ABSTRACT
The American Declaration of Independence states at one point: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal [and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.’ Obviously, far from all Americans now believe in a Creator and, as we have already indicated in remarking briefly on intuitionist theories of ethics (Chapter 2), the claim that these are self-evident truths is not particularly helpful, since they are only self-evident to those who believe in them. Nonetheless most of us do claim to believe in equality. The question is what it means to say that one believes in equality. What is equality? Can any reasons be produced for valuing it?
