Three Ways to Value Equality

There is much inequality in the world — inequalities of wealth, political power, health care and life-span, educational and cultural opportunities, and so on. Some of these inequalities are shared around so that they tend to cancel out, but to a large degree this is not so, and some people are much better off overall than others. This is manifest on any plausible way of measuring how well off people are overall

The basis of equality

It is often said that justice requires equality. Which kind of equality justice requires is, of course, a matter of dispute: it is widely held that in a just society there must be equality before the law, and equality of opportunity; many have claimed that justice requires equality of concern for the welfare of each person; and some have argued that significant inequalities in the allocation of resources must be avoided. And, of course, many believe that justice requires public affairs to be conducted through democratic institutions-for only such arrangements express an equality of political status, and seek to provide an equality of influence

Fraternity and Equality

Is there a connection between the values of fraternity and outcome equality? Is inequality at odds with fraternity? There are reasons to doubt that it is. First, fraternity requires us to want our ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to fare well even when they are already better off than we are and their doing better will increase inequality. Second, fraternity seems not to require equality as a matter of fairness. Fairness requires (a certain) equality, but fraternity does not require fairness. In examining what fraternity requires I discuss Rawls' suggestion that the difference principle corresponds to a natural meaning of fraternity, arguing that fraternity may be even more tolerant of inequality than the difference principle. Nevertheless, I defend the claim that fraternity and equality are linked, albeit not in such a way as to make inequality inconsistent with fraternity. Fraternity is related to equality since equalizing expresses the connectedness at the core of fraternity; but inequality is consistent with fraternity since there are other ways of expressing that connectedness

Review of 'Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account', by Gillian Brock

This article reviews the book: “Global justice: A cosmopolitan account” by Gillian Brock

Fairness as Order: A Grammatical and Etymological Prolegomenon

If frequency of use and early acquisition are any guides to significance, fairness must be one of our more important moral concepts. Complaints of unfairness are ubiquitous, and the obsession of children for fairness is a notorious feature of family life. Yet the concept of fairness receives little attention from moral philosophers. This neglect may seem deserved for two reasons. First, it may be said that fairness is concerned only with procedures and with interpersonal comparisons, and that neither of these matters raises any deep philosophical issues. Thus there may seem no need to analyze the concept of fairness. Second, it may be said that fairness is a part of justice, and hence that issues of fairness are addressed, if only implicitly, by accounts of justice. Again, then, discussion of fairness is unnecessary

Effect of praziquantel on the differential expression of mouse hepatic genes and parasite ATP binding cassette transporter gene family members during <i>Schistosoma mansoni</i> infection

<div><p>Schistosomiasis is a chronic parasitic disease caused by sexually dimorphic blood flukes of the genus <i>Schistosoma</i>. Praziquantel (PZQ) is the only drug widely available to treat the disease but does not kill juvenile parasites. Here we report the use of next generation sequencing to study the transcriptional effect of PZQ on murine hepatic inflammatory, immune and fibrotic responses to <i>Schistosoma mansoni</i> worms and eggs. An initial T helper cell 1 (Th1) response is induced against schistosomes in mice treated with drug vehicle (Vh) around the time egg laying begins, followed by a T helper cell 2 (Th2) response and the induction of genes whose action leads to granuloma formation and fibrosis. When PZQ is administered at this time, there is a significant reduction in egg burden yet the hepatic Th1, Th2 and fibrotic responses are still observed in the absence of granuloma formation suggesting some degree of gene regulation may be induced by antigens released from the dying adult worms. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to examine the relative expression of 16 juvenile and adult <i>S</i>. <i>mansoni</i> genes during infection and their response to Vh and PZQ treatment <i>in vivo</i>. While the response of stress genes in adult parasites suggests the worms were alive immediately following exposure to PZQ, they were unable to induce transcription of any of the 9 genes encoding ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters tested. In contrast, juvenile schistosomes were able to significantly induce the activities of ABCB, C and G family members, underscoring the possibility that these efflux systems play a major role in drug resistance.</p></div

Canonical pathway analysis of T helper cell maturation and differentiation in PZQ treated infected mice.

<p>Signaling events in the T cell maturation and differentiation pathway at (A) 32, (B) 35, (C) 39 and (D) 46 days in infected PZQ (Sm_PZQ) treated mice. Increasing expression in infected mice relative to uninfected mice is indicated by deeper blue shading. None of the genes indicated were down-regulated. Non-expression and non-differential expression is indicated by a lack of shading.</p

Temporal expression of mouse hepatic genes during infection with <i>S</i>. <i>mansoni</i>.

<p>Heat maps of (A) immune and (B) fibrotic gene markers depicting differentially expressed genes in infected Vh and PZQ treated mice relative to uninfected mice. Gray map sections represent genes not expressed at that time point or in that treatment group. Regions of blue and red indicate, relative to uninfected Vh treated controls, increased and decreased gene expression respectively. The color scale indicates log₂ fold change (FC) and the profile of each group is the average of three biological replicates. Gene names associated with the figure differ slightly from those used in the text. Relevant differences include: Ccl (rather than CCL as it appears in the main body of text), Cxc (CXC), Cxcl (CXCL), Il1b (IL1β), Tnfa (TNFα), Tgfb (TGFβ), Ifng (IFNγ), Cd (CD) and Timp (TIMP).</p