Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

When discussing theories of justice, most philosophers take the moral equality of human beings as their starting point. As Will Kymlicka says, in all contemporary plausible theories of justice, moral equality constitutes an “egalitarian plateau”.1 Arguably, the most prominent novel theory of justice in recent years is relational egalitarianism—a theory on which justice requires people to relate as equals. Relational egalitarians are no exception to Kymlicka's claim. They too start from the idea of moral equality. As one of us previously put it, “as a matter of fact, we are one another's moral equals and in relating as equals we honour that fact, and this is what grounds the ideal of relational egalitarianism”.2

In this article, we will assume that not all human beings are moral equals. This is an assumption, not an assertion, on our part. It is motivated partly by the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph, and partly by the nature of the present inquiry: to wit, examining what, if anything, relational egalitarianism implies when it comes to relationships between moral unequals. Must moral unequals relate as moral equals?4 Or as unequals? Or in some third way? We will show that relational egalitarianism has much to say about such relationships. And we will show that what it has to say is plausible.

Before proceeding, we need to defend our line of inquiry in view of the following skeptical challenge. For its supporters, what grounds relational egalitarianism is the fact—so they claim—that people are moral equals. For instance, this seems to be what the following passage from Kolodny implies: “Insofar as we are to have ongoing social relations with other moral equals, we have reason to relate to them as social equals”.5 Hence, to ask what relational egalitarians are committed to saying about social relations in a—in their view—hypothetical situation, where people are not moral equals, is to ask a moot question. It is like asking what a utilitarian is committed to, as regards the right thing to do, if welfare is not valuable. The question makes no sense, because the notion that welfare has value is built into, and therefore presupposed by, utilitarianism. Similarly, the notion that people are moral equals is presupposed by relational egalitarianism.6

While this challenge makes sense, we think that, ultimately, we are asking a perfectly justifiable question, and one we have the resources to answer. First, Kolodny's remark is most naturally taken to mean that moral equals must relate as social and political equals given that, more generally, the way people relate, socially and politically, should fit the way they relate in terms of moral status. If this is correct, Kolodny's view is underpinned by a general commitment to some kind of fittingness; and this general commitment, surely, has implications for the question of how moral unequals should relate, even if Kolodny thinks that people are not moral unequals, and thus even if the implications in question do not materialize in the real world.7 Admittedly, as a matter of logic, one can consistently hold both that if people are moral equals, that justifies certain claims about how they should relate socially and politically and that if they are moral unequals, that does not justify any claims about how they should relate socially and politically. However, such a view seems arbitrary. Why would moral status have implications for how we ought to relate only in cases where people's moral statuses are equal? So the view is not especially plausible. This implausibility is reflected in the complaint: “They treated us as if we were animals”. The complaint assumes, precisely, that people and non-human animals do not enjoy the same high moral status, and that the bad treatment complained about would have been justified (or at least less unjustified) had there been a difference in the moral status of the wrongdoers and the victims of the sort that exists between people and non-human animals.

Second, for reasons brought out in our first response, we believe the analogy with utilitarianism is misleading. Consider a utilitarian who believes that morality requires us to do what realizes the greatest amount of value, and who treats welfare, understood as preference satisfaction, as the only value. Surely, utilitarians of this kind are committed to a view about what morality requires agents to do if what is of value is not welfare as preference satisfaction, but, say, that people's level of welfare match their level of moral desert (as Kant thought would be ideal). That is, they are committed to the view that, morally, we should act so as to maximize the overall fit between levels of welfare and levels of moral desert.

Similarly, in the light of forceful challenges such as those put forward by Arneson, McMahan, and Singer, relational egalitarians should be open to the possibility that people are not moral equals. They should recognize the value of exploring what, if anything, their view commits them to, as regards how we should relate socially and politically, if they are mistaken and not all human beings are moral equals.

Exploring the issue of how moral unequals are required to relate in the relational egalitarian framework is important for several reasons. First, it helps to develop relational egalitarianism as a theory of justice—a theory which still leaves many questions unanswered, because it is relatively young. As we will show, our discussion helps to shed light on the place of children and non-human animals—individuals that are arguably not moral equals of persons—in relational egalitarianism. Second, the exploration will show that relational egalitarian objections to paradigmatic relational inequalities—such as discrimination, racism, and sexism—can be constructed, even if not all human beings are moral equals. That means that the plausibility of relational egalitarianism does not stand or fall with the idea that all humans are moral equals.9 This result is important, given the dilemma Arneson describes above. Third, the exploration illuminates the important point that relational egalitarianism is a large family of theories that differ along many different dimensions, including their responses to the question of how moral unequals should relate.

The article is structured as follows. In Section II, we introduce relational egalitarianism and distinguish two forms: deontic and telic relational egalitarianism. We further distinguish two accounts of deontic relational egalitarianism and explain that these provide different accounts of how moral unequals should relate. We show, moreover, that the least demanding conception of deontic relational egalitarianism provides plausible answers to the question of how moral unequals should relate.10 In Section III, we turn to telic relational egalitarianism. We show that the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians explaining why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply to relationships between moral unequals as well: these reasons are not tied to people with equal moral status. We explore further implications of these arguments in Section IV in relation to the place of children and non-human animals in relational egalitarianism—something about which relational egalitarians have not said much. We provide a relational egalitarian explanation of why adult-adult paternalism may be regarded as more objectionable than parent–child paternalism. Additionally, we respond to a concern which may arise when the claims of people who are moral unequals are being discussed. Section V concludes and presents the main takeaway point of the article: that, fortunately, our commitment to relational, social, and political equality is not hostage to the philosophical discussion about whether all people are moral equals.

The relational egalitarian theory of justice requires people to relate as equals.11 It has received much attention in recent years as a result of relational egalitarians' trenchant criticisms of distributive theories of justice. On these theories, justice is ultimately a matter of distributions.12 Distributive theorists, relational egalitarians argue, fail to see that, ultimately, justice is not about distributions. A given distribution in a society may accord with distributivist requirements of justice, but still not realize justice because, for example, racism and sexism are prevalent in the society. What ultimately matters with justice is, instead, whether relations are suitably egalitarian. Justice requires that people relate to each other as equals.13 For X and Y to relate as equals, relational egalitarians argue, they must (1) regard each other as equals; and (2) treat each other as equals.14

Derek Parfit famously distinguished between telic and deontic egalitarianism. According to the first, “it is in itself bad if some people are worse off than others”.15 This is an axiological view. According to the second, “it is not in itself bad if some people are worse off than others … What is unjust, and therefore bad, is not strictly the state of affairs, but the way in which it was produced”.16 Whereas in telic egalitarianism, inequality is bad, in deontic egalitarianism, inequality is unjust.17 These views are different. To see why, imagine a case in which an inequality is unavoidable. Thus, suppose the inequality was created by a natural disaster, such as an earthquake. Since, in this case, the inequality has not come about through anyone's wrongdoing, it is not unjust on the deontic view. According to the telic view, on the other hand, the inequality is in itself bad even though it is unavoidable.18

So, telic relational egalitarianism says it is (dis)valuable that people relate as (un)equals, whereas deontic relational egalitarianism says that people ought to (not) relate as (un)equals. Lippert-Rasmussen refers to Christian Schemmel and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of deontic relational egalitarians.20 Anderson says that “[Relational] egalitarians base claims to social and political equality on the fact of universal moral equality”.21 Schemmel says, “the objection to [inegalitarian] relationships is not merely that they are, in some sense, bad for people, but that they constitute unjust treatment”.22 Telic relational egalitarians include Martin O'Neill, who says, “The existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare.”23

To relate as moral equals has to do with interests and agency. If we are to relate as moral equals, our interests must be given equal weight and our agency must be equally respected—in a fundamental sense for both.25 If X treats Y in a racist manner, X treats Y's interests as if they are less important, in a fundamental sense, than the interests of non-Y people. X and Y thereby fail to relate as moral equals, and that is unjust on narrow deontic relational egalitarianism.

Of course, it is not enough merely to claim that moral unequals, or some, or many of them, must relate as moral equals. We also need an explanation of why moral unequals, despite being moral unequals, must relate as moral equals. Perhaps the justification for narrow deontic relational egalitarianism can also be used to show why, as broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes, moral unequals must relate as moral equals. Lippert-Rasmussen offers an explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals with reference to fairness.27 On his interpretation of fairness, “it is unfair if people are differently situated if the fact that they are differently situated does not reflect their differential exercise of responsibility”.28 This explanation of why moral equals must relate as moral equals looks promising. It certainly seems unfair, and therefore unjust, for a black person to be treated in a racist manner by a white person given that they are moral equals.29 But can fairness also explain why moral unequals must relate as moral equals? Can we say that it is unfair if moral unequals, or some, or many of them, relate as moral unequals?

These cognitive and volitional abilities come in degrees. To be a rational agent is to possess them at a certain given level.

On this account of moral status, moral unequals possess rational agency to different degrees. Now, let us suppose that both X and Y have moral status, but that X has higher moral status than Y in virtue of possessing rational agency capacity to a higher degree. One fairness-based argument for the view that it is unjust if X and Y relate as moral unequals runs as follows. Suppose X's possession of a higher degree of the capacity for rational agency than Y is due to nature and nurture—for example, X is bright, and their parents have raised them in a way that has been conducive to their achieving a high level of rational agency. In this case, the differences in the capacity for rational agency between X and Y are not due to their differential exercise of responsibility. Thus, if Y relates as an inferior to X because X has the higher moral status, the fact that X is differently situated (for example, in that Y should treat X's interests as more important than their own in a fundamental sense) does not reflect X's and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. And since being differently situated when this does not reflect differential exercise of responsibility is unfair, it is unjust that X and Y relate as moral unequals despite their being moral unequals.

A significant challenge to this argument is that it only goes through if X and Y's differing capacities for rational agency are not due to their differing exercises of responsibility.33 This is a challenge, because it seems highly likely that the abilities constituting the capacity for rational agency can be affected by the exercise of responsibility. For instance, one of the components of rational agency is the ability to “deliberate and make choices”. It seems reasonable to assume that the more one deliberates, the better one becomes at deliberating. If X decides to devote a considerable amount of their time to deliberating and Y does not because they would rather do something else, we may expect that, over time, X will become better than Y at deliberating and making choices.34 And if that is the case, and all else is equal, X will at that point have a greater capacity for rational agency than Y, and thus, at least on some views, higher moral status than Y. In this case, their possession of unequal degrees of the capacity for rational agency is a result of X and Y's differential exercise of responsibility. So, it would be unfair if they were not differently situated: that is, if they did not relate as moral unequals. It follows that fairness can ground broad deontic relational egalitarianism only if we assume that human beings are not responsible for their degree of the capacity for rational agency (and, more generally, are not responsible for their full or partial possession of the property, or properties, grounding moral status). If they are so responsible—which they seem to be, at least to some degree—it would be unfair for moral unequals to relate as moral equals.

This account of deontic relational egalitarianism is not egalitarian “all the way down”, in the sense that it denies that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We therefore refer to it as deontic relational justice. But it is still egalitarian in the sense that moral equals must, as relational egalitarians prescribe, relate as moral equals. When it comes to moral unequals, the account only applies to entities with sufficient moral standing.35 It does not say anything about, say, rocks, assuming they have no moral standing at all. The account does not say, for instance, that a human being and a rock must relate as moral sufficients. But where entities with sufficient, but unequal, moral standing are concerned, the account says that they must relate as moral sufficients.36

If, in a marriage, one party's interests always trump the other's, the parties fail to relate as moral equals. If they are moral equals, this is unjust. Moral unequals, on the other hand, do not have to grant each other's interests the same weight in their collective decisions.

Arguably, to relate as moral sufficients, the marital parties do not have to satisfy the Egalitarian Deliberative Constraint in their dealings with each other. It suffices that they have a standing disposition to treat each other's interests as playing a role which is somehow fitting given their relative moral statuses.39 But it is a long way from acknowledging this to saying that “anything goes, morally speaking”. Importantly, by adopting deontic relational justice, relational egalitarians will be able to object to most of the types of relational inequality to which they would want to object, even if some human beings are moral unequals. As Lippert-Rasmussen posits, the possession of “‘sufficient moral standing’ means that there is, in some sense, a sufficient number of sufficiently important things that one cannot do, morally speaking, to that individual and which this individual is permitted to do.”40

Arguably, two of the sufficiently important things one cannot do to individuals with sufficient moral standing are discriminate against or dominate them. Suppose a two-year-old child and one of her parents are not moral equals, but they both have sufficient moral standing.41 We take it that we would find the relational inequality which would result from the parent treating the child in a sexist manner objectionable, because the parent thereby fails to treat the child as a being with sufficient moral standing (we would reach the same verdict, we take it, in cases of domination and racism as well). Similarly, if a normally functioning adult treats a person with Down syndrome in a sexist manner, they fail to treat them as a human being with sufficient moral standing.

We can imagine cases where the gap in moral standing between two human beings is even smaller. Suppose an adult, Bert, has a very slightly higher moral standing than another adult, Carl. If Bert discriminates against Carl, it is hard to see how he could be treating Carl as a being with sufficient moral standing. Importantly, these ways of treating others—discrimination, domination, racist and sexist treatment—are paradigmatic relational inequalities.42 This shows that even if human beings are moral unequals,43 relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, are not barred from objecting to paradigmatic relational inequalities.44

At this point, one might have a serious concern about our exploration of the idea that, even if people are moral sufficients, the standard relational egalitarian objection to paradigmatic relational inequalities stands. In explaining the importance of this article's main question—how should people relate, according to relational egalitarianism, if they are not moral equals?—we noted that, in the philosophical literature, there are forceful challenges to the notion of basic moral equality, citing among other things Arneson's continuity question: if moral status results from rational capacities, why is the moral status of people not a scalar matter in such a way that those with greater rational capacities have greater moral status? The concern is that at least some of these challenges also cast doubt on the threshold notion of moral sufficients, and motivate a continuous, graduated view of individual moral status instead.45

In response, we note, first, that this concern is not about the truth of our main claim (that even if we are not moral equals, we should, from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, relate as sufficients), but its importance. We are not arguing that people are moral sufficients (or moral incommensurables). We are arguing that if they are, it remains the case that they should not relate in the inegalitarian ways (for example, involving discrimination or domination) that relational egalitarians think moral equals should avoid. This can be true, even if the continuity challenge gives us good reason to think that people are not moral sufficients.

Second, and much more importantly, we think the present challenge suggests we should extend the scope of our robustness claim beyond people being moral sufficients or moral incommensurables. Suppose moral status is very much a scalar thing, and that people therefore vary in their moral status beyond the variation involved in the claim that they, or most of them, are moral sufficients. Even so, it will still be the case that discrimination and domination—the sorts of inegalitarian relations that relational egalitarians object to—are wrong when they occur in relations between moral unequals—at least, it will be, if those with inferior moral status have sufficiently high status (which might simply be some moral status). Even if animals, say, have lower moral status than human beings, it is still wrong to dominate them; and even if children have lower moral standing than adults, it is wrong to treat a child in a sexist manner.

In claiming this, we do not have to assume that the wrongness of domination and discrimination is a binary, as opposed to a scalar, matter—that there are no degrees of their wrongness. It may be that discrimination is worse when the person subjected to it has higher moral standing than when the sufferer has lower standing, other things being equal. But this is compatible with discrimination still being wrong when directed at an individual with a lower moral standing. If that is correct, the present challenge points in the direction of an even more ambitious, and for that reason even more interesting, claim than the main claim regarding robustness that we defend in this article.

In this section, we have explored what deontic relational egalitarianism implies in situations involving moral unequals. Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as moral equals. We saw that fairness can explain why that is so if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. Deontic relational justice avoids relying on this assumption by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients. If X and Y relate as moral sufficients, there are ways in which they must not treat each other: for example, neither can treat the other in a racist or sexist way.46 This shows that relational egalitarians, by adopting deontic relational justice, put themselves in a position to object to discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism even if human beings are not moral equals (at least, as long as the involved parties have a sufficient moral standing).

We will explore two questions: (1) is it bad if moral unequals relate as moral unequals? (2) is it good if moral unequals relate as moral equals? In answering these questions, we propose to look at the reasons relational egalitarians have provided for holding that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good. We will explore whether these reasons read across successfully to relationships between moral unequals.

Two caveats: first, we devote more space to the reasons why inegalitarian relationships are bad than we do to the reasons why egalitarian ones are good. This is not because we believe the latter are unimportant—they clearly are important. It is because we wish to investigate whether the reasons that relational egalitarians have themselves given to explain the value implications of (in)egalitarian relationships tell us anything about relationships between moral unequals. It so happens that these reasons have tended to be constructed around the idea that inegalitarian relationships are bad, rather than the idea that egalitarian relationships are good.

Second, relational egalitarians have argued that relational inequality is intrinsically bad in various ways. It might be suggested that, at most, they have shown relational inequality to be reliably instrumentally bad: that is, bad not in itself, but in virtue of its effects, and that, accordingly, the arguments do not amount to sound arguments in favor of telic relational egalitarianism.48 In response, we note first that (as we occasionally indicate below) we share the suspicion manifested in this response. However, we shall refrain from going deeper into this matter, since ultimately it pertains not to whether inegalitarian relations are bad, but rather to the way in which, according to relational egalitarians, they are so. Our main concern is to ask whether the reasons proposed by relational egalitarians themselves for thinking that inegalitarian relationships between moral equals are intrinsically bad apply to inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals as well. It is not to examine whether relational egalitarians are correct in seeing (at least many of) their arguments as arguments for telic egalitarianism (though we suspect they are not), as opposed to arguments for unequal relations being bad in virtue of their consequences.

With these caveats entered, we turn to examine the specific reasons relational egalitarians have given for holding that unequal relationships are (as they believe, intrinsically) bad. Do these reasons read across to relationships between moral unequals?

T. M. Scanlon has claimed that inegalitarian relationships are bad because “it is an evil for people to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior”.49 He explains that this is an evil because it leads to stigmatizing differences in status, with “damage to individuals' sense of self-worth”.50 In a racist society, the inequality between a black person and a white person may lead the former to devalue their self-worth.51 Is it only an evil for a person to be treated as inferior, or made to feel inferior, in a way which leads to damage to that person's self-worth if the people involved are moral equals? It seems not.

Suppose that Higher and Lower are moral unequals: Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, although Lower still has sufficient moral standing. Suppose now that they relate as moral unequals—for example, they both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's agency, and they both treat it as such. Even if that were so, the inegalitarian relationship could still lead Lower to devalue their self-worth more than they should given their differences in moral status.52 Suppose Lower undervalues their self-worth relative to their moral standing. Suppose, further, that they do so to the extent that they believe their own interests have no importance at all in decisions about their and Higher's collective affairs. Lower comes to feel excessively inferior, morally speaking. In this kind of case, inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad, because they lead the morally inferior individuals to devalue their self-worth in such a way that that they fail to acknowledge, to a suitable degree, the moral value they have in virtue of having sufficient moral standing. Although there may in general be a higher risk of inegalitarian relationships between moral equals leading to damage to self-worth, the risk is there in inegalitarian relationships as well.

Another reason inegalitarian relationships are bad, according to Scanlon, is that they may do “damage to the bonds between people”.53 As he explains, in this case—as opposed to in the case of damage to self-worth—the loss is suffered by both inferior and superior. An inegalitarian relationship between moral unequals may also lead to damage to the bonds between people. The relationship between Higher and Lower, if it is inegalitarian, with Higher being treated by both as superior to Lower, may damage the bond between them. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that if they had looked past the slight inequality in moral status between them and related as equals instead, the bond between them, and the relationship, might have been stronger. The point is not that it necessarily would, but that we can easily see how it could have been. It is important to remember that, in this context, saying that an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals is bad is not to say that it is (therefore) unjust. Things may be bad but not unjust—for example, the fact that Higher and Lower are not equally aesthetically pleasing may be bad, but not an injustice.54 Thus, it is not a criticism of this argument that it is unjust that moral unequals relate as moral equals. What is being argued is merely that, just as an inegalitarian relationship between two moral equals may do damage to the bond between them, an inegalitarian relationship between two moral unequals may do damage to the bond between them.

This stance can be challenged by appealing to a moralized concept of causation. It might be said that damage to bonds between people (whether moral equals or not) results only when they are psychologically disposed in certain ways. Because, ex hypothesi, Higher in our example should morally relate to Lower as a superior in view of Higher's superior moral status, any damage to their bonds results (in the moralized sense of “results”) not from their relating as unequals, but from the psychological dispositions which they have, and in the absence of which unequal relations between them would not have resulted in a damage to their bonds.55 We accept the terminological aspect of this challenge. That is, we agree that there is a moralized sense of “results” in which the damage to bonds in our case of Higher and Lower results from their psychological dispositions and not from their unequal relations. However, we think that, for the purpose of assessing the (extrinsic) badness of unequal relations, we should not be interested only in what counts as the bad effects of unequal relations on a narrow, moralized conception of “results”. In a similar way, when assessing the badness of an act of justified self-defense, we should not disregard the harm to the attacker (which might be disproportionate), even though, on a moralized conception of causation, we might say that the harm to the attacker “results from” their unjust aggression and not from the act of self-defense.

A third kind of reason relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad is that these relationships lead to less protection of the inferior's interests than an egalitarian relationship would. As Anderson says, “To be subject to another's command threatens one's interests, as those in command are liable to serve themselves at the expense of their sub-ordinates”.56 One interest that will be threatened is one's interest in freedom. It seems fair to say that there is a strong empirical relationship between relational equality and option-freedom57 (such that the more inegalitarian the relationship is, the less option-freedom the inferior member will have).58 This seems to be the case irrespective of whether it is an inegalitarian relationship between moral equals or moral unequals. Whether the master and his slave are moral equals or unequals, the master has the same degree of control over his slave—and thus the same degree of control over how much option-freedom the slave should have.59 Again, this is not about what degree of option-freedom a person with a particular moral status deserves, or ought to have. The question is: could the fact that a relationship between moral unequals is inegalitarian lead to less option-freedom for the subordinate member of that relationship than would have been available to them had the relationship been egalitarian instead? As far as we can see, the answer is yes.

Fourth, there are costs tied exclusively to being a superior. These also help to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad. As Scheffler explains, the patterns of deference and privilege in inegalitarian relationships “distort people's attitudes toward themselves, undermining the self-respect of some and encouraging the insidious sense of superiority in others”.60 This, as Scheffler's remarks illustrate, is the reverse of the first reason we discussed. In other words, just as an inegalitarian relationship may lead the inferior member to devalue their self-worth, it may also lead the superior member to overvalue their self-worth and, thus, be bad for that reason.61 Bearing this in mind, suppose once again that Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who still has sufficient moral standing. Assume once more that they relate as moral unequals: that is, both regard Higher's agency as more important than Lower's and both treat it as such. Within these assumptions, an inegalitarian relationship may still lead Higher to overvalue their self-worth—to value it more highly than is appropriate given their differences in moral status. For example, it may mean that Higher, in overvaluing their self-worth, believe that their interests are the only relevant ones in deciding collective affairs involving both Lower and themselves. It may mean they come to feel excessively superior, morally speaking.

Finally, inegalitarian relations have been held to be bad because they create, or involve, servility and deferential behavior.62 Intuitively, inferior status may indeed lead a person to be servile and to show deference. After all, by being servile and deferring to their master—and ensuring, in general, that they do not disappoint their master—the slave stands the best chance of avoiding punishment, or so they might reasonably believe. Indeed, in inegalitarian relationships there is pressure for the inferior to ingratiate themselves with their superior.63 Pressure to ingratiate also seems to be present in relationships between people with unequal moral standing.64 For instance, a parent may have higher moral standing than their child, so that their relationship is an inegalitarian one obtaining between moral unequals. Even so, there may still be pressure for the child to ingratiate themselves with their parent—for example, not to do things that may upset their parent and potentially lead to their being grounded.

In short, then, it seems that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad can very often be invoked to explain why inegalitarian relationships between moral unequals are bad. They do not, it seems, have a close connection with the moral status of the parties to the relationship, and for this reason they are translatable to cases involving moral unequals.

Let us turn to relational egalitarians' explanation of why egalitarian relationships are good.65 We want to focus on just one such reason.66 Some relational egalitarians argue that egalitarian relationships are impersonally good.67 Martin O'Neill is arguably the most prominent advocate of this view. He says, “the existence of these kinds of social relations [egalitarian social relations] should itself be seen as intrinsically valuable, independent of the positive effects that such relations may have for individual welfare”.68 For instance, even if it is the case in a sexist society that an inegalitarian marriage would be better for the parties to it than an egalitarian one, the egalitarian marriage would still be impersonally valuable. But if we believe that egalitarian relationships between moral equals are impersonally valuable, it seems hard to deny that egalitarian relationships between moral unequals could also be impersonally valuable (even if not to the same extent). After all, the difference in moral standing may be very small.

Suppose that, in one case, A and B have equal moral standing and relate as equals and that, in another case, C has a slightly lower moral standing than D, but they relate as equals. What might explain the fact that A and B's egalitarian relationship is impersonally valuable, but C and D's is not? Clearly, A and B's relationship might have higher impersonal value than C and D's relationship. But it is a large step from this to saying that the relationship between C and D has no impersonal value at all,69 especially given, first, that A and B's relationship is impersonally valuable and, second, that the difference in moral standing between C and D is very small.

We have seen that relational egalitarianism is not silent in cases where human beings are moral unequals. Depending on how they take people to acquire the properties grounding moral status, deontic relational egalitarians can plausibly support either broad deontic relational egalitarianism or deontic relational justice. The reasons telic relational egalitarians have offered to explain why inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships are good apply, at least to some extent, if not to the same extent, to relationships between moral unequals. In this section, we consider what this implies for relational egalitarianism.

These remarks suggest that relational egalitarians judge parent–child and adult–adult paternalism differently: an adult treating another adult paternalistically is objectionable, a parent treating their child paternalistically is not—or, at least, is less objectionable. Relational egalitarians who take this line must explain this difference.71

The arguments presented in this article may provide the necessary explanation, if we assume that parents and their children are not moral equals. This seems reasonable, the more so where infants and small children are concerned. But it also seems reasonable to suppose that young children have sufficient moral standing that there are things one owes to them not to do to them.72 Remember that deontic relational justice is the view that moral equals must relate as moral equals and that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients.

According to Anderson, when A treats B paternalistically, A and B fail to relate as equals because the paternalizer, A, is in effect telling the paternalizee, B, that he is “too stupid to run his own life”.73 If this is right, it explains why adult–adult paternalism is objectionable (assuming adults are moral equals). Adult–adult paternalism is objectionable, because moral equals must relate as moral equals, and when an adult treats another adult paternalistically, they fail to relate in this way. In cases of parent–child paternalism involving an infant or toddler, the parent is not treating a moral equal in a paternalistic manner. They are treating a moral unequal in a paternalistic manner. It may be that paternalism is more objectionable when it is directed at someone you should relate to as an equal than when it is directed at someone you should relate to as a sufficient. If so, there is a difference between adult–adult and parent–child paternalism. Whether this argument ultimately succeeds, the point is that our reflections on the implications of relational egalitarianism for moral unequals are useful in determining the place of children in relational egalitarianism.

In fact, the relevance of this discussion of paternalism extends beyond the place of children in relational egalitarianism. If it is true that paternalism is more objectionable when directed against someone you should relate to as an equal than someone you should relate to as a sufficient, relational egalitarians need to be more attentive and nuanced in their judgments of paternalism between adults (for example, more attentive than Anderson is in her remarks above). As we mentioned earlier, recent philosophical discussions have cast doubt on the moral equality of human beings. If these philosophers are right, and some adults are not moral equals, cases of adult–adult paternalism will not always, and automatically, be equally objectionable. Objecting to paternalism may be a more intricate matter than relational egalitarians have assumed.74

With some exceptions, people and philosophers alike believe that humans and non-human animals are not moral equals. Although non-human animals (or certain types of them) are now usually accorded moral standing, that standing is set lower than the moral standing of human beings, essentially because animals are not sentient in the way that the latter are, or can be.75 Given this, our discussion may also help to show how the relational egalitarian should view the relationship between human beings and non-human animals.76 Arguably, human beings should not relate to non-human animals as if they are their moral equals. But insofar as some non-human animals, such as bonobos, have sufficient moral standing, human beings should relate to them as moral sufficients. Thus, it will be unjust for human beings to ignore the interests of non-human animals when making decisions that concern both human beings and non-human animals. The exploitation of non-human animals may also be unjust.77 Anderson claims that exploitation violates relational inequality.78 If, as seems plausible, in some cases of exploitation the exploiter and exploitee fail to relate as sufficients, relational egalitarians supporting deontic relational justice may be in a position to object, for that very reason, to some exploitative relations between humans and non-human animals. Thus, our discussion may also help to locate the appropriate place of non-human animals in relational egalitarianism.

We would like to end by looking at a worry that might arise when the way in which moral unequals are required to relate is being discussed. To see the worry, imagine the following. Higher has higher moral standing than Lower, who has sufficient moral standing. Higher's standing is inferior to that of Superior₁, and Lower's standing is inferior to that of Superior₂, and they are both inferior to the same degree. The interests Higher and Lower have in having their standing raised in their relationships are equally strong. For some reason, we can only raise the standing of either Higher or Lower, but not both, and we must raise the standing of one of them. In this case, it seems that Higher's claim is stronger, all else being equal, than Lower's, because Higher has higher moral standing than Lower.

Some may find this result disturbing.79 We have two responses. First, if this is a valid objection to relational egalitarianism, it is also a valid objection to other prominent theories of justice, including distributive theories of justice such as luck egalitarianism.80 This is because the objection arises from the assumption that some human beings are moral unequals together with the further assumption that, where all else is equal, the higher the moral standing of an entity, the weightier their claim on us.81 These assumptions explain why the claims of humans are stronger than those of cockroaches (the latter do not have claims since they lack moral standing). Their denial would lead to a highly implausible theory of justice. Second, this also helps us to see why the case of Higher and Lower, and their superiors, does not present a valid objection to relational egalitarianism. If it were a valid objection, it would be an objection to the notion that some human beings are moral unequals, not to relational egalitarianism. For, if all human beings were moral equals, relational egalitarianism would not entail that we should prioritize any one person's claims over anyone else's. Instead, a fair decision procedure, such as a lottery giving each the same chance of having her standing raised, would have to be used. Thus, if one finds the implications of the case of Lower, Higher and the superiors disturbing, the most suitable response is to try to find a good reason to think that all human beings are moral equals.

In this article, noting that recent philosophical discussions of moral equality have shown how difficult it is to establish that human beings are moral equals, we have taken as a starting point the assumption that not all human beings are moral equals; some are unequals. We then investigated what, if anything, relational egalitarianism—a theory of justice according to which justice requires equal relations between moral equals—has to say about relationships involving moral unequals. We distinguished deontic from telic relational egalitarianism. We then distinguished two deontic theories: broad deontic relational egalitarianism and deontic relational justice.

Broad deontic relational egalitarianism prescribes that moral unequals must relate as equals. We argued that fairness may explain why that is the case if, and to the extent that, people are not responsible for the property, or properties, grounding moral status. The problem with that tack is that it is plausible that, at least to some degree, people are responsible for those properties. Deontic relational justice avoids this problem by prescribing that moral unequals, assuming they have sufficient moral standing, must relate as moral sufficients (not moral equals). Relational egalitarians who adopt this weaker requirement are still able to object to cases of discrimination, domination, racism, and sexism in relationships involving moral unequals (as long as the involved parties have sufficient moral standing). In relation to telic relational egalitarianism, we argued that the reasons relational egalitarians have given for thinking that inegalitarian relationships are bad and egalitarian relationships good are not tied to moral status; they also apply, perhaps to a lesser extent, to relationships between moral unequals. Thus, both deontic and telic relational egalitarianism deliver plausible judgments, even if we assume that some human beings are not the moral equals of others.

The main effect of our arguments, and one that we consider very fortunate, is to detach the view that we should relate as moral equals from the view that all people are in fact moral equals. The former does not require the latter. Thus, the idea that we should relate as moral equals is not hostage to the fortunes of the highly contested notion that all human beings have equal moral status.

Andreas Bengtson thanks the Independent Research Fund Denmark (1027-00002B) and both authors thank the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF144) for financial support for work on this article.

There are no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

The authors declare human ethics approval was not needed for this study.