Abstract 

In this paper I argue that the only equality that need be postulated between agents qua heading into a theory of normative ethics and/or politics is that the agents in question be equally involved in interactivity in which there’s a cooperative dividend to which they can have access if and only if they can bring themselves to (in some sense) cooperate. The kinds of equality to which they’re end of-pipe entitled, however, is determined by whether or not an egalitarian distribution of the dividend type in question between the persons in question can or cannot be expected to maximize the utility of the institutor-pair in question. The upshot of this view, then, is that, our intuitions to the contrary notwithstanding, the notion of equality can play no interesting role in either ethical or political thought.

Categories: Papers My Wife Said I Should Have Published Long Ago, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: aggregate, Contractarianism, cooperative dividend, defection, distribution, egalitarianism, equality, ethical, ethics, game theory, Glaucon, instrumental, justice, liberty, maximize, Mill, moral, mutual, normative, Nozik, political, preferences, rational, Rawls, Smith, Theory of Justice, utility