| In “What Is the Point of Equality?,” Elizabeth Anderson advances and develops “democratic equality.” However, some of Anderson’s key terms, such as “equal respect” and “social conditions of freedom,” are open to interpretation. To enrich understandings of democratic equality, this paper propounds an autonomy-based conception of democratic equality, advancing three theses. (i) Anderson’s adoption of John Rawls’s idea of free and equal persons reasonably grounds an autonomy-based conception of democratic equality. This autonomy-based conception is concerned fundamentally with respecting each person’s moral autonomy which is constituted by one’s moral capacities for a sense of justice and a conception of the good. (ii) The autonomy-based conception of democratic equality nevertheless conflicts with the relational conception of democratic equality advanced by some authors including Anderson herself. While the autonomy-based conception demands unrestricted self-determination, the relational conception prescribes inalienable capabilities which can restrict one’s self-determination. (iii) While the relational conception receives mainstream acceptance, the autonomy-based conception qualifies as a plausible conception of democratic equality – it is plausibly egalitarian and democratic. |
