The Principle of Equality

Abstract

From time to time we have had, in effect, to ask how far men want to take equality. We have seen, for example, that the notion of equality of influence among human beings is not one which has usually been incorporated in the demand for equality; indeed, if the notion were taken literally, it is difficult to make sense of it. What then does the demand for equality involve? Few, if any, have favoured a conception of equality which aims to make men as like each other as possible. For egalitarians in Britain the statement of the ideal which would probably command widest assent is to be found in Tawney’s classic work, Equality. And for Tawney there was certainly no merit in striving for a society of identical human beings. His conception of equality is well expressed in these passages: