Session 2

Question 1

Equality as a political and legal principle

What are the subjects of equality?

Answer 1

According to Douglas W. Rae, the subjects of equality are the entities between which one may try to equalise the distribution of one variable or metric. The subject of this equality can be all human people, all persons, all citizens, all living beings, all members of the same race, etc.

Question 2

Equality as a political and legal principle

What is the focal variable in equality?

Answer 2

Focal variable of equality, as introduced by Amartya Sen is simply the metric “what should we care about distributing equally?”. In reality, it is be impossible to distribute all variables, so we need to choose a focal variable, a key thing to distribute. Also, variables are interrelated, so therefore distributing variable X will impact the distribution of variable Y, possibly negatively.