methods is the amendment process, which is slow but effective. Reformers committed to equality and justice endured hardship and sacrifice to implement the amendment process to end slavery, and to grant the vote to black men, women, and people ages 18-21. Other methods of aligning the law with these principles, particularly equality, result from the system of checks and balances. The Supreme Court in 1954 checked the power of majorities in states when it ruled segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Congress has also invoked its enumerated powers to protect legal equality with laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Appeals to equality continue today as Americans debate the meaning of the principle as it applies to undocumented immigrants, the unborn, LGBTQ community members, disabled people, and many others.

REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS QUESTIONS

• On what basis did John Locke and Samuel Adams claim that slavery was unjust?
• List four truths the Declaration of Independence asserts are self-evident.
• What is a natural right?
• Should voting be considered a right or a privilege? Explain your choice.
• Do you agree with Locke that there are limits to what we can consent to? Does consent make any action good? Explain why or why not
• Some say that natural rights do not exist because so many governments have abused them throughout history. (Indeed, the Founders argued that the British King and Parliament were abusing theirs.) They say that if a right cannot be exercised effectively, it does not exist. Evaluate this assertion.
• The Founding generation did not fully live out its ideal of equality. Which ideals do people fail to live up to in modern times?
• Principles: equality, republican/representative government, popular sovereignty, federalism,inalienable rights
• Virtues: perseverance, contribution, moderation, resourcefulness, courage, respect, justice

An Introduction to Equality of Opportunity

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Freedom and equality are foundational values that we draw upon when envisioning a better society. Equality of opportunity is a social ideal that combines concern with freedom and equality, and this social ideal provides a vision of how we ought to live together.

At first glance, the value of equality can seem to demand uniformity that seems dystopian. For instance, if everyone were forced to wear the same clothes, pursue the same hobbies and have the same number of children, we would think this was intolerable. However, we should be careful not to reject equality entirely on this basis. Equality is still attractive if we limit its scope to some areas. For instance, equality before the law and equal rights to vote seem to be at the heart of our convictions about how we should live together. Inequality in these areas seems as intolerable as sameness in dress, family size or in our choice of recreational activities.

Freedom or opportunity may explain where and when equality seems most important. Our equal rights to a fair trial, to vote in elections, to association, speech and religion are each an equal right to a sphere of freedom. Part of what we value in this mixture is the protection from interference and having others dictate our lives to us and the other part of what we value is that we enjoy this protection on equal terms. In the sphere of religious worship, for example, individuals decide what religion they will worship. Unequal freedom, where some have freedom of religion and others do not, strikes us as wrong because it is unequal. Whereas Equal Unfreedom, where we are all slaves or lack basic rights, strikes us as wrong because it is unfree. A combination of freedom and equality, then, promises to describe a fitting social ideal for people who disagree about important, religious, moral and political questions, and yet want to live together in mutual respect.

Equality of Opportunity is one such combination and it has been a rich source of academic and political debate, a political slogan, and a widely held conviction about how human beings should live together. At its most basic, Equality of Opportunity requires that all human beings are equal in the sphere of opportunity. Equality of opportunity is usually opposed to slavery, hierarchy and caste society, where social positions, life prospects and individual freedoms are determined by membership of some group that you are born into, such as the aristocracy. Our acknowledgement of the importance of freedom and equality motivate the theory and practice of Equality of Opportunity. But before we go any further we should ask, “What is Equality of Opportunity?”

What is Equality of Opportunity?

When we ask what equality of opportunity is we could be asking two questions. First, we could be asking about the concept of equality of opportunity. If so, we are asking for the idea in its most general form. We are asking what kind of features must a statement have to count as a statement of equality of opportunity rather than a statement of something else. Second, we could be asking for the correct conception of equality of opportunity. The term 'conception' refers to a specific interpretation of a notion or idea. It is a particular way of understanding the kind of equality and the kinds of opportunities that are most valuable or more important. While there is only one concept of equality of opportunity, there are many different conceptions.

The concept of Equality of Opportunity has been examined by philosopher Peter Westen. Westen shows that an opportunity is a three-way relationship between a person, some obstacles, and a desired goal. However, a person only has an opportunity if she has a chance of achieving that goal. One cannot have an opportunity if one faces insurmountable obstacles that make it impossible to secure the goal. For instance, one cannot have an opportunity to become the president of the United States if one is not a natural born citizen. Many people, therefore, have no opportunity to become president of the United States. A person can have an opportunity even in the face of many, quite serious, obstacles. So, a natural born US citizen has the opportunity to become president, but she faces serious obstacles, such as accruing the relevant number and distribution of votes, as well as winning primaries. So, to have an opportunity means to face no insurmountable obstacles with respect to some important or desired goal, but what about having an equal opportunity?

In order for opportunities to be equal within a group, each member of that group must face the same relevant obstacles, none insurmountable, with respect to achieving the same desirable goal. In our example, all natural born citizens of the US have an equal opportunity when irrelevant goals, such as race, gender and religious affiliation are removed and when relevant obstacles, such as being democratically elected, remain.

Some critics have doubted the importance of mentioning equality when thinking about opportunities within a group. They argue that the only equality here is universalism, meaning that the opportunity is had by all. We can see why one might be drawn to the idea that equality plays little role in this ideal since we could say that everyone should have an opportunity to become president and this seems to do the job as well as saying that everyone should have an equal opportunity to become president. Equality appears to be doing no work, and this may lead us to question whether this expresses the value of equality.

However, this analysis misses something of significance, which is the fact that all people should have the same opportunity, and not merely an opportunity. While everyone could have an opportunity, and each face different irrelevant and relevant obstacles, equality of opportunity requires that no one face any irrelevant obstacles. If women were prohibited from becoming president, or if they had to win a greater proportion of the votes to be elected than men, then they would face an irrelevant obstacle that men do not. Thus, men and women would not enjoy equal opportunity with respect to the good of political representation in this society. This aspect of equality of opportunity is important for a social ideal because it expresses part of the moral value of equality.

At this point we do well to contrast equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity requires only that people be free from certain obstacles to pursue their own happiness and success. As such, Equality of Opportunity is not opposed to different outcomes of the conscientious, but fair pursuit of jobs, health, wealth, education and other goods that people value, so long as everyone faces the same obstacles. Sometimes this idea is known as the level-playing field because its main concern is that no one is unfairly advantaged before they even start out. It is in stark opposition to games that are rigged in favor of some over others. By contrast, Equality of Outcome insists that everyone do equally well with respect to some of the goods that individuals value, regardless of their effort, talents, and whether they wish to pursue it. This sort of equality can seem undesirable, but it can also be understood as one that is impossible to achieve because people are unequal in so many of the respects that affect outcomes, such as natural talent, health, their attitudes to hard work and in their interests and preferences. This can lead us to favor equal opportunities and to allow the inequality of outcomes. However, we should note that equal outcomes may still be very important indicators of inequality of opportunity, and that equal outcomes may be appropriate for children and others who lack responsible agency.

The bare concept of Equality of Opportunity as a relation between agents, obstacles and goals, leaves a lot to be filled out. There are many different ways in which we could all face the same obstacles with respect to the same goals. By varying the different goals and obstacles we vary the conception of Equality of Opportunity and different views will offer different guidance, and some will be more attractive than others. Different goals can make a difference in the following way. Opportunity for undesirable or irrelevant goals, such as opportunities to be mugged or to count grass, will not be included. Some goals may be trivial and it may not matter whether people have different opportunities with respect to those goals. For instance, opportunities to tie your shoe laces or grow a tree in your garden are less important than opportunities to find meaningful work or get a good education. We will have to think hard about exactly which ones do matter and which do not. In addition, we must think carefully about the kinds of obstacles that are morally relevant and the ones that are morally irrelevant with respect to the goal. For instance, we might think that race, religion and sexuality should not affect one’s opportunities to go to college, but that hard-work and ability to learn should. As such, ability to learn would be an obstacle that is relevant to the distribution of opportunity to go to college, but sexuality, religion and race would not. Which obstacles are morally relevant will depend on a more substantive account of what matters morally in each case. Different accounts of what are relevant and what goals matter are offered by rival conceptions of equality of opportunity.

Conceptions of Equality of Opportunity can be more or less demanding. The obstacles may be more or less difficult to overcome or the goals may be more or less difficult to achieve. For instance, if we think that obstacles such as social class, in addition to race, gender, sexuality and religious belief, are irrelevant to the goal that is desired, then we will have to try much harder to minimize differences in social class or minimize the effect social class has on the distribution of these goods. We could also specify the nature of the obstacle in different ways, such as formal or legal racial discrimination rather than explicit or implicit bias. The view can also be more or less demanding in terms of the goals we specify. So, for instance, we might think that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a basic standard of living or that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a high or equal standard of living. These views would support different policies and may require much more of our institutions, and greater individual effort, than others. They may also reflect the values of individual freedom and equal respect better or worse.

We will now briefly focus on two influential conceptions of Equality of Opportunity and show how they differ in their demandingness. We then go on to explain the special relationship that conceptions of Equality of Opportunity have with education and schooling.

Different Views of Equality of Opportunity

Formal Equality of Opportunity is arguably the least demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on the formal rules that stand in the way of achieving particular goals, such as employment and admission to schools.  Different types of formal equality of opportunity can focus on many or few goals. What unites these views is a focus on formal discriminatory rules as an irrelevant obstacle to some role. Policies that are related to this conception include requirements that advertisements for jobs do not specify racial, religious or gender characteristics. They must be perfectly general such that anyone can apply without violating the formal rule. This vision of a free and equal society can be satisfied merely by ensuring that formal rules are properly general. So long as there are no formal rules that stand in the way of some individuals’ achievement of some goal those individuals have equal opportunity. The view is therefore compatible with private discrimination, implicit bias, and unequal distributions of resources.

On the other hand, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare is perhaps the most demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on welfare, or how well a person’s life actually goes, and not minimal welfare but equal welfare. Individual choice is the only relevant obstacle. So, the only thing that should stand in the way of an individual’s achievement of equal welfare should be their own voluntary choices. In other words, a person should be no worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. If a person chooses to take risks or gambles, any resulting inequality would not be problematic, but if a person is a victim of bad luck, such as a natural disaster or disability, then any resulting inequality would need to be remedied for equality of opportunity to be fully realized.

This view is highly demanding and would require a radical redistribution of wealth to both those who are less naturally talented and to those who are otherwise disadvantaged through no fault of their own, for example, through upbringing, through natural bad luck as well as social class, racism, sexism and religious discrimination. Addressing these inequalities may require investing in schooling, sports facilities and social networks as well as healthcare and assistance for the disabled and heavily regulated jobs markets.

It should be noted that the more demanding the view the greater the encroachment on some putatively valuable forms of individual freedom. For instance, in order to ensure that wealth, social background and natural luck do not act as an obstacle for the poor it may be necessary to tax the earnings of the well-off. Some will claim that this violates the entitlements of the rich to their resources, and is therefore too high a price to pay. This may lead those people to accept a less demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. Others will claim that taxing the wealthy is an acceptable price to pay to ensure that poor people have substantively equal opportunities to secure good jobs, adequate healthcare and education and to have means to support their families and live a decent life.

There are other conceptions of Equality of Opportunity that are only moderately demanding. The two extreme views above, however, help us to see and make sense of dominant ideologies on the left and the right, and therefore historical public political disagreements. We can characterize much of contemporary political argument as being about what the best conception of Equality of Opportunity is, which partly explains why it is such an important idea to understand.

Defenders of small government and individual responsibility on the right may be drawn to something resembling the conception of Formal Equality of Opportunity because going further requires interference with individual entitlements and a bigger state. They may go further than Formal Equality of Opportunity and instead favor the Meritocratic Conception of Equality of Opportunity, which requires redistribution to ensure that hard work and talent, and not discrimination and favoritism, determine hiring practices.  Those who believe in meritocracy may consider some taxation to be a price worth paying for fairer hiring practices.

Defenders of more substantive equal chances, who care about equalizing school quality and school funding, as well as providing for health care, will be drawn to more demanding ideals that more closely approximate Equality of Opportunity for Welfare. They may be put off by the demandingness of the conception of Equality of Opportunity for Welfare, and instead favor the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity, which condemns inequalities in social background as obstacles to achieving valuable goals in life. Such a view will require redistribution to ensure that hard-working and talented individuals from the working class have the same chance of success as similarly hard-working and talented individuals from the middle and upper-classes. This kind of view may advocate increased per pupil funding for the working-class. Evaluating the appropriateness of these ideals will be determined both by how well they express our commitment to freedom and equality, and whether they lead to sacrifice of other values that we view as more or less important than that commitment.

These different conceptions of Equality of Opportunity offer us very different guidance and assessment of our societies. The contemporary USA undoubtedly satisfies some conceptions more than others. In this way, we can see that which view is the best conception of Equality of Opportunity will determine how much work we have to do to make progress and in which direction we need to go, whether that is breaking down formal barriers, eradicating nepotism and informal discrimination, or something more demanding like mitigating wealth inequality and the inequalities that follow from social class distinctions and natural disadvantages.

Applying the Ideas to Education

The focus of this project is on the application of conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education. Though the types of policies and reforms that will be favored depend on the conception of Equality of Opportunity that is most defensible, we can say that educational institutions will have a central role to play in better realizing equality of opportunity. This is because education is valuable for a wide range of goals that we think are important, such as employment, health, wealth, welfare and citizenship. Moreover, almost all contemporary societies compel school attendance for all young children and so education can be offered to all and across many of the irrelevant obstacles, such as race, sexuality, religious affiliation, social class and natural talent. Of course, it may be that the highest gains could be had by focusing on pre-K education, or that non-educational levers would be most effective if politically feasible, but, to some extent, we have to think about what is best given the current institutional arrangements. As such, educational institutions are one lever that we can use to try to redress imbalances and inequalities and to help members of disadvantaged groups overcome those obstacles. Education, and schooling in particular, may be a much more politically feasible lever than pure redistribution or cash transfers and other more controversial public policies such as minimum wage legislation, affirmative action and further intervention in markets. Focusing on reform of educational policy, therefore, may be the best thing to focus on today. Nevertheless, reforming society through education can be an extremely difficult undertaking and background inequality and poverty can restrict even its efficacy. We should bear in mind, however, that some conceptions of equality of opportunity may be particularly inappropriate when applied to children. For instance, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare focuses on individual choices, because it emphasizes responsibility, but we don’t usually hold children responsible for the choices they make because their capacities are so under-developed. Also, Meritocratic Equality of Opportunity may seem to be ill-suited to educational institutions because educational institutions are supposed to cultivate merit. In applying conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education, we must show an awareness of these and other concerns.

To illustrate more clearly some of the benefits and concerns of using education as a lever for achieving equality of opportunity, I want to explore one particular conception of equality of opportunity. Let’s assume that we accept the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity as determining an important part of how we should live together and hold that social class should not affect who gets jobs, but that the most meritorious candidate should get the job. Failure to address this issue would be a failure to take into account that social class should not affect job prospects.

There are broadly two types of strategy we could adopt, each of which has its own pitfalls and each of which uses educational institutions. The first strategy is to focus resources on trying to correct inequalities by providing extra schooling to those who are disadvantaged by social class. This aims to address the inequality of opportunity that is caused by institutions other than educational ones. The second strategy is to focus on attempting to correct inequalities in the social background, which may include inequality in educational opportunity and access to good schools, as well as unemployment and poverty in general.

We know that family background can greatly affect the development of capabilities and skills, and ambitions to go to college and get high-status jobs. Knowing this, and being committed to fair equality of opportunity, we could attempt to redress the issues around unequal childhoods by offering extra schooling to children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. This could either be achieved by targeting additional resources, tutoring, and extra classes at those who are poorer within the school, or it could be achieved by providing greater resources to those schools that educate a greater proportion of poorer children.

However, operating at this level treats the symptoms rather than the cause and, in the society that allows private schooling and tolerates huge wealth inequalities, additional investment in the education of poorer children can become an arms race that the government cannot win. Put simply, the better-off could always invest more and more into the education of their children and will do so because they want their children to secure places at the elite colleges and in the top professions. If rich parents invest more and more in their children’s education, the government must attempt to keep up if it is going to succeed in equalizing opportunity. As the government spends more and more to narrow the gap, education budgets, and taxation must increase, but it is very difficult to sustain ever-increasing budgets and taxation consistent with winning democratic elections. This threatens the political feasibility of such measures, though significant improvements may be made in the process.

An alternative strategy, which treats the causes of social class as an obstacle to equality of opportunity, is available. Looking to education we may wish to ensure that all schools are equally well-resourced. As we saw above, one way of doing this is to devote increasing resources to poorer schools. An alternative is to limit the resources that can be spent on private education, or to abolish elite private schooling all together, as it threatens equality of opportunity. However, such measures will likely be insufficient, even if feasible and effective. This is because parent-child interactions as innocent as reading bedtime stories can enhance child development unequally. Interfering in the family is both politically difficult to justify and may be morally suspect as it compromises the values that the family embodies and promotes.

A radical alternative is available, but it requires the eradication of social class and anything other than minimal wealth inequalities. In such a society, no one would be so much better off than others that they have more free time, resources, better housing and health care so that their children develop to a greater extent or more quickly than others. This would be to address the causes of inequality of opportunity, but it would likely be highly unpopular with the electorate and some will argue that an economy where workers are paid roughly equally for different work, will be painfully inefficient. Whether this is true cannot be proved here, but each of these strategies may be rejected on the grounds of being ineffective, infeasible or of compromising more important values, such as the value of the family or economic efficiency. Nevertheless, the first strategy appears to be the most promising and our commitment to equality of opportunity of some sort suggests that where we fall short of respecting freedom and equality in our society today, the educational institutions will be our first and most promising levers.

In addition, we need to think about the goal that we are trying to achieve within education, not only the goal that we care about for Equality of Opportunity in general, i.e. the conception that we think is correct. Disagreement about this concerns whether we should be concerned with equality of educational outcomes, equality of opportunities, or merely adequacy, and is partly motivated by the problems with meritocracy and responsibility noted above.

Different standards of education might be appropriate for different types of equality of opportunity goals. For instance, with respect to jobs, we might be very concerned that equally hard-working and naturally talented students achieve equal outcomes on standardized tests, since being the most qualified candidate usually gets you the job. However, being a good citizen perhaps is independent of how well informed you are relative to others, so long as you are well-informed about various candidates and about how to spot a bad argument. Moreover, with respect to young children, we might think that outcomes, not opportunities are best in some areas, such as basic reading skills. What we want, with respect to literacy, is not that children have equal opportunities to read, but that they actually learn to read, even if this comes at great cost. We should note that achieving equal outcomes will be differently costly for different individuals due to ranges of ability and the quickness with which children pick up certain skills. At the most extreme end of this spectrum are severe cognitive disabilities, which may render it very difficult or impossible to achieve equal outcomes. As such, a desirable view of equality of opportunity may have to answer special sorts of questions around the appropriate education for those who have severe disabilities. Whatever the correct answers, we can only make progress on these questions by thinking seriously about the issues many of which are presented here in a way that is widely accessible.

Our focus is on the application of conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education, but there are many other goods that people value and should have equal opportunity to pursue. For instance, most people value healthcare as it is important no matter what their ambitions and life plans are. Access to good doctors and basic medical treatment could be evaluated in terms of equality of opportunity. So, if some people face greater obstacles than others in getting to see a good doctor. If basic healthcare is expensive, then poorer people will face greater obstacles than the rich. If few doctors are willing to work in rural areas, then those in rural areas will face greater obstacles than those in urban areas. These unequal obstacles may be condemnable, depending on the conception of Equality of Opportunity that is most desirable. Moreover, rather than focusing on particular goods, such as education and health, we may prefer to focus on happiness itself, since it seems to be the fundamental value that people care about. Such a focus would enable us to condemn obstacles that stand in the way of health or education only insofar as those goods affect the happiness of those individuals. This makes an important difference if people wish to pursue health or education to different extents. One person’s happiness may hinge on her access to education far more than another’s persons. We can say the same about health.

The intention of this brief introduction to equality of opportunity and education was to introduce beginners to the ideal of equality of opportunity, its place within contemporary political debates and its history. At this stage we might ask: why should anyone care about equality of opportunity? This takes us back to the start of the introduction. If you believe that all of us are equal in some important ways and if you think that freedom to pursue one’s plans without interference from others is important, then equality of opportunity is very important indeed.

Arguing about equality of opportunity is really an argument about how best to understand the kind of society we should be striving for, one where free and equal persons live together. Although other ideals may also be worth striving for, equality of opportunity offers important guidance and a standpoint for criticism of contemporary societies, their politicians and our own personal conduct. It enables us to judge some change as progress or backsliding. Educational institutions, in particular, are well situated to make those changes and failure to utilize them for this end can be judged to have been a further opportunity missed.

What can be found on this website is a summary of different academic debates about equality of opportunity and education and an annotated bibliography of some of the key books and articles on the topic. I start with a beginners reading list below, and go on to explain the crux of some key debates. The debates are divided into the following sections. The first section addresses the concept of equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The second section considers different conceptions of equality of opportunity and debates about their relative merits. The third section covers debates about education and educational policy, including: school choice and the family, higher education, and whether adequacy or equality should be the principle for distributing educational resources and the aim of schooling.

Arneson, Richard. “Equality Of Opportunity”. Edited by Edward N Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy, 2002. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/equal-opportunity/ . Google Scholar

Brighouse, Harry, and Kenneth Howe. Educational Equality. Continuum, 2010. Google Scholar

Gutmann, Amy. Democratic Education. Princeton University Press, 1998. Google Scholar

Jencks, Christopher. “Whom Must We Treat Equally For Educational Opportunity To Be Equal?”. Ethics, Ethics, 1988, 518-533. Google Scholar

Kittay, Eva Feder. “At The Margins Of Moral Personhood”. Ethics, Ethics, 116, no. 1 (2005): 100-131. Google Scholar

Kymlicka, Will. In Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002. Google Scholar

McKinnon, Catriona. Issues In Political Theory. Oxford University Press, 2012. Google Scholar

Parfit, Derek. “Equality And Priority”. Ratio, Ratio, 10, no. 3 (1997): 202-221. Google Scholar

Swift, Adam. Political Philosophy: A Beginners' Guide For Students And Politicians. Polity, 2013. Google Scholar

Williams, Bernard. “The Idea Of Equality”. In Philosophy, Politics, And Society, 110-131. Philosophy, Politics, And Society. London: Basil Blackwell, 1962. Google Scholar

Section 1: Equality of Opportunity and Alternatives »

What Is The Difference Between “Equality” And “Equity”?

Children are often concerned with issues of fairness: who has more, who was first, and who is best. That’s not fair , they clamor at the first hint of any sort of inequality . Of course, some concepts related to equality can be difficult for children to grasp—but many of these concepts continue to pose thorny problems for us as adults making and enforcing policies and laws.

For example, the words equality and equity are often confused because they appear to mean the same thing at a glance. They both have to do with the way people are treated, and both are used in the fields of law, government, economics, and so on. Often, these terms are used to describe actions, laws, or rules that are attempting to end or oppose injustice or ensure fair treatment of people.

However, equality and equity are not synonyms, and the methods used to achieve them are often very different. Let’s look at what these two words actually mean and how we should be using them.

What does equality mean?

The word equality is defined as “the state or quality of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability.” The adverb equally is commonly used to describe things related to equality.

Equality is usually simple to understand: three buckets that all contain five apples are in a state of equality. They all have exactly the same amount of the exact same items. Similarly, if I gave each of my two children an allowance of 10 dollars a week, that is equality. I am giving each child the exact same amount of money.

In everyday speech, we often use the word equality to refer to much more complicated and, often, controversial subjects. For example, several of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States (as well as the original document) legally establish equality of rights for all Americans.

Today, all Americans of any gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. have the right to vote, the right to free speech , the right to bear arms, and many other rights. Under the law, Americans have equality in the sense that nobody can be legally denied these rights based on any personal quality.

The first records of the word equality come from the later 1300s. It originates from the Latin aequālitāt-, a stem of the word aequālitās. Equality is a combination of the word equal , meaning “the same” or “like in quantity or degree,” and the suffix -ity , which indicates a state or or condition.

The word equality, first recorded in English around 1350–1400, comes from the same root as equal : the Latin  aequus, meaning “even, plain, just .”

What does equity mean? 

The word equity is defined as “the quality of being fair or impartial ; fairness; impartiality” or “something that is fair and just.” Equity also has several meanings related to finance and property law that aren’t relevant for our discussion. The adjective form of equity is equitable .

You can probably guess from reading the definition that equity is more complicated than equality and we will be getting to that. For now, it is important to understand what equity means. If you are trying to achieve equity , you are trying to do something in a way that is fair or impartial.

In criminal law, many practices are done to try and achieve equity where every person is given a fair and impartial trial. For example, a person is tried by a jury of their peers who they have never met and who have no reason to be supportive of or opposed to the defendant. This is meant to ensure equity as none of the jurors will have biased views toward the defendant, so they will be treated fairly and impartially.

The complication with equity is that people often disagree on what is “just” or “fair.” These are subjective concepts and, as a result, laws and policies that attempt to achieve equity are often challenged in court or are highly controversial. For example, the American idea of affirmative action that aims to achieve equity in employment and education by discouraging biased or bigoted hiring practices and promoting equal opportunity  has been repeatedly criticized and challenged in court for attempting to achieve equity using supposedly unfair or unjust methods.

Compared to equality , equity is found slightly earlier in the written record, evidenced between 1275–1325. But equity ultimately comes from the exact same root as equality and equal : the Latin aequus, “even, plain, just.”

Why interest in  equity has surged

In modern times, the usage of the word equity has increased due to concerns about social and racial justice and a desire for fairness for marginalized communities and  historically oppressed groups. In terms of the law, minority groups often have technically equal rights but are still treated unfairly due to unequal access to resources or opposition from dominant groups who deny others equal representation while still acting within the law.

Historically oppressed groups such as  LGBTQIA people, Black people, and Indigenous Peoples have not only fought for social and racial equality , but continue to fight for equity in society. For example, even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that minority groups undeniably have social inequity when it comes to healthcare access after racial and ethnic minorities were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 virus. The World Health Organization has also done studies on the lack of equality and equity when it comes to worldwide public health.  Elsewhere, there is still a clear lack of social equity for minority groups in many areas of society that include everything from Hollywood to many STEM fields and careers.  Today, many nonprofit organizations work toward achieving both equality and equity for groups that have historically not been treated equally or fairly. 

How do we use equality and equity ?

The best way to show the difference between equality and equity is with an example. Let’s assume I wanted to distribute food to a group of children and adults. If I wanted equality , I would simply give the same amount of food to everybody. If I wanted equity , however, things become more complicated: how do I distribute the food “fairly” or “justly”? Should children get less food because they can’t eat as much? Should I give different rations to different people based on how hungry they say they are? Regardless of the criteria I use, my attempt at trying to decide a “fair” distribution and not an “equal” one means I am looking to achieve equity and not equality.

This example shows the key difference between equality and equity : equality means things are “the same” and equity means things are “fair.” It is certainly possible that something can be equal but not equitable and something could alternatively be equitable but not equal.

For example, if I gave a rich woman and a poor woman each $100 then it would be an example of equality since I gave both the same amount of money. However, it could be said that this is not an example of equity because the rich woman doesn’t need more money and it is “unfair” to give her the same help as the poor woman.

Alternatively, if I gave a rich woman $100 and I gave a poor woman $200 then it could be said I am trying to achieve equity by “fairly” giving the poor woman more help based on her financial situation. However, I am clearly not practicing equality because I didn’t give both women the same amount of money.

The ongoing struggle for equity

Ideally, we would be able to achieve both equality and equity when it comes to the law and society but this is usually very difficult. (And refereeing battles at home can be equally tricky, even if they play out on a much smaller scale.)

However, now that you know the difference between equality and equity, you should have a better idea about what goal a person is trying to achieve and the proper word to use to describe it.

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Home - Blog - What Is Equality? Definition, Examples | United Way NCA

What Is Equality? Definition, Examples | United Way NCA

Mar 02, 2022

by Holly Martinez

What Is Equality?

At first glance, when it comes to solving issues of systemic inequities, it seems equality is the answer. But for those in the equity movement, like United Way of the National Capital Area , we know equity—not equality—is the best way to improve communities so that all may thrive. Learn more about equality below.

What Does Equality Mean?

Equality is the state of being equal, especially in status, rights and opportunities. Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources and opportunities, regardless of their circumstances. In social and racial justice movements, equality can actually increase inequities in communities as not every group of people needs the same resources or opportunities allocated to them in order to thrive.

Examples of Equality

Let’s look at some situations in society that put equality at the focus and discuss the results of each, below.

Leaders in the National Capital Area host an information meeting for all community members on the COVID-19 pandemic, testing, vaccinations and more. They only host the meeting once, and it is only held in the English language. There are no translators or separate meetings for residents who do not speak English or speak English as a second language, isolating a large population of the National Capital Area from receiving important and potentially life-saving health information. An equitable meeting would have included different languages, including English, Spanish and Korean to serve all major populations. This way, everyone hears the same information in their native or primary language.

The Digital Divide

Low-income students in a Prince George’s County neighborhood do not have access to the internet and do not own computers, making it difficult for them to complete lessons and homework assignments through their school’s virtual, at-home school year during the pandemic. On the other hand, other students throughout the county have affordable access to Wi-Fi, laptops and other needed digital tools to succeed in school. A local nonprofit allocates funds to give each student in the county a laptop, but because they do not have enough funds to supply both laptops and hotspots to every student, they are unable to provide any student with a Wi-Fi hotspot. The students that did not previously have internet access in their homes, now have a laptop but still cannot access their school’s virtual classrooms and therefore miss lessons and homework assignments throughout the school year. In the equitable version of this example, funds would be allocated to only give students in need a laptop and a hotspot, instead of every student as not every student needed the technology they already had access to.

Equality vs. Equity

Equity recognizes each person has varying circumstances and needs, and therefore different groups of people need resources and opportunities allocated to them accordingly in order to thrive.

Equality is giving everyone the exact same resources across the board, regardless of their actual needs or opportunities/resources already provided to them.

In United Way NCA’s work centered around equity, data is analyzed to determine where funds, resources and opportunities need to be allocated most to provide all community members the same opportunity to thrive. To dive deeper into equity vs. equality and the important differences between the two, click here .

How to Promote Equity in Your Community

There are many ways you can practice and promote equity in your community, household, workplace, place of worship, etc. The first step is to reflect on your own belief system. What implicit biases do you hold? How can you dismantle those? How can you educate yourself through books, media, diversity and inclusion seminars, etc. to understand equity further?

In October 2021, United Way NCA launched the Practice Equity campaign, in which we post ways community members can practice equity daily on social media. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and LinkedIn to stay tuned. You can also sign up for our 21 Day Race Equity Journey , a 21-day newsletter series, to learn more about how equity plays a role in determining outcomes of people through different stages of life depending on their intersections of race, gender, sexuality and/or socioeconomic standing. And, test your knowledge of diversity, equity and inclusion terms by taking our DEI Vocabulary Quiz .

To promote equity in your community, you need to get involved! Reaching an equitable future for all community members necessitates action. By supporting nonprofits and programs like United Way NCA, you can make a difference. This can be done through monetary donations ,, volunteering and advocating .

To learn more about equity and how United Way NCA is achieving a more equitable future, visit unitedwaynca.org/equity and join the movement! See our impact stories to read more about how we benefit the DMV area. When none are ignored, all will thrive.

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Essay on Equality: Meaning and Kinds of Equality

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By equality, we generally mean that all men are equal and all should be entitled to identity of treatment and income. “Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights”. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”. But in practical life this is not true. No two men are similar in physical constitution, capacity and temperament.

Professor Laski has very aptly remarked in this connection:

“Equality does not mean the identity of treatment or the sameness of reward. If a bricklayer gets the same reward as a mathematician or a scientist, the purpose of society will be defeated. Equality, therefore, means, first of all the absence of social privilege. In the second place it means that adequate opportunities are laid open to all”.

Equality is a leveling process:

“The ideal of equality has insisted that men are politically equal, that all citizens are equally entitled to take part in political life, to exercise the franchise, to run for and hold office. It has insisted that individuals should be equal before the law, that when the general law confers rights or imposes duties, the rights and duties shall extend to all; or conversely that they shall not confer special privileges on particular individuals or groups”.

Undoubtedly, it implies fundamentally a leveling process”, says Professor Laski, “It means that no man shall be placed in society that he can overreach his neighbour to the extent which constitutes a denial of the latter’s citizenship”.

Equality, after all, is a derivative value”, explains Braker. “It is derived from the supreme value of the development of personality-in each like and equally, but each along its own different line and of its own separate motion”.

He further says, “We are thus arranged as it were, in a level time at the starting point of the race that lies ahead; and we start from that level line, so far as the state is concerned, with equal conditions guaranteed to each for making the best of himself-however much we may eventually differ in what we actually make of ourselves”.

Kinds of Equality :

There are following kinds of equality:

(1) Social Equality.

(2) Civil Equality.

(3) Political Equality.

(4) Economic Equality.

(5) Equality of Opportunity and Education.

(1) Social Equality :

Social equality means that all the citizens are entitled to enjoy equal status in society and no one is entitled to special privileges. There should not be any distinction of caste and creed, colour and race, groups and classes, clans and tribes All should have an equal opportunity to develop his personality.

All citizens In India enjoy social equality. Untouchability has been abolished and its practice has been forbidden. Previously, the policy of racial discrimination was adopted in the United States of America but Johnson I, Ex-President of U.S.A., established social equality by getting the Bill passed by the Congress.

The policy of racial discrimination is still followed by South Africa. Social inequality still prevails over there. On 10th December, 1948, the U.N.O. declared the charter of human rights which laid stress on social equality. But these rights have been violated by a number of countries in the past according to the report of Amnesty International.

(2) Civil Equality :

Secondly, we have the concept of Civil Liberty. Civil liberty consists in the enjoyment of similar civil liberties and civil rights by all the citizens. Civil laws should treat all the individuals equally.

There should not be any discrimination of superior and inferior, the rich and the poor, caste and creed, colour and race, clam and tribes, groups and classes. Rule of law is in force in England and in the eyes of the rule of law all are equal. Equal treatment is given to all by the rule of law. Similar is the case with India.

(3) Political Equality :

By Political Equality we mean equal access of everyone to the avenues of political authority. All citizens must possess similar political rights, they should have similar voice in the working of the government and they should have equal opportunities to actively participate in the political life and affairs of the country.

Political equality guarantees the enjoyment of similar political rights to all citizens. Universal adult franchise is a means to this end. Universal adult suffrage has been introduced in India. The same provision has been made in England, U.S.S.R., U.S.A., France and many other countries.

Previously, Switzerland had not conferred on women the right to vote but in February 1971 conferred the right of vote to women. In Asia and Africa there are many countries where Political Equality has not been established.

(4) Economic Equality :

Economic Equality is closely related to political equality. Professor Laski underlies the great significance of economic equality. “Political equality is therefore, never real unless it is accompanied with virtual economic liberty; political power otherwise is bound to be the hand-maid of economic power”.

According Lord Bryce, Economic Equality “is the attempt to expunge all differences in wealth’ allotting to every man and woman an equal share in worldly goods”. But this concept of ideal economic equality can never be materialised in practical politics.

By economic equality we mean the provision of equal opportunities to all so they may be able to make their economic progress. This can be done only in Socialism and not in Capitalism. Hence, Capitalism should be replaced by Socialism.

(5) Equality of Opportunity and Education :

By equality of opportunity and education we mean that all the citizens should be given equal and similar opportunities by the state. All the individuals should have similar chances to receive education. They should have similar opportunities to develop their personality. Racial or any type of discrimination should not be observed. There should not be any distinction of caste and creed, colour and race, rich and poor. In India, all are provided with equal opportunities and all have equal rights to education.

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• Equality: Meaning, Aspects and Theories
• Essay on Democracy: Kinds, Basic Principles and Future of Democracy
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Definition of equality

• coordinateness
• equivalence
• equivalency

Examples of equality in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'equality.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Articles Related to equality

'Equity' and 'Equality'

How they differ and overlap

Dictionary Entries Near equality

equalitarian

equalization fund

Cite this Entry

“Equality.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/equality. Accessed 6 Aug. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of equality, legal definition, legal definition of equality, more from merriam-webster on equality.

Nglish: Translation of equality for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of equality for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about equality

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Student Essays

Essay on Equality-Human Equality & its Importance

Equality is the most beautiful concept in human life that talks about human equality irrespective of caste, creed or status. The Following Essay I have written on topic Equality, meaning and concept of human equality, why equality is important in Personal and Professional Life. This Essay is very helpful for children and students in school exams.

Essay on Equality-Need, Importance of Human Equality in Personal & Professional Life

The equality in life refers to a balance in life between people in a society. It means that every person in a society is given an equal opportunity to succeed and be happy.

Equality can be defined as the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. In other words, it is the quality or state of being equal to something else in value or quantity.

Why Equality is Important in our Personal and Professional Life?

Equality is very much important in our Life. It helps to reduce crime and keeps the society in balance. It also helps to promote fairness, justice and reduces social inequality.

>>>> Read Also : ” Essay on Helping Others & Its Importance “

Equality is important because it is the foundation of any fair society. A fair society is one in which every individual has an equal opportunity to prosper and succeed.

In order to have a fair and just society, we must first have equality. Without equality, there can be no fairness or justice. This is because individuals in a society who are not given the same opportunities will always be at a disadvantage.

Furthermore, without equality, our society would be divided into two classes: the haves and the have-nots. The haves would be the wealthy and powerful class, while the have-nots would be the poor and powerless class. This is not only unfair, but it is also unstable.

Equality is also important in our professional life. It ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed in their chosen field. It also ensures that businesses are fair and just in their dealings with employees and customers.

Respect for equality and differences should be the part of socialization of new generation for variety of reasons. In schools, equality is emphasized in syllabus, which reflects the democratic values of the country. Inclusion of marginalized groups and celebration of diversity in curricula can help eradicate stereotype and discrimination.

Achieving equality is not always easy. There are many factors that can contribute to inequality, such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status. However, it is important to strive for equality in our society so that everyone has the same opportunity to succeed.

Equality is a cornerstone of democracy. It ensures that everyone in a society is given an equal opportunity to succeed and be happy. Equality is an important ideal that we should strive for in both our personal and professional life. It ensures that everyone is given a fair chance to succeed and contributes to a stable and just society. Thank you for your time.

Short Essay on Equality:

Equality is a fundamental principle that governs our society, ensuring that individuals are treated with fairness and respect regardless of their race, gender, religion, or social status. It is an essential aspect of human rights and is recognized as a universal value by the United Nations. In this short essay, we will explore the concept of equality and its importance in creating a just and harmonious society.

What is Equality?

At its core, equality means treating everyone fairly and giving them equal opportunities without discrimination. It refers to the absence of privileges or obstacles based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or socio-economic background. It also includes equal access to resources and services such as education, healthcare, employment, and justice.

The Principles of Equality

The principle of equality is grounded in the belief that all human beings are born equal and have inherent dignity and worth. It is a universal value that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries. The concept of equality is enshrined in international law through various treaties and conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Equality vs. Equity

While equality aims to treat everyone equally, equity takes into account people’s different needs and circumstances to ensure fairness. For example, providing accommodations for individuals with disabilities or affirmative action programs for marginalized groups can help promote equity while striving towards equality.

Importance of Equality

Equality plays a crucial role in creating a just and harmonious society. It ensures that everyone has the same opportunities to succeed, regardless of their background, and promotes social cohesion and solidarity. When individuals feel equal and valued, it boosts their self-esteem and leads to a healthier and more productive society.

Equality for Women

Women have historically faced discrimination in various areas, including education, employment, politics, and access to resources. Gender equality is essential not only for women’s rights but also for creating a fairer and more prosperous world.

Empowering women through education and equal opportunities can lead to economic growth, better health outcomes, reduced poverty rates, and increased political representation.

Equality for Marginalized Groups

Marginalized groups such as ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, refugees, LGBTQ+ individuals, and persons with disabilities also face discrimination and inequality. Ensuring their equal rights and opportunities is crucial in creating an inclusive society where everyone can thrive.

Challenges to Achieving Equality

Despite the progress made towards equality, many challenges remain in achieving it fully. Discriminatory attitudes and systemic barriers continue to exist, hindering marginalized groups’ access to equal opportunities.

Moreover, economic inequalities, such as the wage gap between men and women or income disparities among different socio-economic classes, contribute to perpetuating inequality.

In conclusion, equality is a fundamental value that promotes fairness, inclusivity, and social justice. It requires us to recognize our differences while treating each other with respect and dignity. While challenges persist in achieving true equality for all, it is crucial that we continue to strive towards a society where everyone has equal rights and opportunities. Only then can we truly create a more just and harmonious world for all individuals. So, let us all work together towards building a more equal future for generations to come.

Essay on Equality in 500 Words:

Equality is a fundamental concept that has been discussed and debated for centuries. It is the idea of treating all individuals with fairness, respect, and dignity regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or socioeconomic status. However, achieving true equality has been an ongoing struggle as discrimination and inequality still persist in many aspects of our society.

One significant issue in terms of equality is gender disparity. Despite efforts to promote gender equality, women around the world continue to face discrimination in various forms. They are often paid less than men for the same work and are underrepresented in leadership positions. Furthermore, women are also subjected to violence and harassment at alarming rates. These inequalities not only harm women but also hinder progress and economic growth in societies.

Another aspect of equality that is often overlooked is socioeconomic status. People from lower-income households face numerous barriers and inequalities in education, healthcare, and job opportunities. This creates a cycle of poverty that is difficult to break out of, further perpetuating inequality within society.

Moreover, racial discrimination is another significant barrier to achieving true equality. People of color are often discriminated against in the workplace, housing market, and even within the justice system. This results in systemic racism and unequal treatment based on race, which has lasting effects on individuals and their communities.

In addition to these issues, there are also inequalities faced by members of the LGBTQ+ community. Despite progress towards acceptance and equal rights for all sexual orientations and gender identities, discrimination still exists in many parts of the world. This leads to discrimination in employment, housing, and healthcare, among other areas.

To address these inequalities and promote true equality, it is crucial for individuals and societies to actively work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable world. This can be achieved through education, awareness-raising campaigns, policies that promote diversity and inclusivity, and holding those in positions of power accountable for their actions.

Moreover, it is essential to recognize that achieving true equality requires intersectional approaches. This means understanding how different forms of discrimination intersect and compound each other. For example, a person who faces discrimination based on their race may also face additional barriers due to their gender or socioeconomic status.

In conclusion, while the concept of equality may seem simple, its achievement is far from easy. It requires continuous effort and commitment from individuals, communities, and governments. By acknowledging and addressing issues of gender disparity, socioeconomic status, racial discrimination, and LGBTQ+ rights, we can work towards creating a more just and equal society for all individuals.

Together, we can build a world where everyone is treated with respect, dignity, and fairness regardless of their differences. So let us strive towards true equality and create a better future for all.

Essay on Equality in 100 Words:

Equality is a fundamental principle that promotes fairness and justice in society. It means giving equal opportunities and treatment to all individuals regardless of their gender, race, religion, or socioeconomic status. Equality ensures that everyone has the same rights and freedoms to pursue their goals and aspirations without facing discrimination or barriers.

However, achieving true equality is still a challenge in many parts of the world. Women, minorities, and marginalized groups continue to face systemic inequalities and have limited access to education, healthcare, employment opportunities, and political representation.

To achieve a more equitable society, we must address these disparities and promote inclusive policies that uplift all members of society. We must recognize our differences while also embracing our shared humanity. Only then can we truly achieve equality for all individuals.

So, we must strive towards building a society where everyone is treated with respect and dignity, and no one is left behind. Every individual should have the same opportunities to reach their full potential and contribute to society without facing any discrimination.

Essay on equality between man and woman:

Equality between man and woman is a fundamental concept that has been debated for centuries. It refers to the idea that both men and women should have equal rights, opportunities, and treatment in all aspects of life including education, employment, and healthcare.

The fight for gender equality has come a long way, with various movements and campaigns advocating for women’s rights. However, despite progress being made, there are still significant inequalities between men and women around the world.

In many societies, women continue to face discrimination in areas such as pay equity, political representation, and access to education. This not only hinders their personal growth but also impacts their families and communities.

Achieving true equality between men and women requires continuous efforts from individuals, governments, and organizations. It is essential to challenge traditional gender roles and promote equal opportunities for both genders.

Education and awareness play a crucial role in promoting gender equality. By educating individuals on the importance of equal rights and opportunities, we can break down barriers and work towards a more just society.

In conclusion, achieving equality between men and women is not just a women’s issue, but it concerns us all. We must continue to advocate for equal treatment regardless of gender, race, or socio-economic status. Only by working together can we create a world where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and reach their full potential. Let us strive towards building a fairer and more inclusive society for all.

Essay on equality and opportunity:

Equality and opportunity are fundamental values that have been emphasized in modern societies. These two concepts are closely interlinked, as equality ensures that everyone has equal access to opportunities regardless of their social, economic, or cultural background. In this essay, we will explore the significance of equality and opportunity and discuss how these concepts can be promoted in our society.

Equality is a basic principle that states that all individuals should be treated equally under the law. This means that everyone should have the same rights, privileges, and chances for success regardless of factors such as race, gender, religion, or class. A society that truly values equality ensures that no one is discriminated against based on their inherent characteristics.

On the other hand, opportunity refers to the chance for an individual to achieve their goals and potential. This includes access to education, healthcare, employment, and other resources necessary for personal growth and development. In a society where there is equal opportunity, everyone has the same chances of achieving success.

However, the reality is that not all individuals have equal access to opportunities. Discrimination and inequalities still exist in many aspects of our society, hindering the progress of certain groups or individuals. This can be seen in areas such as education and employment, where marginalized communities may face barriers that prevent them from having equal opportunities.

To promote equality and opportunity in society, it is crucial to address these issues through policies and actions that aim to eliminate discrimination and provide equal access to resources. Education plays a significant role in this process as it not only provides individuals with knowledge and skills but also promotes understanding and acceptance of diversity.

In conclusion, equality and opportunity are essential values that should be upheld in any society. It is our responsibility as members of society to work towards creating a more equitable world where everyone has the chance to thrive and succeed. This can be achieved through continuous efforts to eliminate discrimination and provide equal opportunities for all individuals

Essay on equality in Indian Democracy:

As a nation, India prides itself on being one of the largest and most diverse democracies in the world. One of the core values that form the foundation of our democracy is equality. It is enshrined in our Constitution and is considered to be a fundamental right for all citizens.

Equality in Indian democracy means that every individual, regardless of their caste, religion or gender, should have equal opportunities and rights. Our government has taken various steps to ensure that this principle is upheld by providing reserved seats for marginalized communities in educational institutions and government jobs.

However, despite these efforts, there are still instances where inequality persists. Discrimination based on caste or gender is prevalent in many parts of the country. The income gap between the rich and poor also highlights the inequality in our society.

To truly achieve equality, we need to continue working towards eliminating discrimination and providing equal opportunities for all. Education plays a crucial role in creating an equal and just society. It is through education that people become aware of their rights and learn to respect the rights of others.

Moreover, it is also important for us as citizens to actively stand against any form of discrimination and promote inclusivity in our communities. Only then can we truly live up to the ideals of equality in our Indian democracy.

In conclusion, while India has made significant progress towards achieving equality, there is still much work to be done. As responsible citizens, it is our duty to strive towards creating a society where every individual is treated with dignity and given equal opportunities to succeed. Our democracy can only thrive when equality is truly embraced by all.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Let us work towards building a more equal and just India for all

Essay on Equality and Diversity:

Equality and diversity are two important principles that form the foundation of a just and inclusive society. The fundamental idea behind equality is to treat everyone fairly, without any bias or discrimination based on their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or any other personal characteristic. On the other hand, diversity refers to recognizing and valuing differences among individuals in terms of their background, experiences, perspectives, and beliefs.

The concept of equality has been a long-standing struggle for marginalized groups who have faced oppression and exclusion in many aspects of their lives. It is essential to recognize that true equality goes beyond treating everyone the same; it requires addressing systemic barriers that hinder opportunities for certain groups.

Diversity is equally crucial for a healthy and vibrant society. It brings together people from different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs, fostering understanding and tolerance. Embracing diversity allows us to learn from one another and celebrate our differences.

In conclusion, equality and diversity go hand in hand in promoting a harmonious and fair society. As individuals, we must strive towards creating a world that values and respects all individuals regardless of their differences. Only then can we truly achieve a just and inclusive society for all. We must continue to educate ourselves on these topics and actively work towards breaking down barriers to create a more equal and diverse world for future generations.

Together, we can build a better tomorrow where everyone is treated with dignity, respect, and fairness. Let us embrace our uniqueness and celebrate diversity in all its forms. So, let us strive towards a world where equality and diversity are not just concepts, but lived realities for all individuals

>>>>  Related Post:  ” Essay on Great Life Lessons “

What is equality in 100 words?

Equality is the principle of ensuring that all individuals have the same fundamental rights, opportunities, and treatment, regardless of their differences, such as race, gender, or socioeconomic status. It promotes fairness and justice in society by striving to eliminate discrimination and bias.

Key aspects of equality include access to education, employment opportunities, healthcare, and legal protections. It is a foundational concept in democratic societies, aiming to create an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive and contribute to the best of their abilities, without prejudice or disadvantage.

What is equality in a few lines?

Equality is the idea of providing individuals with the same rights, opportunities, and treatment, irrespective of their differences. It’s about eliminating discrimination and ensuring fairness, whether in education, employment, or legal protection.

What are the main points of equality?

The main points of equality include equal rights, opportunities, and treatment for all individuals, regardless of their differences. It involves combating discrimination, ensuring fairness, and providing access to education, employment, healthcare, and legal protections.

What is the introduction of equality?

An introduction to equality typically begins by defining the concept and emphasizing its importance in fostering a just and inclusive society. It may touch on the principles of fairness, non-discrimination, and equal opportunities for all, setting the stage for a more in-depth discussion of how equality is realized and its significance in various aspects of life.

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Physical Abuse — Was Hammurabi’s Code Fair Or Unfair

Was Hammurabi's Code Fair Or Unfair

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Published: Aug 1, 2024

Words: 638 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

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The unfairness in hammurabi's code, the fair aspects of hammurabi's code.

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/are-the-2024-paris-olympics-gender-equal-that-depends-how-you-measure-it

Are the 2024 Paris Olympics gender equal? That depends how you measure it

The last time the French capital played host to the Olympic Games, 135 women competed out of the more than 3,000 athletes – a participation rate of about 4.4 percent.

WATCH: U.S. athletes to watch in the Paris Olympics

A century later, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has dubbed the 2024 Paris Games the #GenderEqualOlympics, with half of the athlete spots available to men and half to women, the organization says.

The reality is more complex. Experts say that while the IOC has made substantial progress in leveling the playing field for women in its decadeslong push for gender parity, there is still a lot of work to do, for women, transgender and nonbinary athletes.

This year’s Games are the first to impose a cap on the number of participating athletes, which had steadily grown to more than 11,000 at Tokyo 2020. The IOC has since limited the Games to 10,500 athlete spots, half of which were designated for men and half for women. This year’s game schedule also works to balance the number of women’s and men’s events held daily.

Team USA Olympic champions in the women’s 4x100m relay at the 1924 Paris Games, at Tourelles Watersports Stadium, Paris, France, July 18, 1924. Photo by Archives CNOSF/AFP via Getty Images

Although there’s a good chance the number of athletes in Paris will be nearly equally divided between men and women, that’s not the same as the Games being gender equal, said Michele Donnelly, associate professor of sport management at Brock University.

“There is this kind of investment by the IOC and a narrative around gender equality, gender parity, and a lot of that I think is well-meaning and well-intentioned,” said Cheryl Cooky, a professor who studies the intersection of gender, sport and culture at Purdue University.

But, Cooky added, when you dig a bit deeper through the history of the Olympics, the lack of equality has been expressed in a number of ways.

A rocky start for women in sport

The first modern Games were played in 1896 in Athens, and its founder, Pierre de Coubertin , did not want women athletes.

De Coubertin said the Olympics with women “would be impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and improper.” According to the IOC, he opposed women’s participation until his death in 1937.

In the 1900 Games , also played in Paris, women were allowed to compete in five events: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf. Those sports were considered “ladylike” at the time, wrote Olympic scholar Rita Amaral Nunes , in contrast to sports that were believed to require more athletic ability and deemed socially unacceptable for women to practice.

Women’s Olympic participation remained below 20 percent of the total number of competitors until 1976, and then rose steadily to nearly 48 percent in Tokyo in 2021, according to IOC data.

WATCH: Why women’s sports are reaching new heights in popularity and revenue

The road toward equal female participation has not been smooth, Donnelly noted. Women were first allowed to run the 800-meter race at the 1928 Olympics, held in Amsterdam. As the women finished the race, in which all nine competitors broke the previous world record, one athlete fell to the ground, according to an article published in Sports History Review .

German runner Lina Radke wins the women’s 800-meter race in the 1928 Summer Olympics, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1928. Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images

The English-speaking press inaccurately reported that the race was catastrophic, with various outlets saying only two women remained standing, that “six out of the nine runners were completely exhausted and fell headlong to the ground,” and that some runners lay “sobbing.” Though the stories were false, the narrative stuck, and the women’s 800-meter race was eliminated from the Olympics until 1960.

A push toward gender equity

The IOC has publicly worked for the last three decades to improve gender equity in sports, as well as in executive leadership within its own committee. In 1996, the IOC updated the Olympic Charter to promote “women in sport at all levels and in all structures, particularly in the executive bodies of national and international sports organizations. ” That year, the IOC also held its first World Conference on Women in Sport, with the goal of placing women in at least 10 percent of decision-making positions by 2000, and 20 percent by 2005.

In Agenda 2020 , a 2014 roadmap for the future of the Olympics, one of the 40 recommendations was to “foster gender equality” by achieving 50 percent female participation and encouraging mixed-gender team events, in which both men and women compete on a single team.

Mixed-gender events promote equality in theory, Donnelly said, but in practice, they often favor men. For example, in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the luge event featured one-man teams, one-woman teams and doubles teams. But all of the doubles teams were two men, USA Today reported .

In addition to mixed-gender events, there are also open events in which athletes compete against each other regardless of gender. In Paris, the only open events will be equestrian sports : dressage, jumping and eventing.

Sailing, shooting and doubles luge used to be open events, though historically they had very little female involvement, Donnelly said.

“This is what we’ve seen in sport in general. Unless there has been a push to say, ‘you must,’ there has not been a lot of sport-initiated change to be more inclusive,” she said.

Chinese shooter Zhang Shan aims at a target to win gold in the mixed skeet shoot event at the Olympics, Barcelona, July 28, 1992. Zhang set a new Olympic record with 223 points and was the first woman to beat men in this mixing category. Photo by Karl Mathis/AFP via Getty Images

Skeet shooting was an open sport in Barcelona in 1992, when Zhang Shan, a Chinese woman, won the gold medal. Subsequently, skeet shooting became segregated by gender.

“There’s nothing in the record that says, ‘And then once a woman won, we decided to have gendered categories,’ but the timing is notable,” Donnelly said.

The IOC began studying ways to improve gender equality in 2017, both within the Olympics and worldwide. A year later, they released 25 recommendations and accompanying actions to achieve those goals. Those recommendations included funding projects focused on gender balance and identifying and alleviating disparities in athlete pay and prize money. That same year, the IOC said the Youth Olympic Games had an equal number of male and female athletes.

The Paralympics still have a ways to go, however. Only 42 percent of the athletes at the Tokyo games were women, according to a report from the Women’s Sports Foundation . And the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games’ overview notes again that only 42 percent of the athlete spots will go to women, with another 8 percent of the slots marked as “gender-free.”

READ MORE: At the Olympics, where are the Black figure skaters?

The IOC declined a request for comment from PBS News. Instead, a spokesperson highlighted the progress the IOC has made, including increasing the number of women in key broadcasting roles , working to ensure men and women’s events are scheduled for fair media coverage , and striving for greater female representation among IOC commissions and in the IOC executive board. The IOC also said they’re working to increase the number of female coaches and women in non-competitive and leadership roles.

The IOC has made progress in improving the state of women’s sports, both Donnelly and Cooky said.

“People can be doing really good work in certain spaces and also maybe needing to do better at others,” Cooky said.

Exclusionary policies persist

In striving for gender parity at the Olympics, the IOC has also reinforced a gender binary that categorizes athletes as male or female, experts say. That overlooks intersex, transgender and nonbinary athletes, whose participation in sport is often contested or flat out banned.

Quinn, a nonbinary soccer player for Canada’s team, and Nikki Hiltz, a nonbinary American middle-distance runner, will both compete in the Paris Games in women’s events.

READ MORE: Will the Olympics ever truly welcome nonbinary athletes?

Trans men largely can compete in men’s sports without any additional regulation, according to Donnelly.

“It is only trans women who have been policed with these kinds of eligibility requirements, with sex testing requirements,” Donnelly said. And by necessity, those testing requirements are not limited just to transgender individuals, but all athletes competing in those events.

In 2004, the IOC recommended conditions under which transgender athletes could compete, including undergoing hormone therapy, completing “surgical anatomical changes” and obtaining “legal recognition of their assigned sex.” The committee then released new guidelines in 2015, dropping the requirement for surgery while establishing a cap on testosterone levels for female athletes. They updated the guidelines again in 2021 to remove the limit and instead recommended an “evidence-based” and “stakeholder-centered” approach to establishing eligibility criteria.

Donnelly criticized the IOC for allowing sports federations to make their own rules, saying the organization “abdicated responsibility” and allowed “very exclusionary policies.”

READ MORE: New NAIA policy prevents transgender women from competing in women’s college sports

Some governing bodies have enacted strict policies in the past few years, such as the International Rugby League, which in 2022 banned trans women from women’s teams, as well as the International Swimming Federation, which banned female swimmers who transition after age 12 .

Even athletes assigned female at birth can face discrimination if they don’t meet genetic or hormonal standards set by governing organizations.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif received harsh online blowback after her Italian opponent, Angela Carini, tapped out of their bout at the Paris Games less than a minute in. Carini has said she left because she was in pain and couldn’t continue to fight, but a public narrative took hold that Khelif was unfairly competing after being previously disqualified by the sport’s governing organization, the International Boxing Association.

READ MORE: Who is Olympian Imane Khelif? An Algerian woman boxer is facing gender backlash

But the reality is much more complicated. The IOC has repeatedly and forcefully stood behind Khelif’s participation, as well as that of another athlete banned from women’s competitions by the IBA,Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting. The IBA disqualified both boxers in 2023 , citing the results of unspecified eligibility tests “whereby the specifics remain confidential,” but the IOC called the decision “sudden and arbitrary” and “without any due process.”

The IOC controls which athletes can compete in boxing events, since it no longer recognizes the Russian-headquartered IBA as the sport’s governing body. Donnelly noted that the IBA is a “completely discredited governing body” and Khelif and Yin met the same eligibility requirements in Paris as they did for the Tokyo Games.

“The uproar seems to be another case of using women’s sport to promote a transphobic, trans exclusionary agenda,” said Donnelly.

Because sex testing can be done at the discretion of governing organizations, it can often be inconsistently applied. Women of color who may not display Eurocentric standards of female beauty may be more likely to be targeted for sex testing, both Donnelly and Cooky said.

“These are athletes who are competing at the highest level of their sport. They’ve trained all their lives for this. These are women who identify as women, who have probably been raised or socialized as women, have moved through the world with a particular kind of gender identity that’s now being called into question, and being called into question in a very public way, and a very contentious and inflammatory way,” Cooky added.

‘Numbers matter, until they don’t’

The percentage of women athletes or events isn’t the only way to measure the progress of gender equality in sports, researchers say. There are other markers of gender imbalances, such as the uniforms athletes wear, the funding devoted to each event and the quality of media coverage.

“Numbers matter, until they don’t,” Cooky said. “Numbers can give us a certain understanding, a certain picture or a certain viewpoint. But I think for me, what’s always been just as meaningful, if not more, is the kind of qualitative dimensions of it.”

Coverage of women’s events can often sexualize or trivialize athletes, Cooky argued, a tendency potentially driven by uniforms that can be more revealing for women. For example, female competitors in trampoline events are required to wear a leotard while their male counterparts are not, Donnelly said.

Nike’s reveal of two of the uniform options for American competitors in the Paris Games caused controversy, with critics, including some former athletes, calling out the lack of coverage in the women’s track and field kit compared to the men’s.

“I do feel that it is possible that a more sexualized representation of women get a higher amount of visibility, and I am not a fan of that,” said Katrina Young, an Olympic diver who competed for Team USA in Rio and Tokyo. “I would like to be considered for my hard work and my merit, over what I look like. And I know other female athletes would like that as well.”

The IOC recognizes that gender equality is not limited to athlete breakdown, and much of their public-facing material highlights their efforts to increase the number of women in decision-making positions and leadership roles. On International Women’s Day, the IOC acknowledged that progress has been limited, with women comprising only 13 percent of coaches in Tokyo and 10 percent in Beijing.

“In sports in general, I feel like the male voice is more dominant and respected,” Young said. “It’s an ongoing battle because, as women, we’re told to smile over the pain and we’re supposed to be the peacekeepers. And at some point that becomes toxic.”

“The percentage of women in governing and administrative bodies of the Olympic Movement has remained low,” the IOC acknowledged in a fact sheet published in April . At the end of 2016, their executive board had encouraged National Olympic Committees to set a minimum target of 30 percent for women’s representation by 2020, though it’s not clear how successful that’s been.

Young said she “was really scared to stir the pot ever, when it came to speaking up” about her own potential when she was coming of age, but it was something she chose to work on. Now, she hopes more girls and women are given the opportunity to develop their voice and gain the clarity “to speak to what is true and right for them.”

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Why professional athletes are bolstering the push for paid maternity leave

Nation Jan 27

Olympic officials address gender eligibility as boxers prepare to fight

PARIS – The case of two Olympic boxers has drawn attention to a thorny issue: Who and what determines which female athletes can compete.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan both were disqualified from the 2023 women’s boxing world championships when they reportedly failed gender eligibility tests.

But this week, the International Olympic Committee confirmed the two boxers have been cleared to compete here at the Paris Games , as they both did at the Tokyo Games in 2021. The issues of so-called gender verification or sex testing have fueled discussion at the Olympics as the fighters prepare to enter the ring at North Paris Arena.

Khelif, a silver medalist at the 2022 world championships, is scheduled to fight Thursday against Angela Carini of Italy in the welterweight division at 146 pounds. Lin, a two-time world champion, is scheduled to fight Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in the featherweight division at 126 pounds.

“Yeah, it’s really tricky," Australian boxer Tiana Echegaray told reporters Tuesday when asked about the situation. "I don’t know exactly what their circumstances are."

IOC spokesman Mark Adams indicated Tuesday no personal information about the boxers' medical histories would be disclosed. "They've been competing in boxing for a very long time," Adams told reporters. “They've achieved all the eligibility requirements in terms of sex and age. We're following the rules in place in Tokyo."

Who's in charge of boxing?

At the Summer Olympics, when it comes to gender eligibility, the IOC defers to the international federations that govern each of the 32 sports.

The IOC does provide a framework to the international federations . But it's “nonbinding."

In other words, it’s not up to the IOC. And the situation has grown especially complicated with boxing.

Last year the IOC banished the International Boxing Association (IBA), long plagued with scandal and controversy that jeopardized the future of Olympic boxing. In fact, the IOC denied IBA the right to run Olympic boxing during the Tokyo Games in 2021 and instead turned over control to an ad-hoc unit.

Opinion: Olympic female boxers are being attacked. Let's just slow down and look at the facts

With that ad-hoc unit in charge, Kehlif and Lin both competed at the Tokyo Olympics. Neither won a medal.

But the IBA has maintained control of the world championships and gender eligibility rules. And after Lin won gold and Kehlif won bronze at the event in March 2023, officials announced the boxers had failed medical eligibility tests and stripped them of the medals.

IBA president Umar Kremlev said DNA tests “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded."

What's the eligibility criteria?

A passport could be key, based on comments from Adams, the IOC spokesman.

“I would just say that everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules," he said. “They are women in their passports and it is stated that is the case.”

Thursday Adams added that the issues with the previous tests for the boxers "was not a transgender issue, there's been some misreporting on that in press. ... These women have been competing as women for many years.

"What I would say just quickly on testosterone is, the testosterone (test) is not a perfect test. Many women can have testosterone, even what would be called 'male levels' and still be women and still compete as women. So this is not a panacea − this idea that suddenly you test, do one test for testosterone. Each sport needs to deal with this issue but I think we agreed, I hope we're agreed, we're not going to go back to the bad old days of 'sex testing'. That would be a bad idea."

In the past, other eligibility standards have hinged on science.

Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field in 2012 and 2016, was forced to give up competing in the 800 meters because her testosterone levels were too high based on tests administered by World Athletics, the sport’s international federation previously known as the IAAF.

Semenya was assigned female at birth. She said she was told at age 18 that she has XY chromosomes and naturally had high levels of testosterone.

Khelif and Lin have not publicly addressed details of their medical histories regarding the tests.

The issue of eligibility surfaced as a source of controversy in the United States in 2022 when swimmer Lia Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA championship.

At the time, the NCAA required transgender female athletes to have undergone one year of testosterone suppression treatment to be eligible to compete on a women's team in any sport. The NCAA has been under pressure to update its guidelines after the NAIA banned all transgender athletes from competing in women's sports.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a decision in June by World Aquatics, the international federation for swimming, that prevented Thomas from competing in elite competitions through World Aquatics or USA Swimming.

Who are these two boxers?

Lin, 28, has been fighting as an amateur for more than a decade, according to BoxRec, a widely regarded boxing site.

She made her official amateur debut about three months shy of her 18th birthday, winning at the 2013 AIBA World Women’s Championships. She won gold medals at the world championships in 2019 and 2022.

At 5-foot-9, she often has enjoyed a height advantage while amassing a record of 40-14 with one knockout. The record does not reflect the four fights she won at the 2023 world championships before her disqualification, which resulted in the outcome of the fights being changed to “no contest.’’

She lost her last fight – a split-decision defeat against Brazil’s Jucielen Cerqueira Romeu in April at the 2024 USA Boxing International Invitational in Pueblo, Colorado.

Khelif, 25, made her amateur debut at the 2018 Balkan Women's Tournament. She won a silver medal at the 2022 world championships.

At 5-foot-10, she also has enjoyed a height advantage while amassing a record of 36-9 with four knockouts, according to BoxRec. That does not include the three fights she won at the 2023 world championships before her disqualification resulted in the fights being changed to “no contest.’’

In one of those fights, Khelif stopped her opponent by TKO.

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard

News Analysis

The Willful Amnesia Behind Trump’s Attacks on Harris’s Identity

Suggesting that there is something contrived about a mixed-race person identifying as Black assumes that the choice wasn’t already made for her.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in Houston last week. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times

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By Nikole Hannah-Jones

• Aug. 4, 2024

When I was a child, my dad sat my older sister and me down in our living room and explained to us the rules of race in America. A Black man born into a Mississippi where Black boys could be lynched for merely standing too close to a white woman, he met my white mom in 1972. That was just a few years after the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia finally struck down 300 years’ worth of laws prohibiting people who descended from slavery from marrying people whose ancestors had enslaved them. In other words, Dad held no illusions about how race worked in our society and felt it was his duty as a parent to prepare us. Our mother might be white, he told us, but in this country, that fact was irrelevant to how we would be seen and treated. She might be white, but we were Black.

Listen to this article, read by Janina Edwards

What my dad said that day when I was an elementary school student merely confirmed an understanding that I already had. I grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins and my grandmama from my dad’s side as just another child in a big Black family, my mom most often the only white person at family events. Several times a year, we’d travel about an hour out of town to rural Iowa, where we’d spend time with my white grandparents, who loved us dearly but who existed in a completely white world that we were never quite fully a part of.

I cannot say exactly how I knew I was Black before my dad sat us down, but I knew. Everyone knew. With my white family I was not white but part white. With my Black family and in the rest of America, I was Black. In American society, this race rule is so embedded that it is not even questioned.

Last week, former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, told a room full of Black journalists that Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mother was Indian and whose father is Jamaican, “was always of Indian heritage” and “now wants to be known as Black.” When he did so, he was embracing a convenient historical amnesia about the country he seeks to lead.

By suggesting that there was something nefarious or politically contrived about a mixed-race person claiming Blackness as her identity, he was acting as if that choice hadn’t been made for Harris when she was born to a Black father. We saw this same orchestrated amnesia when Barack Obama set out to become the first Black president. It seems that when a mixed-race Black American appears to be ascending to the pinnacles of American power, some white Americans suddenly forget the race rules that white society created.

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