• Human beings are unequal in many respects, such as race, religion, sex, physical, genetic, and mental attributes, as well as dispositions and abilities.
• The range of inequalities and disparities in humanity is wide and is an empirical fact.
• Despite these differences, humans believe in equality and the equal worth of individuals, especially in social, economic, and political contexts.
• The concept of equality is invoked when individuals seek to be counted as equals, treated as equals, and entitled to social goods.
• The idea of being treated as an equal is not about anatomical similarities, but more fundamental shared human experiences and qualities.
• Humanity shares common capacities, such as the ability to feel pain, suffer, experience affection, and bear moral consequences, which have moral significance.
• According to Bernard Williams (1962), these are moral capacities that are universal to all humans.
• Another important characteristic is the desire for self-respect, which enables individuals to pursue their goals independently without being instruments of others’ will.
• There is a core of commonality in human experience that supports egalitarian beliefs and makes struggles against unequal relationships and social order worthwhile.
• Equality, along with other political values such as justice and liberty, offers a moral framework for making political judgments and for explaining, prescribing, or criticizing political actions.
• The concept of equality is central to normative political theory.
• In a general sense, equality refers to a relationship between two or more persons or groups regarding some aspect of their lives.
• The idea of equality is complex, and it is not always easy to define the relationship between individuals or groups or determine the goals of that relationship.
• There is no single way to define equality, as different conceptions of equality depend on how the building blocks(relationships, persons, relevant attributes) are understood and valued.
• The relationship between persons and the aspects of their lives that are emphasized can vary, leading to multiple conceptions of equality.

• Equality is a relative concept and the demand for it has always been against the prevailing inequalities of the times.
• The existence of social inequalities is as old as human society, and the debate about the nature and cause of inequalities is an ancient topic in political philosophy.
• In classical Greece, Aristotle in his book Politics distinguished three social classes, noting significant differences between citizens and slaves, and men and women in terms of rational and civic capacities.
• Participation in the Polis (city-state) was restricted to citizens only.
• In Hindu society, according to classical texts, society was divided into four varnas: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudras, with rights and duties based on this classification.
• During medieval feudalism, legal privileges were based on status and birth.
• Different types of inequalities have been long enduring, leading to the notion that inequality is inevitable in social relations.
• Pre-eighteenth-century teachings argued that men were naturally unequal, with a natural human hierarchy.
• Ideologies justified inequality based on factors such as superior race, ancestry, age, sex, religion, military strength, culture, wealth, knowledge, etc.
• According to Turner, inequality is multi-dimensional, and the elimination of one aspect often leads to the exaggeration of other aspects of social, political, and cultural inequalities.
• All human societies are characterized by some form of social inequalities in terms of class, status, power, and gender.
• When studying equality, it is important to remember the contradiction between equality as a general value of modern society and inequality as a practical fact in all human societies.

Struggle for Equality

• Inequality has been a universal phenomenon, but protests against inequalities based on privileges and birth have also existed from their emergence.
• In Western political ideas, the doctrine of equality is almost as old as its opposite.
• Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School in Greek philosophy, supported equality among men, stating that all humans possess reason, differentiating them from animals, and uniting humanity.
• The Stoics introduced the idea of universal brotherhood and opposed slavery.
• The Roman Empire promoted the idea of equality by enacting the law of the people and granting citizenship to individuals and communities.
• The climax of Roman efforts came in 212 AD, when Emperor Caracalla issued an edict granting Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire.
• St. Paul stated in Galatians that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are one in Jesus Christ.”
• From the 5th to 14th centuries, the demand for equality was raised against serfdom, medieval social gradations, hereditary nobility, and for career opportunities in the church.
• From the 15th to 17th centuries, the demand for equality was raised against landowners’ status, religious intolerance, and was voiced by Puritans, Levellers, the doctrine of natural rights, and John Locke.
• The Renaissance and Reformation movements opposed legal privileges of the clergy and nobility based on birth and called for equality by birth.
• The affirmation that “all men are born equal” became central in various manifestoes worldwide.
• Revolutions in Britain (1649, 1688), the USA (1778), and France (1789) made the right to equality by birth a key demand, with the declaration “Men are born free and equal.”
• During this period, the demand for equality focused on abolishing special privileges of the nobility and achieving political and legal equality.
• The demand for legal equality emphasized juristic equality, meaning all men are born equal and equal before the law.
• The bourgeois class, which had acquired wealth but lacked legal status, raised the demand for legal equality to achieve political and legal parity with the nobility.
• In the 19th century, economic and social equality emerged due to conflicts between capitalist/industrial classes and workers/peasants.
• The laissez-faire economic policy created wide economic disparities, leading to demands for economic and social equality by liberal socialists and Marxist writers like JS Mill, TH Green, Babeuf, and Karl Marx.
• The demand for political equality grew as the industrial revolution increased the social power of the urban middle class and created a large factory-working population.
• Reforms like the Reform Acts of 1832, 1876, and 1884 in Britain were steps toward political equality.
• In the 20th century, the demand for equality became more persistent, especially in industrialized societies.
• National liberation movements against imperialism and colonialism, movements against apartheid, and socialist revolutions in Russia, China, and East European countries brought the issue of equality to the forefront.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) extended the recognition of equality to third world countries, contributing to the emergence of an international society based on socio-economic equality.