ABSTRACT
Democracy implies commitments to equality, such as equality in voting power as well as equality of opportunity to participate in discussion. Egalitarian theories attempt to derive a conception of democracy from a principle of equality among persons. This chapter discusses egalitarian views of the foundations of democracy. It starts with an examination of the idea of democracy as a kind of fair compromise among persons who have irresolvable disagreements about how to organize their common world. Democracy is a just way of making laws in the case of collective properties because citizens' interests are opposed on them. The chapter argues that the principle of equal consideration of interests is the foundation of the intrinsic worth of democracy. Citizens' interests are equally worthy of being taken into account, and political equality is the most important way to embody equal consideration of interests in a political society.
