Discrimination and the value of lived experience in Sophia Moreau’s Faces of Inequality

In Faces of Inequality: A Theory of Wrongful Discrimination, Sophia Moreau embarks on a classic philosophical journey. It is what philosophers nowadays call an explanatory project. The goal of explanatory projects is to deepen our understanding of wrongful actions and what they share in common. In this review essay, I argue that Moreau’s book embodies a valuable explanatory project that ought to be on the radar of lawyers, legal theorists, and philosophers. After sketching the book’s arguments, I explain why they are so refreshing. The remainder of the review essay proceeds in a more critical mode. First, I argue that the book’s explanatory aspirations fall short, and I sketch a framework for a more radically pluralistic theory of wrongful discrimination. This framework has the power to embrace Moreau’s compelling view that discrimination wrongs people by failing to treat them as equals while also recognizing a rich array of other discriminatory wrongs found in lived experience. Second, I argue that Faces of Inequality will disappoint readers looking for a truly inclusive account of wrongful discrimination. I end by emphasizing the book’s contribution to political philosophy and its ambition to provide a truly liberatory theory of what we owe to each other as moral and political equals.