essay on right to equality

5 Essays to Learn More About Equality

“Equality” is one of those words that seems simple, but is more complicated upon closer inspection. At its core, equality can be defined as “the state of being equal.” When societies value equality, their goals include racial, economic, and gender equality . Do we really know what equality looks like in practice? Does it mean equal opportunities, equal outcomes, or both? To learn more about this concept, here are five essays focusing on equality:

“The Equality Effect” (2017) – Danny Dorling

In this essay, professor Danny Dorling lays out why equality is so beneficial to the world. What is equality? It’s living in a society where everyone gets the same freedoms, dignity, and rights. When equality is realized, a flood of benefits follows. Dorling describes the effect of equality as “magical.” Benefits include happier and healthier citizens, less crime, more productivity, and so on. Dorling believes the benefits of “economically equitable” living are so clear, change around the world is inevitable. Despite the obvious conclusion that equality creates a better world, progress has been slow. We’ve become numb to inequality. Raising awareness of equality’s benefits is essential.

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. He has co-authored and authored a handful of books, including Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration—and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives . “The Equality Effect” is excerpted from this book. Dorling’s work focuses on issues like health, education, wealth, poverty, and employment.

“The Equality Conundrum” (2020) – Joshua Rothman

Originally published as “Same Difference” in the New Yorker’s print edition, this essay opens with a story. A couple plans on dividing their money equally among their children. However, they realize that to ensure equal success for their children, they might need to start with unequal amounts. This essay digs into the complexity of “equality.” While inequality is a major concern for people, most struggle to truly define it. Citing lectures, studies, philosophy, religion, and more, Rothman sheds light on the fact that equality is not a simple – or easy – concept.

Joshua Rothman has worked as a writer and editor of The New Yorker since 2012. He is the ideas editor of newyorker.com.

“Why Understanding Equity vs Equality in Schools Can Help You Create an Inclusive Classroom” (2019) – Waterford.org

Equality in education is critical to society. Students that receive excellent education are more likely to succeed than students who don’t. This essay focuses on the importance of equity, which means giving support to students dealing with issues like poverty, discrimination and economic injustice. What is the difference between equality and equity? What are some strategies that can address barriers? This essay is a great introduction to the equity issues teachers face and why equity is so important.

Waterford.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving equity and education in the United States. It believes that the educational experiences children receive are crucial for their future. Waterford.org was founded by Dr. Dustin Heuston.

“What does equality mean to me?” (2020) – Gabriela Vivacqua and Saddal Diab

While it seems simple, the concept of equality is complex. In this piece posted by WFP_Africa on the WFP’s Insight page, the authors ask women from South Sudan what equality means to them. Half of South Sudan’s population consists of women and girls. Unequal access to essentials like healthcare, education, and work opportunities hold them back. Complete with photographs, this short text gives readers a glimpse into interpretations of equality and what organizations like the World Food Programme are doing to tackle gender inequality.

As part of the UN, the World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization focusing on hunger and food security . It provides food assistance to over 80 countries each year.

“Here’s How Gender Equality is Measured” (2020) – Catherine Caruso

Gender inequality is one of the most discussed areas of inequality. Sobering stats reveal that while progress has been made, the world is still far from realizing true gender equality. How is gender equality measured? This essay refers to the Global Gender Gap report ’s factors. This report is released each year by the World Economic Forum. The four factors are political empowerment, health and survival, economic participation and opportunity, and education. The author provides a brief explanation of each factor.

Catherine Caruso is the Editorial Intern at Global Citizen, a movement committed to ending extreme poverty by 2030. Previously, Caruso worked as a writer for Inquisitr. Her English degree is from Syracuse University. She writes stories on health, the environment, and citizenship.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Essay on Right to Equality

Students are often asked to write an essay on Right to Equality in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Right to Equality

Understanding right to equality.

Right to Equality is a fundamental right that every person should enjoy. It means treating everyone equally without any discrimination. This right is essential for maintaining fairness and justice in society.

Importance of Right to Equality

The Right to Equality is important because it promotes dignity and respect. It ensures that everyone has equal opportunities in life, regardless of their background or circumstances.

Challenges to Right to Equality

Despite its importance, the Right to Equality faces challenges. Discrimination still exists in many areas like race, gender, and religion. It’s crucial to tackle these issues to achieve true equality.

250 Words Essay on Right to Equality

Introduction.

The right to equality is a fundamental principle that underpins the concept of human rights. It is the belief that all individuals, irrespective of their race, gender, religion, or social status, should be treated equally and fairly by the law.

Conceptual Framework

Equality does not necessarily mean identical treatment. It acknowledges the inherent diversity among individuals and promotes fair opportunities and conditions. It is about recognizing differences and making adjustments to ensure no one is disadvantaged.

Equality and Law

Law plays a crucial role in safeguarding equality. It provides a framework that prohibits discrimination and promotes equal opportunities. However, the application of these laws should be critically evaluated to ensure they are not reinforcing existing inequalities.

Challenges to Equality

Despite legal safeguards, achieving true equality is challenging. Deep-rooted prejudices, systemic discrimination, and socio-economic disparities pose significant barriers. Moreover, the intersectionality of different identities can exacerbate these inequalities.

Way Forward

Promoting equality requires a multi-dimensional approach. It involves challenging discriminatory beliefs, reshaping social norms, and implementing inclusive policies. Education is a powerful tool in this regard, as it can foster understanding and empathy, and ultimately drive social change.

In essence, the right to equality is a cornerstone of a just society. It is an ongoing struggle that requires collective effort and commitment. By upholding this right, we can foster a society where everyone has an equal opportunity to thrive.

500 Words Essay on Right to Equality

The Right to Equality is a fundamental principle that underpins the fabric of any democratic society. It is a universal right, enshrined in many national constitutions and international human rights instruments, that ensures every individual is treated equally under the law, irrespective of their race, gender, religion, or socio-economic status.

The Concept of Equality

Legal perspectives.

From a legal perspective, the Right to Equality is a guarantee that laws will apply equally to all and that individuals will not be discriminated against on arbitrary grounds. This right is enshrined in various international conventions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Moreover, it forms an integral part of many national constitutions, including the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the Indian Constitution’s Fundamental Rights.

Social and Economic Aspects

In the social and economic realms, the Right to Equality ensures that all individuals have access to basic services and opportunities. It seeks to level the playing field by ensuring that socio-economic status, race, or gender do not determine one’s access to education, healthcare, or employment opportunities. In this context, the Right to Equality is closely linked with social justice, as it strives to eliminate social and economic disparities.

The Road Ahead

Moving forward, it is crucial to recognize that the Right to Equality is not just a legal principle but a societal value that needs to be ingrained in our collective consciousness. Achieving true equality requires continuous efforts from all sectors of society, including governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals. Education and awareness, coupled with robust legal mechanisms, can play a pivotal role in advancing this fundamental right.

In conclusion, the Right to Equality is a foundational principle that ensures fairness and justice in society. While there are challenges to its realization, continuous efforts at all levels of society can ensure that this right is not just a legal principle but a lived reality for all. As we move forward in the 21st century, the Right to Equality will continue to be a guiding light in our quest for a more equitable and just world.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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This article is concerned with social and political equality. In its prescriptive usage, ‘equality’ is a highly contested concept. Its normally positive connotation gives it a rhetorical power suitable for use in political slogans (Westen 1990). At least since the French Revolution, equality has served as one of the leading ideals of the body politic; in this respect, it is at present probably the most controversial of the great social ideals. There is controversy concerning the precise notion of equality, the relation of justice and equality (the principles of equality), the material requirements and measure of the ideal of equality (equality of what?), the extension of equality (equality among whom?), and its status within a comprehensive (liberal) theory of justice (the value of equality). This article will discuss each of these issues in turn.

1. Defining the Concept

2.1 formal equality, 2.2 proportional equality, 2.3 moral equality, 2.4 presumption of equality, 3.1 simple equality and objections to equality in general, 3.2 libertarianism, 3.3 utilitarianism, 3.4 equality of welfare, 3.5 equality of resources, 3.6 responsibility and luck-egalitarianism, 3.7 equality of opportunity for welfare or advantage, 3.8 capabilities approaches, 4. relational equality, 5. equality among whom, 6.1. kinds of egalitarianism, 6.2 equality vs. priority or sufficiency, other internet resources, related entries.

‘Equality’ is a contested concept: “People who praise it or disparage it disagree about what they are praising or disparaging” (Dworkin 2000, p. 2). Our first task is therefore to provide a clear definition of equality in the face of widespread misconceptions about its meaning as a political idea. The terms ‘equality’ (Greek: isotes ; Latin: aequitas , aequalitas ; French: égalité ; German Gleichheit ), ‘equal’, and ‘equally’ signify a qualitative relationship. ‘Equality’ (or ‘equal’) signifies correspondence between a group of different objects, persons, processes or circumstances that have the same qualities in at least one respect, but not all respects, i.e., regarding one specific feature, with differences in other features. ‘Equality’ must then be distinguished from ‘identity’, which refers to one and the same object corresponding to itself in all its features. For the same reason, it needs to be distinguished from ‘similarity’ – the concept of merely approximate correspondence (Dann 1975, p. 997; Menne 1962, p. 44 ff.; Westen 1990, pp. 39, 120). Thus, to say that men are equal, for example, is not to say that they are identical. Equality implies similarity rather than ‘sameness’.

Judgements of equality presume a difference between the things compared. According to this definition, the notion of ‘complete’ or ‘absolute’ equality may be seen as problematic because it would violate the presumption of a difference. Two non-identical objects are never completely equal; they are different at least in their spatiotemporal location. If things do not differ they should not be called ‘equal’, but rather, more precisely, ‘identical’, such as the morning and the evening star. Here usage might vary. Some authors do consider absolute qualitative equality admissible as a borderline concept (Tugendhat & Wolf 1983, p. 170).

‘Equality’ can be used in the very same sense both to describe and prescribe, as with ‘thin’: “you are thin” and “you are too thin”. The approach taken to defining the standard of comparison for both descriptive and prescriptive assertions of equality is very important (Oppenheim 1970). In the descriptive case, the common standard is itself descriptive, for example when two people are said to have the same weight. In the prescriptive use, the standard prescribes a norm or rule, for example when it is said people ought to be equal before the law. The standards grounding prescriptive assertions of equality contain at least two components. On the one hand, there is a descriptive component, since the assertions need to contain descriptive criteria, in order to identify those people to which the rule or norm applies. The question of this identification – who belongs to which category? – may itself be normative, as when we ask to whom the U.S. laws apply. On the other hand, the comparative standards contain something normative – a moral or legal rule, such as the U.S. laws – specifying how those falling under the norm are to be treated. Such a rule constitutes the prescriptive component (Westen 1990, chap. 3). Sociological and economic analyses of (in-)equality mainly pose the questions of how inequalities can be determined and measured and what their causes and effects are. In contrast, social and political philosophy is in general concerned mainly with the following questions: what kind of equality, if any, should obtain, and with respect to whom and when ? Such is the case in this article as well.

‘Equality’ and ‘equal’ are incomplete predicates that necessarily generate one question: equal in what respect? (Rae 1980,p. 132 f.) Equality essentially consists of a tripartite relation between two (or several) objects or persons and one (or several) qualities. Two objects A and B are equal in a certain respect if, in that respect, they fall under the same general term. ‘Equality’ denotes the relation between the objects compared. Every comparison presumes a tertium comparationis , a concrete attribute defining the respect in which the equality applies – equality thus referring to a common sharing of this comparison-determining attribute. This relevant comparative standard represents a ‘variable’ (or ‘index’) of the concept of equality that needs to be specified in each particular case (Westen 1990, p. 10); differing conceptions of equality here emerge from one or another descriptive or normative moral standard. There is another source of diversity as well: As Temkin (1986, 1993, 2009) argues, various different standards might be used to measure inequality, with the respect in which people are compared remaining constant. The difference between a general concept and different specific conceptions (Rawls 1971, p. 21 f.) of equality may explain why some people claim ‘equality’ has no unified meaning – or is even devoid of meaning. (Rae 1981, p. 127 f., 132 f.)

For this reason, it helps to think of the idea of equality or inequality, in the context of social justice, not as a single principle, but as a complex group of principles forming the basic core of today’s egalitarianism. Different principles yield different answers. Both equality and inequality are complex and multifaceted concepts (Temkin 1993, chap. 2). In any real historical context, it is clear that no single notion of equality can sweep the field (Rae 1981, p. 132). Many egalitarians concede that much of our discussion of the concept is vague, but they believe there is also a common underlying strain of important moral concerns implicit in it (Williams 1973). Above all, it serves to remind us of our common humanity, despite various differences (cf. 2.3. below). In this sense, egalitarianism is often thought of as a single, coherent normative doctrine that embraces a variety of principles. Following the introduction of different principles and theories of equality, the discussion will return in the last section to the question how best to define egalitarianism and its core value.

2. Principles of Equality and Justice

Equality in its prescriptive usage is closely linked to morality and justice, and distributive justice in particular. Since antiquity equality has been considered a constitutive feature of justice. (On the history of the concept, cf. Albernethy 1959, Benn 1967, Brown 1988, Dann 1975, Thomson 1949.) People and movements throughout history have used the language of justice to contest inequalities. But what kind of role does equality play in a theory of justice? Philosophers have sought to clarify this by defending a variety of principles and conceptions of equality. This section introduces four such principles, ranging from the highly general and uncontroversial to the more specific and controversial. The next section reviews various conceptions of the ‘currency’ of equality. Different interpretations of the role of equality in a theory of justice emerge according to which of the four principles and metrics have been adopted. The first three principles of equality hold generally and primarily for all actions upon others and affecting others, and for their resulting circumstances. From the fourth principle onward, i.e., starting with the presumption of equality, the focus will be mainly on distributive justice and the evaluation of distribution.

When two persons have equal status in at least one normatively relevant respect, they must be treated equally with regard in this respect. This is the generally accepted formal equality principle that Aristotle articulated in reference to Plato: “treat like cases as like” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , V.3. 1131a10–b15; Politics , III.9.1280 a8–15, III. 12. 1282b18–23). The crucial question is which respects are normatively relevant and which are not. Some authors see this formal principle of equality as a specific application of a rule of rationality: it is irrational, because inconsistent, to treat equal cases unequally without sufficient reasons (Berlin 1955–56). But others claim that what is at stake here is a moral principle of justice, one reflecting the impartial and universalizable nature of moral judgments. On this view, the postulate of formal equality demands more than consistency with one’s subjective preferences: the equal or unequal treatment in question must be justifiable to the relevantly affected parties, and this on the sole basis of a situation’s objective features.

According to Aristotle, there are two kinds of equality, numerical and proportional (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , 1130b–1132b; cf. Plato, Laws , VI.757b–c). A way of treating others, or a distribution arising from it, is equal numerically when it treats all persons as indistinguishable, thus treating them identically or granting them the same quantity of a good per capita. That is not always just. In contrast, a way of treating others or a distribution is proportional or relatively equal when it treats all relevant persons in relation to their due. Just numerical equality is a special case of proportional equality. Numerical equality is only just under special circumstances, namely when persons are equal in the relevant respects so that the relevant proportions are equal. Proportional equality further specifies formal equality; it is the more precise and comprehensive formulation of formal equality. It indicates what produces an adequate equality.

Proportional equality in the treatment and distribution of goods to persons involves at least the following concepts or variables: Two or more persons \((P_1, P_2)\) and two or more allocations of goods to persons \((G)\) and \(X\) and \(Y\) as the quantity in which individuals have the relevant normative quality \(E\). This can be represented as an equation with fractions or as a ratio. If \(P1\) has \(E\) in the amount of \(X\) and if \(P_2\) has \(E\) in the amount \(Y\), then \(P_1\) is due \(G\) in the amount of \(X'\) and \(P_2\) is due \(G\) in the amount of \(Y'\), so that the ratio \(X/Y = X'/Y'\) is valid. (For the formula to be usable, the potentially large variety of factors involved have to be both quantifiable in principle and commensurable, i.e., capable of synthesis into an aggregate value.)

When factors speak for unequal treatment or distribution, because the persons are unequal in relevant respects, the treatment or distribution proportional to these factors is just. Unequal claims to treatment or distribution must be considered proportionally: that is the prerequisite for persons being considered equally.

This principle can also be incorporated into hierarchical, inegalitarian theories. It indicates that equal output is demanded with equal input. Aristocrats, perfectionists, and meritocrats all believe that persons should be assessed according to their differing deserts, understood in the broad sense of fulfillment of some relevant criterion. Reward and punishment, benefits and burdens, should be proportional to such deserts. Since this definition leaves open who is due what, there can be great inequality when it comes to presumed fundamental (natural) rights, deserts, and worth -– this is apparent in both Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle’s idea of justice as proportional equality contains a fundamental insight. The idea offers a framework for a rational argument between egalitarian and non-egalitarian ideas of justice, its focal point being the question of the basis for an adequate equality (Hinsch 2003). Both sides accept justice as proportional equality. Aristotle’s analysis makes clear that the argument involves those features that decide whether two persons are to be considered equal or unequal in a distributive context.

On the formal level of pure conceptual explication, justice and equality are linked through these formal and proportional principles. Justice cannot be explained without these equality principles, which themselves only receive their normative significance in their role as principles of justice.

Formal and proportional equality is simply a conceptual schema. It needs to be made precise – i.e., its open variables need to be filled out. The formal postulate remains empty as long as it is unclear when, or through what features, two or more persons or cases should be considered equal. All debates over the proper conception of justice – over who is due what – can be understood as controversies over the question of which cases are equal and which unequal (Aristotle, Politics , 1282b 22). For this reason, equality theorists are correct in stressing that the claim that persons are owed equality becomes informative only when one is told what kind of equality they are owed (Nagel 1979; Rae 1981; Sen 1992, p. 13). Every normative theory implies a certain notion of equality. In order to outline their position, egalitarians must thus take account of a specific (egalitarian) conception of equality. To do so, they need to identify substantive principles of equality, which are discussed below.

Until the eighteenth century, it was assumed that human beings are unequal by nature. This postulate collapsed with the advent of the idea of natural right, which assumed a natural order in which all human beings were equal. Against Plato and Aristotle, the classical formula for justice according to which an action is just when it offers each individual his or her due took on a substantively egalitarian meaning in the course of time: everyone deserved the same dignity and respect. This is now the widely held conception of substantive, universal, moral equality. It developed among the Stoics, who emphasized the natural equality of all rational beings, and in early New Testament Christianity, which envisioned that all humans were equal before God, although this principle was not always adhered to in the later history of the church. This important idea was also taken up both in the Talmud and in Islam, where it was grounded in both Greek and Hebraic elements. In the modern period, starting in the seventeenth century, the dominant idea was of natural equality in the tradition of natural law and social contract theory. Hobbes (1651) postulated that in their natural condition, individuals possess equal rights, because over time they have the same capacity to do each other harm. Locke (1690) argued that all human beings have the same natural right to both (self-)ownership and freedom. Rousseau (1755) declared social inequality to be the result of a decline from the natural equality that characterized our harmonious state of nature, a decline catalyzed by the human urge for perfection, property and possessions (Dahrendorf 1962). For Rousseau (1755, 1762), the resulting inequality and rule of violence can only be overcome by binding individual subjectivity to a common civil existence and popular sovereignty. In Kant’s moral philosophy (1785), the categorical imperative formulates the equality postulate of universal human worth. His transcendental and philosophical reflections on autonomy and self-legislation lead to a recognition of the same freedom for all rational beings as the sole principle of human rights (Kant 1797, p. 230). Such Enlightenment ideas stimulated the great modern social movements and revolutions, and were taken up in modern constitutions and declarations of human rights. During the French Revolution, equality, along with freedom and fraternity, became a basis of the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen of 1789.

The principle that holds that human beings, despite their differences, are to be regarded as one another’s equals, is often also called ‘human equality’ or ‘basic equality’ or ‘equal worth’ or ‘human dignity’ (William 1962, Vlastos 1962, Kateb 2014, Waldron 2017, Rosen 2018). Whether these terms are synonyms is a matter of interpretation, but “they cluster together to form a powerful body of principle” (Waldron 2017, p. 3).

This fundamental idea of equal respect for all persons and of the equal worth or equal dignity of all human beings (Vlastos 1962) is widely accepted (Carter 2011, but see also Steinhoff 2015). In a period in which there is not agreement across the members of a complex society to any one metaphysical, religious, or traditional view (Habermas 1983, p. 53, 1992, pp. 39–44), it appears impossible to peacefully reach a general agreement on common political aims without accepting that persons must be treated as equals. As a result, moral equality constitutes the ‘egalitarian plateau’ for all contemporary political theories (Kymlicka 1990, p. 5).

Fundamental equality means that persons are alike in important relevant and specified respects alone, and not that they are all generally the same or can be treated in the same way (Nagel 1991). In a now commonly posed distinction, stemming from Dworkin (1977, p. 227), moral equality can be understood as prescribing treatment of persons as equals, i.e., with equal concern and respect, and not the often implausible principle of providing all persons with equal treatment. Recognizing that human beings are all equally individual does not mean treating them uniformly in any respects other than those in which they clearly have a moral claim to be treated alike.

Disputes arise, of course, concerning what these claims amount to and how they should be resolved. Philosophical debates are concerned with the kind of equal treatment normatively required when we mutually consider ourselves persons with equal dignity. The principle of moral equality is too abstract and needs to be made concrete if we are to arrive at a clear moral standard. Nevertheless, no conception of just equality can be deduced from the notion of moral equality. Rather, we find competing philosophical conceptions of equal treatment serving as interpretations of moral equality. These need to be assessed according to their degree of fidelity to the deeper ideal of moral equality (Kymlicka 1990, p. 44).

Many conceptions of equality operate along procedural lines involving a presumption of equality . More materially concrete, ethical approaches, as described in the next section below, are concerned with distributive criteria – the presumption of equality, in contrast, is a formal, procedural principle of construction located on a higher formal and argumentative level. What is at stake here is the question of the principle with which a material conception of justice should be constructed, particularly once the approaches described above prove inadequate. The presumption of equality is a prima facie principle of equal distribution for all goods politically suited for the process of public distribution. In the domain of political justice, all members of a given community, taken together as a collective body, have to decide centrally on the fair distribution of social goods, as well as on the distribution’s fair realization. Any claim to a particular distribution, including any existing distributive scheme, has to be impartially justified, i.e., no ownership should be recognized without justification. Applied to this political domain, the presumption of equality requires that everyone should get an equal share in the distribution unless certain types of differences are relevant and justify, through universally acceptable reasons, unequal shares. (With different terms and arguments, this principle is conceived as a presumption by Benn & Peters (1959, 111) and by Bedau (1967, 19); as a relevant reasons approach by Williams (1973); as a conception of symmetry by Tugendhat (1993, 374; 1997, chap. 3); as default option by Hinsch (2002, chap. 5); for criticism of the presumption of equality, cf. Westen (1990, chap. 10).) This presumption results in a principle of prima facie equal distribution for all distributable goods. A strict principle of equal distribution is not required, but it is morally necessary to justify impartially any unequal distribution. The burden of proof lies on the side of those who favor any form of unequal distribution. (For a justification of the presumption in favor of equality s. Gosepath 2004, II.8.; Gosepath 2015.)

The presumption of equality provides an elegant procedure for constructing a theory of distributive justice (Gosepath 2004). One has only to analyze what can justify unequal treatment or unequal distribution in different spheres. To put it briefly, the following postulates of equality are at present generally considered morally required.

Strict equality is called for in the legal sphere of civil freedoms, since – putting aside limitation on freedom as punishment – there is no justification for any exceptions. As follows from the principle of formal equality, all citizens must have equal general rights and duties, which are grounded in general laws that apply to all. This is the postulate of legal equality. In addition, the postulate of equal freedom is equally valid: every person should have the same freedom to structure his or her life, and this in the most far-reaching manner possible in a peaceful and appropriate social order.

In the political sphere, the possibilities for political participation should be equally distributed. All citizens have the same claim to participation in forming public opinion, and in the distribution, control, and exercise of political power. This is the postulate – requiring equal opportunity – of equal political power sharing. To ensure equal opportunity, social institutions have to be designed in such a way that persons who are disadvantaged, e.g. have a stutter or a low income, have an equal chance to make their views known and to participate fully in the democratic process.

In the social sphere, equally gifted and motivated citizens must have approximately the same chances to obtain offices and positions, independent of their economic or social class and native endowments. This is the postulate of fair equality of social opportunity. Any unequal outcome must nevertheless result from equality of opportunity, i.e., qualifications alone should be the determining factor, not social background or influences of milieu.

The equality required in the economic sphere is complex, taking account of several positions that – each according to the presumption of equality – justify a turn away from equality. A salient problem here is what constitutes justified exceptions to equal distribution of goods, the main subfield in the debate over adequate conceptions of distributive equality and its currency. The following factors are usually considered eligible for justified unequal treatment: (a) need or differing natural disadvantages (e.g. disabilities); (b) existing rights or claims (e.g. private property); (c) differences in the performance of special services (e.g. desert, efforts, or sacrifices); (d) efficiency; and (e) compensation for direct and indirect or structural discrimination (e.g. affirmative action).

These factors play an essential, albeit varied, role in the following alternative egalitarian theories of distributive justice. These offer different accounts of what should be equalized in the economic sphere. Most can be understood as applications of the presumption of equality (whether they explicitly acknowledge it or not); only a few (like strict equality, libertarianism, and sufficiency) are alternatives to the presumption.

3. Conceptions of Distributive Equality: Equality of What?

Every effort to interpret the concept of equality and to apply the principles of equality mentioned above demands a precise measure of the parameters of equality. We need to know the dimensions within which the striving for equality is morally relevant. What follows is a brief review of the seven most prominent conceptions of distributive equality, each offering a different answer to one question: in the field of distributive justice, what should be equalized, or what should be the parameter or “currency” of equality?

Simple equality, meaning everyone being furnished with the same material level of goods and services, represents a strict position as far as distributive justice is concerned. It is generally rejected as untenable.

Hence, with the possible exception of Babeuf (1796) and Shaw (1928), no prominent author or movement has demanded strict equality. Since egalitarianism has come to be widely associated with the demand for economic equality, and this in turn with communistic or socialistic ideas, it is important to stress that neither communism nor socialism – despite their protest against poverty and exploitation and their demand for social security for all citizens – calls for absolute economic equality. The orthodox Marxist view of economic equality was expounded in the Critique of the Gotha Program (1875). Marx here rejects the idea of legal equality, on three grounds. First, he indicates, equality draws on a limited number of morally relevant perspectives and neglects others, thus having unequal effects. In Marx’s view, the economic structure is the most fundamental basis for the historical development of society, and is thus the point of reference for explaining its features. Second, theories of justice have concentrated excessively on distribution instead of the basic questions of production. Third, a future communist society needs no law and no justice, since social conflicts will have vanished.

As an idea, simple equality fails because of problems that are raised in regards to equality in general. It is useful to review these problems, as they require resolution in any plausible approach to equality.

(i) We need adequate indices for the measurement of the equality of the goods to be distributed. Through what concepts should equality and inequality be understood? It is thus clear that equality of material goods can lead to unequal satisfaction. Money constitutes a typical, though inadequate, index; at the very least, equal opportunity has to be conceived in other terms.

(ii) The time span needs to be indicated for realizing the desired model of equal distribution (McKerlie 1989, Sikora 1989). Should we seek to equalize the goods in question over complete individual lifetimes, or should we seek to ensure that various life segments are as equally provisioned as possible?

(iii) Equality distorts incentives promoting achievement in the economic field, and the administrative costs of redistribution produce wasteful inefficiencies (Okun 1975). Equality and efficiency need to be balanced. Often, Pareto-optimality is demanded in this respect, usually by economists. A social condition is Pareto-optimal or Pareto-efficient when it is not possible to shift to another condition judged better by at least one person and worse by none (Sen 1970, chap. 2, 2*). A widely discussed alternative to the Pareto principle is the Kaldor-Hicks welfare criterion. This stipulates that a rise in social welfare is always present when the benefits accruing through the distribution of value in a society exceed the corresponding costs. A change thus becomes desirable when the winners in such a change could compensate the losers for their losses, and still retain a substantial profit. In contrast to the Pareto-criterion, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion contains a compensation rule (Kaldor 1939). For purposes of economic analysis, such theoretical models of optimal efficiency make a great deal of sense. However, the analysis is always made relative to a starting situation that can itself be unjust and unequal. A society can thus be (close to) Pareto-optimality – i.e., no one can increase his or her material goods or freedoms without diminishing those of someone else – while also displaying enormous inequalities in the distribution of the same goods and freedoms. For this reason, egalitarians claim that it may be necessary to reduce Pareto-optimality for the sake of justice, if there is no more egalitarian distribution that is also Pareto-optimal. In the eyes of their critics, equality of whatever kind should not lead to some people having to make do with less, when this equalizing down does not benefit any of those who are in a worse position.

(iv) Moral objections : A strict and mechanical equal distribution between all individuals does not sufficiently take into account the differences among individuals and their situations. In essence, since individuals desire different things, why should everyone receive the same goods? Intuitively, for example, we can recognize that a sick person has other claims than a healthy person, and furnishing each with the same goods would be mistaken. With simple equality, personal freedoms are unacceptably limited and distinctive individual qualities insufficiently acknowledged; in this way they are in fact unequally regarded. Furthermore, persons not only have a moral right to their own needs being considered, but a right and a duty to take responsibility for their own decisions and the resulting consequences.

Working against the identification of distributive justice with simple equality, a basic postulate of many present-day egalitarians is as follows: human beings are themselves responsible for certain inequalities resulting from their free decisions; aside from minimum aid in emergencies, they deserve no recompense for such inequalities (but cf. relational egalatarians, discussed in Section 4 ). On the other hand, they are due compensation for inequalities that are not the result of self-chosen options. For egalitarians, the world is morally better when equality of life conditions prevail. This is an amorphous ideal demanding further clarification. Why is such equality an ideal, and what precise currency of equality does it involve?

By the same token, most egalitarians do not advocate an equality of outcome, but different kinds of equality of opportunity, due to their emphasis on a pair of morally central points: that individuals are responsible for their decisions, and that the only things to be considered objects of equality are those which serve the real interests of individuals. The opportunities to be equalized between people can be opportunities for well-being (i.e. objective welfare), or for preference satisfaction (i.e., subjective welfare), or for resources. It is not equality of objective or subjective well-being or resources themselves that should be equalized, but an equal opportunity to gain the well-being or resources one aspires to. Such equality depends on their being a realm of options for each individual equal to the options enjoyed by all other persons, in the sense of the same prospects for fulfillment of preferences or the possession of resources. The opportunity must consist of possibilities one can really take advantage of. Equal opportunity prevails when human beings effectively enjoy equal realms of possibility.

(v) Simple equality is very often associated with equality of results (although these are two distinct concepts). However, to strive only for equality of results is problematic. To illustrate the point, let us briefly limit the discussion to a single action and the event or state of affairs resulting from it. Arguably, actions should not be judged solely by the moral quality of their results, as important as this may be. One must also consider the way in which the events or circumstances to be evaluated have come about. Generally speaking, a moral judgement requires not only the assessment of the results of the action in question (the consequentialist aspect) but, first and foremost, the assessment of the intention of the actor (the deontological aspect). The source and its moral quality influence the moral judgement of the results (Pogge 1999, sect. V). For example, if you strike me, your blow will hurt me; the pain I feel may be considered bad in itself, but the moral status of your blow will also depend on whether you were (morally) allowed such a gesture (perhaps through parental status, although that is controversial) or even obliged to execute it (e.g. as a police officer preventing me from doing harm to others), or whether it was in fact prohibited but not prevented. What is true of individual actions (or their omission) has to be true mutatis mutandis of social institutions and circumstances like distributions resulting from collective social actions (or their omission). Social institutions should therefore be assessed not only on the basis of information about how they affect individual quality of life. A society in which people starve on the streets is certainly marked by inequality; nevertheless, its moral quality, i.e., whether the society is just or unjust with regard to this problem, also depends on the suffering’s causes. Does the society allow starvation as an unintended but tolerable side effect of what its members see as a just distributive scheme? Indeed, does it even defend the suffering as a necessary means, as with forms of Social Darwinism? Or has the society taken measures against starvation which have turned out to be insufficient? In the latter case, whether the society has taken such steps for reasons of political morality or efficiency again makes a moral difference. Hence even for egalitarians, equality of results is too narrow and one-sided a focus.

(vi) Finally, there is a danger of (strict) equality leading to uniformity, rather than to a respect for pluralism and democracy (Cohen 1989; Arneson 1993). In the contemporary debate, this complaint has been mainly articulated in feminist and multiculturalist theory. A central tenet of feminist theory is that gender has been and remains a historically variable and internally differentiated relation of domination. The same holds for so-called racial and ethnic differences, which are often still conceived of as marking different values. The different groups involved here rightly object to their discrimination, marginalization, and domination, and an appeal to equality of status thus seems a solution. However, as feminists and multiculturalists have pointed out, equality, as usually understood and practiced, is constituted in part by a denial and ranking of differences; as a result it seems less useful as an antidote to relations of domination. “Equality” can often mean the assimilation to a pre-existing and problematic ‘male’ or ‘white’ or ‘middle class’ norm. In short, domination and a fortiori inequality often arises out of an inability to appreciate and nurture differences, not out of a failure to see everyone as the same. To recognize these differences should however not lead to an essentialism grounded in sexual or cultural characteristics. There is a crucial debate between those who insist that sexual, racial, and ethnic differences should become irrelevant, on the one hand, and those believing that such differences, even though culturally relevant, should not furnish a basis for inequality: that one should rather find mechanisms for securing equality, despite valued differences. Neither of these strategies involves rejecting equality. The dispute is about how equality is to be attained (McKinnon 1989, Taylor 1992).

Proposing a connection between equality and pluralism, Michael Walzer’s theory (1983) aims at what he calls “complex equality”. According to Walzer, relevant reasons can only speak in favor of distributing specific types of goods in specific spheres, not in several or all spheres. Against a theory of simple equality promoting equal distribution of dominant goods, which underestimates the complexity of the criteria at work in each given sphere, the dominance of particular goods needs to be ended. For instance, purchasing power in the political sphere through means derived from the economic sphere (i.e., money) must be prevented. Walzer’s theory of complex equality is not actually aimed at equality per se, but at the separation of spheres of justice; the theory’s designation is misleading. Any theory of equality should, however, as per Walzer, avoid monistic conceptions and recognize instead the complexity of life and the plurality of criteria for justice.

The preceding considerations yield the following desideratum: instead of simple equality, a more complex equality needs to be conceptualized. That concept should resolve the problems discussed above through a distinction of various classes of goods, a separation of spheres, and a differentiation of relevant criteria.

Libertarianism and economic liberalism represent minimalist positions in relation to distributive justice. Citing Locke, they both postulate an original right to freedom and property, thus arguing against redistribution and social rights and for the free market (Nozick 1974; Hayek 1960). They assert an opposition between equality and freedom: the individual (natural) right to freedom can be limited only for the sake of foreign and domestic peace. For this reason, libertarians consider maintaining public order the state’s only legitimate duty. They assert a natural right to self-ownership (the philosophical term for “ownership of oneself” – i.e., one’s will, body, work, etc.) that entitles everybody to hitherto unowned bits of the external world by means of mixing their labor with it. All individuals can thus claim property if “enough and as good” is left over for others (Locke’s proviso). Correspondingly, they defend market freedoms and oppose the use of redistributive taxation schemes for the sake of egalitarian social justice. A principal objection to libertarian theory is that its interpretation of the Lockean proviso – nobody’s situation should be worsened through an initial acquisition of property – leads to an excessively weak requirement and is thus unacceptable (Kymlicka 1990, pp.108–117). However, with a broader and more adequate interpretation of what it means for one a situation to be worse than another, it is much more difficult to justify private appropriation and, a fortiori , all further ownership rights. If the proviso recognizes the full range of interests and alternatives that self-owners have, then it will not generate unrestricted rights over unequal amounts of resources. Another objection is that precisely if one’s own free accomplishment is what is meant to count, as the libertarians argue, success should not depend strictly on luck, extraordinary natural gifts, inherited property, and status. In other words, equal opportunity also needs to at least be present as a counterbalance, ensuring that the fate of human beings is determined by their decisions and not by unavoidable social circumstances. Equal opportunity thus seems to be the frequently vague minimal formula at work in every egalitarian conception of distributive justice. Many egalitarians, however, wish for more – namely, an equality of (at least basic) life conditions .

In any event, with a shift away from a strictly negative idea of freedom, economic liberalism can indeed itself point the way to more social and economic equality. For with such a shift, what is at stake is not only assuring an equal right to self-defense, but also furnishing everyone more or less the same chance to actually make use of the right to freedom (e.g. Van Parijs 1995, Steiner 1994, Otsuka 2005). In other words, certain basic goods need to be furnished to assure the equitable or “fair value of the basic liberties” (Rawls 1993, pp. 356–63).

It is possible to interpret utilitarianism as concretizing moral equality – and this in a way meant to offer the same consideration to the interests of all human beings (Kymlicka 1990, pp. 31f., Hare 1981, p. 26, Sen 1992, pp. 13f.). From the utilitarian perspective, since everyone counts as one and no one as more than one (Bentham), the interests of all should be treated equally without consideration of contents of interest or an individual’s material situation. For utilitarianism, this means that all enlightened personal interests have to be fairly aggregated. The morally proper action is the one that maximizes utility (Hare 1984). This conception of equal treatment has been criticized as inadequate by many opponents of utilitarianism. At least in utilitarianism’s classical form – so the critique reads – the hoped for moral equality is flawed, because all desires are taken up by the utilitarian calculation, including “selfish” and “external” preferences (Dworkin 1977, p. 234) that are meant to all have equal weight, even when they diminish the ‘rights’ and intentions of others. This conflicts with our everyday understanding of equal treatment. What is here at play is an argument involving “offensive” and “expensive” taste: a person cannot expect others to sustain his or her desires at the expense of their own (Kymlicka 1990, p. 40 f.). Rather, according to generally shared conviction, equal treatment consistently requires a basis of equal rights and resources that cannot be taken away from one person, whatever the desire of others. In line with Rawls (1971, pp. 31, 564, cf. 450), many hold that justice entails according no value to interests insofar as they conflict with justice. According to this view, unjustified preferences will not distort the mutual claims people have on each other. Equal treatment has to consist of everyone being able to claim a fair portion, and not in all interests having the same weight in disposal over my portion. Utilitarians cannot admit any restrictions on interests based on morals or justice. As long as utilitarian theory lacks a concept of justice and fair allocation, it must fail in its goal of treating everyone as equals. As Rawls (1971, pp. 27) also famously argues, utilitarianism that involves neglecting the separateness of persons does not contain a proper interpretation of moral equality as equal respect for each individual.

The concept of welfare equality is motivated by an intuition that when it comes to political ethics, what is at stake is individual well-being. The central criterion for justice must consequently be equalizing the level of welfare. But taking welfare as what is to be equalized leads to difficulties resembling those of utilitarianism. If one contentiously identifies subjective welfare with preference satisfaction, it seems implausible to count all individual preferences as equal, some – such as the desire to do others wrong – being inadmissible on grounds of justice (the offensive taste argument). Any welfare-centered concept of equality grants people with refined and expensive taste more resources – something distinctly at odds with our moral intuitions (the expensive taste argument) (Dworkin 1981a). However, satisfaction in the fulfillment of desires cannot serve as a standard, since we wish for more than a simple feeling of happiness. A more viable standard for welfare comparisons would seem to be success in the fulfillment of preferences. A fair evaluation of such success cannot be purely subjective, but requires a standard of what should or could have been achieved. This itself involves an assumption regarding just distribution, so it cannot stand as an independent criterion for justice. Another serious problem with any welfare-centered concept of equality is that it cannot take account of either desert (Feinberg 1970) or personal responsibility for one’s own well-being, to the extent this is possible and reasonable.

Represented above all by both Rawls and Dworkin, resource equality avoids such problems (Rawls 1971; Dworkin 1981b). It holds individuals responsible for their decisions and actions, but not for circumstances beyond their control, such as race, sex, skin-color, intelligence, and social position, thus excluding these as distributive criteria. Equal opportunity is insufficient because it does not compensate for unequal innate gifts. What applies for social circumstances should also apply for such gifts, as both are purely arbitrary from a moral point of view.

According to Rawls, human beings should have the same initial expectations of “basic goods,” i.e., all-purpose goods; this in no way precludes ending up with different quantities of such goods or resources, as a result of personal economic decisions and actions. When prime importance is accorded an assurance of equal basic freedoms and rights, inequalities are just when they fulfill two provisos: on the one hand, they have to be linked to offices and positions open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; on the other hand, they have to reflect the famous ‘difference principle’ in offering the greatest possible advantage to the least advantaged members of society (Rawls 1993, p. 5 f.; 1971, § 13). Otherwise, the economic order requires revision. Due to the argument of the moral arbitrariness of talents, the commonly accepted criteria for merit (like productivity, working hours, effort) are clearly relativized. The difference principle only allows the talented to earn more to the extent this raises the lowest incomes. According to Rawls, with regard to the basic structure of society, the difference principle should be opted for under a self-chosen “veil of ignorance” regarding personal and historical circumstances and similar factors: the principle offers a general assurance of not totally succumbing to the hazards of a free market situation; and everyone does better than with inevitably inefficient total equal distribution, whose level of well-being is below that of those worst off under the difference principle.

Since Rawls’ Theory of Justice is the classical focal point of present-day political philosophy, it is worth noting the different ways his theory claims to be egalitarian. First, Rawls upholds a natural basis for equal human worth: a minimal capacity for having a conception of the good and a sense of justice. Second, through the device of the “veil of ignorance,” people are conceived as equals in the “original position.” Third, the idea of sharing this “original position” presupposes the parties having political equality, as equal participants in the process of choosing the principles by which they would be governed. Fourth, Rawls proposes fair equality of opportunity. Fifth, he maintains that all desert must be institutionally defined, depending on the goals of the society. No one deserves his or her talents or circumstances, which are products of the natural lottery. Finally, the difference principle tends toward equalizing holdings. However, it is important to keep in mind, as Scheffler (2003) has pointed out, that the main focus of Rawls’ theory is justice as such; it is only secondarily about an egalitarian conception of justice. In addition, since the primary subject is the basic structure, pure procedural justice has priority over distributive or allocative justice Equality is not the only or single value for Rawls.

Dworkin’s equality of resources (1981b), on the other hand, is concerned with equality as such. His theory stakes a claim to being even more ‘ambition- and endowment-insensitive’ than Rawls’ theory. Unequal distribution of resources is considered fair only when it results from the decisions and intentional actions of those concerned. Dworkin proposes a hypothetical auction in which everyone can accumulate bundles of resources through equal means of payment, so that in the end no one is jealous of another’s bundle (the envy test). The auction-procedure also offers a way to precisely measure equality of resources: the measure of resources devoted to a person’s life is defined by the importance of the resources to others (Dworkin 1981b, p. 290). In the free market, how the distribution then develops depends on an individual’s ambitions. The inequalities that thus emerge are justified, since one has to take responsibility for how one’s choices turn out (i.e., one’s “option luck”) in the realm of personal responsibility. In contrast, unjustified inequalities based on different innate provisions and gifts, as well as on brute luck, should be compensated for through a fictive differentiated insurance system: its premiums are established behind Dworkin’s own “veil of ignorance,” in order to then be distributed in real life to everyone and collected in taxes. For Dworkin, this is the key to the natural lottery being balanced fairly, preventing a “slavery of the talented” through excessive redistribution.

Only some egalitarians hold inequality to be bad per se. Most of today’s egalitarians are pluralistic, recognizing other values besides equality. So called luck-egalitarians regard the moral significance of choice and responsibility as one of the most important values besides equality (for an overview over the debate see Lippert-Rasmussen 2015). They hold that it is bad – unjust or unfair – for some to be worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own (Temkin 1993, 13) and therefore strive to eliminate involuntary disadvantages, for which the sufferer cannot be held responsible (Cohen 1989, 916).

The principle of responsibility provides a central normative vantage point for deciding on which grounds one might justify which inequality. The positive formulation of the responsibility principle requires an assumption of personal responsibility and holds that inequalities which are the result of self-chosen options are just. (See above all Dworkin, 1981b, p. 311; contra: Anderson, 1999.) Unequal portions of social goods are thus fair when they result from the decisions and intentional actions of those concerned. Individuals must accept responsibility for the costs of their decisions. Persons are themselves responsible for certain inequalities that result from their voluntary decisions, and they deserve no compensation for such inequalities, aside from minimal provisions in cases of dire need (see below). In its negative formulation , the responsibility principle holds that inequalities which are not the result of self-chosen options are to be rejected as unjust; persons disadvantaged in this way deserve compensation. That which one can do nothing about, or for which one is not responsible, cannot constitute a relevant criterion. Still, the initial assumption remains an ascription of responsibility, and each individual case requires close scrutiny: one is responsible and accountable unless there is an adequate reason for being considered otherwise (but cf. Stemplowska 2013 for a different interpretation)..

If advantages or disadvantages that are due to arbitrary and unearned differences are unfair, this holds for social circumstances as well as natural endowments. The reasons favoring an exclusion of features like skin-color, size, sex, and place of origin as primarily discriminative apply equally to other natural human qualities, like intelligence, appearance, physical strength, and so forth. The kind and the extent of one’s natural abilities are due to a lottery of nature; considered from a moral standpoint, their distribution is purely arbitrary (Rawls, 1971, § 48). To sum up: natural and social endowment must not count, and personal intentions and voluntary decisions should count. Thus, a given social order is just when it equalizes as much as possible, and in a normatively tenable way, all personal disadvantages for which an individual is not responsible, and accords individuals the capacity to bear the consequences of their decisions and actions, as befits their capacity for autonomy.

Objections to all versions of “brute-luck egalitarianism” come from two sides. Some authors criticize its in their view unjustified or excessively radical rejection of merit: The luck-egalitarian thesis of desert only being justifiably acknowledged if it involves desert “all the way down” (Nozick 1974, p. 225) not only destroys the classical, everyday principle of desert, since everything has a basis that we ourselves have not created. In the eyes of such critics, along with the merit-principle this argument also destroys our personal identity, since we can no longer accredit ourselves with our own capacities and accomplishments. (Cf. the texts in Pojman & McLeod 1998, Olsaretti 2003.) Other authors consider the criterion for responsibility to be too strong, indeed inhuman (or “harsh”) in its consequences, since human beings responsible for their own misery would (supposedly) be left alone with their misery (Anderson 1999, also MacLeod 1998, Scheffler 2003, Wolff 1998, Fleurbaey 1995, Voigt 2007, Eyal 2017, Olsaretti 2009, Stemplowska 2009). However, pluralistic egalitarians should be able to argue that there are special cases, in which people are so badly off that they should be helped, even if they got into the miserable situation through their own fault. But even when people are in terrible situations, which did not arise through their own fault (‘bad brute luck’) – for instance, when they are disabled from birth – and egalitarians therefore have reasons to help them, these reasons are supposedly stigmatizing, since in these cases the principles of distribution would be based on pity. In these cases, political institutions have to take certain decisions – for example, in which category a particular case of distress should be placed – and gather relevant information on their citizens. Against such a procedure, one could object that it subjects the citizens to the tutelage of the state and harms their private sphere (Anderson 1999, also Hayek 1960: 85–102).

Approaches based on equality of opportunity can be read as revisions of both welfarism and resourcism. Ranged against welfarism and designed to avoid its pitfalls, they incorporate the powerful ideas of choice and responsibility into various, improved forms of egalitarianism. Such approaches are meant to equalize outcomes resulting from causes beyond a person’s control (i.e., beyond circumstances or endowment), but to allow differential outcomes that result from autonomous choice or ambition. But the approaches are also aimed at maintaining the insight that individual preferences have to count, as the sole basis for a necessary linkage back to the individual perspective: otherwise, there is an overlooking of the person’s value. In Arneson’s (1989, 1990) concept of equal opportunity for welfare , the preferences determining the measure of individual well-being are meant to be conceived hypothetically – i.e., a person would decide on them after a process of ideal reflection. In order to correspond to the morally central vantage of personal responsibility, what should be equalized are not enlightened preferences themselves, but rather real opportunities to achieve or receive a good, to the extent that it is aspired to. G.A. Cohen’s (1989, p. 916 f.) broader conception of equality of access to advantage attempts to integrate the perspectives of welfare equality and resource equality through the overriding concept of advantage. For Cohen, there are two grounds for egalitarian compensation. Egalitarians will be moved to furnish a paralyzed person with a compensatory wheelchair independently of the person’s welfare level. This egalitarian response to disability overrides equality of (opportunity to) welfare. Egalitarians also favor compensation for phenomena such as pain, independent of any loss of capacity – for instance by paying for expensive medicine. But, Cohen claims, any justification for such compensation has to invoke the idea of equality of opportunity to welfare. He thus views both aspects, resources and welfare, as necessary and irreducible. Much of Roemer’s (1998) more technical argument is devoted to constructing the scale to calibrate the extent to which something is the result of circumstances. An incurred adverse consequence is the result of circumstances, not choice, precisely to the extent that it is a consequence that persons of one or another specific type can be expected to incur.

Theories that limit themselves to the equal distribution of basic means, in the hope of doing justice to the different goals of all human beings, are often criticized as fetishistic, because they focus on means as opposed to what individuals gain with these means (Sen 1980). The value that goods have for someone depends on objective possibilities, the natural environment, and individual capacities. Hence, in contrast to the resourcist approach, Amartya Sen proposes orientating distribution around “capabilities to achieve functionings,” i.e., the various things that a person manages to do orbe in leading a life (Sen 1992). In other words, evaluating individual well-being has to be tied to a capability for achieving and maintaining various precious conditions and “functionings” constitutive of a person’s being, such as adequate nourishment, good health, the ability to move about freely or to appear in public without shame. The real freedom to acquire well-being is also important here, a freedom represented in the capability to oneself choose forms of achievement and the combination of “functionings.” For Sen, capabilities are thus the measure of an equality of capabilities human beings enjoy to lead their lives. A problem consistently raised with capability approaches is the ability to weigh capabilities in order to arrive at a metric for equality. The problem is intensified by the fact that various moral perspectives are blended in the concept of capability (Cohen 1993, p. 17–26, Williams 1987). Martha Nussbaum (1992, 2000) has linked the capability approach to an Aristotelian, essentialistic, “thick” theory of the good – a theory meant to be, as she puts it, “vague,” incomplete, and open-ended enough to leave place for individual and cultural variation. On the basis of such a “thick” conception of necessary and universal elements of a good life, certain capabilities and functionings can be designated as foundational. In this manner, Nussbaum can endow the capability approach with a precision that furnishes an index of interpersonal comparison, but at the risk of not being neutral enough regarding the plurality of personal conceptions of the good, a neutrality normally required by most liberals (most importantly Rawls 1993; but see Robeyns 2009 for a different take on the comparison with Rawls). For further discussion, see the entry on the capability approach .

Since the late 1990s, social relations egalitarianism has appeared in philosophical discourse as an increasingly important competitor to distribuitivist accounts of justice, especially its luck egalitarian versions (cf. Lippert-Rassmussen 2018). Proponents of social relations egalitarianism include Anderson (1999), Miller (1997), Scanlon (1996, 2018), Scheffler (2003, 2005, 2015), Wolff (1998, 2010) and Young (1990). Negatively, they are united in a rejection of the view that justice is a matter of eliminating differential luck. Positively, they claim that society is just if, and only if, individuals within it relate to one another as equals. Accordingly, the site of justice (i.e. that to which principles of justice apply) is society, not distributions. Relational Egalitarianism has a certain overlap with many theories of recognition and non-domination. Certain status differences are at the core of their objections, like those stigmatizing differences in status, whereby the badly off are caused to experience themselves as inferior, and are treated as inferiors, or when inequalities create objectionable relations of power(Honneth/Fraser 2003) and domination (Pettit 2001).

What does it mean that (and when do) individuals within a society relate to one another as equals? Racial discrimination, for example, is a paradigmatic instance of this condition?s violation. But once we move beyond a handful of such examples things become much less clear.

These claims to social and political equality exclude all unequal, hierarchical forms of social relationships, in which some people dominate, exploit, marginalize, demean, and inflict violence upon others:

As a social ideal, it holds that a human society must be conceived of as a cooperative arrangement among equals, each of whom enjoys the same social standing. As a political ideal, it highlights the claims that citizens are entitled to make on one another by virtue of their status as citizens, without any need for a moralized accounting of the details of their particular circumstances. (Scheffler 2003, p. 22)

However, forms of differentiation that do not violate moral equality (see above) are not per se excluded from social equality, if they are compatible with the recognition of the equal social status of concerned parties, as with differences relating to merit, need, and, if appropriate, race, gender, and social background (as in cases of affirmative action or fair punishment).

Where there is social equality, people feel that each member of the community enjoys an equal standing with all the rest that overrides their unequal ratings along particular dimensions. (Miller, 1997, p. 232)

Thus the question has to be answered whether – and if so, why – other dimensions, such as a person’s natural talents, creativity, intelligence, innovative skills or entrepreneurial ability, can be the basis for legitimate inequalities.

Relational egalitarians need a certain conception of what an equal standing in society amounts to and implies in terms of rights and goods. One way to offer such an account would be to rely (like Anderson 1999) on the capabilities approach (§3.8) and sufficitarianism (§6.2.): In a democratic community that preserves the free and equal status of persons, at least three sets of conditions have to be fulfilled.

First, certain political conditions are necessary to allow citizens to participate as equals in democratic deliberation. These include, among others, the capabilities to vote, hold office, assemble, petition the government, speak freely, and move about freely (Rawls 1999, p.53). The principle of democratic equality (as asked for by Anderson 1999) requires us to eliminate social hierarchies that prevent a democratically organized society, a society in which we cooperate and decide upon state action as equals. Persons morally owe each other the capabilities and conditions to live as equals in a democratic community (Christiano 2008, Kolodny 2014). Democracy can be interpreted as realizing public equality in collective decision-making.

Second, to participate as an equal in civil society, certain civil conditions must obtain. These include the conditions that make it robustly likely that injustices such as marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism (Anderson 1999 with reference to Young 1990), or domination (Pettit 2001) can be to avoided. Third, certain social conditions and personal capabilities have to obtain that enable people to enjoy equal standing in society. Citizens need, in this regard, adequate nutrition, shelter, clothing, education, and medical care. This last point leads into the debate over whether a relational egalitarian conception of social justice yields intrinsic and instrumental reasons of justice to care about distributive inequality in socially produced goods, despite its emphasis on just social relationships and not the distribution of goods per se (Schemmel 2011, Elford 2017).

Justice is primarily related to individual actions. Individual persons are the primary bearers of responsibility (the key principle of ethical individualism). This raises two controversial issues in the contemporary debate.

One could regard the norms of distributive equality as applying to groups rather than individuals. It is often groups that rightfully raise the issue of an inequality between themselves and the rest of society, as with women and racial and ethnic groups. The question arises of whether inequality among such groups should be considered morally objectionable in itself, or whether even in the case of groups, the underlying concern should be how individuals (as members of such groups) fare in comparative terms. If there is a worry about inequalities between groups of individuals, why does this not translate into a worry about inequalities between members of the group?

A further question concerns whether the norms of distributive equality (whatever they are) apply to all individuals, regardless of where (and when) they live. Or rather, do they only hold for members of communities within states and nations? Most theories of equality deal exclusively with distributive equality among people in a single society. There does not, however, seem to be any rationale for that limitation. Can the group of the entitled be restricted prior to the examination of concrete claims? Many theories seem to imply this, especially when they connect distributive justice or the goods to be distributed with social cooperation or production. For those who contribute nothing to cooperation, such as the disabled, children, or future generations, would have to be denied a claim to a fair share. The circle of persons who are to be the recipients of distribution would thus be restricted from the outset. Other theories are less restrictive, insofar as they do not link distribution to actual social collaboration, yet nonetheless do restrict it, insofar as they bind it to the status of citizenship. In this view, distributive justice is limited to the individuals within a society. Those outside the community have no entitlement to social justice. Unequal distribution among states and the social situations of people outside the particular society could not, in this view, be a problem of social distributive justice (Nagel 2005). Yet here too, the universal morality of equal respect and the principle of equal distribution demand that all persons consider one another as prima facie equally entitled to the goods, unless reasons for an unequal distribution can be advanced. It may be that in the process of justification, reasons will emerge for privileging those who were particularly involved in the production of a good, but there is no prima facie reason to exclude from the outset other persons, such as those from other countries, from the process of distribution and justification (Pogge 2002). That may seem most intuitively plausible in the case of natural resources (e.g. oil) that someone discovers by chance on or beneath the surface of his or her property. Why should such resources belong to the person who discovers them, or on whose property they are located? Nevertheless, in the eyes of many if not most people, global justice, i.e., extending egalitarian distributive justice globally, demands too much from individuals and their states (Miller 1998; but cf. Caney 2005). Alternatively, one might argue that there are other ‘special relations’ between members of one society that do not exist between members of different societies. Nationalism is an example for such a (controversial) thesis that may provide a case for a kind of local equality (Miller 1995). For further discussion, see the entry on global justice.

Another issue is the relationship between generations. Does the present generation have an egalitarian obligation towards future generations regarding equal living conditions? One argument in favor of this conclusion might be that people should not end up unequally well off as a result of morally arbitrary factors. However, the issue of justice between generation is notoriously complex (Temkin 1992). For further discussion, see the entry on intergenerational justice .

6. The Value of Equality: Why Equality?

Does equality play a major role in a theory of justice, and if so, what is this role? A conception of justice is egalitarian when it views equality as a fundamental goal of justice. Temkin has put it as follows:

… an egalitarian is any person who attaches some value to equality itself (that is, any person that cares at all about equality, over and above the extent it promotes other ideals). So, equality needn’t be the only value, or even the ideal she values most… . Egalitarians have the deep and (for them) compelling view that it is a bad thing – unjust and unfair – for some to be worse off than others through no fault of their own. (Temkin 1986, p. 100, cf. 1993, p. 7)

In general, the focus of the modern egalitarian effort to realize equality is on the possibility of a good life, i.e., on an equality of life prospects and life circumstances – interpreted in various ways according to various positions in the “equality of what” debate (see above).

It is apparent that there are three sorts of egalitarianism: intrinsic, instrumental and constitutive. (For a twofold distinction cf. Parfit 1997, Temkin 1993, p. 11, McKerlie, 1996, p. 275.)

Intrinsic egalitarians view equality as a good in itself. As pure egalitarians, they are concerned solely with equality, most of them with equality of social circumstances, according to which it is intrinsically bad if some people are worse off than others through no fault of their own. But it is in fact the case that people do not always consider inequality a moral evil. Intrinsic egalitarians regarde quality as desirable even when the equalization would be of no use to any of the affected parties, such as when equality can only be produced through depressing the level of well being of everyone’s life. But something can only have an intrinsic value when it is good for at least one person, when it makes one life better in some way or another.

The following “ leveling-down ” objection indicates that doing away within equality in fact ought to produce better circumstances; it is otherwise unclear why equality should be desired. (For such an objection, cf. Nozick 1974, p. 229, Raz 1986, chap. 9, p. 227, 235, Temkin 1993, pp. 247–8.) Sometimes inequality can only be ended by depriving those who are better off of their resources, rendering them as poorly off as everyone else. (For anyone looking for a drastic literary example, Kurt Vonnegut’s 1950 science-fiction story Harrison Bergeron is recommended.) This would have to be an acceptable approach according to the intrinsic conception. But would it be morally good if, in a group consisting of both blind and sighted persons, those with sight were rendered blind because the blind could not be offered sight? That would be morally perverse. Doing away with inequality by bringing everyone down contains – so the objection goes – nothing good. Such leveling-down objections would of course only be valid if there were indeed no better and equally egalitarian alternatives available, but there are nearly always such alternatives: e.g. those who can see should have to help the blind, financially or otherwise. When there are no alternatives, in order to avoid such objections, intrinsic egalitarianism cannot be strict, but needs to be pluralistic . Then intrinsic egalitarians could say there is something good about the change, namely greater equality, although they would concede that much is bad about it. Pluralistic egalitarians do not have equality as their only goal; they also admit other values and principles, above all the principle of welfare, according to which it is better when people are doing better. In addition, pluralistic egalitarianism should be moderate enough to not always grant equality victory in the case of conflict between equality and welfare. Instead, they must accept reductions in equality for the sake of a higher quality of life for all (as with Rawls’ difference principle).

At present, many egalitarians are ready to concede that equality in the sense of equality of life circumstances has no compelling value in itself, but that, in a framework of liberal concepts of justice, its meaning emerges in pursuit of other ideals, like universal freedom, the full development of human capacities and the human personality, the mitigation of suffering and defeat of domination and stigmatization, the stable coherence of modern and freely constituted societies, and so forth (Scanlon 1996, 2018). For those who are worse off, unequal circumstances often mean considerable (relative) disadvantages and many (absolute) evils; as a rule, these (relative) disadvantages and (absolute) evils are the source of our moral condemnation of unequal circumstances. But this does not mean that inequality as such is an evil. Hence, the argument goes, fundamental moral ideals other than equality stand behind our aspiring for equality. To reject inequality on such grounds is to favor equality either as a byproduct or as a means, and not as a goal or intrinsic value. In its treatment of equality as a derived virtue, the sort of egalitarianism – if the term is actually suitable – here at play is instrumental .

As indicated, there is also a third, more suitable approach to the equality ideal: a constitutive egalitarianism. According to this approach, to the aspiration to equality is rooted in other moral grounds, namely because certain inequalities are unjust. Equality has value, but this is an extrinsic value, since it derives from another, higher moral principle of equal dignity and respect. But it is not instrumental for this reason, i.e., it is not only valued on account of moral equality, but also on its own account. (For the distinction between the origin of a value and the kind of value it is, cf. Korsgaard 1996.) Equality stands in relation to justice as does a part to a whole. The requirement of justification is based on moral equality, and in certain contexts, successful justification leads to the above-named principles of equality, i.e., formal, proportional equality and the presumption of equality. Thus, according to constitutive egalitarianism, these principles and the resulting equality are required by justice, and by the same token constitute social justice.

It is important to further distinguish two levels of egalitarianism and non-egalitarianism, respectively. On a first level, a constitutive egalitarian presumes that every explication of the moral standpoint is incomplete without terms such as ‘equal,’ ‘similarly,’ etc. In contrast, a non-egalitarianism operating on the same level considers such terms misplaced or redundant. On a second level, when it comes to concretizing and specifying conceptions of justice, a constitutive egalitarian gives equality substantive weight. On this level, more and less egalitarian positions can be found, according to the chosen currency of equality (the criteria by which just equality is measured) and according to the reasons for unequal distributions (exemptions of the presumption of equality) that the respective theories regard as well grounded. Egalitarianism on the second level thus relates to the kind, quality and quantity of things to be equalized. Because of such variables, a clear-cut definition of second level egalitarianism cannot be formulated. In contrast, non-egalitarians on this second level advocate a non-relational entitlement theory of justice.

Alongside the often-raised objections against equality mentioned in the section on “simple equality” (3.1. above) there is a different and more fundamental critique formulated by first level non-egalitarians: that equality does not have a foundational role in the grounding of claims to justice. While the older version of a critique of egalitarianism comes mainly from the conservative end of the political spectrum, thus arguing in general against “patterned principles of justice” (Nozick 1974, esp. pp. 156–157), the critique’s newer version also often can be heard in progressive circles (Walzer 1983, Raz 1986, chap. 9, Frankfurt 1987, 1997, Parfit 1997, Anderson 1999). This first-level critique of equality poses the basic question of why justice should in fact be conceived relationally and (what is here the same) comparatively. Referring back to Joel Feinberg’s (1974) distinction between comparative and non-comparative justice, non-egalitarians object to the moral requirement to treat people as equals, and the many demands for justice emerging from it. They argue that neither the postulate nor these demands involve comparative principles, let alone any equality principles. They reproach first-level egalitarians for a confusion between “equality” and “universals.” As the non-egalitarians see things, within many principles of justice – at least the especially important ones – the equality-terminology is redundant. Equality is thus merely a byproduct of the general fulfillment of actually non-comparative standards of justice: something obscured through the unnecessary insertion of an expression of equality (Raz 1986, p. 227f.). At least the central standards of dignified human life are not relational but “absolute.” As Harry Frankfurt puts it: “It is whether people have good lives, and not how their lives compare with the lives of others” (Frankfurt 1997, p. 6). And again: “The fundamental error of egalitarianism lies in supposing that it is morally important whether one person has less than another regardless of how much either of them has” (Frankfurt 1987, p. 34).

From the non-egalitarian perspective, what is really at stake in helping those worse off and improving their lot is humanitarian concern , a desire to alleviate suffering. Such concern is not understood as egalitarian, as it is not focused on the difference between the better off and the worse off as such (whatever the applied standard), but on improving the situation of the latter. Their distress constitutes the actual moral foundation. The wealth of those better off only furnishes a means that has to be transferred for the sake of mitigating the distress, as long as other, morally negative consequences do not emerge in the process. The strength of the impetus for more equality lies in the urgency of the claims of those worse off, not in the extent of the inequality. For this reason, instead of equality the non-egalitarian critics favor one or another entitlement theory of justice , such as Nozick’s (1974) libertarianism (cf. 3.2. above) and Frankfurt’s (1987) doctrine of sufficiency , according to which “What is important from the moral point of view is not that everyone should have the same but that each should have enough. If everyone had enough , it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others” (Frankfurt 1987, p. 21).

Parfit’s (1997) priority view accordingly calls for a focus on improving the situation of society’s weaker and poorer members, and indeed all the more urgently the worse off they are, even if they can be less helped than others in the process. Parfit (1995) distinguishes between egalitarianism and prioritarianism. According to prioritarians, benefiting people is more important the worse off those people are. This prioritising will often increase equality, but they are two distinct values, since in an important respect equality is a relational value while priority is not. However, egalitarians and prioritarians share an important feature, in that both hold that the best possible distribution of a fixed sum of goods is an equal one. It is thus a matter of debate whether prioritarianism is a sort of egalitarianism or a (decent) inegalitarianism. In any case, entitlement-based non-egalitarian arguments can practically result in an equality of outcome as far-reaching as egalitarian theories. Hence the fulfillment of an absolute or non-comparative standard for everyone (e.g. to the effect that nobody should starve) frequently results in a certain equality of outcome, where such a standard comprises not only a decent but a good life. Consequently, the debate here centers on the basis – is it equality or something else? – and not so much on the outcome – are persons or groups more or less equal, according to a chosen metric? Possibly, the difference lies even deeper, in their respective conceptions of morality in general.

Egalitarians can respond to the anti-egalitarian critique by conceding that it is the nature of some (however certainly far from all) essential norms of morality and justice to be concerned primarily with the adequate fulfillment of the separate claims of individuals. However, whether a claim can itself be considered suitable can be ascertained only by asking whether it can be agreed on by all those affected in hypothetical conditions of freedom and equality. (See, e.g., Casal 2007 for a deeper discussion and critique of the doctrine of sufficiency.) This justificatory procedure is more necessary if it is less evident that what is at stake is actually suffering, distress, or an objective need. In the view of the constitutive egalitarians, all the judgments of distributive justice should be approached relationally, by asking which distributive scheme all concerned parties can universally and reciprocally agree to. As described at some length in the pertinent section above, many egalitarians argue that a presumption in favor of equality follows from this justification requirement. In the eyes of such egalitarians, this is all one needs for the justification and determination of the constitutive value of equality.

Secondly, even if – for the sake of argument – the question is left open as to whether demands for distribution according to objective needs (e.g. alleviating hunger) involve non-comparative entitlement-claims, it is nonetheless always necessary to resolve the question of what needy individuals are owed. And this is tied in a basic way to the question of what persons owe one another in comparable or worse situations, and how scarce resources (money, goods, time, energy) must be invested in light of the sum total of our obligations. While the claim on our aid may well appear non-relational, determining the kind and extent of the aid must always be relational, at least in circumstances of scarcity (and resources are always scarce). Claims are either “satiable” (Raz 1986, p. 235) – i.e., an upper limit or sufficiency level can be indicated, after which each person’s claim to X has been fulfilled – or they are not. For insatiable claims, to stipulate any level at which one is or ought to be sufficiently satisfied is arbitrary. If the standards of sufficiency are defined as a bare minimum, why should persons be content with that minimum? Why should the manner in which welfare and resources are distributed above the poverty level not also be a question of justice? If, by contrast, we are concerned solely with claims that are in principle “satiable,” such claims having a reasonable definition of sufficiency, then these standards of sufficiency will most likely be very high. In Frankfurt’s definition, for example, sufficiency is reached only when persons are satisfied and no longer actively strive for more. Since people find themselves ourselves operating, in practice, in circumstances far beneath such a high sufficiency level, they (of course) live under conditions of (moderate) scarcity. Then the above mentioned argument holds as well – namely, that in order to determine to what extent it is to be fulfilled, each claim has to be judged in relation to the claims of all others and all available resources. In addition, the moral urgency of lifting people above dire poverty cannot be invoked to demonstrate the moral urgency of everyone having enough. In both forms of scarcity – i.e., with satiable and insatiable claims – the social right or claim to goods cannot be conceived as something absolute or non-comparative. Egalitarians may thus conclude that distributive justice is always comparative. This would suggest that distributive equality, especially equality of life-conditions, should play a fundamental role in any adequate theory of justice in particular, and of morality in general.

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• Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1755, in M. Cranston (ed.), 1984, A Discourse on Inequality , London: Penguin; partly reprinted in L. Pojman & R. Westmoreland (eds.), 1997, Equality. Selected Readings , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 36–45.
• –––, 1762, in M. Cranston (ed.), 1987, The Social Contract , Harmondsworth: Penguin.
• Scanlon, Thomas, 1996, The Diversity of Objections to Inequality , The Lindley Lectures, Lawrence, KA: University of Kansas; reprinted in T. Scanlon, 2003, The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202–218.
• –––, 2018, Why Does Inequality Matter? , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Scheffler, Samuel, 2003, “What is Egalitarianism?,” Philosophy and Public Affairs , 31: 5–39; reprinted in Equality and Tradition , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 175–207.
• –––, 2005, “Choice, Circumstances and the value of Equality,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics , 4: 5–28.
• –––, 2015, “The Practice of Equality,” in C. Fourie, F. Schuppert, and I. Wallimann-Helmer (eds.), Social Equality: Essays on What it Means to be Equals , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 21–44.
• Schemmel, Christian, 2011, “Why Relational Egalitarians Should Care About Distibutions,” Social Theory and Practice , 37: 365–390.
• Sen, Amartya, 1970, Collective Choice and Social Welfare , San Fransisco: Holden-Day; reprinted Amsterdam 1979.
• –––, 1980, “Equality of What?,” in S. M. McMurrin (ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values , I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–220; reprinted in A. Sen, 1982, Choice, Welfare and Measurement , Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 353–372, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1997; also in S. Darwall (ed.), 1995, Equal Freedom , Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• –––, 1992, Inequality Reexamined , Oxford: Clarendon Press, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Shaw, George Bernard, 1928, The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism , New York: Brentano’s Publishers.
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Right to Equality (Article 14 to 18): Meaning, Provisions & Significance

The Right to Equality , enshrined as a fundamental right in the Indian Constitution, plays a crucial role in building a just and equitable society. The provisions under this right collectively form the bedrock upon which the edifice of Indian democracy is built. This article of NEXT IAS delves into the nuances of provisions related to the Right to Equality, their meaning, significance, exceptions, and more.

Meaning of Right to Equality

The Right to Equality in the Indian Constitution is a fundamental human right that signifies that all people should be treated equally and without discrimination. This principle is foundational to human rights law and is enshrined in various international treaties and national constitutions around the world. The essence of this right is to ensure that no individual or group is denied societal opportunities or privileges that are available to others based on arbitrary criteria such as race, gender, age, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or any other status.

Right to Equality in India

The Right to Equality is a Fundamental Right enshrined in the Constitution of India. The detailed provisions related to the Right to Equality contained in Articles 14 to 18 of the Constitution form the cornerstone of justice and fairness in society. Together they ensure that everyone is treated equally before the law, given equal opportunities in certain matters, and is not discriminated against on grounds such as religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth, etc.

Right to Equality: Provisions Under the Indian Constitution

Equality before law and equal protection of laws (article 14).

• This provision mandates that the State shall not deny to any person Equality before the Law or the Equal Protection of the Laws within the territory of India.
• This right is extended to citizens, foreigners as well as legal persons such as companies.

Equality before Law

• the absence of any special privileges in favor of any person,
• the equal subjection of all persons to the ordinary law of the land,
• no person is above the law.

Equal Protection of Laws

• equality of treatment under equal circumstances, both in the privileges conferred and liabilities imposed by the laws,
• the similar application of the same laws to all persons who are similarly situated,
• the like should be treated alike without any discrimination.
• A simple comparison of the concepts of ‘Equality before Law’ and ‘Equal Protection of Laws’ tells that the former is a negative concept , while the latter is a positive concept. However, they both align in their common aim to establish equality of legal status, opportunity, and justice.

Rule of Law

• Absence of arbitrary power i.e. no man can be punished except for a breach of law.
• Equality before law i.e. equal subjection of all citizens to the laws of the land.
• The primacy of the rights of the individual i.e. constitution is the result of the rights of the individual as defined and enforced by the courts of law, rather than the constitution being the source of the individual rights.
• The concept of ‘ Equality before Law ’ is an element of the concept of ‘Rule of Law’.
• In the case of the Indian system, only the 1st and 2nd elements of the ‘Rule of Law’ are applicable, and not the 3rd one. This is because, in India, the constitution is the source of the individual rights.
• The Supreme Court has ruled that the ‘Rule of Law’ as embodied in Article 14 is a ‘basic feature’ of the constitution , and hence cannot be destroyed by a constitutional amendment.

Exceptions to Equality

The rule of equality before the law has certain exceptions. These exceptions are mentioned below:

• As ruled by the Supreme Court, while Article 14 forbids class legislation, it permits the reasonable classification of persons, objects, and transactions by law. However, the classification should not be arbitrary, artificial, or evasive.
• As per Article 361 , the President of India and the Governor of States enjoy certain immunities.
• As per Article 361-A , no person shall be liable for any proceedings in any court for publication of a true report of any proceedings of Parliament or State Legislature.
• Article 105 provides that no member of Parliament shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given in Parliament or any committee thereof. Article 194 makes a similar provision for members of the State Legislature.
• Article 31-C provides that laws made by the state for implementing DPSPs contained in Article 39 (b) and (c) cannot be challenged on the grounds of being violative of Article 14.
• Immunity to foreign sovereigns, ambassadors, and diplomats from criminal and civil proceedings.
• UNO and its agencies also enjoy diplomatic immunity from certain proceedings.

Prohibition of Discrimination on Certain Grounds (Article 15)

• The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
• No citizen shall be subjected to any disability, liability, restriction, or condition on grounds only of religion, race, case, sex, or place of birth w.r.t. access to public places.
• The first provision prohibits discrimination only by the state , while the second provision prohibits discrimination both by the state and private individuals.
• The crucial term here is ‘only’, which connotes that discrimination on grounds other than those mentioned in the provisions is not prohibited.
• The state is authorized to enact special provisions for the benefit of women and children, such as reserving seats in local bodies or providing free education for children.
• The state is empowered to enact special measures for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes, as well as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes such as seat reservations or fee concessions in public educational institutions.
• The state has the authority to enact special measures for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes, scheduled castes, or scheduled tribes in matters of admission to educational institutions, including private ones, whether aided or unaided by the state, excluding minority educational institutions.
• The state is empowered to enact special measures for the advancement of economically weaker sections of society. Additionally, the state may reserve up to 10% of seats for such sections in educational institutions, excluding minority educational institutions. A. This reservation is in addition to existing reservations and is determined based on family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage, as notified by the state.

Equality of Opportunity in Public Employment (Article 16)

• This provision provides for equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters of employment or appointment to any office under the State.
• The citizens cannot be discriminated against or be ineligible for any employment or office under the State only on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, or residence.
• Parliament may prescribe residence as a condition for certain employment positions under the State, Union Territory, Local Authority, or other authority.
• The State can provide for the reservation of appointments or posts in favor of the backward classes that are inadequately represented in the state services.
• A law can provide that certain religious institutions or denominations may require officeholders to belong to a particular religion or denomination.
• The state can reserve up to 10% of appointments for economically weaker sections, in addition to existing reservations, based on criteria such as family income or other indicators of economic disadvantage. A. This reservation has been added by the 103rd Amendment Act of 2019.

Abolition of Untouchability (Article 17)

• This provision has abolished ‘untouchability’ and forbids its practice in any form.
• Any act enforcing disability based on untouchability shall be deemed as an offense punishable by law.
• Untouchability refers to social disabilities imposed on certain classes of persons because of their birth in certain castes. Hence, it does not cover the social boycott of a few individuals or their exclusions from religious services, etc.
• However, the term ‘untouchability’ has not been defined in the Constitution or the Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1955 (the act enacted to enforce this provision).

Abolition of Titles ( Article 18)

• It prohibits the state from granting any title, except for military or academic distinctions, to any individual, whether a citizen or a foreigner.
• It prohibits Indian citizens from accepting titles from any foreign state.
• A foreigner holding any office of profit or trust under the state cannot accept titles from any foreign state without the President’s consent.
• Neither citizens nor foreigners holding any office of profit or trust under the State are allowed to accept any gift, salary, or position from or under any foreign state without the President’s consent.
• Hereditary titles of nobility e.g. Maharaja, Deewan, etc which were conferred by colonial states are banned by this Article.
• National Awards e.g. Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, and Padma Sri are not banned by this Article. However, they should not be used as suffixes or prefixes to the names of awardees. Otherwise, they should forfeit the awards.

Significance of Right to Equality

The right to equality holds immense significance as it serves as the foundation for a just and inclusive society. Its importance lies in several key aspects:

• Fairness and Justice – It ensures that all individuals are treated equally under the law, irrespective of their background, race, religion, caste, gender, or economic status. This fosters a sense of fairness and justice in society.
• Non-Discrimination – This right prohibits discrimination in all spheres of life, including employment, education, housing, and public services. It creates a level playing field for everyone, regardless of their differences.
• Inclusivity – This right promotes inclusivity by recognizing the dignity and worth of every individual. It encourages respect for diversity and the participation of all members of society in civic and political life.
• Social Cohesion – This right helps in building social cohesion by reducing social tensions and disparities. When individuals feel that they are treated fairly and have equal opportunities, it fosters a sense of belonging and unity within society.
• Human Rights – This is a fundamental human right enshrined in various international and national legal instruments. Protecting this right is essential for upholding the broader framework of human rights and dignity.

In conclusion, equality lies at the heart of the Indian Constitution, serving as the cornerstone of justice, fairness, and social cohesion. This principle of equality ensures that all individuals are treated fairly before the law, without any unreasonable discrimination. By upholding this fundamental right, India strives to build a society where every citizen has equal opportunities and rights, fostering inclusivity and empowering each individual to contribute to the nation’s progress and prosperity.

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The Equal Society: Essays on Equality in Theory and Practice

2016, The Philosophical Quarterly

Related Papers

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (May 2017)

Valentin Beck

Shlomi Segall

Equality is an undisputed political and moral value. But until quite recently, political philosophers have not fully explored its complexity. This article tackles the vast literature on equality and egalitarianism of the past thirty-five years or so, and shows how complex and multi-layered the concept of equality can be. Specifically, it unpacks three major questions we might ask about equality. We first ask what is equality. This question can be unpacked into two sub-questions. Distinguishing first between formal and distributive accounts of equality, we may ask what the currency of egalitarianism can be. The article goes through currencies such as welfare, resources, and capabilities, showing their respective strengths and weaknesses. A second important sub-question here is what is the relevant scope as well as temporal dimensions of equality. Among whom is equality valuable, and in what time-frame, precisely, is it valuable? This hints at our second major question, namely concerning the value of equality. Is equality indeed valuable, or are we confusing it for some other value, be it giving priority to the worse off, or lifting individuals above a certain threshold of deprivation. The article goes through some famous criticisms to equality's purported lack of value (the leveling down objection), explores some potential answers, and then examines the relative strength of equality's two main rivals, namely priority and sufficiency. The third major question we ask concerns what is the proper account of egalitarian justice. In particular, setting aside the question of currency, should our conception of distributive justice be informed by responsibility-sensitive accounts, or rather be focused on a responsibility-insensitive accounts that moreover place an emphasis on equality of relations rather than individuals holdings? We explore this in the two final sections, one devoted to understanding luck egalitarianism, and the other to its rival, relational egalitarianism.

The Philosophical Quarterly

Arthur Schipper

The Philosophical Quarterly (2017); The Equal Society: Essays on Equality in Theory and Practice. EDITED BY George Hull. (London: Lexington Books, 2015. Pp. vii + 354. Price £70.00.) http://pq.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/10/10/pq.pqw063.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=6pdzSKo8XubTuAq You can access the article by following the link above.

Gillian Brock

The Southern Journal of Philosophy

Chris Lebron

Sunday Business Post

Marie Moran

Cyrielle Poiraud

Cette thèse s’inscrit au sein de la littérature des théories modernes et contemporaines de la justice sociale, en s’intéressant plus particulièrement à la question de l’égalité et à la manière dont elle s’est affirmée en tant que préoccupation fondamentale pour ces théories. En s’appuyant essentiellement sur les travaux d’Amartya Sen, d’Emmanuel Levinas et de G.W.F. Hegel, il est suggéré que l’égalité constitue la condition de possibilité de la justice, et ainsi de la liberté, cette dernière étant affirmée comme l’objet de la justice. Ce travail tend également à envisager les limites d’une telle conception : le premier chapitre permet d’affirmer la relation d’interdépendance des valeurs de liberté et d’égalité au regard de la justice sociale en démontrant la nécessité d’un principe d’égalité par l’argument de la raison humaine. Le second chapitre approfondit l’argument de l’impartialité, tel que développé par Sen. De là, le troisième chapitre déploie la nécessité d’une médiation ins...

Social Epistemology

Elizabeth Anderson

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Eduardo Frajman

Philosophy &amp; Social Criticism

Matthias Fritsch

The article considers the relationships among three arguments that purport to establish the intrinsically contradictory or paradoxical nature of the modern project aiming at the equal consideration of all. The claim that the inevitable historical insertion of universal-egalitarian norms leads to always particular and untransparent interpretations of grammatically universal norms may be combined with the claim that the logic of determination of political communities tends to generate exclusions. The combination of these two claims lends specific force to the third argument according to which equal consideration perpetually requires the non-egalitarian project of understanding (excluded) individuals on their own terms. Hence, taking off from a recent debate between Christoph Menke and Jürgen Habermas, I argue that the former is right to diagnose an aporetic self-reflection in egalitarian universalism, while agreeing with the latter about the indispensability of deliberative democratic...

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247 Equality Topics & Essay Examples

Looking for exciting equality topics to write about? The issue is hot, controversial, and definitely worth studying!

🔝 Top 10 Gender Equality Essay Topics

• 🏆 Best Essay Examples

🥇 Most Interesting Equality Topics to Write about

🎓 simple & easy equality essay titles.

• 📝 Interesting Titles
• 💡 Controversial Topics

❓ Equality Essay Questions

In your equality essay, you might want to focus on racial, social, or gender inequality in historical perspective or nowadays. Whether you will choose to write an argumentative or persuasive essay, this article will help you. We’ve gathered top race and gender equality title ideas and added excellent equality essay examples to inspire you even more.

• Gender equality as a fundamental human right
• History of women’s empowerment
• Preventing violence against women and girls
• Gender bias in medical sphere
• Reproductive rights of women
• Child marriage in developing countries
• Gender equality in economy: is it possible?
• Gender stereotypes in the workplace
• Women representation in political institution
• Gender quotas in parliaments: do they work?

🏆 Best Equality Essay Examples & Topic

• Employment Relations: Effects of Unitarism on Inequality In view of this, management teams are evaluating employee loyalty on the basis of the extent to which they have internalized the firm’s corporate vision even if it is at the expense of their personal […]
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• Relation Between Justice and Inequality The structure of institutions needs to be changed in that everyone can relate hence creating a rift in the judgment delivered between the rich and the poor is unproductive.
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusive Education The major goal of inclusive learning is to value the diversity of the human community and also ensure that there is equity in the provision of education to all groups of people, such that not […]
• Gender Inequality in Workplace Gender is the main reason for inequalities in the workplace; this is because nowadays there is a steady increase in the number of women in workplaces in the world.
• SDGs – Equality Education and Gender Equality The quality of education for girls can affect their employment and their ability to support themselves financially. With a good education, women have a larger range of jobs to choose from and the opportunity to […]
• Does Democracy Require Equality of Income or Wealth? While wealth equality as the presence of equivalent opportunities to exert political power appears to be the essential factor in establishing democracy, income equality as the opportunity to build wealth is also a factor.
• Gender and Sports: Men and Women Equality Sport is considered to be one of the most appealing but at the same time the most controversial institutions in the world.
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• Equality of Opportunity in Society Policies developed by the political class to pursue equality of opportunity distract society from addressing the issues that contribute to the inequalities, depriving people of good life regardless of their social class.
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• Creating a Culture of Gender Equality in the Workplace This proposal will consider the existing gender inequality within the field of architecture and propose several changes an architecture firm should undertake to create a culture of gender equality.
• The Meaning of Equity: The Struggle for Equality However, there is a significant difference between equality and equity, and in my opinion, the latter approach is much fairer and provides more benefits. Therefore, for me, equity is the idea that both society and […]
• Title IX: Gender Equality in Education Education provides opportunities for developing the abilities of girls and boys, women and men to participate in the social, economic, and political life of the state and is the basis for the development of a […]
• The Fighter for Equality: Nelson Mandela In 1941, he moved to Johannesburg, and, along with his work as a lawyer, he entered the University of the Witwatersrand at the Faculty of Law. He organized the Campaign of Disobedience to the Authorities, […]
• Gender Issues of Equality and Representation in the K-12 Education System This paper examines the gender issues of equality and representation in the K-12 education system and gives out the major findings based on the observed trends from the structured study of literature in the area.
• J. S. Murray’s “On the Equality of the Sexes” It is possible to say that Murray’s ideas presented in On the Equality of the Sexes are ahead of her time.
• Social Equality and Economic Growth Social equality provides individuals with equal opportunities to contribute to the growth of the economy. Equality also ensures that the potential of the society is fully exploited to enhance the development of the entire community.
• The Struggle for Gender Equality Before going any further it is crucial to emphasize the pitfalls when it comes to asserting the rights of women when it comes to the need for similar treatment in comparison to men.
• Nonhuman Animals in Moral Equality Theories The subject-of-a-life is the basis of human rights; however, according to Regan, animals have this property as well and as such deserve animal rights.
• Social, Cultural and Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective It is the duty of the tutor to craft a lecture-room environment that serves to enhance meaningful discussions concerning gender. This is due to the fact that students learn best in various ways.
• Fairness and Equality in the Modern Business World The reduction in the gender wage gap between men and women in the workplace indicates the progress that society has made in making the world a fairer and equal place.
• Enhancing Equality in the Society Since equality is at the heart of human rights, the government should contribute to its growth by lawfully establishing the same rights for every person regardless of their SES, age, race, and other features.
• Multinational Corporations Managing Diversity & Equality The supposed acceptances of diversity as a good contradict the well-established structural barrier to implementing greater openness to differences in the workplaces.
• Chimamanda Adichie: The Issue of Equality and Tolerance After centuries of discrimination and alienation between the communities of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, after hundreds of years of wars based on religion and nationality, modern society has slowly started coming to senses and […]
• Were the Goals of Hampton/Tuskegee Consistent with the Democratic Ideals of self-Determination and Equality? Thus, considering the situation which took place in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is possible to state that proclaiming democratic ideas in the education, the main goals of Hampton/Tuskegee idea were directed at […]
• Equality of Transgender and LGBTQ+ Populations The principles of the struggle for the transgender and LGBTQ+ populations should include respect for the choice and self-identification of a person.
• Aspects of Equality for Transgender Athletes The authors of the article claim that transgender athletes deserve equal representation and the right to participate in competitions in the divisions of the gender they identify themselves by referring to social structures and justice.
• The Discussion of Concepts of Gender Equality In the article, the author presents such concepts as violence, harm, empowerment, freedom, and universal care from the point of view of capitalism, liberalism, and feminism to reach the point of gender equality.
• How to Have Both Private Property and Equality in a State It is possible to have both private property and equality in a state by developing measurable notions through a qualitative analysis of freedom and equality in their relatable aspect.
• Gender Equality in Children’s Perception Despite the variety of achievements made on the subject in different parts of the world, the general tendency leads society toward accepting the idea of equality between men and women.
• Fairness and Equality in the Modern Labor World The establishment of an equal position between people is one of the most critical forces that will help the organic and stable development of society and the surrounding world.
• Workplace Equality for Minorities Steps must be taken to ensure that labor is appropriately paid and that the current model, in which work performed predominantly by minorities is undervalued, is not perpetuated.
• The Telus Company’s Equality and Diversity Practices In order to be a prominent representative in the framework of equality and inclusion, the corporation admits the importance of ensuring that its staff, at all levels, demonstrates the variety of customers and communities.
• Racial Equality in the Brown v Board of Education Case The Brown v Board of Education of Topeka was one of the events that resulted in a step towards demolishing inequality, being preceded by an unfair ruling.
• Income Equality and Social Policy Advocacy Lag The lag in income equality can be seen from statistical data: the income inequality ratio in the US is nine to one, which is worse than in Portugal, the UK, France, Canada, Germany, and some […]
• The Philosophy of Equality and Inclusiveness: Key Principles For example, inclusiveness reinforces the understanding of a person with disabilities that one is entitled to the same services as the rest.
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Address on Equality and Rights The same rights enable both a man and a woman to be part of enhancing the growth and development of a nation. The women would acquire their rights by using their penmanship, words, wealth, influence, […]
• Equality of Victims in the Legal System One of the most problematic issues concerning the inefficiencies of the legal system is the relatively low investigation rate of specific murder cases.
• Activists’ Role in African Americans’ Struggle for Equality The civil rights movement became one of the most notable phenomena in the history of the United States because it forever changed the political, legal, and social landscape of the country.
• “The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1992” by Harvard Sitkoff The author discusses the belittling of black people and the preservation of white supremacy, describes how black citizens’ inability to vote escalated into them being assaulted and murdered, and explains how law facilitated racial barriers.
• Women’s Equality Regarding Their Overall Wellness According to Poczatkova and Kribikova, the underrepresentation of women, particularly in the fields of science and research, is reproduced in the outcomes of the findings of studies and the subsequent applicability.
• Gender Equality as Target of Social Work As far as health care is concerned, the primary issue of gender inequality addresses the issue of access to the services and the quality of care provided.
• Cultural Diversity and Social Equality The power of equality is to allow one to express their cultural identity without the fear of being marginalized in society.
• Nursing Regulations as to Patient Equality I did not know that he was the father of the senior director at the hospital, and the older man was waiting for him. The incident was the subject of discussion in the workplace, and […]
• Martin Luther King Jr. as an Equality Activist At one time, Martin doubted which profession to give preference to medicine or law, everything was decided in favor of the ministry of the church, which influenced the education and literacy of the future leader.
• Naomi Osaka’s Case of Gender Equality in Sports The recent case of retirement by Naomi Osaka is a prime example of how gender roles and racism in sports can affect even the best athletes making sports an important discussion in the context of […]
• Promoting Equality in the UK Primary School Education System What is the nature of the relationship between inequalities in the UK primary school education system and its administrative structures? The context of this research is the primary school education system in the UK.
• Is Political and Racial Equality Possible in American Society? The study of this issue is important to modern American politics as it directly reflects the problems and opportunities of racial and ethnic minorities. It is also important to strive for justice and equality in […]
• Populism Discourse and Social Equality Regarding the definition, in this paper, populism will be viewed as “an appeal to “the people” against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society”.
• Impairment Pain Management and Disability Equality The purpose of the policy is to examine approaches to pain management to ensure disability equality. The first method is a formalized approach to pain management, assessment, and frequent reassessment/ monitoring of the patient’s state.
• Gender Equality: Definition, Challenges Over the decades, society viewed the female gender as an inferior sect in the community hence the emergent issues of imbalance in the system.
• Abolition vs. Equality in the American Civil War The Resolution was signed by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States who believed the annihilation of slavery and preserving the Union to be the core targets of the war.
• Workplace Relations and Equality Policymaking It is agreeable that many employees have expressed their concerns due to the increasing cases of inequality, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. The problem of inequality and discrimination at the workplace continues to affect […]
• Women in Islam: Some Rights, No Equality Notwithstanding the principles of equality of men and women in Islamic tradition, women’s low status should be attributed not to the ideals set in the Quran but to the cultural norms of the patriarchal society.
• Female Criminality and Gender Equality The present paper considers this theory by exploring the differences in treatment of females in the United States and Nigeria and assessing their impact on female criminality in the two countries.
• Diversity and Equality at Business Management Level The analysis was carried out in 2010 and revealed that 40% of all company directors in the UK were foreign. When compared to 2005, this represents a 14% increase in the number of overseas directors […]
• Disability Equality of a Disabled Lone Parent Although the officials were initially reluctant owing to her physical condition and the nature of work she was to perform, they allowed her to try.
• Media and ICT Industries Gender Equality Initiatives Therefore, the inability to use media and social networks to build a business is a serious obstacle to the development of women’s entrepreneurship in less developed countries.
• Syrian Conflict and Women Rights: Way to Equality or Another Discrimination The main reason for a low percentage of women in the workforce is Syrian social norms, which stereotypically reflect the role of women in homes serving their husbands and in the private sector.
• Financing Public Education: The Concept of Equality It is also critical to reach impartiality for everyone around the country to have equal opportunities to build their future with the help of education.
• Empowering Gender Equality in the United Arab Emirates Workforce The objective of the paper is to track changes in gender equality policies, especially concerning the equal representation of all women in the country’s workforce.
• Gender Equality in Finland and the U.S. Legal Situation: discuss the laws regarding general gender equality and the representation of women in positions of political power. Political Situation: analyze the current political landscape in the United States as well as Finland and […]
• Negative Impact of Oil on Wealth Equality and Economy of United Arab Emirates Oil has created wealth inequality in UAE and a shift in world energy focus to green energy will negatively impact the economy of UAE.
• The Women’s Movement and Gender Equality: ERA Opponents of the ERA argue that it is redundant due to the already existing Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Gender Problems, Equality and Perspectives: “Glass Ceiling” Trend The word “ceiling” depicts a kind of barrier for the progress of women and the word “glass” is used as an adjective for ceiling because as glass in invisible, the barrier is also invisible. The […]
• Private Clubs and Gender Equality In the clubs, members of the society get opportunity to pursue their goals and interests collectively and for the benefit of all.
• Affirmative Action Advances Racial Equality by Glenn and Williams The opponents of affirmative action, on the other hand, argue that affirmative action penalizes innocent people simply because they are white, and in most cases, the result is that it leads to people who are […]
• Black Women and the Struggle for Equality The rates in which the black females are incarcerated by males vary based on the level of education that the women have, and also the level of civilization that the Africa women are in.
• Is FGM a Human Rights Issue in the Development of Humanism and Equality? Among the problems faced by developed states that receive migrants from third-world countries, the protection of women’s and girls’ rights in the field of reproductive health stands out.
• Equality in the UN Operations: Chinese Perspective During the Cold, War China felt that the instrument of peacekeeping operations was exploited as a tool by the superpowers to further their interests and not the interests of the nations involved.
• Order, Freedom, Equality, & Justice In order to include all the necessary points into the new constitution it is advisable that the already existing constitutions of the developed countries are consulted and the works of the reputable scholars in the […]
• Welfare and Equality: Richard Titmuss’ Theories According to Titmuss, the realities of 20th century’s living in Western countries were defined by the fact that, unlike what it used to be the case, during course of earlier centuries, the amount of socially […]
• Social Factors in the US History: Respect for Human Rights, Racial Equality, and Religious Freedom The very first years of the existence of the country were marked by the initiatives of people to provide as much freedom in all aspects of social life as possible.
• Equality or Priority in the Ideal of Equality Before attempt to answer this question, it is necessary to discuss the definition of the doctrine of egalitarianism, prioritarianism and the purpose of this doctrine.
• In Pursuit of Educational Equality Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing.”This land is your land,” they are told; and, in one of […]
• Freedom, Equality & Solidarity by Lucy Parsons In the lecture and article ‘The Principles of Anarchism’ she outlines her vision of Anarchy as the answer to the labor question and how powerful governments and companies worked for hand in hand to stifle […]
• Equality of Opportunity and Social Justice: Affirmative Action If this is the situation in advanced nations of the world, the plight in the newly emerging states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America can easily be imagined as to how difficult would it be […]
• Women in Developing Countries: Globalization, Liberalization, and Gender Equality Owing to issues of gender, the voices of women in developing countries are never heard when it comes to the creation of trade agreements and policies or in their negotiations.
• Gender Equality Question: “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare For the past few centuries, the rise of various movements have marked a certain change in the ideas and philosophies of man regarding the true nature of his existence, the pronounced inequalities of not only […]
• Equality: The Use of TV to Develop Our Gender Roles In this sense, when it is the men who predominantly work outside of the home, they will usually see the home as a place of leisure and so use the TV as a source of […]
• Feminism and Support of Gender Equality Nowadays, it involves advocacy and a set of activities aimed to protect the rights of a plethora of discriminated groups, including LGBT community members and racial minorities.
• Gender Equality in Sweden and America The parental leave is extended to fathers, and the government strives to maintain a fair gender proportion in the top positions in public agencies.
• Criminology. Female Incarceration and Equality The power dynamics between the two genders and the observable differences in male and female behavior shape their crime patterns, avenues into the justice system, and responses to incarceration.
• Equality: Benefits of Showing Real Differences The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of equality to explain why people should strive to reveal and show that there are real human differences instead of surmising that they exist.
• The Enlightenment: Giving Start to Equality The ideas inherent to the philosophy of the Enlightenment changed the course of history and gave rise to the French Revolution and the start of the Constitution of the United States, human rights, and the […]
• Appiah’s Ideas of Racism, Equality, and Justice The existence of visible differences in people’s appearances created the basis for the distribution of populations into groups depending on the color of their skin and some other features.
• Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values Related to the principle of empathy is the notion of equality, which is extremely important as an addition to the ability to empathize.
• Social and Gender Equality Ideals and Theories According to Friedrich, there is no need of elevating the selfish desires of the human race in the pretext of democracy or hot pursuit for gender equality. However, the equality of outcome tends to be […]
• Gender Equality Issues in the Workplace Environment Hence, the gathering of information to validate the allegations is central to the resolution of the gender issue in the case study.
• Gender Equality: Plan to Address the Issue The vice president of administration and finance should use a powerful plan to address the issues affecting the institution. To begin with, I will use a powerful plan to address the issues affecting different female […]
• Chapters 1-2 of “Liberty, Equality, Power” by Murrin et al. The voyage resulted in Pope’s decree of the division of all non-Christian lands between Portugal and Spain, dying out of the local population of Carribean and Bahama Islands and replacing it with black slaves from […]
• Chapter 3 of “Liberty, Equality, Power” by Murrin et al. In the subsequent part of the chapter, the author illustrates the events of Indians’ settlement. The author claims that mercantilism ideals became the prevention of ethnic diversity support.
• Gender Equality in the Laing O’Rourke Company The construction industry in the UK has been in a steady decline for from 2011 to 2016, with its fall culminating in autumn, when Carillion, one of the largest construction company in the region, disintegrated.
• Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Concepts According to Georgellis and Sankae, the Theory of Gender Role emerged out of the consistent work of different psychologists who were interested in explaining the differences between men and women from a socio-economic angle.
• Male Nurses and Gender Equality in the Workplace The research will go further to examine how the concept of gender equality in the nursing working environment can address the problem of the nursing shortage.
• Equality and Diversity in the United Arab Emirates The principles of equality and diversity are promoted in many modern organizations, and it is important to evaluate specific competing drivers that contribute to incorporating diversity into the strategy of the UAE-based company and discuss […]
• Democracy and Oligarchy: the Meaning of Equality Aristotle’s meaning of equality is a form of government that is democratically rooted and not aligned to the issue of state and class.
• Equality and Diversity in Business Ethics The leader will identify the skills and dexterities of the workers and design the best teams that can deliver the targeted goals.
• Gender Equality and Its Development Another important indication of the progress is the creation of UN Women, which addressed the known shortcomings of the global women’s rights movements, such as barriers to funding and lack of centralized effort aimed at […]
• Gender Equality and Development Despite the progress of the last century on ensuring the equal rights for both genders, there are still issues that have to be addressed by the global society.
• Equality, Diversity and Human Rights in Healthcare Equity can be achieved in a health system that acknowledges the diversity of the population respecting the expectations and needs of the patients, the staff and the services as a whole.
• The Question of Gender Equality: Scott vs. Terrall The paper also answers the question of gender equality, in terms of the standing of women in scientific society, and explains why the arguments of both authors are valid and provide a useful insight into […]
• Educational Equality for All Students In spite of the gravity of multiculturalism in the American society, the teachers and students tend to misinterpret the concept of the intercultural environment by often regarding representatives of various ethnicities as “monocultural”.
• UAE Employee Equality in Sick Leave Provision The actual laws and regulations concerning the provision of sick leaves to the employees in the UAE will be compared to the evidential data of the realities in the modern workplaces.
• Gender and Racial Equality at the Workplace In this light, this paper seeks to identify the prevailing obstacles to the full attainment of racial and gender equality in the workplace setting.
• LULAC: Efforts to Promote Racial Equality However, even after the official acceptance of Hispanic people as citizens with the full access to the civil rights and liberties, LULAC is still essential for the promotion of racial equality.
• Equality and Diversity in Business Environment The employees will also present adequate competencies in order to improve the level of performance. Employees should use different approaches and ideas in order to promote the concept of diversity.
• What Is the Point of Equality Theory? The antagonism that seems to crop up from the two interpretations gives rise to the concept of egalitarianism that seeks to diminish the differences that arise from the understanding of liberty and equality.
• American Democracy and Equality Criticism However, the absence of even the smallest traces of ‘equality’ in America can be confirmed not only within the context of what accounts for the living standards, on the part of the country’s rich and […]
• Developing a Culture of Gender Equality by Awadhi The author is one of the modern and educated women in the UAE, which provides evidence of her ability to develop an article describing the state of women in the country.

📝 Interesting Gender Equality Title Ideas

• Rationalizing Equality in the USA The effects of power abuse still in the minds of the federalists and the antifederalists, both groups had a hard time to come into terms with the intended ratification and implementation of the United States […]
• Equity and Equality of Resources by R. Dworkin As a matter of fact, resolution for this problem should be measures adopted to promote and empower individuals in the society, who are the main beneficiaries of equality in resource sharing.
• Toleration in T. Nagel’s “Equality and Partiality” He argues that the state has the right to enforce only those rules that are based on the values accepted by all of the citizens. Nagel shows that the government should show respect to all […]
• US Education: Goals, Methods, and Equality Issues Despite the fact that nowadays, in the 21st century, honoring diversity has become an almost a common tradition, recognizing the need for diversity in education is still a controversial issue in the sphere of education.
• Gender Equality: Women Leadership in Financial Sector The primary purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of various GE tools in the context of the financial sector in the US.
• Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment by Gemechu Ogato The article “The Quest for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the least Developed Countries” presents a macro work. The ideas presented in this article will guide more societies and governments to identify better policies […]
• Men and Women Equality in the African Diaspora Although the historic and social events and changes in the USA typical for the period of the 1960s-1980s contribute to the stating the ideals of civil rights and gender and racial equality, black women in […]
• Equality and Globalization: Changing Gender Expectations The 21st century has experienced globalization, which is the increase in the integration of nations. Globalization has changed the gender expectations that were traditionally held by members of society.
• Gender Equality and Globalization’ Issues Since the world policies adopt a new progressive direction, the idea of gender equality enters the category of the ultimate Millennium development goals.
• US Progress in Freedom, Equality and Power Since Civil War When it comes to the pursuit of freedom and ideals of democracy, progress since the Civil War can be seen in the establishment of a sufficiently capable Federal government, efficient judiciary and presidency systems with […]
• Equality in the American System of Education According to Andrew Carnegie, the problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth in such a manner that would lead people to attach to each other as a family and live in harmony.
• Social Equity and Equality Concept Comparison In his view, American society has never been equal; hence application of equality in the distribution of important resources is impossible, meaning public administrators must undertake the role of studying the society to comprehend the […]
• Equality’ and Diversity Sociological Issues This plan ensures equity and equality in terms of access to healthcare for the American citizenry. Indeed, Daley and Feit confirm that healthcare professionals have the duty to offer services of equal quality to people, […]
• Gender Equality and Title IX The function of Title IX is to guarantee gender equality in college sports and it has supported the development of female sports.
• Mary Wollstonecraft’s Achievements in Struggles for Gender Equality First wave feminists advocated for women to be granted the right to vote in the U.S. Their persistent pressure made the U.S.government to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920, which granted women the right to […]
• The Equality Act 2010 and Individual Employment Rights Since this study focuses on the case of Ladele and McFarlane with reference to the principle of conscientious, religious objection to same-sex relationships, we shall only look at elements of the Act that deal with […]
• Gender Equality: Male Dominance The simple reason is that gender inequality exists in affluent societies wherein women are free to do what they want, have access to education, and have the capacity to create wealth.
• Inequality of Development of Saudi Arabia Given the significance of oil in the country’s economic growth, the government channels most of its funds towards the development of the oil industry.
• Inequity Issue in the Workplace In this case the success or failure of an organization to reach the stated objectives lay in the hands of the people who are concerned and more importantly in the leader who spells the vision […]
• How Can the Objective of Equality at Work be Promoted through Recruitment and Selection? To investigate the relationship that such equality has with Human Resource Management practices To given insights on the mechanisms through which the objective of equality at work could be promoted through recruitment and selection For […]
• “Savage Inequality” a Book by Jonathan Kozol Kozol argues that, in spite of a century of lawful and governmental action, America upholds uneven and divided education system whereby the deprived that form the marginal children, debatably who warrant the most resources, obtain […]
• “8 Is Not Hate: The Meaning of a Proposition” and “Prop 8 Hurt My Family—Ask Me How; Marriage Equality USA” The modern day and age offers rights and freedoms that people have not experienced some time before and the majority of official rulings have acknowledged that people have a right to marry whomever they want, […]
• Equality to All? Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” In many western nations, the classical movement was driven by the quest to transform the economy and the political philosophy. The intention was to meet the needs and aspirations of the colonial powers.
• American Socioeconomic Equality The researchers also state that such tax policy contributes to the increase of the wealth gap even though the productivity is on the rise.
• Is It Possible for Managers to Reduce Inequality in Business Organizations? Organizational culture: it is the HRM to blame One of the greatest problems of the HRM personnel is the inability to embrace the needs and wants of every single member of the staff.
• Gender inequality in Algeria The fact that women helped to build back the ruins of society and the heroism they showed in the war efforts, was forgotten by their husbands and the government.
• Tunisia’s Gender Equality These people feel that the government should advance democracy in this country, and Muslims should be taught the importance of following the law of the country, for the good of all people.
• How harness all the potentiality among the people to ensure there is equality According to Jackson, some of the benefits derived from promoting diversity are that the organization is able to harness various potentials.
• The Impact of Higher Education Expansion on Income Inequality in China Trends in the access to higher education since the expansion of education reforms in 1989 signal a rise in inequality. Wu observes that during the expansion of education in China, the Gini Coefficient rose to […]
• Color Blindness and Equality We should always endeavor to judge people by the content of their character, as opposed to the color of their skin.
• Public Policy and Social Inequality From the studies that have been conducted, it has been identified that the inequality changes that have been experienced in the different states of the world are not monotonic; other factors play a critical role […]
• Inequality in U.S Healthcare: The Americare Insurance System The other insurance is the Medicaid that covers the poor and the unemployed people. This means that the better option of insurance is a universal insurance plan that caters for everyone.
• Building Workplace Equality Moreover, the Indian sales personnel will have the idea of the mentality of Indians and will have the tactics to convince them.
• Affirmative Action: Achieving Race Equality in School Admissions Therefore, this paper is bent on showing the effectiveness of affirmative action towards achieving equality on the basis of race in school admissions to enhance educational diversity, and in the hiring process to promote racial […]
• Ensure equality of representation The title of the article renders a reader to prepare for a critical examination of the subject being reviewed by the authors.
• Income Inequality in Marxism, Structuralism, Neoliberalism, and Dependency Theory The peculiar features of every country’s development should be discussed from the point of the character of the economic relations within the country and from the point of the country’s position within the global economic […]
• Religious Equality in America If the government were to ensure that there is religious equality, then the uniqueness of each religion will be lost. The task of this essay is to establish whether it is possible or not to […]
• What Is ‘Liberal Representative Democracy’ and Does the Model Provide an Appropriate Combination of Freedom and Equality? Freedom and equality are guaranteed under this form of democracy because they are enshrined in the constitution which is always the supreme law of a given country.
• Full Frontal Feminism – What is Still Preventing Women from Achieving Equality? The aim of the book remains relevant in the modern society as young women continue to be the key victims of violence against women.
• Greater equality: the hidden key to better health and higher scores Main arguments of the authors In their article, “Greater equality: the hidden key to better health and higher scores”, Wilkinson and Picket argue that equality in terms of income levels among the population is more […]

💡 Controversial Gender Equality Essay Topics

• Media Patterns and Social Inequality
• Discrimination and Fight for Equality
• There Will Never Be Equality in the World; There Will Always Be Very Rich and Very Poor People
• Equality of Opportunity and Condition Concepts
• Gender inequality in Canada
• Social Capital and Health Inequality
• Managing Diversity and Equality
• Dimensions to Political Thinking: Human Equality, Power, and Order
• The Influence on Health of Economic Inequality
• Scholars Comment on Gender Equality
• The Problem of Social and Economic Inequality in Modern Society
• Obtaining Objective Truth in Regards to Martin Luther King’s Role in the Fight for Equality in the United States
• Capitalism and World Inequality
• Education in Australia as a Tool of Promoting Equality of Opportunity
• Inequality of Women in China
• Coretta Scott King: Fighting and Advocating for Equality
• The Problem of the Racial Inequality in US
• Racial Inequality in America in 1998
• Citizens’ Equality in the United States
• The Race Equality Concept
• Anti-same-sex Marriage Laws and Amendments Violate the Constitutional Guarantees of Equality for all Citizens of the United States
• Free Exercise Clause: Freedom and Equality
• American Africans Action in the Struggle for Equality
• Chaucer and Sophocles Views on Gender Equality
• Liberty, Equality and Power
• The Fight for Equality in Martin Luther King’s Life and Writings
• African American Women and the Struggle for Racial Equality
• Gender Equality in the United States, China and Egypt
• Equality of Men and Women
• Are Women Important in Gulf Politics? What are the Main Barriers to Gender Equality?
• Are Economic Liberalization and Equality Compatible?
• Are Robots the Solution to Equality in the Job Interview Process?
• Can Certified Tea Value Chains Deliver Gender Equality in Tanzania?
• Can Guaranteed Tax Base Formulas Achieve Spending Equality?
• Can Liberty and Equality Be Reconciled in Political Theory?
• Can Recruitment and Selection Methods Be Chosen To Promote Equality at Work?
• Does Equal Opportunity Bring Men and Women Closer to Wealth Equality?
• Does the Media Hinder the Cause for Gender Equality?
• Does School Tracking Affect Equality of Opportunity?
• How Elvis Presley Brought Racial Equality?
• How Gender Equality Has Been Bridged in Sports in American Colleges?
• How Does Inclusive Practice Promotes Equality and Supports Diversity?
• How Mirror and Window Books Can Teach Children Equality?
• Why Is Gender Equality Ruining Everyone’s Happiness?
• Why the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes?
• Why Does Tocqueville Believes That Equality Leads to a Love of Centralized Authority?
• Why Cultural Ideology Constraints Fairness and Equality?
• What Has Limited the Impact of UK Disability Equality Law on Social Justice?
• Why Didn’t the Reconstruction Bring Justice and Equality to Freed Blacks?
• Why Embracing Gender Distinctions Can Create Equality?
• Why Freedom and Equality Is an Artificial Creation?
• Why Have Some Feminists Criticised the Idea of Gender Equality?
• Why Organizations Are Struggling for Achieve Equality and Manage Diversity?
• How To Transform Quatic Agricultural Systems Towards Gender Equality?
• What Are the Two Political Ideals of Freedom and Equality Claimed by Long and Roosevelt?
• Cultural Psychology Ideas
• Human Behavior Research Topics
• Equity Research Ideas
• Freedom Topics
• Integrity Questions
• Social Democracy Essay Titles
• Mindfulness Research Ideas
• Virtue Ethics Questions
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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• Right To Equality

Right to Equality (Articles 14 - 18)

The right to equality provides for the equal treatment of everyone before the law, prevents discrimination on various grounds, treats everybody as equals in matters of public employment, and abolishes untouchability, and titles (such as Sir, Rai Bahadur, etc.).

Right to Equality – Indian Polity Download PDF Here

In this article, you can read all about the Right to Equality and the related constitutional provisions from the IAS exam point of view. For more on Fundamental Rights , click on the linked article.

Aspirants preparing for the upcoming CSE exam must refer to the details discussed further below in this article, important from the IAS exam perspective.

Right to Equality

Before knowing about the right to equality, aspirants should know the types of equality to get an idea of what it is. It is also mentioned in our Preamble. The types of  equality are:

The Right to Equality is one of the Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Constitution of India. It is very important to understand what this right entails and includes. This topic is a basic topic in the polity and constitution segments of the UPSC Syllabus for the civil services exam.

Below we provide the associated articles of the Constitution under the right to equality.

Equality before the law (Article 14)

Article 14 of Indian Constitution treats all people the same in the eyes of the law. Article 14 is described in two parts – which states and commands the State not to deny to any person ‘equality before the law’. Another part of it also commands the State not to deny the ‘equal protection of the laws’.

• This provision states that all citizens will be treated equally before the law and avoids any kind of discrimination. 
• The law of the country protects everybody equally.
• Under the same circumstances, the law will treat people in the same manner.

Prohibition of discrimination (Article 15)

This article prohibits discrimination in any manner. This article secures the citizens from every sort of discrimination by the State, on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth or of them. 

• Access to public places
• Use of tanks, wells, ghats, etc. that are maintained by the State or that are meant for the general public
• The article also mentions that special provisions can be made for women, children and the backward classes notwithstanding this article.

Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment (Article 16)

Article 16 provides equal employment opportunities in State service for all citizens.

• No citizen shall be discriminated against in matters of public employment or appointment on the grounds of race, religion, caste, sex, place of birth, descent or residence.
• Exceptions to this can be made for providing special provisions for the backward classes.

Abolition of untouchability (Article 17)

Article 17 prohibits the practice of untouchability.

• Untouchability is abolished in all forms.
• Any disability arising out of untouchability is made an offence.

Abolition of titles (Article 18)

Article 18 abolishes titles.

• The State shall not confer any titles except those which are academic or military titles.
• The article also prohibits citizens of India from accepting any titles from a foreign State.
• The article abolishes the titles that were awarded by the British Empire such as Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur, etc.
• Awards like Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Bharat Ratna and military honours like Ashok Chakra, Param Vir Chakra do not belong to this category.

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UPSC Questions related to Right to Equality

Is equality a basic human right.

The right to equality and non-discrimination is a fundamental component of international human rights law.

What are the exceptions to the right of equality of opportunity in matters of public employment?

Under Article 16, exceptions to the right of equality of opportunity in matters of public employment are provided for to protect the interests of the weaker and vulnerable sections of society such as women, children, the backward classes (SC/ST) and minorities. The Parliament may also pass a law to the effect that a certain post be filled only by people residing in a certain area, to fulfil the conditions of the post that warrant the knowledge of the locality and the local language. The article also mentions that there can be a law which provides that the incumbent of an office in connection with the affairs of any religious or denominational institution shall be a person professing a particular religion or belonging to a particular denomination.

What does the Constitution of India say about equality?

The Constitution of India has granted the right to equality to all citizens. All are equal before the law and there can be no discrimination on the basis of religion, race, caste, gender, place of birth, etc.

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The Right to Equality

This essay will discuss the concept of the right to equality as a fundamental human right. It will explore the legal, social, and moral dimensions of equality, including issues related to race, gender, sexuality, and economic status. The piece will examine the challenges and progress in achieving equality worldwide, as well as the role of laws, social movements, and international agreements in promoting and protecting this right. You can also find more related free essay samples at PapersOwl about Critical Theory.

How it works

Imagine a community or city where everyone is treated equally and no one is discriminated against. Everyone in this world deserves to be treated as an equal and nothing less. Equality is the absence of legal discrimination against any one individual, group, class, gender or race. Till this day many races, groups and class are being discriminated. Race and ethnicity is one of the biggest things that cause people to discriminate against others.The global community is not doing enough to uphold the right to equality .

Although many believe that everyone in this world is treated equally , that is not the case. As a global community we must do better and try harder to show that everyone is equal in this world.

To many people in this world have to overcome so many obstacles because people don’t see them as equals to get somewhere in life and they have a right to equality. The right to equality simply means the right to live with equal opportunities. For many years people have not been given the same opportunities and same treatment because of their skin color. This began way back in 1619 when a dutch ship brought african slaves to the british colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Men and women thought that because of their skin color they were superior and anything of color were beneath them . The LGBTQ community or group has been a recent group that has not been treated equally because of who the are. 80% of the LGBTQ youth report server isolation because they feel as though if they come out to their peers they would not be accepted. The National Discrimination Survey shows that 71 percent of 6,450 respondents said that they hid their gender or gender transition to avoid discrimination. Also six out of ten LGBTQ students report feeling unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation. Imagine having a child that did not want to go to school because they are afraid to get bullied because of the sex the like. Would you like it if you were judge or bullied everyday because you like someone of the same sex?

Initially many would argue that everyone in this world is treated equally but the global community do not believe people should be treated equally because of their gender. For example there are clear salary differences in the workplace because of gender and race groups. An employer paying a woman less than a man for the same work is an example of a gender wage discrimination. On average, a woman earns 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns, and women’s median annual earnings are $10,086 less than men’s according to data from the U.S Census Bureau. To simply put it for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 20 cents less. If women were paid what men were paid, women would have a lot more than what they make. As a result of that many families and single parents would not have to struggle as much to take care of their families, and it all comes back to the inequality in the workplace. In addition between 1980 and 2000 the gender pay gap as shrunk but has largely stalled, closing by less than a nickel. Deborah Vagins stated that losing the gender pay gap will take action from individuals, employer, and policy makers (4). Hispanic and black women when getting a job are offered 90 cents for every dollar white men earn. This means as a society we aren’t doing enough for the backbone in our families, the women in our lives. The color of someone’s skin and their ethnicity plays a role in how the society doesn’t test them equally in the workplace. Do women black, Hispanic, white , or any color deserve to be paid less than a man even if they work just as hard and just as much?

There are many reasons why people in this world should be treated equally. A main reason why is because we are all humans living in the same world breathing the same air just living different lives. Equality does not mean that we are all the same. Each of us are unique in our own ways but we all have the same qualities that make us human and a society. So each of us should be treated with respect and treat others the way we want to be treated. Furthermore, no person should be discriminated against because someone thinks they are better than the next. Everybody has the right to protection from all forms of violence caused by reason of their race, language, sex, religion and political beliefs.

Are we doing enough as a community? No one wants to be judge and talked about because of their color or sexuality. We are all equal, we are all humans. What type of man or woman are you? J.K Rowling said it best “ if you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors not his equals”

• Durant, Alieza, and Haley Swenson. “CNN Political Ticker.” CNN, Cable News Network, 13 Oct. 2014, politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/.
• Vagins, D. (2019). The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap. [online] AAUW: Empowering Women Since 1881. Available at: https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/.

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• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Equality
• PBS LearningMedia - A Class Apart: Are Mexicans White?

equality , Generally, an ideal of uniformity in treatment or status by those in a position to affect either. Acknowledgment of the right to equality often must be coerced from the advantaged by the disadvantaged. Equality of opportunity was the founding creed of U.S. society, but equality among all peoples and between the sexes has proved easier to legislate than to achieve in practice. Social or religious inequality is deeply ingrained in some cultures and thus difficult to overcome ( see caste ). Government efforts to achieve economic equality include enhancing opportunities through tax policy, subsidized training and education , redistributing wealth or resources, and preferential treatment of those historically treated unequally ( see affirmative action ). See also civil rights movement ; feminism ; gay rights movement ; human rights ; Universal Declaration of Human Rights .

Why do equal rights matter?

People are not equal, but they are of equal value. They have equal rights and are equal before the law. These human rights are an important principle of any democratic society.

Human rights are also called fundamental rights. These are rights stipulate, for instance, that everyone has freedom of expression. That everyone may freely profess their religion or belief. That everyone has the right to privacy, the right to keep personal information private.

Why do these rights matter? Imagine that these rights did not apply to everyone. That in your country, a certain group of people would not be allowed to express themselves freely or to practise their religion freely. That a group of people, not suspected of any crime, would still be monitored by the government.

All this would make for a very unpleasant society. One in which one or more groups of people would repeatedly be slighted and discriminated against. An unliveable society. Would you want to live there?

Human rights are worth defending. And everyone can make a contribution!

Is unequal treatment always discrimination?

Where do we draw the line between freedom of expression and discrimination, is antisemitism a form of racism.

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Essay on Human Rights: Samples in 500 and 1500

• Updated on  
• Jun 20, 2024

Essay writing is an integral part of the school curriculum and various academic and competitive exams like IELTS , TOEFL , SAT , UPSC , etc. It is designed to test your command of the English language and how well you can gather your thoughts and present them in a structure with a flow. To master your ability to write an essay, you must read as much as possible and practise on any given topic. This blog brings you a detailed guide on how to write an essay on Human Rights , with useful essay samples on Human rights.

This Blog Includes:

The basic human rights, 200 words essay on human rights, 500 words essay on human rights, 500+ words essay on human rights in india, 1500 words essay on human rights, importance of human rights, essay on human rights pdf, what are human rights.

Human rights mark everyone as free and equal, irrespective of age, gender, caste, creed, religion and nationality. The United Nations adopted human rights in light of the atrocities people faced during the Second World War. On the 10th of December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Its adoption led to the recognition of human rights as the foundation for freedom, justice and peace for every individual. Although it’s not legally binding, most nations have incorporated these human rights into their constitutions and domestic legal frameworks. Human rights safeguard us from discrimination and guarantee that our most basic needs are protected.

Also Read: Essay on Yoga Day

Also Read: Speech on Yoga Day

Before we move on to the essays on human rights, let’s check out the basics of what they are.

Also Read: What are Human Rights?

Also Read: 7 Impactful Human Rights Movies Everyone Must Watch!

Here is a 200-word short sample essay on basic Human Rights.

Human rights are a set of rights given to every human being regardless of their gender, caste, creed, religion, nation, location or economic status. These are said to be moral principles that illustrate certain standards of human behaviour. Protected by law , these rights are applicable everywhere and at any time. Basic human rights include the right to life, right to a fair trial, right to remedy by a competent tribunal, right to liberty and personal security, right to own property, right to education, right of peaceful assembly and association, right to marriage and family, right to nationality and freedom to change it, freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, freedom from slavery, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of movement, right of opinion and information, right to adequate living standard and freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence.

Also Read: Law Courses

Check out this 500-word long essay on Human Rights.

Every person has dignity and value. One of the ways that we recognise the fundamental worth of every person is by acknowledging and respecting their human rights. Human rights are a set of principles concerned with equality and fairness. They recognise our freedom to make choices about our lives and develop our potential as human beings. They are about living a life free from fear, harassment or discrimination.

Human rights can broadly be defined as the basic rights that people worldwide have agreed are essential. These include the right to life, the right to a fair trial, freedom from torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to health, education and an adequate standard of living. These human rights are the same for all people everywhere – men and women, young and old, rich and poor, regardless of our background, where we live, what we think or believe. This basic property is what makes human rights’ universal’.

Human rights connect us all through a shared set of rights and responsibilities. People’s ability to enjoy their human rights depends on other people respecting those rights. This means that human rights involve responsibility and duties towards other people and the community. Individuals have a responsibility to ensure that they exercise their rights with consideration for the rights of others. For example, when someone uses their right to freedom of speech, they should do so without interfering with someone else’s right to privacy.

Governments have a particular responsibility to ensure that people can enjoy their rights. They must establish and maintain laws and services that enable people to enjoy a life in which their rights are respected and protected. For example, the right to education says that everyone is entitled to a good education. Therefore, governments must provide good quality education facilities and services to their people. If the government fails to respect or protect their basic human rights, people can take it into account.

Values of tolerance, equality and respect can help reduce friction within society. Putting human rights ideas into practice can help us create the kind of society we want to live in. There has been tremendous growth in how we think about and apply human rights ideas in recent decades. This growth has had many positive results – knowledge about human rights can empower individuals and offer solutions for specific problems.

Human rights are an important part of how people interact with others at all levels of society – in the family, the community, school, workplace, politics and international relations. Therefore, people everywhere must strive to understand what human rights are. When people better understand human rights, it is easier for them to promote justice and the well-being of society. 

Also Read: Important Articles in Indian Constitution

Here is a human rights essay focused on India.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. It has been rightly proclaimed in the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Created with certain unalienable rights….” Similarly, the Indian Constitution has ensured and enshrined Fundamental rights for all citizens irrespective of caste, creed, religion, colour, sex or nationality. These basic rights, commonly known as human rights, are recognised the world over as basic rights with which every individual is born.

In recognition of human rights, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made on the 10th of December, 1948. This declaration is the basic instrument of human rights. Even though this declaration has no legal bindings and authority, it forms the basis of all laws on human rights. The necessity of formulating laws to protect human rights is now being felt all over the world. According to social thinkers, the issue of human rights became very important after World War II concluded. It is important for social stability both at the national and international levels. Wherever there is a breach of human rights, there is conflict at one level or the other.

Given the increasing importance of the subject, it becomes necessary that educational institutions recognise the subject of human rights as an independent discipline. The course contents and curriculum of the discipline of human rights may vary according to the nature and circumstances of a particular institution. Still, generally, it should include the rights of a child, rights of minorities, rights of the needy and the disabled, right to live, convention on women, trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation etc.

Since the formation of the United Nations , the promotion and protection of human rights have been its main focus. The United Nations has created a wide range of mechanisms for monitoring human rights violations. The conventional mechanisms include treaties and organisations, U.N. special reporters, representatives and experts and working groups. Asian countries like China argue in favour of collective rights. According to Chinese thinkers, European countries lay stress upon individual rights and values while Asian countries esteem collective rights and obligations to the family and society as a whole.

With the freedom movement the world over after World War II, the end of colonisation also ended the policy of apartheid and thereby the most aggressive violation of human rights. With the spread of education, women are asserting their rights. Women’s movements play an important role in spreading the message of human rights. They are fighting for their rights and supporting the struggle for human rights of other weaker and deprived sections like bonded labour, child labour, landless labour, unemployed persons, Dalits and elderly people.

Unfortunately, violation of human rights continues in most parts of the world. Ethnic cleansing and genocide can still be seen in several parts of the world. Large sections of the world population are deprived of the necessities of life i.e. food, shelter and security of life. Right to minimum basic needs viz. Work, health care, education and shelter are denied to them. These deprivations amount to the negation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Also Read: Human Rights Courses

Check out this detailed 1500-word essay on human rights.

The human right to live and exist, the right to equality, including equality before the law, non-discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment, the right to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association, movement, residence, the right to practice any profession or occupation, the right against exploitation, prohibiting all forms of forced labour, child labour and trafficking in human beings, the right to freedom of conscience, practice and propagation of religion and the right to legal remedies for enforcement of the above are basic human rights. These rights and freedoms are the very foundations of democracy.

Obviously, in a democracy, the people enjoy the maximum number of freedoms and rights. Besides these are political rights, which include the right to contest an election and vote freely for a candidate of one’s choice. Human rights are a benchmark of a developed and civilised society. But rights cannot exist in a vacuum. They have their corresponding duties. Rights and duties are the two aspects of the same coin.

Liberty never means license. Rights presuppose the rule of law, where everyone in the society follows a code of conduct and behaviour for the good of all. It is the sense of duty and tolerance that gives meaning to rights. Rights have their basis in the ‘live and let live’ principle. For example, my right to speech and expression involves my duty to allow others to enjoy the same freedom of speech and expression. Rights and duties are inextricably interlinked and interdependent. A perfect balance is to be maintained between the two. Whenever there is an imbalance, there is chaos.

A sense of tolerance, propriety and adjustment is a must to enjoy rights and freedom. Human life sans basic freedom and rights is meaningless. Freedom is the most precious possession without which life would become intolerable, a mere abject and slavish existence. In this context, Milton’s famous and oft-quoted lines from his Paradise Lost come to mind: “To reign is worth ambition though in hell/Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”

However, liberty cannot survive without its corresponding obligations and duties. An individual is a part of society in which he enjoys certain rights and freedom only because of the fulfilment of certain duties and obligations towards others. Thus, freedom is based on mutual respect’s rights. A fine balance must be maintained between the two, or there will be anarchy and bloodshed. Therefore, human rights can best be preserved and protected in a society steeped in morality, discipline and social order.

Violation of human rights is most common in totalitarian and despotic states. In the theocratic states, there is much persecution, and violation in the name of religion and the minorities suffer the most. Even in democracies, there is widespread violation and infringement of human rights and freedom. The women, children and the weaker sections of society are victims of these transgressions and violence.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights’ main concern is to protect and promote human rights and freedom in the world’s nations. In its various sessions held from time to time in Geneva, it adopts various measures to encourage worldwide observations of these basic human rights and freedom. It calls on its member states to furnish information regarding measures that comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whenever there is a complaint of a violation of these rights. In addition, it reviews human rights situations in various countries and initiates remedial measures when required.

The U.N. Commission was much concerned and dismayed at the apartheid being practised in South Africa till recently. The Secretary-General then declared, “The United Nations cannot tolerate apartheid. It is a legalised system of racial discrimination, violating the most basic human rights in South Africa. It contradicts the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter. That is why over the last forty years, my predecessors and I have urged the Government of South Africa to dismantle it.”

Now, although apartheid is no longer practised in that country, other forms of apartheid are being blatantly practised worldwide. For example, sex apartheid is most rampant. Women are subject to abuse and exploitation. They are not treated equally and get less pay than their male counterparts for the same jobs. In employment, promotions, possession of property etc., they are most discriminated against. Similarly, the rights of children are not observed properly. They are forced to work hard in very dangerous situations, sexually assaulted and exploited, sold and bonded for labour.

The Commission found that religious persecution, torture, summary executions without judicial trials, intolerance, slavery-like practices, kidnapping, political disappearance, etc., are being practised even in the so-called advanced countries and societies. The continued acts of extreme violence, terrorism and extremism in various parts of the world like Pakistan, India, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Somalia, Algeria, Lebanon, Chile, China, and Myanmar, etc., by the governments, terrorists, religious fundamentalists, and mafia outfits, etc., is a matter of grave concern for the entire human race.

Violation of freedom and rights by terrorist groups backed by states is one of the most difficult problems society faces. For example, Pakistan has been openly collaborating with various terrorist groups, indulging in extreme violence in India and other countries. In this regard the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva adopted a significant resolution, which was co-sponsored by India, focusing on gross violation of human rights perpetrated by state-backed terrorist groups.

The resolution expressed its solidarity with the victims of terrorism and proposed that a U.N. Fund for victims of terrorism be established soon. The Indian delegation recalled that according to the Vienna Declaration, terrorism is nothing but the destruction of human rights. It shows total disregard for the lives of innocent men, women and children. The delegation further argued that terrorism cannot be treated as a mere crime because it is systematic and widespread in its killing of civilians.

Violation of human rights, whether by states, terrorists, separatist groups, armed fundamentalists or extremists, is condemnable. Regardless of the motivation, such acts should be condemned categorically in all forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever they are committed, as acts of aggression aimed at destroying human rights, fundamental freedom and democracy. The Indian delegation also underlined concerns about the growing connection between terrorist groups and the consequent commission of serious crimes. These include rape, torture, arson, looting, murder, kidnappings, blasts, and extortion, etc.

Violation of human rights and freedom gives rise to alienation, dissatisfaction, frustration and acts of terrorism. Governments run by ambitious and self-seeking people often use repressive measures and find violence and terror an effective means of control. However, state terrorism, violence, and human freedom transgressions are very dangerous strategies. This has been the background of all revolutions in the world. Whenever there is systematic and widespread state persecution and violation of human rights, rebellion and revolution have taken place. The French, American, Russian and Chinese Revolutions are glowing examples of human history.

The first war of India’s Independence in 1857 resulted from long and systematic oppression of the Indian masses. The rapidly increasing discontent, frustration and alienation with British rule gave rise to strong national feelings and demand for political privileges and rights. Ultimately the Indian people, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, made the British leave India, setting the country free and independent.

Human rights and freedom ought to be preserved at all costs. Their curtailment degrades human life. The political needs of a country may reshape Human rights, but they should not be completely distorted. Tyranny, regimentation, etc., are inimical of humanity and should be resisted effectively and united. The sanctity of human values, freedom and rights must be preserved and protected. Human Rights Commissions should be established in all countries to take care of human freedom and rights. In cases of violation of human rights, affected individuals should be properly compensated, and it should be ensured that these do not take place in future.

These commissions can become effective instruments in percolating the sensitivity to human rights down to the lowest levels of governments and administrations. The formation of the National Human Rights Commission in October 1993 in India is commendable and should be followed by other countries.

Also Read: Law Courses in India

Human rights are of utmost importance to seek basic equality and human dignity. Human rights ensure that the basic needs of every human are met. They protect vulnerable groups from discrimination and abuse, allow people to stand up for themselves, and follow any religion without fear and give them the freedom to express their thoughts freely. In addition, they grant people access to basic education and equal work opportunities. Thus implementing these rights is crucial to ensure freedom, peace and safety.

Human Rights Day is annually celebrated on the 10th of December.

Human Rights Day is celebrated to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UNGA in 1948.

Some of the common Human Rights are the right to life and liberty, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom from slavery and torture and the right to work and education.

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Sonal is a creative, enthusiastic writer and editor who has worked extensively for the Study Abroad domain. She splits her time between shooting fun insta reels and learning new tools for content marketing. If she is missing from her desk, you can find her with a group of people cracking silly jokes or petting neighbourhood dogs.

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Essay on Fundamental Rights for Students and Children

500+ words essay on fundamental rights.

There are some basic rights that are very well-known as fundamental to human existence and crucial for human expansion. In the absence of fundamental rights, a man’s existence would be worthless. So, the political institution’s role and responsibility mainly emphasized on empowering the people, especially the minorities to live in dignity with rights of equality, dignity and religious freedom. Fundamental Rights have been classified into 6 categories that are Right to Equality, Right to Freedom, Right against Exploitation, Right to Freedom of Religion, Right to Cultural and Educational, Right to Constitutional Remedy.

Right to Equality

This right includes the equality before the Law which implies a prohibition of discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, color or sex, equal protection of the law, equal opportunity in public employment and abolition of untouchability and titles. It also states that every citizen shall have equal access to all public places.

To provide equal opportunities there will be no reservation in government services except in the case of scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes and for war widows and physically handicapped person. This right was made to abolish untouchability which was practiced in India for decades.

Right to Freedom

This right includes the right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom to form unions and associations. It also includes freedom to travel anywhere in India, freedom to live in any part of India, and the freedom to choose any profession of their interest.

This right also states that any citizen of India has the full right to purchase, sell and hold property in any part of the country. According to these rights, people will have the liberty to indulge in any trade or business. This right also defines that a person cannot be convicted twice for the same offense and it also cannot be compelled to stand as a witness against oneself.

Right against Exploitation

This right includes the prohibition of any form of forced labor. Children who are below the age of 14 years are not allowed to work in mines or factories where the risk of life is involved. According to these rights, no person has the right to exploit the other person in any way.

Therefore human trafficking & begging have been made legal offenses and those found involved are to be penalized. According to this rights slavery and traffic among women and children for dishonest purposes has been declared an offense. Payment of minimum wage against the labor is defined and no compromise is allowed in this regard.

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Right to Freedom of Religion

These right states that there will be full freedom of conscience for all citizens of India. All people shall have equal right to freely adopt, practice and spread the religion of their choice. The state shall not hinder in any religious affairs of any individual in any manner. In this, all religions have a right to establish and uphold institutions for religious and charitable purposes. Also, they will be free to manage their own affairs with respect to these rights.

Cultural and Educational Right

This right is one of the most important rights as education is the primary right of each child. According to this right, all are free to follow the culture of their choice. Also, all are free to get the education of their choice.

No individual will be denied admission in any of the educational institutes on the basis of their culture, caste or religion. According to this, all the minorities have the right to establish their own educational institutes.

Right to Constitutional Remedy

This right is a very special right given to all the citizens. According to this right, a citizen has the power to go to the court in case of denial of any of the fundamental rights. The court stands as a guard for anybody against the breach of these rights.

If the government forcefully or intentionally does injustice to any individual or if a person is imprisoned without any reason or by the unlawful act then this right allows the person to go to the court for getting justice against the actions of the government.

Fundamental rights play a very significant role in the life of any citizen. These rights can defend during the time of complexity & difficulty and help us grow into a good human being and that’s why all the rights are the needs of people.

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• Constitutional law

Right to Equality under Article 14

This Article is written by Adarsh Singh Thakur , 3rd-year student, Indore Institute of Law. He discusses Article 14 of the Indian Constitution in detail.

Introduction

Every human being is born equally and therefore the makers of the Indian Constitution had also made provision for equality of the people. Article 14 is one of the most important Articles of the Indian constitution and it is also regarded as part of the golden triangle of the Constitution along with Article 19 and 21.

In India, this right is very important because there has been a widespread socio-economic difference which has been in existence from a long time. People have been discriminated on the basis of their gender or the religion they follow, therefore Article 14 was included in the Constitution to remove such inequalities and bring all the people under the equal protection of the law.

Article 14 is the embodiment of equality which has been provided in the Preamble. Another important point about this Article is that it not only imposes a duty on the State to abstain from discriminating people but it also puts a positive duty to take such action by which the inequalities can be bridged between the people.

According to Article 14, the State cannot deny equality before law and equal protection of law to any person within India. The expression ‘equality before law’ is a negative concept and the State has a duty to abstain from doing any act which is discriminatory in nature.

Under it, there is an absence of any special privilege to any particular group of people and regardless of the rank of a person, he is subject to the same provisions of law. Thus, no person is above the law of the land/lex loci and all have to abide by it.

The term ‘equal protection of law’ is based on the 14 th Amendment of the US Constitution. It directs that equal protection of the law should be provided to all the people of India for the enjoyment of their rights without any privileges or favouritism towards any person. This is a positive concept because it implies a duty on the State to take actions for ensuring this right to all the citizens.

Thus both these expressions make the provision of equal treatment binding on the State. In the case of Sri Srinivas Theatre v. Government of Tamil Nadu , the Supreme Court explained that both these expressions may appear to be same but they have different meanings. The term equality before the law is a dynamic concept with many aspects, one such aspect being that there should be an absence of any privilege or a person being above the law.

Equality before Law

Under equality before the law, the principle of like should be treated alike is followed. It means that the right to sue and be sued for the same cause of action should be the same for the people who are equals i.e. the people who are in similar circumstances and such right should be available to them without any discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, caste or any other such factor.

In the case of State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar , the court held that the term ‘equal protection of law’ is a natural consequence of the term ‘equality before law’ and thus it is very difficult to imagine a situation in which there has been a violation of equal protection of law is not a violation of equality before law. So, while they have different meanings, both the terms are interrelated.

Rule of Law

Dicey had given the concept of the rule of law. Rule of law means that no person is above the law. Equality of law is part of the Rule of Law which has been explained by Dicey.

Dicey had given three meanings to this term:

• The supremacy of law: It means that the law is supreme and the Government cannot act arbitrarily. If a person has violated any law, he can be punished but he cannot be punished for anything else at the whim of the Government.
• Equality before Law: It means that all the people should be subject to the same provisions of law which is administered by the ordinary courts of the land. Thus, no person is above the law and has to follow the law. Dicey had given an exception to the Monarch under this rule because in England it is believed that the King can do no wrong.
• Constitution originates from the ordinary law: It means that the rights of the people is not granted by the constitution but instead it is the result of the law of the land which is administered by the courts.

In India, the first and second rule has been adopted but the third rule has been omitted because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the rights of the people originate from it and all the other laws which are passed by the Legislature should not violate the provisions of the Constitution.

An exception to Equality before Law

There is some exception to the rule of equality which has been provided under the Indian Constitution. Under Articles 105 and 194, the Members of the Parliament and the State Legislatures respectively are not held liable for anything which they say within the House.

Under Article 359 when there is a proclamation of Emergency, the operation of Fundamental Rights including Article 14 can be suspended and if any violation of this right is done during such proclamation, it cannot be challenged in the Courts after the proclamation ends.

Under Article 361 the President and the Governors are not liable to any court for any act which is done by them in exercising their power and duties of the office.

Equal Protection of Laws

It imposes a duty on the State to take all the necessary steps to ensure that the guarantee of equal treatment of people is followed. Like people being treated alike is followed under this rule and another important point under this rule is that unlike should not be treated alike. Thus, even if people who are under different position and circumstances are governed by the same rule then it will also have a negative effect on the rule of equality.

Article 14 and Reasonable Classification

Article 14 has provided the provision for equality of all people before the law but every person is not the same and therefore it is not practically possible to have a universal application of equality. Thus, the laws cannot be of a general character and some classification is permitted under Article 14.

Thus, the legislature has been allowed to identify and classify different people in groups because it has been accepted that treating the unequal in the same manner is likely to cause more problems instead of preventing them. So for the society to progress, classification is important.

This classification cannot be done arbitrarily because in such case, there will be no justification, so even though Article 14 allows for classification such classification should not confer special privileges to any group arbitrarily and such a classification has to be done on a rational basis. For e.g. the Legislature cannot pass a law which favours a particular caste of people without any rational basis for it and if such a law is passed, it is bound to be held unconstitutional by the Judiciary.

Such arbitrary classification by the legislature is known as class legislation ad it is forbidden by the Constitution but it allows for reasonable classification in which the legislation is passed on a rational basis for the purpose of achieving some specific objectives.

Test of Reasonable Classification

For determining whether a classification made by the legislature is a reasonable one or not, a test is used and when a classification fulfils the conditions of the test, it is held to be a reasonable one.

The following are the tests for identifying the reasonable classification:

he classification should not be arbitrary, evasive and artificial in nature. This is the first test for checking the reasonability of a classification. This test is used to check whether the classification is based on some substantial distinction or not. The classification should be based on an intelligible differentia (which can be understood) and should not be some made up the distinction. For e.g. classification of people based on their income is a reasonable classification for the purpose of Article 14.

• The differentia which has been applied in the classification should have some real and important connection with the objective which is sought to be achieved by the classification. For e.g., if the legislature has classified the people on the basis of their income, one of the objectives can be to provide some benefits to the people with low incomes such as exemption from tax.
• Here the differentia for classification is connected with the objective of providing some benefits to the people earning low income and therefore, this classification is valid.

But the Supreme Court in Re Special Courts Bill , had warned against overemphasizing the classification. The court observed that the doctrine of classification is a subsidiary rule which has been used by the court to facilitate the doctrine of equality. If there is an overemphasis on the doctrine of classification it would inevitably result in the doctrine of equality under Article 14 to erode and will lead to the substitution of equality by classification.

The New Concept of Equality

After several cases, the concept of equality under Article 14 has gone through many changes and now the present concept of equality has a greater scope as compared to its scope at the time of Constitution’s enactment.

In the case of Air India v. Nargesh Meerza , the regulation of the Indian Airlines provided that an Air Hostess had to retire from their services on attaining the age of 35 or if they married within 4 years of their service or on their first pregnancy whichever occurred earlier. The court held that terminating the services of an air hostess on the grounds of pregnancy amounted to discrimination as it was an unreasonable ground for termination. The regulations provided that after 4 years of service the air hostess could marry therefore the grounds of pregnancy was not reasonable. Thus, it was held that this regulation flagrantly violated Article 14 and such termination would not be valid.

Similarly in the case of D.S. Nakara v. Union of India , Rule 34 of the Central Services rules was held to be violating Article 14 and thus unconstitutional. Under this rule, a classification was made between the pensioners who retired before a specific date and those who retired after that date. Such classification was held irrational by the Court and it was arbitrary. Thus it was an infringement of Article 14 and as a result, was set aside.

In the case of Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab , explaining the new dimensions of Article 14, Justice PN Bhagwati had observed that Rule of law permeated the entire fabric of the Indian Constitution and it excludes arbitrariness. According to him whenever there is arbitrariness, there is a denial of Rule of Law. So, every action of the State should be free from arbitrariness otherwise the Court will strike the act as unconstitutional.

The scope of the new concept of Article 14 is far greater than just being equated with the principle of reasonable classification. It guarantees against any arbitrariness which may exist in the actions of the State and the doctrine of classification is merely a subsidiary to this Article.

Article 14 of the Constitution is part of the Fundamental rights under Part III of the Indian Constitution and it is regarded as one of the most important Articles of the Constitution. Article 14 provides for equality to all the people and absence of any discrimination on grounds such as sex, caste, religion etc.

Under Article 14 two important aspects have been included which are equality before the law and the equal protection of the law and both of them play an important role.

Under Article 14 the concept of Rule of law has been adopted under which no person can be said to be above the law and every person has to abide to the provisions of law. But the equality which has been provided for under  Article 14 is not universal and the principle of equality among the equals is followed. This is the reason why many laws are made which some people such as laws for the benefit of children. Such classification is reasonable and not arbitrary.

The new dimensions of Article 14 have been developed by the judiciary and the main purpose of Article 14 is to remove any arbitrariness which may exist in the actions of the State and thus this Article has a much wider scope in the present time as compared to its scope at the time of enactment of the Constitution. Thus, the scope of this article has been enlarged by various judicial pronouncements.

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Right to Equality Article 14 to 18, Explanation, UPSC

Only in societies where all members of the population are treated fairly & without bias can democracy prosper. Know more about the Right to Equality in Indian Constitution for the UPSC exam.

Table of Contents

Right to Equality

The Right to Equality is considered a basic feature of the Indian Constitution it plays an important role in achieving social and economic justice in our society where the upliftment of certain classes is considered necessary for our country to flourish. Its emphasis is on the fundamental unity of individuals by providing equal opportunities and treatment to all. It provides every individual in the country with all the elements essential for the development of their personality.

In order to accomplish the goals, set forth by the Constitution’s framers, courts who are seen as its guardians ensure that the right to equality is interpreted broadly.

Read about:  Important Articles of Indian Constitution

Right to Equality Articles

• Constitutional Provision: Articles 14-18 of Part III of the Constitution of India  provide for the Right to Equality.
• Nature of Rights: The right to equality provides for both “positive rights” i.e. demands to be treated equally, as well as “negative rights” i.e. prohibits unequal treatment.
• Implements Philosophy of Preamble : The right to equality as a Fundamental Right , gives effect to the concept of “equality of status and of opportunity” mentioned in the Preamble of Indian Constitution .

Right to Equality Articles 14 to 18

The Indian Constitution outlines 6 fundamental rights, with the Right to Equality being one of them. The right to equality ensures that everyone will be treated equally before the law and prohibits discrimination on a variety of grounds. The Indian Constitution’s Article 14-18 provides everyone with the right to equality.

Read More: Salient Features of Constitution of India

Right to Equality Article 14

Article 14 states that no one may be denied equality before the law or equal protection under the law within the boundaries of India. The framers of the Indian constitution borrowed the concept of equality before the law from the British constitution and the concept of “equal protection of laws” has been borrowed from the Constitution of America.

Right to Equality Article 15

Article 15 : Discriminating on grounds of only religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth shall not be done by State. Only Indian nationals have access to it. Although it has some reasonable restrictions as the state came with some special provisions for the upliftment of the women or the children, as well as for the socially and educationally backward classes.

Additionally, the Government by the 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2005 made special provisions, for the advancement of the socially and educationally backward classes regarding their admission to educational institutions including private institutions, and the 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2019, was enacted by the parliament for providing 10% reservation to the Economically Backward sections in the admission of educational institutions.

Right to Equality Article 16

Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters of employment or appointment to any office under the State. No citizen can be discriminated against for any employment or office under the State on grounds of only religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth or residence.

However, The State can provide for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class that is not adequately represented in the state services, The state is permitted to make a provision for the reservation of up to 10% of appointments or posts in favour of any economically weaker sections of citizens.

The 10% reservation would be in addition to the existing reservation. Hence, the economically weaker sections would be notified by the state from time to time on the basis of family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage.

The 103rd Amendment Act of 2019, in order to give effect to this provision, the central government issued an order (in 2019) providing 10% reservation to the Economically Weaker Sections (EWSs) in Public Services and services in the Government of India

Right to Equality Article 17

The article deals with the abolition of ‘untouchability’ and forbids its practice in any form in Indian society. Any impairment resulting from untouchability must be enforced, which is illegal and subject to legal penalties. Despite the fact that neither the government’s statutes nor the constitution use the term “untouchability,”.

The Supreme Court ruled that the right under Article 17 can be used against private individuals and that the State has a fundamental duty to take the appropriate steps to prevent its infringement.

Right to Equality Article 18

Titles are abolished according to Article 18. It specifies that the State shall not bestow any titles that are not academic or military honours. No Indian national may accept any titles from foreign governments. Only titles that might affect social equality and lead to injustice among community members are covered by this article.

It also restricts Indian nationals from receiving any title from a foreign nation, it also bars them to receive any gift, emoluments or office of any type without the prior permission of the Indian President.

Right to Equality UPSC

Nelson Mandela stated, “As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in the world, none of us can truly rest”. Only in societies where all members of the population are treated fairly and without bias can democracy prosper. In order to remove the barrier of current social and economic inequalities and enable the varied populations of the country to enjoy the rights and liberties provided by the constitution, it was felt by the Constitution’s drafters to include such a clause.

Eliminating disparities based on religion, social conventions, and long-standing customs like untouchability, casteism, racial discrimination, etc. that are still prevalent in some parts of India was considered crucial.

The concept of equality is closely associated with the theory of natural rights. For a democracy to flourish the individuals in the society need to be treated equally and without any discrimination. This led the framers to incorporate such a provision in the Indian constitution. The aim was to remove existing socio-economic inequalities and enable every community of our country to enjoy the rights and liberties guaranteed to them.

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What is the right to equality under Indian Constitution?

The government shall not deny to any person in India equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws

Concept of Equality before law is borrowed from?

The concept Equality before law has been borrowed from the British constitution.

Concept of Equality Protection of law is borrowed from?

The concept Equality Protection of law has been borrowed from the American Constitution.

What does Article 17 talks about?

It talks about the abolition of untouchability and prohibition of its practice.

What does Article 18 of the constitution deal with?

It deals of the abolition of titles except military and academic.

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Right to Equality under the Indian Constitution And Case Laws

Introduction

Equality as a general concept simply means the equitable principle of fairness and non-discrimination amongst individuals. Hence, it is to create the full maximization of potentials nature has provided on an equitable platform.

Equality as a concept of law (legal egalitarianism) is a principle of law that seeks to provide the same legal benchmark and standards for all individuals irrespective of background, status or any other divisive parameter.

The general principle of equality and non-discrimination is a foundational element of international human rights law. It is evident that the right to equal treatment requires that all persons be treated equally, fairly and justly before the law, without discrimination.

Equality, before the law is the attribution of fundamental rights accrued from a body of generally accepted rules which seeks to give a humane face to the law while ensuring no individual, is above the law.

Therefore, all are viewed with the same parameters under the law irrespective of individual differences. This fundamental human right is enshrined and protected in the constitution of democratic countries around the world.

One of the countries worthy of focus with respect to this principle is India. Equality is one of the foundational rights in the Constitution of India.

This principle is as contained in Articles 14 to 18 of the Constitution of India and also recited in the Preamble to the Constitution of India . This principle of rule of law is enshrined in Article 14 while Articles 15 to 18 detailed out the application of the principle in Article 14 .

Article 14 guarantees equal protection before the law and equality before the law, while the concept of equality before the law has its roots in the English Common law.

The concept of equal protection before the law was taken from section 1 of the fourteenth (14th) amendment Act of the constitution of the United States . As the term implies, each person within the territory of India irrespective of citizenship will be guaranteed equal protection under the law.

The principle of equality before the law sprung out from the doctrine of Rule of Law as propounded by an erudite scholar, Professor A.V. Dicey in his book “ The Law of the Constitution ” published in the year, 1885 where he highlighted the three (3) implications of the doctrine of Rule of Law. These implications are:

• The predominance of Law/Absence of Erratic wield of Power – Only a breach can trigger punishment. The absence of same makes punishment unjustifiable and unlawful. It means that no man should be subjected to any form of punishment unless as expressly stated by the law and the said punishment must be stipulated by the law which was allegedly breached.
• Equality before the Law – By this, every person is under the control and dictate of the law. There is no preferential treatment rendered in the operation of law of the land as administered by the courts of law created by law.
• The preeminence of the Rights of the Individual –  This implies that the Constitution births the various rights of individuals. It acts as a medium for the documentation of such rights. However, those rights predate the Constitution; hence, the revered status given to the concept.

However just like every law, there are exceptions to the Rule of law. It should be noted that despite these exceptions, the rule of law ensures that the existing discretion conferred upon all authorities must be contained within clearly defined limits. The rule of law is deeply rooted in the foundation of the Constitution of India and it forms one of its standout features.

The import of Article 14 of the Constitution of India does not state that all laws must be uniform in nature and applicable to all persons. The distinct demands of different classes of persons more often than not require differing arguments and discussion.

What the concept of Equality frowns against the article, is the legislation according to Class. But, it does not outlaw reasonable classification which is in place to aid proper enforcement of the principle.

The parameters employed to ensure the same includes the prevention of arbitrary actions as all acts must arise from a legally justifiable laid down distinction which reflects the purpose of the legislation.

Article 14 abhors class legislation which embodies unfair and illegal discrimination by conferring privileges upon a class of persons without any legal and fundamental distinction evidence which would, in turn, justify the inclusion of one and the exclusion of the other from such privilege.

An example of the above are instances where states make special provisions for a certain class of society.

Women and children are an example of this. There is a special seating arrangement which is made for women in buses, trains, metros trains and such cannot be referred to as unconstitutional for reasons enshrined in the paragraphs above.

A sharp contrast can be evidenced in the instructive case of D. S. Nakara v. Union of India , where the Supreme Court held that R ule 34 of the Central Services(Pension) Rules, 1972 was unconstitutional.

It is so, on the ground that the classification made by it between pensioners retiring before a certain date and retiring after that date was not pursuant to any rational principle of law.

Thus, it was deemed arbitrary by the court which further held same to be an infringement of Article 14 of the Indian constitution.

Articles 15 – 18

The provision of Article 15 seeks to prevent discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

In an effort to render protection to particular classes of persons, the constitution permits the making of a unique nature for women and children and for socially and educationally backward classes of citizens who may be collectively called persons under legal disability.

The judgment of the court in the case of State of U. P. v. Pradeep Tandon (1975) 1 SCC 267; AIR 1975 SC 563 is instructive. It was held on the need to apply these legal reservations/exceptions as expressed.

This application is in the support of certain areas on the ground that these areas were instances of socially and educationally backward class citizens. As mirrored in the decided cases, circumstances of birth and place of abode contribute immensely to a person’s perception of laws.

Therefore, the intervention of law by making special provisions for them does not run contrary to the spirit of the law regarding the doctrine of equality before the law.

Article 16 throws light on the need to give equality of opportunity with respect to employment in the public or government-owned establishments. By the dictates of Article 16 of the Constitution of India , it is guaranteed that equal opportunity is to be granted to the citizens where employment or appointment in the government-owned establishment is an issue.

This provision, however, does not forestall the setting of the requisite qualifications benchmark for recruitment.

The Constitution of India in Clause 4 of Article 16 in the obvious attempt at protecting the special class of persons who are under legal disability, permits some exception to the positions for persons who are under the legal disability, who are in fact, inadequately represented in the employment sector of the government.

More light on this was thrown in the case of N. M. Thomas v State of Kerala Article [1976 AIR 490, 1976 SCR (1) 906] where the Supreme Court opined that the preferential treatment of under-represented backward classes was not illegal; so far as such treatment was reasonable and can be rationalized in line with the object sought to be attained which in turn makes such an action valid.

The focus of Article 17 was because of the social disabilities imposed from time immemorial on a certain category of people by reason of their birth in certain castes.

This constantly triggered social boycott as same was duly abolished by virtue of this commendable provision. It abolished what was commonly referred to as “untouchability” and made the practice of such a penal offense and this helped to discourage the practice of same.

The unmeritorious conferment of titles and recognition by the State on the citizens violates the dictates of equality as provided by the constitution for it will create unworthy stratification in the society.

Article 18 abolished such acts which restored equilibrium/balance and restored the principle of equality the existence of the former eroded.

By Clause (2) of Article 18 of the Constitution , citizens are barred from accepting or acknowledging any title from a foreign country but this limitation does not extend to academic and military accolades.

The erstwhile practice of conferring titles and investiture into various Order of the British Empire on the good wishers and supporters of the British regime created an undesired result. This further occasioned inequality contrary to the doctrine of equality which the law upholds.

The limitation as enshrined in Clause 2 of Article 18 of the Constitution is to the extent that accepting any presents in any form whatsoever from a foreign State while occupying a public office or any office of profit or trust in India.

The principle of equality as stipulated in the Constitution of India is the basis of the democratic structure in India.

In a society like India where the values such as social justice, equality, liberty, and fraternity are envisaged by the Constitution, it follows that the constitution against the background of the attendant diversity in India is seeking through these aforementioned values to mind the society.

The important role played by the judiciary in enforcing the dictates of the Constitution has and will continue to consolidate the values as already enshrined in the constitution.

The foresight and the legislative valor displayed by the founding fathers of the India Society is quite commendable as many countries such as America fought for years in order to have these values enshrined in their constitution.

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Friday, August 30, 2024

Accelerated drawdown of UN peace operations: A worry for women

United Nations peacekeepers getting off an Oryx helicopter for a troop rotation at a temporary base in Katoyi, Southern North Kivu province. Picture: Phil Moore / AFP

Published 1h ago

By Vedhan Singh and Dr Cresencia Nyathi

In her August 7, 2024, address at the United Nations (UN) Security Council meeting on sustaining Women Peace and Security (WPS) commitments in the context of accelerated drawdown of UN peace operations, the UN Executive Director for Women, Her Excellency Sima Bahous, articulated a compelling and urgent narrative that underlines the indispensable role of gender equality in the architecture of global peace and security. However, as we confront a world rife with escalating conflicts, threats to global peace, generally diminishing security at the level of member states, and a disturbing surge in terrorism, violence and violent extremism, particularly against women and girls, we must engage in a critical interrogation of the disconcerting trend of diminishing support for peacekeeping missions. This trend, as highlighted in the address, carries profound implications for the pursuit of gender equality and, by extension, the very fabric of sustainable peace. The absence of women and girls as peacebuilders in peacebuilding initiatives can render the attempts at peacebuilding meaningless and fruitless.

Her Excellency Bahous cogently and carefully posited that gender equality is not merely an ancillary consideration in the realm of peacekeeping but rather constitutes a foundational pillar upon which the edifice of sustainable peace is constructed. Peacekeeping efforts must have women and girls as the foundation upon which they are built. Peacekeeping actors must include women and consciously seek to bridge the gender divide of peacekeeping role players. The stark statistics presented—illustrating a nearly halved deployment of peacekeeping personnel, plummeting from 121 000 in 2016 to a mere 71 000 by 2024—paint a dismal portrait of retreat at a juncture when the flames of conflict are not merely smouldering but roaring with unprecedented intensity. By nature, the nurturing temperament of women possesses the ability to pour cold water on the glowing embers fanned by the flames of conflict. It is profoundly troubling that, in the face of escalating violence and humanitarian crises, the international community appears to have a lacklustre posture and therefore appears resolutely committed to withdrawing its support rather than reinforcing its commitments to peacekeeping and the protection of women’s rights.

To exemplify this point, let us consider the situation in Haiti—an egregious case that starkly illustrates the deleterious consequences of retreating from peacekeeping commitments. The withdrawal of UN peacekeepers in 2020 has been succeeded by a catastrophic escalation in violence, with armed gangs exploiting the resultant vacuum of authority and oversight. In the absence of the state security apparatus in the face of violence and conflict, violent extremist and radical groups thrive. The harrowing testimonies of Haitian women, now subjected to an epidemic of sexual violence, serve as a chilling reminder of the profound consequences of neglecting gender-specific concerns in conflict-affected settings. Reports detailing the systematic employment of gang rape as a weapon of intimidation not only illuminate the failures of international intervention but also highlight the catastrophic fallout from the disregard for gender equality in peacekeeping mandates. Both the lack of strong state intervention and the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping mission are the attributing factors to the escalating crimes and violations against women and girls in Haiti.

Moreover, the Executive Director’s passionate call for a proactive and pre-emptive approach to safeguarding gender equality gains during peacekeeping transitions is both timely and vital, yet we must confront the uncomfortable reality that such calls have all too often been met with inertia and indifference. It cannot be business as usual, and the calls of the Executive Director cannot fall on deaf ears amidst increasing violence and human rights violations against women and girls in conflict and post-conflict zones. The resolutions of the Security Council, while eloquently articulated and theoretically robust, seemingly lack the rigorous implementation mechanisms necessary to translate lofty ideals into tangible outcomes. The pervasive tendency to frame women and girls merely as victims in need of protection rather than as indispensable stakeholders in peace processes ultimately undermines the very principles of democratic governance and holistic security. Women are one of the cardinal cogs turning the wheels in peacebuilding processes; without women, the momentum of peacebuilding would remain at a standstill.

In examining this systemic exclusion of women from pivotal decision-making roles during mission transitions—observed in Mali and a myriad of other contexts—we uncover a troubling pattern wherein the valuable insights and contributions of women’s organisations are systematically marginalised. Women often tell tales of the patriarchal organogram and funding frameworks that see them excluded from receiving funding purely for being women. To assert that these omissions are mere oversights would be to underestimate the high stakes involved in these dynamics. If we are to achieve lasting peace, we must unequivocally ensure that women’s voices are not only acknowledged but integrated and intertwined into the core of security strategies and governance reforms.

Consequently, it is incumbent upon the UN Security Council to adopt a more comprehensive framework for peacekeeping operations—one that explicitly mandates the integration of gender equality (which must include LGBTQIA+ persons and communities) and the empowerment of women as foundational tenets of peacebuilding. This imperative includes, as Her Excellency Bahous aptly suggested, the continuous involvement of women from civil society in briefings and discussions, ensuring that their unique perspectives inform policy decisions and operational strategies. Furthermore, a robust system of accountability must be established, compelling member states and international bodies to uphold their commitments under the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. This should include concrete mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the gender responsiveness of peacekeeping transitions, as well as for reallocating resources toward women’s empowerment initiatives post-conflict and post-transition.

In conclusion, we must confront the uncomfortable truth that, without a renewed and vigorous commitment to peacekeeping and the empowerment of women and girls in conflict zones, we risk perpetuating cycles of violence, instability, and marginalisation. We can even see the gains made in peacekeeping reversed by the sustained exclusion of women in peacekeeping efforts. The current trajectory—characterised by the accelerated dismantling of peacekeeping efforts amidst a backdrop of rising misogyny and violence—cannot merely be viewed as counterintuitive; it stands as a morally indefensible affront to the principles of justice, equity, and human dignity.

The international community must urgently heed the Executive Director’s impassioned call to action, recognising that the protection of women’s rights is not merely an aspirational ideal but an essential prerequisite for the realisation of sustainable peace and security. The time to act is now; the lives of millions are not just statistics but are inextricably interwoven with our collective moral obligation to foster a more equitable and peaceful world.

* Vedhan Singh is a Preventing Violent Extremism Trainer of Trainers and a Southern Africa Regional Representative to the African Union Interfaith Dialogue on Violent Extremism.

* Dr Cresencia Nyathi (PhD Peacebuilding) is a Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation Coordinator at Africa Unite and the Deputy Chair of the Social Cohesion Advocates Programme at the South African Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture.

** The authors write in their personal capacity.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

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