Argumentative Essay On Equality

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Distributive justice is the principle of a just distribution of resources within a society; theories of which attempt to make sense of the conflict between needs, wants, and scarcity. The idea of a “just” distribution being ground on the notion that there is equality among the members of a given society. This essay will discuss the views of bell hooks specifically, but will provide context of the fight for equality in the western world within the realm of philosophy via the works of a few philosophers that preceded her.
In order discuss the concept of distributive justice, we must first provide a contextual working definition for “equality”. While equality has virtually been a topic in philosophy for the entirety of the existence of the field, I will utilize the ideas put conceptualized within modern social contract theory, beginning with Thomas Hobbes’ notion of a “State of Nature.” The natural state Hobbes refers to is a theoretical state in which humans …show more content…

Following Hobbes, John Locke also discusses a state of nature, but his iteration has some significant differences. In Locke’s State of Nature, men exist with perfect liberty. He makes the claim that distribution is just so long as people are content, and that all have equal rights to property so long as they are not taking away from anyone else’s private property, property being the product of personal labor mixed with the materials of nature. More recently, John Rawls has used a model

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