People condemn inequalities for many reasons. For example, many who have no concern with distribution per se criticize inequalities in health care, because these inequalities lessen the benefits provided by the resources that are devoted to health care. Others who place no intrinsic value on distribution believe that a just society must show a special concern for those who are worst off. Some people, on the other hand, do place an intrinsic value on equality of distribution, regardless of its contribution to other goals. Derek Parfit and Larry Temkin call these people ‘egalitarians’. I shall always employ quotation marks when referring to ‘egalitarians’ in this special sense, because, as I shall argue, this terminology is misleading. One of its unhappy implications is that almost all egalitarians are not ‘egalitarians’.

‘Egalitarians’ in this tendentious sense favour distributing goods and harms equally, other things being equal. An ‘egalitarian’ may be concerned with other things, too, and an ‘egalitarian’ need not weight equality more heavily than anything else. So an ‘egalitarian’ need not endorse the unattractive view that it would be better, all things considered, to worsen the lives of those who are better off than average in order to diminish inequality.

Some philosophers, such as Temkin and Parfit, believe that those committed to egalitarian policies face a fundamental choice between ‘egalitarianism’ and the view that those who are worse off should have a certain priority over those who are better off. Those who hold such a view, whom Parfit (Reference Parfit, Clayton and Williams1991) calls ‘prioritarians’ and Temkin calls ‘extended humanitarians’ (Reference Temkin1993: Ch. 9), care about those who are worse off, not about distribution itself, though they will in practice seek to lessen inequalities. It can be difficult to describe examples where the policies endorsed by ‘egalitarians’ and prioritarians diverge, and Marc Fleurbaey (Reference Fleurbaey2015) argues convincingly that prioritarians are a species of egalitarians who differ from other egalitarians only with respect to the justification of egalitarianism and the measurement of inequality. From the point of view of policy, prioritarians and ‘egalitarians’ differ – if at all – only in their views concerning how to measure inequality.

Suppose, for example, there is some way to improve the situation of those who are worse off, but in so doing one also benefits the better off and, according to some measures of inequality, actually increases inequality. The prioritarian would approve, and it might appear that the ‘egalitarian’ who measures inequality this way would not. But this is not necessarily the case, since this ‘egalitarian’ might also value the total level of benefits or the egalitarian might be committed to the Pareto principle, which endorses changes that make some people better off without making anybody worse off. Prioritarians may, however, disagree with some ‘egalitarians.’ Consider, for example, two changes that increase total benefits by the same amount. In one there are more benefits to the very worst off, while in the other there is a greater decline in inequality (measured in some way other than by focusing on the very worst off). Although the prioritarian will prefer the first and this ‘egalitarian’ will favour the latter, the difference between ‘egalitarians’ and prioritarians lies less in the policies they recommend than in the reasons they would give for the egalitarian policies they both favour.

Astute readers will have noticed the absence of scare quotes around the last use of ‘egalitarian.’ That was no accident. Egalitarians are those who favour lessening inequalities, because of their commitment to moral principles linked to distribution. ‘Egalitarians’, prioritarians, and many others are egalitarians, and egalitarians should not permit those few philosophers who claim to value equality itself to hijack the name ‘egalitarian’.

Before proceeding further, something needs to be said about what it is whose unequal distribution the egalitarian objects to. As Amartya Sen (Reference Sen1992) and others have pointed out, there are many forms of egalitarianism, and egalitarianism with respect to some things will preclude egalitarianism with respect to others. For example, ‘egalitarianism’ is a widely held position with respect to fundamental rights, and my critique here is not directed against it. The debate over ‘equality’ versus priority is posed by Parfit as a dispute concerning the distribution of well-being. Since the benefits provided by a health system are a component of well-being, it may seem reasonable to frame debates concerning the distribution of health services this way. But health systems also bear heavily on fundamental opportunities, and make possible an argument for equality with respect to the provision of health services that does not depend on a commitment to equality of well-being. Even if the opposition between egalitarianism and prioritarianism were well defined, it would not be obvious how to apply it to questions concerning health.

Why should one care about inequalities in well-being, apart from their consequences for the well-being of individuals, for the protection of rights, and so forth? ‘Egalitarians’ answer (a) that inequality is itself a bad thing or (b) that inequality involves injustice. Parfit thus maintains that there are two varieties of ‘egalitarianism’, which he calls ‘teleological’ and ‘deontic’. But the second is not really a form of ‘egalitarianism.’ No plausible moral theory maintains that all inequalities in well-being are, other things being equal, unjust. No one believes that there is any regard in which it is less just if those who are guilty of serious crimes have a lower level of well-being than those who are innocent. What Parfit calls ‘deontic egalitarianism’ is concerned instead with whether a state of affairs has been brought about wrongly or has wrongly been allowed to persist. Such a concern is only accidentally egalitarian with respect to well-being, since some equalities in well-being are as unjust as some inequalities.

What Parfit calls ‘teleological egalitarianism’ is the only real variety of ‘egalitarianism’. According to teleological ‘egalitarianism’, inequalities in well-being are bad in themselves. If we were all equally well-off here on earth and, unbeknownst to us, human-like entities in some distant quarter of the universe were better off, that inequality would be a bad thing. I find such a view unappealing, but I will leave criticism of ‘egalitarianism’ to others.Footnote ¹ My points are (1) that ‘egalitarianism’ purports to explain why the inequalities that surround us are objectionable, (2) that this reason is controversial and (3) that many egalitarians do not accept it.

The prioritarian proposes a second reason why one should care about inequalities in well-being. Instead of caring about equality per se, the prioritarian is concerned about those who are worse off. As Parfit uses the terminology, what matters is an individual's ‘absolute’ level of well-being, not the relative position in a distribution. One is concerned not with how well off an individual is compared with others, but with how well off an individual is compared with how well off he or she could be. So, for example, the prioritarian might place more moral weight on benefiting a middle-income Nigerian than the poorest Swede if the former were at a lower level of well-being than the latter.Footnote ² Although distribution is of no intrinsic importance to the prioritarian, in weighting the good of those who are worse off more heavily than the good of those who are better off, prioritarians, like ‘egalitarians’, will fight against inequalities.

As a justification for egalitarian policies, prioritarianism seems to me as intuitively unappealing as ‘egalitarianism’. Consider two individuals, A and B, with no connection to one another, living splendid lives on remote islands or distant galaxies. Why should the fact that A is better off than B constitute any reason why B's well-being should command greater priority than A’s? The problem with the prioritarian and the ‘egalitarian’ accounts as justifications for egalitarian policies is that neither ‘egalitarianism’ nor ‘prioritarianism’ is ‘deep’ enough to provide any satisfactory account of what is disturbing about inequalities. To explain what is wrong with inequalities by saying that equality is intrinsically valuable or that one should give special weight to the interests of the worse off invites virtually the same question that one was supposed to answer: Why should inequalities matter? Why should improving the well-being of the worse off matter more than improving the well-being of the better off?

What really drives most egalitarians, I maintain, is not captured by ‘egalitarianism’ or prioritarianism. Egalitarians are instead more often motivated by two other factors. The first has no intrinsic connection to equality at all. It is a concern with the terrible circumstances of those who are worst off in the societies that we are familiar with. The misery, shame, helplessness, degradation and servility of those who are poor give one reason to fight against inequalities in wealth. The limitation of freedom and the stunting of intellect and sensibility caused by poor education give one reason to find against inequalities in schooling. The suffering of those who are sick and the shrinking of their lives give one reason to fight against inequalities in health.Footnote ³ This humanitarian concern for the plight of those who are badly off leads to a radical critique of existing inequalities, but it does not necessarily support equality of welfare or equality of resources. This humanitarian concern might for example be satisfied by the guarantee of a generous minimum to those who are worst off, regardless of the extent of inequality.

The concern with those who are badly off need not, however, only be a concern about their welfare. It can also be a concern about their self-respect, their moral status and the respect they are owed. And interpreted this way, the concern with those who are poor bleeds into the other factor I shall discuss that motivates egalitarianism, which is an insistence on the moral equality of people (Tawney Reference Tawney1931; Miller Reference Miller1982).Footnote ⁴ All people have the same intrinsic worth, deserve the same ‘baseline’ respect from others, and deserve from their society an impartial and equal respect for their interests. Related to this are views about self-respect and fraternity. Each person should be able to get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say to himself or herself, ‘I may not be the best basketball player, cook, or dancer. I may not have as happy a disposition as some of my neighbours have. My experiences, interests, abilities and passions are not the same as others. But (provided I have not forfeited a claim to self-respect and to the regard of others by my actions) I have the same worth as everyone else, and that is how others treat me and how they must treat me.Footnote ⁵ I have no betters, and my society recognizes none as better than me. The institutions in my society favour none over me and favour me over none other. Should we happen to find one another's company agreeable, I could be friends with anyone. No one is above me or below me.’

Such a view is related to the position that Parfit calls ‘deontic egalitarianism’, but it takes more seriously than Parfit does the gap between on the one hand the fundamental equality of moral status and mutual respect that drives egalitarians and, on the other hand, concerns about equality in the distribution of well-being that drive ‘egalitarians’. A concern for equality of moral status does not automatically rule out inequalities in wealth, income, social status and well-being (Griffin Reference Griffin1986: 297–301). Whether such inequalities matter depends on the circumstances. In actual circumstances, a concern for equality of moral status supports strongly egalitarian policies, because the inequalities that exist today within and between nations undermine equality of moral status. Equality of moral status cannot be achieved if inequalities in wealth, income, social status and well-being are large or if they are pervasive. Those concerned with equality of moral status must be particularly concerned with pervasive inequalities, whereby those who are richer are also healthier, happier, more powerful, better educated and more respected. Although some inequalities in health might be themselves of moral concern, egalitarians motivated by a concern with moral status will be especially concerned about correlations between inequalities in health and inequalities along other dimensions.

Different kinds of anti-egalitarians disagree in different ways with egalitarians. Principled anti-egalitarians deny that human beings have an equal moral status. In their view, those belonging to some genders, races, castes, classes or tribes have a higher moral status than those belonging to others. More common than principled anti-egalitarians are what one might call ‘perverse egalitarians’. They agree that all human beings have an equal moral status, but disagree about what this means. Utilitarians can, for example, be regarded as interpreting the possession of an ‘equal moral status’ as having one's happiness count equally. On this interpretation, one respects equality of moral status merely by maximizing happiness and thereby counting a quantity of happiness equally no matter whose it is. Similarly, libertarians can be seen as interpreting equality of moral status as the possession of certain rights and freedoms, and in this interpretation as in the utilitarian’s, equality of moral status no longer leads to egalitarian policies. Finally, there are those whom one might call empirical anti-egalitarians. They share the interpretation of equality of moral status sketched above, but deny the empirical claims that equality of moral status requires narrow and uncorrelated inequalities with respect to political influence and resources.

In a penetrating comment on an earlier draft of this essay, Susan Hurley objected that, despite its pretensions, this essay does not undermine the equality-priority distinction. Instead, in her view, it criticizes the concern with well-being rather than moral status. Rather than rejecting ‘egalitarianism’, she maintains that it espouses ‘egalitarianism’ concerning moral status. From one perspective, Hurley's point (which was also suggested to me by Marc Fleurbaey) seems clearly correct: the view I espouse is concerned with equalizing something. But unlike the ‘egalitarianism’ or the ‘prioritarianism’ that Parfit discusses, my view does not presuppose that equality has any intrinsic value or that the claims of those who are worst off (along any dimension) ipso facto deserve a special weight.

Just as one can ask, ‘Why be concerned with equality per se?’ and ‘Why weight the interests of the worse off more heavily?’ so one can ask, ‘Why care about equality of moral status?’ Answers to ethical questions give out when one reaches fundamental notions, and I think that at this point, one is close to the foundations of morality. As Griffin puts it, ‘to see things morally is to grant everyone some sort of equal standing’ (1986: 295). Virtually all moral theories find their origin in some notion of equal respect owed to moral agents, and the concerns with equality of moral status derive not from a concern with equality itself, but from a concern with a particular kind of status. Everyone should have an equal moral status because everyone should have the moral status of a person, and, possessing that moral status, all are equal to one another. If everyone has achieved the full moral status of a human being, then no one can have a higher status. One might also speculate that the true status of a person can be possessed by all only if possessed equally. In a society that does not accord the same baseline respect to all its members – that explicitly or implicitly admits of different ‘grades’ of human beings – a certain sort of moral identity may not be possible.

An ‘egalitarian’ such as Temkin might object that in founding this justification for egalitarianism in a non-distributional commitment to moral status, I have undermined my claim to have defended a genuine egalitarianism. Just as utilitarians are not really egalitarians, even though they may support egalitarian policies as a means to increasing total happiness, so one might complain that the view here fails to value equality itself. But the view sketched here does not treat equality as instrumental to extraneous ends. Although it finds no intrinsic value in distribution itself, equality is here a consequence of placing a certain value on agents, rather than a means toward achieving that value.

A concern with equality of moral status supports relatively egalitarian policies, and in particular, it supports a practical prioritarianism. If those who are worse off are impoverished, scorned, or excluded, then their moral status is degraded. But a concern for equality of moral status does not support complete equalizing and does not always support weighting the interests of someone who is worse off more than the interests of someone who is better off. Wide disparities and absolute miseries threaten equality of moral status, but narrow disparities, when even the worst off are in happy circumstances, do not. To make this point salient and to make vivid and concrete my objections to conceiving of issues about equality in terms of a choice between ‘equality’ and priority, let me sketch a portrait of an egalitarian utopia. This is a liberal individualistic utopia, because I also value liberal individualism and because I want to emphasize the consistency between inequalities and egalitarianism I espouse. But egalitarianism and liberal individualism are separate theories, and there are other ideals of social life with much more uniformity among members of a society, which would also be consistent with equality of moral status.