The Value of Equality

Is inequality bad? The question seems almost trivial. Few values appear as undisputed as equality. When we say that inequality is bad, or that equality is good, we often think of the fact that a society of equals is more solidaristic, tolerant, and democratic, among other things. Equality, it has been shown by epidemiologists, is even good for our health: the more equally income is distributed in a given society, the higher its average life expectancy. But while the instrumental value of equality is not much in doubt, whether or not equality has value beyond that is a topic of intense debate.

The study of the value of equality focuses, then, on whether equality has value that is non-instrumental. The past quarter century has witnessed a lively debate among moral philosophers precisely on that question. Among those who are to begin with sympathetic to curbing inequalities, three camps can be discerned. Egalitarians believe that equality is good in itself, independently from any instrumental value it might harbour. Egalitarianism’s chief rival is the view known as prioritarianism. The priority view asserts that equality is not as such good but that improvements to those who are worse off are. The wellbeing of these individuals, the view maintains, ought to receive priority. The other rival view, known as sufficientarianism, also agrees that equality as such lacks (non-instrumental) value. But in contrast to the two other views, it asserts that what matters is to ensure that individuals reach a certain threshold level of well-being.

The debate concerning the value of equality is enriched by a number of themes that cut across the three dominant views. Does value reside with individuals or is also impersonal? Is concern for value satiable, that is, exhausted at a certain point (as the sufficientarian view seems to presuppose) or not? What is the relevant time-frame for evaluating the goodness of outcomes: should we be concerned with individuals’ whole lives, or should we (also) be concerned with shorter time segments? For example, should we be bothered by simultaneous inequalities, even while they even out throughout individuals’ lives? Is it equality that is good, or rather inequality that is bad, and is there a difference between the two claims? Do prioritarianism and sufficientarianism themselves present viable alternatives to egalitarianism as accounts of value? Some have shown that prioritarianism does not in fact respect the separateness of persons. Others have questioned the arbitrariness of the sufficientarian threshold. 

These and related questions will occupy us at the Centre during the 2015-2016 academic year.