Basic Equality

This chapter offers a novel solution to the problem of the basis of basic equality. It begins with the assumption that, in virtue of possessing some degree of rational agency as a non-normative property, (almost) all human beings are able to be morally responsible for their actions to some degree of credit. However, it is a mistake to equate such degrees of credit with the moral worth of one’s actions. Moral worth is equivalent to the actual value of such credit attained (‘choice’) relative to the possible values of credit available to that individual (‘circumstance’). Once differences in circumstance, including any initial differences in our degrees of rational agency, are accounted for, then it follows that each individual has the equal ability to attain moral worth, regardless of any initial differences in such rational agency. We are equals, at least, in this one moral property. Why should we accept such claims about moral worth to be true? They are the most plausible way to avoid the problem of circumstantial moral luck. What, if anything, follows given such basic equality? Each individual’s response to the challenge of attaining moral worth should have, ceteris paribus, ‘equal weight’ in the world implying the equalization of circumstances.