Equality

8 Key excerpts on "Equality"

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  Globalisation and Equality

  • Keith Horton, Haig Patapan(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2    Equality and Globalization Garrett Cullity

  When we ask what kind of Equality we should be morally concerned about, it is natural to look for answers in three different directions. First, we can cite the fundamental moral Equality of each individual person. The second direction to look in concerns Equality of political and legal status – Equality of political representation, Equality of opportunity to occupy political office and Equality before the law. And the third concerns what we might broadly call Equality with respect to how well off each person is.

  In the current philosophical debate about Equality, Equality of the first of these kinds is not at issue. Taking our fundamental moral Equality as given, the debate concerns its proper social expression: how we ought to take account of it in structuring our social institutions.1 The thought that our moral Equality should be reflected in Equality of political status is itself largely uncontroversial – although that still leaves room for debate over whether modern Western forms of democracy succeed in embodying the ideal of Equality of political representation, and just what should be taken to count as satisfying the ideal of Equality of opportunity to occupy political office. It also leaves open the question of whether the moral Equality of persons can be respected by endorsing manifestly undemocratic forms of political organization as intended staging posts on the way to realizing the democratic ideal later. The main focus of recent discussion, however, has been Equality of the third kind: ‘Equality with respect to how well off each person is’. What is the good to be equalized in this category? Is it the resources that each person has at his or her disposal (Dworkin 1981a,b)? Is it personal welfare – how well a person’s life goes for her? Is it rather opportunity for welfare (allowing that inequalities in welfare are not objectionable insofar as they result from different uses and misuses of the same opportunities) (Arneson 1989)? Or is it instead what Cohen calls ‘access to advantage’ – ‘access’, not opportunity, in order to cover shortfalls in personal capacity that do not diminish opportunity (Cohen’s examples: weakness and stupidity); and ‘advantage’, not welfare, in order to span both resource deficiencies (such as poverty and physical weakness) and welfare deficiencies (such as despondency and failure to achieve one’s aims)?2

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  Equality

  • John W. Chapman(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The doctrine of Equality of states in international organizations has come under increasing fire since the package deal on membership applications in 1955 opened the doors of the United Nations to quantitative and qualitative membership changes of such proportions as to shift the UN’s center of gravity from the relatively stable Western world to the revolutionary world of Africa and Asia. Two events on the eve of the United Nations’ twentieth anniversary served to call attention once more to this already controversial doctrine. The first of these was the 1964 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which seemed to institutionalize the division of the world into developed and developing states; the second was the protracted dispute over assessments for peace-keeping forces, which culminated in 1964 in the almost complete paralysis of the Nineteenth General Assembly. In each case a fundamental question was raised: Should a coalition of states, each with a vote equal in weight to that of every other state, attempt to override the opposition, on a matter of vital interest, of a state or group of states whose continued support is essential to the survival and growth of the organization? Fortunately, the dénouement in each of the two cases has not been the disaster for the UN that some observers were predicting. However, UNCTAD and the “financial crisis” suggest that it may be appropriate to reexamine the doctrine of political Equality of states in international organizations in order to determine whether it is functional or dysfunctional and how it may be adapted to the demands that a changing international system place upon the UN.

  Two coequal elements comprise the doctrine of political Equality. One of these, derived from traditional international law, is the rule that every state shall have an equal voice in the decision-making process of the organization, i.e., “one state, one vote.” The other is the principle of majority rule, borrowed from the theory and practice of democratic institutions. Equalitarianism and majoritarianism may, of course, be viewed as competitive, rather than complementary, principles.1 However, Equality without capacity to reach a decision is no more satisfactory to UN members than a capacity to reach decisions without Equality; inasmuch as a primary function of equalitarianism is to give to all states an opportunity to play a significant role in the decision-making process of the organization, majoritarianism has emerged as an important corollary of equalitarianism in international organizations. It can be, and has been argued that the equalitarian doctrine is a fiction and that it has been smuggled into the theory and practice of international organizations through spurious analogical reasoning.

  Everybody knows that all sovereign states are not equal. The differences between them in population, in territory, in wealth, in armed strength, in their habits of thought, in their conceptions of law and right—in all that goes to make up civilization—are amongst the most obvious and insistent of facts…. The simplest common sense is enough to teach us that Powers like Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States will not, and cannot, in any circumstances, allow Haiti, Salvador, Turkey, and Persia to have an equal right with themselves in laying down the law by which their fleets, their armies, their diplomatists, and their jurists are to be guided on matters of the supremest moment. The suggestion that they should submit to such a doctrine is simply fatuous.2

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  Equality and Non-Discrimination under International Law

  Volume II

  • Stephanie Farrior, Stephanie Farrior(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 discuss in greater detail how these two strands of the principle of Equality have been transposed in international human rights instruments and interpreted within its jurisprudence.

  1. The Philosophical Foundations of Equality

  Equality is a common cornerstone of many contemporary democracies. To appreciate why it occupies a cherished position in contemporary legal orders, it is necessary to examine how the understanding of Equality has evolved over time.4 The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Birthright of Man illustrates that the idea of Equality has preoccupied social thinkers and philosophers from all civilizations throughout history.5 Some scholars contend that even social philosophies such as Confucianism, which they traditionally perceived as promoting societal difference and inEquality, have made important contributions to our current understanding of the idea of Equality.6

  An understanding of why contemporary rights-based democracies have appropriated Equality as a constitutional norm begins with classical Greece.7 Thucydides proposed that Equality prescriptively indicates how law ought to operate in a democracy.8 In particular, he suggested that procedural Equality is instrumental for social justice—a key component of the democratic order. Plato, on the other hand, argued that the key differences which existed between individuals, for example, on the basis of sex, should be accounted for in exigent times.9 Greek philosophy’s most significant contribution to the notion of Equality is provided by Aristotle’s maxim that ‘things that are alike should be treated alike’,10

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  Justice in Global Health

  New Perspectives and Current Issues

  • Himani Bhakuni, Lucas Miotto, Himani Bhakuni, Lucas Miotto(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  More specifically, people ought to relate to each other as equals because we all engage in social practices of global affairs – climate, resources, economic growth, and cultural communications, which implies that we are at least in the same social union even without a common democratic institution. We have seen that different international organisations have constructed a net of international orders that is neither perfect nor sufficient yet. For instance, European Union citizens with their inter-state parliaments might be one example in the sense of transnational and regional citizenship. 28 Now we could have a picture of a relational egalitarian theory in global justice based on this understanding of world citizenship. But what does it mean to function as an equal world citizen? It seems that every world citizen is entitled to certain social goods such as necessary rights and liberties (expression, communication, and so on), a basic level of welfare (food, housing, and so on), natural resources (water, electricity, and so on), and opportunities (education, job, and so on). Without sufficient resources (broadly understood), one cannot function as a full participant in global political and social activities. When relational egalitarians argue for a sufficiency proviso, many of them adopt a capabilities approach. 29 This approach calls the states of being and doing “functionings,” e.g., the opportunity to do or be the things such as being educated, working, travelling, and so on. One's capabilities consist of sets of functionings one can achieve. Relational egalitarians claim that each individual ought to have the capabilities necessary for functioning as an equal citizen in different situations

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  Equality and Public Policy

  Exploring the Impact of Devolution in the UK

  • Paul Chaney(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • University of Wales Press

    (Publisher)

  1

  Introduction: Equalities and Public Policy

  1.0  Equalities and Public Policy 1.1  Contemporary Developments 1.1.1  Equalities Law 1.1.2  Institutions 1.2  Why Bother About it? 1.2.1  Making the Case for Equalities 1.2.2  A ‘Minority’ Issue? 1.3  Equalities in a (Quasi-) Federal UK 1.4  The structure of this volume 1.0 Equalities and Public Policy

  Equality of opportunity is an often misunderstood and contested concept; deeply political in nature it evokes strong reactions from proponents and opponents alike (Temkin, 1993; Freeden, 1994). It is an example of what Newman, (2001: 59) terms ‘wicked issues’. These are characterised by: differing interpretations of the social problem to be addressed; the fact that the relationship between different factors is sometimes hard to assess; they span traditional policy frames; and, require collaboration between agencies in both formulating and implementing policy responses. In the face of such challenges, the Equality Act (2006, Section 3) sets out a vision of an equal society as one in which:

  (a)  People’s ability to achieve their potential is not limited by prejudice or discrimination. (b)  There is respect for and protection of each individual’s human rights. (c)  There is respect for the dignity and worth of each individual. (d)  Each individual has an equal opportunity to participate in society. (e)  There is mutual respect between groups based on understanding and valuing of diversity and on shared respect for Equality and human rights.

  The different dimensions to the concept of Equality (see chapter 2) underpin the growing use of the term ‘equalities’ (Carabine, 2004; Bowes, 2006; Department for Local Government and Communities, 2007; Håkan, 2008; Carr, 2008).1

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  Social Justice in a Global Age

  • Olaf Cramme, Patrick Diamond, Olaf Cramme, Patrick Diamond(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  Because not all states are able (or willing) to secure these rights for their own citizens, the obligation to do so may fall on outside bodies, including other states. That is why human rights protection becomes a matter of global and not merely social justice. But note that the requirements of justice here are absolute, not comparative. What is required is that everybody should be brought to the point where he or she securely enjoys rights to bodily integrity, subsistence, and so forth. So far nothing has been said about the distribution of freedoms and resources over and above the minimum necessary to reach that threshold. But there is more to be said, in light of the fact that nation-states are not isolated and self-contained units but political communities able to interact to their mutual advantage, by for example creating economic gains for each other through international trade and investment, or co-operating to solve collective action problems such as the degradation of the global environment. When these interactions take place they raise questions of fairness. How are the benefits to be shared among the various parties? What rules should be applied to set the terms of trade, given that alternative sets of rules will benefit to varying degrees producers and consumers in different countries? Or in cases where political communities have to incur costs in order to solve global problems – cutting down on their use of natural resources or reducing their carbon emissions, say – what is a fair allocation of the costs in question? These questions are often now resolved in practice by self-interested bargaining among the various parties, a practice that tends to produce results that favour richer and more powerful states. What justice requires, by contrast, is a more complex matter, which may involve taking account not only of what would be a fair assignment of costs and benefits going forward but also of the historical background to the present situation

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  Philosophy: The Basics

  • Nigel Warburton(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Politics

  What is Equality? What is freedom? Are these worthwhile goals? How can they be achieved? What justification can be given for the state restricting the freedom of law-breakers? Are there any circumstances in which you should break the law? These are important questions for anyone. Political philosophers have attempted to clarify and answer them. Political philosophy is an immense subject, overlapping with ethics, economics, political science, and the history of ideas. Political philosophers usually write in response to the political situations in which they find themselves. In this area more than most, knowledge of the historical background is important for understanding a philosopher’s arguments. Clearly there is no room for historical stage-setting in this short book. For those interested in the history of ideas the further reading at the end of the chapter should be useful.

  In this chapter I focus on the central political concepts of Equality, democracy, freedom, punishment, and civil disobedience, examining the philosophical questions to which they give rise.

  Equality

  Equality is often presented as a political goal, an ideal worth aiming at. Those who argue for some form of Equality are known as egalitarians. The motivation for achieving this Equality is usually a moral one: it may be grounded on the Christian belief that we are all equal in the eyes of God, a Kantian belief in the rationality of Equality of respect for all persons, or perhaps a utilitarian belief that treating people equally is the best way to maximize happiness. Egalitarians argue that governments should be striving to make the move from recognizing moral Equality to providing some kind of Equality in the lives of those they govern.

  But how are we to understand ‘Equality’? Obviously human beings could never be equal in every respect. Individuals differ in intelligence, beauty, athletic prowess, height, hair colour, place of birth, dress sense, and many other ways. It would be ridiculous to argue that people should be absolutely equal in every respect. Complete uniformity has little appeal. Egalitarians can’t be proposing a world populated by clones. Yet, despite the obvious absurdity of interpreting Equality as complete uniformity, some opponents of egalitarianism persist in portraying it in this way. This is an example of setting up a straw man: creating an easy target simply to knock it down. They think that they have refuted egalitarianism by pointing out the important ways in which people differ, or by making the point that even if near uniformity could be achieved, people would very quickly revert to something like their previous condition. However, such an attack is only successful against a caricature of the theory and leaves most versions of egalitarianism unscathed.

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  The Notion of Equality

  • Mane Hajdin(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Part II Equality of Resources versus Equality of Welfare Passage contains an image [5] Two Contradictory Ideas of (Political) Equality

  Douglas Rae

  There are two very different ways of thinking about Equality in general and thus two very different ways of thinking about political Equality (and equal representation) in particular.1 The tension between these two views explains some important problems in the jurisprudence of political Equality, and the eventual irreconcilability of these two views points toward an ultimate limit on the attainment of political Equality and equal representation. One of the two egalitarianisms is attainable, and the other is not; one is sensitive to persons and their differences while the other is not; the attainable Equality is, alas, the insensitive one. These points all depend upon there being two views of Equality, so I will begin with this distinction.

  I. TWO NOTIONS OF Equality

  Let us distinguish two fundamentally different ways of conceiving Equality, best set apart by way of military example. An army quartermaster receives a memo requiring that every soldier be given “equal” footwear. In one view, he will issue boots with similar leather and construction but cut to fit each man’s feet, an allocation based on a comparison of individual needs—for example, the lengths and widths of feet. The aim will be to provide boots of equal value to each (relevantly different) soldier. A second view will lead to a simpler solution: identical boots for all, perhaps size 8½D. In this view, boots are so equal as to rule out all envy and all incentive to switch boots. Surely, even a solider with size 12E feet can gain nothing by trading in his 8½Ds for another’s 8½s. These two ways of providing equal footwear rest on profoundly different conceptions of Equality. Here are some additional “equalities” that further instantiate the two conceptions:

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