A conception of equal treatment

In this dissertation, I identify principles that give specific structure to our ordinary judgments about the circumstances that make it objectionable for an individual moral agent to engage in the differential adverse treatment of others. My account shows that these principles of equal treatment are not merely duplicative of moral principles that can be stated in non-equality laden terms, and it also facilitates an explanation of why previous accounts by others might have been led to conclude otherwise. In the first two chapters, I propose a "substantive" principle and a "formal" principle that jointly provide a conception of equal treatment. I argue that the differential adverse treatment of an individual violates the substantive principle of equal treatment when that treatment, in view of its rationale, expresses lesser respect for the moral status of that individual under some differentiating description, compared to the respect reserved to some class of individuals who are not picked out by that description. I argue that the formal principle of equal treatment embodies a requirement of internal deliberative consistency among the reasons judgments implied by an agent's own actions. I demonstrate how the formal principle so understood can be regarded as implicating morally significant concerns pertaining to equality. In the final three chapters, I show how various structures of American antidiscrimination law incorporate, augment, and in some cases bear no relation to my proposed principles of equal treatment.