This is an efficient way to learn about the research of some members of our faculty. If you want to attend one or two of these entirely optional sessions let us know by email a few days in advance so we can arrange rooms. To request a copy via snail mail please email Linda Shultes .
Many egalitarians argue that the point of equality is to compensate people for undeserved bad luck.
This view leaves egalitarians open to devastating conservative criticisms, fails to fruitfully engage active egalitarian political movements, and reproduces a Poor Law regime that moralistically excludes many citizens from aid and offers only stigmatizing aid to others, on grounds of their innate inferiority. The point of equality is better conceived as creating a democratic society, in which people stand in relations of equality to one another. Democratic equality entitles all citizens to the goods they need to function as free and equal citizens, and to avoid oppression by others. This view explains, against conservative objections, how citizens can be obligated to promote equality. It supports the focus of active egalitarian movements on broader goals than the distribution of goods.