06.02.2025Conceptualising Equality

Date/ Location: 30.9.2025, 18.15, Rämistrasse 69, 8001 Zurich (SOC E 10)

Talk: Elif Askin, Contested Equality (E Askin and H Stoll (eds), Contested Equality, 2024) 

Panel: Elif Askin (Law, UZH), Francis Cheneval (Philosophy, UZH), Maya Eden (Economics, UZH); Matthias Mahlmann (Law, UZH), Anne Phillips (Politics, LSE)

In conceptualising equality, it is common to distinguish between material and social equality, although more recent works have highlighted the risks of isolating the economic from the social, of treating ‘material and status equality as distinct and separable spheres, or compartmentalising the latter into feelings of wealth superiority on the one hand and presumptions of gender, racial, or cultural superiority on the other’ (A Philipps, ‘Resisting Inequality, the Turn Towards History’, 2024 Cambridge Review of International Affairs 10). It is important though to think carefully about the meaning of social equality. A standard distinction is drawn, for instance in the philosophical literature, between status and esteem. While differences based on status are generally objectionable, those based on esteem might be less so in certain circumstances (eg if they are legitimately earned). This distinction does not seem so central in other disciplines, eg economics which seem more agnostic about its importance (eg S Palan, ‘What’s in a Name? Bias in Peer Review’, URRP lecture Zurich, Sept 2023, which considered the following examples of bias together: gender; country of origin/ethnicity/race; affiliation; network; prominence). In law, discrimination involves a distinct form of harm against protected groups which calls to be conceptualised differently from other forms of bias. This panel will allow for consideration of ideas of social (in)equality in law, philosophy, politics and economics.

The University of Zurich and the University Research Priority Programme (URPP) Equality of Opportunity were delighted to host the event “Conceptualising Equality” on 30 September 2025. During the event, the speakers discussed various dimensions and challenges involved in developing a reasonable and convincing conceptualisation of equality. The event had a two-part structure: on the one hand, a book launch, and on the other, a panel discussion.

The book launch celebrated the release of “Contested Equality” (Elif Askin and Hanna Stoll (eds), Contested Equality, International and Comparative Legal Perspectives, 2024), which resulted from the workshop “Contested Equality” held at University of Zurich from 19 to 21 October 2022.  At the launch, the editors Elif Askin and Hanna Stoll, explained the goals behind the book, elaborated on its main arguments, and highlighted the core insights gained.

The panel discussion brought together a range of perspectives and scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, spanning law, philosophy, economics, and politics. The panellists were:

• Elif Askin, a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich. Her main areas of research are public international law, international human rights law with particular focus on socio-economic rights, equality and information rights, and Swiss public law.
• Hanna Stoll, a lawyer and a PhD candidate in the University Research Priority Programme “Equality of Opportunity” at the University of Zurich. Her main research fields include international human rights law, European migration and data protection law, as well as legal theory and philosophy of law.
• Francis Cheneval, a Professor of Political Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Zurich. His research focuses on theory of democracy, property rights, normative problems of European and multilateral integration, justice and history of political thought.
• Maya Eden, a Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Zurich. Her primary research areas are normative economics and macroeconomics as well as welfare economics and development economics.
• Matthias Mahlmann, a Professor of Philosophy and Theory of Law, Legal Sociology and International Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich. His main areas of research encompass moral and legal philosophy, law, psychology and neuroscience, international public law, (comparative) constitutional law, legal sociology and law and literature.
• Anne Phillips, an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Government of the London School of Economics (LSE), having previously held the position of Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. Her main research interests are democracy and representation, equality and difference, feminism and multiculturalism and the dangers of regarding the body as property.

Thematic considerations during panel discussion

Diversity Equality and Inclusion (DEI) policies: should we re-focus our attention away from this ill-fated, ill-advised and ultimately unsuccessful project?

Anne Phillips: Prof. Phillips expresses grave concern over attempts in popular discourse and academia to separate and downplay certain aspects of inequality – the idea that all that really matters is socio-economic inequality, and that energy spent addressing anything else is either wrongheaded or a luxury concern. The topics that we think of as purely economic, such as conflicts regarding adequate living standards, are in fact about power. They concern who gets to decide what kind of economic security you have, and who is recognised as having a legitimate voice.

"Inequality is always a matter of resources, but it always about power, about rights, it’s about - the word is inadequate - status, it’s about whether or not we can exist as individuals within our society."

Maya Eden: Prof. Eden observes that there is a lack of clear communication regarding the primary concern of equality – that is, whether we are concerned with treating everyone as equal, or whether we want to ensure that they are actually treated as such. This lack of communication outside the discipline, and even among academics more broadly, can lead to the reflexive assumption that these issues must be purely economic.

"I expect that also part of the backlash towards this DEI movement comes from the fact there is not this conceptual clarity being communicated."

Regression on matters of settled equality: contemporary attacks on the partially achieved equality between genders.

Anne Phillips: Gender equality must mean that there is no differential at all between the various roles that men and women can play within society. If there is some differential division of labour (along gender lines), it always translates into some notion of superiority or inferiority, or into economic inequalities. Thus, Prof. Phillips’s vision for a gender-equal society is one in which absolutely no differentials are made on the basis of gender. However, this is not a universally held viewpoint. There are many active feminists across the world committed to gender equality who believe there can be some gendered division of labour, provided it does not entail inequalities.

Regardless of this difference in opinion about what constitutes gender equality, it is more important to start with what people recognise as inequality – what they see as oppression or subordination and what they resist. There may not be a complete consensus on what constitutes equality. However, in every society, and across every section of society, people refuse to tolerate certain types of inequality.

"That’s the point at which this anti-egalitarian swathe that is running across so many of our societies at the moment is eventually going to meet sufficiently powerful opposition in which people refuse to go along with it."

The relationship between the law and equality: Does the role of the law still hold a prominent position in guaranteeing equality?

Anne Phillips: One of the things that is clearly happening is the re-emergence of notions that have previously been disregarded. For example, the natural differences between men and women, or between so called races, or between ethnonational communities somehow justify unequal differential treatment not legal intervention in order to make them equal but rather differential treatment have come back with a vengeance. We are now in an era where the laws assumption that the importance placed upon such differences has been disregarded is being challenged. This poses new challenges for how to craft legal interventions in a world where people are standing up and justifying inequality by reference to nature.

"This way in which people now justify inequalities by reference to nature which many of us thought […] was in the dustbin of history clearly is not."

Affirmative action: Is there a meritocratic argument to be made against affirmative action programs?

Francis Cheneval: The issue with affirmative action arises when decisions are made on the spot by comparing two curricula vitae (CVs) and choosing against the stronger one, which runs counter to common intuitions about fairness. Any corrective action needs to take place much further upstream. The problem is not solved, at the level of an appointments committee, by hiring a less qualified candidate. What is required is to address the inequalities in conditions and opportunities that occur earlier on; this is where intervention should take place. It is at this upstream stage that a consensus might be found between those who support on-the-spot affirmative action and those whose intuitions about fairness oppose such decisions. We can probably all agree that we want to structure society in a way that promotes greater equality of opportunity, so that people have at least an equal chance of achieving the same CV.

"The larger social question is: how do we deal with the upstream conditions – what is called the equality of conditions - that lead you to having certain merits when you present your CV?"