What is Equality? Part 1: Equality of Welfare

Equality is a popular but mysterious political ideal. This chapter discusses one aspect of that question, which might be called the problem of distributional equality. Suppose It considers two general theories of distributional equality. The first holds that a distributional scheme treats people as equals when it distributes or transfers resources among them until no further transfer would leave them more equal in welfare. The second holds that it treats them as equals when it distributes or transfers so that no further transfer would leave their shares of the total resources more equal. Equality of welfare linked to that sort of theory holds that distribution should attempt to leave people as equal as possible in some aspect or quality of their conscious life. The chapter notices a threshold difficulty in applying this conception of equality in a community in which some people themselves hold, as a matter of their own political preferences, exactly the same theory.