Equality (John Speaking)
						MAIN PATH: Ann
		Ann

We're not getting very far on this issue. For one thing, we're forgetting that these questions often involve both philosophical and sociological issues. We have been talking about what it means to be equal. We have mentioned the distinction between substantive equality and formal equality as well as between effective freedom and formal freedom. All of this is very useful as conceptual clarification. But at some point we have also got to get to the sociological aspects of equality and check ourselves against something in the real world. Otherwise we're only paying attention to one side of these issues.

Sometimes we make sociological or economic claims without offering evidence:

• Malik is saying that a particular kind of substantive equality is a necessary condition for exercising certain freedoms. He is also saying that African Americans do not, by and large, have the necessary substantive equality. Those sound like empirical sociological or political claims about the way things are. We can't settle these issues unless we can figure out what they imply about real people in the real world and then collect some relevant evidence.
  

• Vera believes that hate speech creates and perpetuates many kinds of inequalities. She fears that it is such an impediment to equality that without restrictions little progress can be made. Again, these are empirical claims. Can we define this in a way that allows us to confirm it or refute it?
  

• Dee is saying that a free market will gradually eliminate racial discrimination and thereby lessen inequality of income. Another empirical claim about how things work. There must be some way to test it or at least gather enough information to make an informed judgment.
  

• Ann seems to believe that if we provide every child with a good basic education, many kinds of inequality will disappear. Maybe that's true, but not necessarily so. Maybe it would just give us better educated poor people!
  

My point is that we need to go back and forth between conceptual clarification and gathering information. We need both, and I think we've been doing too much clarification and not enough information gathering.

There is a great difficulty here because every political perspective takes certain facts and causal connections to be self-evident. We have to question those assumptions. To do so, we need evidence.

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