Professor Anne Phillips

For MSc Political Theory, MSc Gender, MSc Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc Gender, Media and Culture, MSc Human Rights and MSc Gender, Policy and Inequalities. Other students may take the course with the approval of the course organiser.

The course starts with why the general question of why (or if) equality matters. It then introduces some of the major debates in the contemporary egalitarian literature: equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome; equality of what; luck egalitarianism and the distributive paradigm. In the final section, it focuses on more specific issues and dilemmas. The topics addressed this year are whether affirmative action offends principles of equal treatment; whether gender 'choices' legitimate an unequal division of labour; and who carries responsibility for addressing global inequality.

Ten two-hour lecture/seminar sessions in the Michaelmas Term, and one two-hour revision session in the third week of the Summer Term.

Students will submit a short formative essay (up to 1,000 words) and will be given feedback on this before submitting their assessed coursework.

Elizabeth Anderson 'What is the Point of Equality?' Ethics, 109, 1999;  G A Cohen  If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're so Rich? (Harvard University Press, 2000); Ronald Dworkin Sovereign Virtue: the Theory and Practice of Equality (Harvard University Press, 2000); Nancy Fraser and Kevin Olson (eds) Adding Insult to Injury (Verso, 2009); Anne Phillips Which Equalities Matter? (Polity, 1999), Chris Armstrong, Rethinking Equality (Manchester University Press, 2006).

One 3,000 word essay (100%).