Social equality

Is equality valuable? This question dominates many discussions of social justice, which tend to center on whether certain forms of distributive equality are valuable, such as the equal distribution of primary social goods. But these discussions often neglect what is known as social or relational equality. Social equality suggests that equality is foremost about relationships and interactions between people, rather than being primarily about distribution.

A number of philosophers have written about the significance of social equality, and it has also played an important role in real-life egalitarian movements, such as feminism and civil rights movements. However, as it has been relatively neglected in comparison to the debates about distributive equality, it requires much more theoretical attention. This volume brings together a collection of ten original essays which present new analyses of social and relational equality in philosophy and political theory. The essays analyze the nature of social equality, as well as its relationship to justice and politics.

social equality concerns the distribution of social goods and burdens, such as income, wealth, opportunity, education, and health care. Although we may claim that all people are somehow "equal" -- say, equally valuable in the eyes of God -- this is not a conception of social equality but a call for equal moral treatment -- for example, to claim that everyone has the same basic rights. Instead, social equality occurs when some good, like income or happiness, is equally attained. Say the good is freedom. Social equality would then mean that freedom should be equally distributed. The problem of defining social equality involves the specification of the goods that should be equally distributed and the units to which those goods are distributed. Should we claim that basic political rights should be equally distributed, or should we concentrate on income, workload, wealth, health care, or opportunity? The units to which these goods are to be equally distributed is also problematic. Many believe that all proposals should be in terms of individuals. All people should have an equal attainment of good X (or the good we decide should be equally distributed). Suppose we use income as the good. Should we really insist on all individuals having a right to the same income when many people are infants and many people share expenses in the same households? We may believe that a proper mark of social equality will call for equal distribution of income to all households. This example shows that the question about the unit to be equally provided with a good is not properly answered by the quick claim that individuals constitute the unit.

Social equality is a state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects, often including civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights, and equal access to social goods and services.