Abstract
This article surveys a variety of egalitarian theories. We look at a series of different answers to the question of what the metric of justice should be. Then we survey different interpretations of the egalitarian distributive rule, including ‘equality’, ‘prioritizing benefit to the least advantaged’ and ‘sufficiency’. Theories also differ by whether they see equality as properly holding within social institutions or being a principle that applies more cosmically. Finally, we observe that egalitarian theories differ as to the weight they grant to egalitarian values relative to other values.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Anderson, E. 1999. What is the point of equality? Ethics 109: 287–337.
Arneson, R. 1989. Equality and equal opportunity for welfare. Philosophical Studies 56: 77–93.
Arneson, R. 2002. Egalitarianism. In: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Online. Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism. Accessed 14 Oct 2006.
Brighouse, H., and A. Swift. 2006. Equality, priority and positional goods. Ethics 116: 471–497.
Christiano, T. 1995. The rule of the many. Boulder: Westview Press.
Cohen, G.A. 1997. Where the action is: On the site of distributive justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 26: 3–30.
Dworkin, R. 1981. What is equality? Part 2: Equality of resources. Philosophy and Public Affairs 10: 283–345.
Dworkin, R. 2000. Sovereign virtue. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fraser, N. 1998. Social justice in the age of identity politics. In: The Tanner lectures on human values. Stanford University, 29 April–2 May. Online. Available at http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/Fraser98.pdf. Accessed 14 Oct 2006.
Hirsch, F. 1976. Social limits to growth. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Julius, A.J. 2003. Basic structure and the value of equality. Philosophy and Public Affairs 31: 321–355.
Julius, A.J. 2006. Nagel’s atlas. Philosophy and Public Affairs 34: 176–192.
Nagel, T. 2005. The problem of global justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33: 113–147.
Nussbaum, M. 2000. Women and human development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Parfit, D. 2000. Equality or priority? In The ideal of equality, ed. M. Clayton and A. Williams. London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan/St Martin’s Press.
Pogge, T. 2003. Can the capability approach be justified? Philosophical Topics 30(2): 167–228.
Rawls, J. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. 2001. Justice as fairness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Roemer, J.E. 1986. Equality of resources implies equality of welfare. Quarterly Journal of Economics 101: 751–784.
Roemer, J.E. 1998. Equality of opportunity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sen, A. 1999. Development as freedom. New York: Knopf.
Temkin, L. 2002. Equality, priority, and the levelling down objection. In The ideal of equality, ed. M. Clayton and A. Williams. London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan/St Martin’s Press.
Walzer, M. 1983. Spheres of justice. New York: Basic Books.
Williams, A. 2002. Dworkin on capability. Ethics 113: 23–39.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Brighouse, H., Swift, A. (2018). Egalitarianism. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2710
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2710
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences