Although the concept of equality may seem to be intuitively understandable, it is quite complex and multidimensional in fact. Every new epoch brought different interpretations of the term; at the current stage of the development of the society, everyone may have his or her own opinion that derives from relevant experience. The existing perspectives are possible to unite into two major philosophies, welfarism and resourcism; each of these has certain advantages in theory. In practice, however, welfarism is considerably more sustainable, being based on the ideas of diversity along with personal rather than a collective responsibility, which apparently favors social justice.
The essential nuance to highlight primarily is that equality does not mean a complete absence of any differences, as some individuals misread it. This is physically impossible because people’s values and motives are too dissimilar to be unified; the consequent need to enforce equality is actually the main argument against egalitarianism (Frankfurt, 1987). The view of such a kind, however, emerges from the misinterpretation of the term since the latter does not presuppose standardizing thoughts, identities, and others.
Equality, in its most general sense, means social, political, and cultural conditions in which nothing prevents a person from participating in his or her community to the maximal possible degree. This involves the freedom to decide what is essential for him or her and the possibility to reach that, which corresponds to Dworkin’s view of welfarism (McKinnon, 2008a). It is worth noting that two perspectives exist within this philosophy, hedonism and preference satisfaction. The latter apparently is preferable, as it covers not solely immediate pleasurable states but fulfilling long-term goals, enabling a more stable increase in welfare. Free choice and broad prospects for all categories of people is where various human rights movements overlap, notwithstanding the frequent and serious conflicts among different groups of their participants (Baker et al., 2006). Simply stated, equality presupposes considering that people are different, respecting them regardless of their identities as well as backgrounds, and providing them with opportunities without treating certain individuals or groups as inferiors.
The area where the above impossibility of unification becomes especially apparent is a disability. People with special needs naturally are less capable of adequate social performance in comparison with the healthy due to their reduced mobility, sensory issues, or cognitive impairments. As a result, they have fewer chances for proper education and employment; hence generally lower income, which props the need for purchasing medications on a regular basis, can aggravate.
Resoursists believe that such people deserve compensation. Thus, Cohen calls their issues bad luck, which, according to him, the society should smooth (McKinnon, 2008a). Barry (2005) joins him, insisting that individuals are not responsible for the factors that lie beyond their control, to which a disability doubtlessly belongs. The postulates of such a kind underlie the philosophy of resourcism that uses the possession of resources as the currency, in other words, the main measurement, of equality (McKinnon, 2008a). Simply stated, the latter happens when no members of the community possess more or less than the others do. If this is impossible, the philosophy utilizes the principle of prioritarianism, which lies in addressing the worst cases first.
However, as mentioned, people have dramatically dissimilar values, due to which the above conception of equal distribution of goods is hardly applicable to practice. For instance, a situation where one deaf resident of an indicative city has a cochlear implant and another one does not is a bright example of inequality from the viewpoint of resourcism. Its actual reason, meanwhile, may be the second person’s lack of desire to utilize an implant. Thus, McKinnon (2008c) mentions that some individuals prefer to be “fully functioning” members of the “deaf community” rather than “substandard” members of the “hearing community” (p. 129). This allows assuming that the quality of their life is higher in their current state than it would be otherwise.
Another argument against resourcism actually is apparent from the assumption that a person’s responsibility should cover exclusively the points he or she can control. People with special needs apparently did not choose their destiny and cannot change it with their will, but this does not mean that the other should be obliged to compensate for their misery. Making hardworking individuals share their income with those who are less laborious, albeit for natural reasons, is big injustice towards the former, as those reasons are not their responsibility. This is among the primary facts on which the critique of resourcists, such as Rawls, who insists on equal distribution of wealth and income, rests (McKinnon, 2008a). Simply stated, an approach of such a kind would make some people happier but the other less happy, which compromises its applicability to reaching equality.
A more appropriate solution apparently lies in creating an environment in which all groups of people have a chance for proper education and employment, so that nothing prevents them from self-actualization. In such terms, equality is synonymic to desegregation, which benefits not solely disadvantaged groups, but the entire community. Thus, university campuses that house diverse students frequently become platforms for active discussions, stimulating intellectual development, and accumulate valuable, possibly unique, experience as well as talents (McKinnon, 2008b). For instance, a black person from a problem neighborhood may fail to enter a college, having attended a poor quality school, although he or she possesses a natural gift for a certain activity. With no affirmative action, that gift remains unnoticed, while well-planned and properly implemented initiatives can help reveal it. As a result, not only a particular person will receive a chance to self-actualize, but also society will acquire a dedicated specialist.
To the contrary, affirmative action is probable to stop being an equality tool and begin to favor positive discrimination, when candidates from disadvantaged groups, conversely, acquire a preference. Another counter-argument is that in can aggravate the stigma, marking its beneficiaries as lazy or not sufficiently competent. Finally, some consider such practices divisive because they can make people identify themselves with different segments rather than the same society (McKinnon, 2008b). To smooth those disadvantages, no initiatives should be mandatory for all representatives of a certain group; a more reasonable way is to focus on true talents. In addition, it is essential to ensure that the action equalizes the opportunities without providing extra, for instance enabling entering an educational facility but not a successful graduation with no effort.
Apparently, welfarism, which is related to the equality of opportunities, is more appropriate in practice in comparison with resourcism, which presupposes leveling the possession of goods. First, the values and goals of individuals are not necessarily identical; their needs for resources, therefore, are different as well. Second, it is not quite fair to force people who gain their income through hard work to share it with disadvantaged groups, for whose problems they are not responsible. Instead, it is essential to ensure that all categories of the population have equal access to education as well as employment chances and career prospects to be self-sufficient.
References
Baker, J., Lynch, K., Cantillon, S., & Walsh, J. (2006.) Equality: putting the theory into action. Res Publica, 12(4), pp.189-246.
Barry, B. (2005). Chapter 10. Responsibility versus equality? In Why social justice matters, pp. 131-141.
Frankfurt, H. (1987). Equality as a moral ideal. Ethics, 98(1), 21-43. Web.
McKinnon, C. (2008). Issues in political theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.”
McKinnon, C. (2008). Chapter 6. Affirmative action [Case study]. In Issues in political theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McKinnon, C. (2008). Chapter 6. Social justice and disability [Case study]. In Issues in political theory (pp. 127-131). Oxford: Oxford University Press.