What is the 'equality of what?' debate?

It is the dispute over the proper metric of egalitarian justice — whether a society should aim to equalize welfare, resources, opportunity for welfare, or capabilities — since each answer yields different policy implications.

What is the levelling-down objection?

It is the charge that if equality is valuable in itself, then making the better-off worse-off — even with no gain to anyone — would be in one respect good, which many find implausible and which motivates priority and sufficiency views.

Equality and Distribution

This area asks whether equality matters in itself, what should be equalized if it does, and how a just society should distribute resources, opportunities, and welfare.

Definition

Egalitarianism is the family of views holding that equality among persons — in some specified respect — is a requirement of justice; distributive principles specify how a society's benefits and burdens ought to be allocated.

Scope

Covers debates over the 'currency' of egalitarian justice (resources, welfare, capabilities), luck egalitarianism and its critics, the relational (democratic) conception of equality, and the rival distributive principles of priority and sufficiency. It also covers the justification and limits of redistribution and property.

Sub-topics

Core questions

Is equality valuable in itself, or only instrumentally?
Equality of what — welfare, resources, opportunity, or capabilities?
Should distributions track choice and responsibility while neutralizing brute luck?
Is it more important to benefit the worse-off (priority) or to ensure everyone has enough (sufficiency) than to equalize?
What limits, if any, may justice place on private property in the name of distribution?

Key concepts

currency of justice
brute luck and option luck
equality of opportunity
the levelling-down objection
the priority view
the sufficiency view
relational equality

Key theories

Equality of resources: Dworkin argues that justice requires equality of resources rather than welfare, using devices such as a hypothetical auction and insurance market to make distribution sensitive to people's choices but insensitive to unchosen disadvantage.
Luck egalitarianism: Cohen contends that the correct egalitarian aim is to neutralize the effects of brute luck while holding people responsible for genuine choices, eliminating involuntary disadvantage in advantage broadly construed.
Relational (democratic) equality: Anderson rejects luck egalitarianism's focus on distributive shares, arguing that the point of equality is to end oppression and create a society of equals in which citizens stand in relations of mutual respect.
Priority and sufficiency: Parfit's priority view holds that benefits matter more the worse-off their recipients are, without equality mattering in itself, while Frankfurt's sufficiency doctrine holds that what matters is that everyone has enough, not that all have the same.

History

Modern egalitarian theory grew out of Rawls's work as philosophers debated which 'currency' equality concerns — a question crystallized by Amartya Sen's 1979 'Equality of What?' lecture. Dworkin's resourcist account and Cohen's and Arneson's responsibility-sensitive views established luck egalitarianism in the 1980s-90s, prompting Anderson's relational critique (1999) and the priority/sufficiency alternatives of Parfit and Frankfurt.

Debates

Equality vs. priority vs. sufficiency: Whether justice requires equalizing shares, giving priority to the worse-off without equality mattering intrinsically, or only ensuring everyone reaches a sufficiency threshold.
Distributive vs. relational equality: Whether egalitarian justice is fundamentally about the pattern of distributive shares, as luck egalitarians hold, or about social relationships of equal standing, as Anderson argues against Cohen.

Key figures

Ronald Dworkin
G. A. Cohen
Elizabeth Anderson
Derek Parfit
Harry Frankfurt

Seminal works

dworkin2000
cohen1989
anderson1999

Frequently asked questions

What is the 'equality of what?' debate?: It is the dispute over the proper metric of egalitarian justice — whether a society should aim to equalize welfare, resources, opportunity for welfare, or capabilities — since each answer yields different policy implications.
What is the levelling-down objection?: It is the charge that if equality is valuable in itself, then making the better-off worse-off — even with no gain to anyone — would be in one respect good, which many find implausible and which motivates priority and sufficiency views.