Volume 26, Number 3
February 2024
ARTICLE

The Problem of Basic Equality: A Constructive Critique

Volume 26, Number 3, February 2024, Pages 495–522
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v26i3.2370
PDFPDF

Abstract

This paper offers a targeted five-point critique of the current debate about the problem of basic equality. First, it argues that the debate should be refocussed away from any particular concept(ion) of basic equality to a more agnostic proposition about the possibility of establishing equality in any basic moral property. Second, it re-articulates the problem in terms of grounding relations rather than supervenience. Third, it argues that proponents of predominant approach to solving this problem have failed to properly distinguish between two different non-scalar properties defined in terms of scalar properties: “range properties” and “bare properties.” Once disambiguated it is clear as to why such an approach must fail. However, this critique does direct our attention to a possible alternative strategy, that is, grounding our equality upon a “relative property.”
Copyright © 2024 Nikolas Kirby
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
|

The Moral Harms of Homelessness

Bradley Hillier-Smith

Does Initial Appropriation Create New Obligations?

Jesse Spafford

Liberty, Equality, Authority

David Owens

Reparations, Relational Equality, and Causation

Felix Lambrecht

Prospects for a Progressive Critique of Self-Sexualizing Rap Music: The Challenge of Oppressive Double Binds

Tareeq Jalloh

Voting, Representation, and Institutions: A Critique of Elliott’s Duty to Vote

Ben Saunders

The Overweighted Integrity Problem: Conscience, Complicity, and Moral Standing

Kyle G. Fritz

Should All Freedom Be Basic?

Seena Eftekhari

Addiction, Responsibility, and a Sorites Problem

Jeesoo Nam

Crying Havoc and (Re)claiming Rights: How the Liabilities of Revisionism and the Just War Tradition Alter the Moral Equality of Combatants

Marcus Hedahl

The Right to Emigrate: Exit and Equality in a World of States

Daniel Sharp

Consumer Complicity and the Problem of Individual Causal Efficacy

Corey Katz

Portico