ABSTRACT
The existence of a fundamental and intimate connection between justice and equality is widely regarded as axiomatic. 'Egalitarianism' can be regarded as a name or as a descriptive label. This chapter argues that no morally reasonable and theoretically defensible theory of justice is egalitarian in this sense. It argues, not the normative thesis that justice is inegalitarian, but the conceptual thesis that justice is nonegalitarian. An egalitarian theory of justice is not one in which just distributions are characterised simply by relations of equality and inequality, because every distribution can be characterised in that way. Nor is it a theory in which just distributions can be described by reference to relations of equality alone. The concept of a man's dues, however, is rather more closely related to particular substantive theories of justice, which tie distributions to merit or desert, than is advisable in a principle which seeks to be substantively neutral.
