The Principle Of Equality In Thomas Christiano's The Rule Of The Many

Thomas Christiano in The Rule of The Many defends the view in order to accept democracy as a method of decision-making, it must follow from accepting the Principle of Equality. He believes when properly understood and applied the principle of equality will be the democratic process. (59) According to Christiano, justice is to equally consider each one’s interests. That is because each person has a life to live and no one life is to be considered any less important than anyone else. Christiano suggests that one should interpret the Principle of Equality as a principle that suggests an equal distribution of resources, or as he calls it a means to achieve wellbeing. Christiano writes, “Since, among these means, political influence is of special importance, an equal distribution of these resources is required by the Principle of

First he believes there is an incompleteness of knowledge, meaning that it is too difficult and sometimes impossible to evaluate the things we believe are important in peoples lives. Christiano states that there are two basic reasons for this incompleteness: one that human cognitive capacities are too weak, and two individuals do not have a complete understanding of most of their interests. (64) Second he argues that the changeability of preferences undermines the possibility for one to direct their attention to the satisfaction of preferences instead of interests. (65) He believes it would be impossible to figure out how equality of preference satisfaction would be practically implemented, and lastly he argues that the “contestability of comparisons” argument proceeds from the notion that there is considerable disagreement about what interests are the most important and how one will value the importance of the satisfaction of those interests