chapter 26
...................................................................................................................................................EQUALITY AND
DIFFERENCE
...................................................................................................................................................judith squires
1Introduction
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Is equality ‘‘the endangered species of political ideals’’ (Dworkin 2002 , 1 )? It
certainly seems that a concern with equality of outcome has been eclipsed in
the popular imagination by an understanding of equality that focuses on
formal equality of opportunity, 1 and that correlative theories of equality that
focus on the redistribution of resources have been marginalized by an emer-
gent preoccupation with the importance of cultural recognition and demo-
cratic inclusion. Contemporary ‘‘equality’’ policies and theories in theWrst
world therefore tend to focus on issues of cultural and political inequality
rather than inequalities in distributional goods. Those who are considered to
be ‘‘unequal’’ are increasingly seen to be ethnic minorities, disabled, the
- Many thanks to Michael Saward, Chris Armstrong, and Anne Phillips for their very helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
1 A recent survey of how people in Britain today think and talk about equality, for example,
found that most people expressed skepticism about the idea of equal outcomes and felt more
comfortable with the idea of equal opportunities, or protection from discrimination (Howard and
Tibballs 2003 , 7 ).