What do we mean when we refer to people as being equal by nature? In the
first book devoted to human equality as a fact rather than as a social
goal or a legal claim, John Coons and Patrick Brennan argue that even if
people possess unequal talents or are born into unequal circumstances,
all may still be equal if it is true that human nature provides them the
same access to moral self-perfection. Plausibly, in the authors' view,
such access stems from the power of individuals to achieve goodness
simply by doing the best they can to discover and perform correct
actions. If people enjoy the same degree of natural capacity to try, all
of us are offered the same opportunities for moral self-fulfillment. To
believe this is to believe in equality.
This truly interdisciplinary work not only proposes the authors' own
rationale but also provides an effective deconstruction of several other
contemporary theories of equality, while it engages historical,
philosophical, and Christian accounts as well. Furthermore, by divorcing
the "best" from the "brightest," it shows how descriptive equality
acquires practical significance. Among other accomplishments, By Nature
Equal offers communitarians a core principle that has until now eluded
them, rescues human dignity from the hierarchy of intellect, identifies
racism in a new way, and shows how justice can be freshly grounded in
the conviction that every rational person has the same capacity for
moral excellence.
